I was a self employed, mostly self taught handyman and contractor for about a third of my working life. Give me the tools and I can dig your foundation, make the forms to pour your basement dig your sewer line and install your septic system, and yes, I have the license. I can plumb it with copper pipe, wire it and do all the finish trim. I can, but won’t do drywall or roofing. I might help someone I like a lot and is going to end up owning me do drywall, but I’m not getting on another roof. I was also trained an Engineering Electronics Tech by the Navy 50 years ago, I would imagine that about 60% of my lifetime earnings came from fixing things that someone “saw a video on Youtube” and thought I could build this 30 foot fee standing staircase or rebuild a bathroom and made things much worse. I both love and despise idiots. I love them that they’ve kept me very well employed, but annoyed that the greatest research tool ever made is in their hands and they never learned to check or question anything they see or hear. I’ve never understood that type of attitude. About a third of my family were in education or research, so reading and learning to do proper research something we did as small children, well before we got to school. Not only have we done a poor job of educating most of the population, the dumbing down of the educational system has been going on for over 100 years. The average BA or BS graduate of Yale or Harvard today couldn’t pass the entrance exam to the same school in 1890. Back then you wee expected to be conversational in two languages other than English, and expect to know either Latin or ancient Greek. Bonus points if you knew both. You were expected to know more about science, math, civics and critical thought than any high school I know of teaches today. I missed out of most of that because a third of my family were educators or researchers, and I grew up with a love of learning. I probably spend more than an hour a day on the BBC, Reuters, AP, The Guardian or the Amy or Navy Times. They’re all in the top 10 for least bias and most honesty of all the news sources. I cannot imagine what if feels like to be indifferent to the world.
I will leave you with this thought.
Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those that prevent history from being taught fully intend to repeat it.
