Imagine a subset of the real world
designed to develop our nation’s youth and facilitate their becoming productive
members of society; a place where young minds can gather to learn from others,
exchange ideas, and develop practical skills; a place where tomorrow’s leaders
gather to leverage our existing base of knowledge in order to propel society to
greatness. If the word “school” came to
mind, I’m about to mindfuck you.
Let me be more clear. Most people think the best way to develop our
youth is with “highly-trained” educators, classrooms, and books. I say bullshit. For one, it is widely known that our system
of public education has some gaping holes: inability of standardized testing to
validate intelligence, failure to appropriately motivate and reimburse
teachers, inability to hold students accountable for poor performance, and
inequality in resourcing within different socioeconomic backgrounds…among
others. Second, that inefficiency is
costly. Each year, we spend over $800
billion on knowledge that can be obtained in your underwear using Wikipedia and
what do we have to show for it?
Beyond-irresponsible amounts of student debt and Occupy Wall Street.
Don’t get me wrong. There are certainly benefits to a structured
educational system (particularly at lower levels where students need to
understand basic intellectual concepts, as well as develop social skills);
however – and this is important – THERE IS NO CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
SYSTEMIC EDUCATION AND SUCCESS IN LIFE.
But what does it all mean, Basil?
Well, at the end of the day, we’re doing the next generation a
disservice; we’re not adequately providing our students with the tools they
need to be successful. Do I have a
better solution? I thought you’d never
ask. Instead of wasting their time in
high school and college classrooms, listening to modestly educated teachers
spoon-feed information only 10% of which will be retained (see Ebbinghaus),
students would be better off spending their time at poker table.
Now, before you get your panties in a twist, poker is NOT gambling; it's a game of skill and the U.S. court system is slowly recognizing that. If you're not going to come to terms with that, stop reading and drink the bleach under your sink. Otherwise, below are four areas – necessary for
real-world success – in which a group of poker players would outperform your
honor student.
Critical thinking. One of the most important ways an individual
contributes to society is through critical thinking; the ability to analyze and
interpret information goes a long way toward expanding our knowledge of the
world and challenging our perceptions of reality. Despite the occasional Mr. Powell (my
engaging and overqualified high school physics teacher), classroom instruction
is largely focused around the recall and recognition of facts that the majority
of students either A.) don’t care about or B.) will never use after the
SAT. Why does a retail salesperson or an
office clerk (two of America’s most common jobs) need to understand the Pauli
Exclusion Principle? They don’t. But what about higher-level learning and
research, you ask? Individuals destined
or motivated enough to seek an advanced education will undoubtedly do so;
they’ll be groomed by industry and/or academia to develop the 21st
Century’s Theory of Relativity. Not
everyone needs to go to college…and I will expand on that topic later.
On the contrary, the poker community
fosters an environment where the ability to decipher complex mathematical,
logical, and psychological situations is rewarded. Although there are facts to be recalled (e.g.
flushes are higher than straights), the majority of a player’s thinking takes
place in the frontal lobe, not the hippocampus.
During a single poker hand, each player must identify, integrate, and interpret
several situational factors that define the game’s non-linear outcomes. For example, a poker hand begins with each
player receiving two cards; before making the first decision (to play or not to
play), good players will base their decision on the following factors:
-
Cards dealt
-
Number of players
-
Position relative to other players
-
Relative stack sizes
-
Outcomes of previous hands
-
What other players think of you
-
Action that has already occurred
-
Tells you may have picked up
That’s
just one decision. As the hand
progresses, each decision becomes more complex as additional variables are
introduced. Each poker hand lasts
approximately 2-3 minutes and, although it varies, an average poker session
probably lasts for a few hours. When was
the last time your teacher gave you a task that demanding?
In the end, participants are
rewarded with a strengthening of the neural connections in their frontal
lobes. In school, all we’re doing is
developing a bunch of overpriced monkeys to memorize facts and choose A, B, C,
or D. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, we spent $10,615 per student in 2010; here’s an idea: let’s take 10% of
that money, give every high-school-aged student $1,000, and let them play some
cards. In the end, Americans might
actually figure out HOW to use their brains, not just see WHAT’S in it.
Socialization. A common and legitimate argument for public
schooling is to encourage the interaction and cooperation amongst peers. The merits of socialization can be easily identified
after observing any retard that’s been home-schooled. The problem with social interaction in public
schools is that – chances are – you were going to be friends with those people
anyway (unless your pinko commie parents have something against street hockey);
in addition, public schools cap the range of individuals with whom students can
interact. Have you ever been to a
casino? On any given night, I could find
you a guy with a PhD in Astrophysics, a guy trying to steal my ATM pin, and
everything in between. Anyone trying to
argue that an interaction with the “ATM pin thief” has no positive value is an
idiot. You may not want to interact with
him as much as the astrophysicist, but both contribute toward our understanding
of the human race.
So, why are these interactions important? Well, as President Obama has so generously
pointed out, “You didn’t build that.”
Exactly 0% of humans have contributed something to society that wasn’t –
in some way, shape, or form – the byproduct of their interaction with another
person. In turn, the more people with
which we interact, the more ideas, concepts, and beliefs we can leverage to
enhance our society. In addition, the
more intelligent and successful individuals will tend to gravitate toward each
other; this will propagate the most valuable ideas across an essentially
unlimited network of social contacts (unlike high schools, which are localized
and socioeconomically divided – poker players travel a lot). But what about colleges???? I guarantee that every single time you sit
down at a casino-run poker game, you will interact with someone new. How many of you do that while you’re in line
for a smoothie at the Student Union? Who
among you strikes up a convo with your neighbor in your 1,000,000 person lecture
hall?
Furthermore, poker rooms don’t have a curriculum. Now, you might be thinking, “Table talk is
probably just random chit-chat.”
Sometimes...but a lot of the conversation is current event driven (poker
room TV’s help, ldo). Whether it’s
sports, politics, crime, science, or economics, there will be a logical set of
relevant topics for people to gravitate toward.
Finally, the impetus for this well-rounded and wide-spread socialization
is described in the next paragraph: Social Darwinism. This is how we ensure we don’t end up with
poker tables full of like-minded cliques.
The profit has to flow from somewhere and it’s usually undesirable and
more difficult to take money from people that act and think like you.
Social Darwinism. You know
what we don’t have enough of?
Failure. It is a necessary
evolutionary principle; the slowest antelope gets eaten by the lion because it
is the least valuable to the survival and prospering of its species. For some reason, the human race – the smartest
species to ever grace this planet (besides whatever built the Pyramids) – has
forgotten that concept; we’re concerned with heat-winner ribbons and No Child
Left Behind. We ask questions like, “How
can people shoot an innocent deer??”
Fuck the deer. He tastes good and
I’m hungry. We’re slowly removing
ourselves from the concept of natural selection; Ernst Mayr has some
interesting thoughts on intelligence and evolution – look them up if you’re
interested.
Here’s the problem (and I alluded to
this earlier): Not everyone is college material. Teachers waste time on below average students
under the delusion that it’s important for them to receive a higher
education. ORLY? Did you watch the Occupy movement? Let me sum it up for you:
“I’m Joe Student. I spent the last four years skipping class,
drinking, and having mediocre, short-lived sex and all I got was an overpriced
liberal arts degree. Now I can’t find a
job and have an insane amount of debt that I’ll be paying off for the next 30
years. I guess I’ll beg the federal
government to help assuage my bad decisions.”
We’re
grooming a society of mediocre, entitlement-driven hippies that don’t find out
they’re worthless until they’ve placed an enormous social, financial, and
political burden on this country. Now,
back to poker. Poker will easily
facilitate the success and demise of the appropriate classes of individuals –
i.e. those who are smart and/or hard-working will find a way to be
successful. Say someone doesn’t like
poker, there is a large population of people who find profit by investing in
other successful poker players (“stakers”).
In turn, they have free time to pursue a hobby or job they actually
enjoy, which undoubtedly provides a service to society, AND they’re debt free. What about metal/wood working, agriculture,
auto repair, and carpentry? These are
some of the skills that helped build our society and now their value is diluted
by the costs of higher education (apprenticeship is a much more direct and efficient
system). Poker, like any other
capitalist enterprise, will help reinforce the relationships between goods,
services, supply, and demand; an environment in which the players have needs
that can be fulfilled by the other players.
It’s a system in which participants cooperate amongst each other (if
desired) to achieve both individual and collective success.
So what about the bottom of the
totem pole? Those that choose not to
participate or those who lack a practical level of competence will outcast
themselves; they won’t make money, they won’t get girls, they won’t have
friends and, hopefully, they won’t procreate.
As a wise Judge Smails once said, “Well, the world needs ditch diggers
too.” Ditch diggers, despite the
connotation, actually do provide a valuable service. If we look another standard deviation or so
down the bell curve of societal potential, some people are going to be
dead-beats and we can’t help that. School,
however, postpones this system, gives students a false sense of how the world
works, and charges about $1,000/month for a good portion of your life.
Real-world skills. As much
as I appreciate the efforts of my dumbass, 8th grade Home-Ec
teacher, if that’s the closest we can get to imparting real-world skills to our
youth, we’re in trouble. High school
resembles the real world about as much as my dick resembles Ron Jeremy’s. As a poker player, you are your own boss;
there’s no one telling you where to be, when to be there, what to wear, what to
do, and how to do it….it’s a facilitator.
If we thrust a 16 year old into a do-or-die situation, he’s going to
figure out how to cook, clean, and do his laundry in between his video games
and masturbation. It’s a system that rewards
time management, organization, financial responsibility, cost-benefit analysis,
introspection, and cooperation.
But wait….doesn’t school foster these qualities? Yes, it does.
The difference, however, is that poker reinforces the pleasure principle
and motivates with something of greater relative value: money. With money, you can do whatever you
want…literally. Here’s a brief list:
-
Start your own business
-
Buy a house
-
Pay someone to clean your house
-
Pay someone to grocery shop
-
Hookers and blow
-
Buy a car
-
Travel
-
Buy your girlfriend something nice
Unfortunately,
you can’t do much with your A+. Unless
you’re able to translate that educational success into real-world achievement,
you’re fucked. With poker, you’re
already in the “system.” Don’t have
connections or job prospects? No
problem…stay a while longer, enjoy yourself; it’s not like you have to file for
unemployment (remember, you didn’t pay $40,000/year to play poker) or sacrifice
your goals/desires/dreams to work for “the man” in order to make ends
meet. People spend 40 years working in
some minimally satisfying job to make enough money to enjoy their 60s and
70s. LOLWAT? Urdoingitwrong.jpg. Above all – and for lack of a better place to
put it – poker allows you to spend more time with family and friends and doing
the things you want to do; isn’t that what life’s all about? If you don’t think so, enjoy your cubicle,
asshole, I’m sure you’ll find it to be amazingly satisfying.
Now, back to my original contention (yeah, 3 pages ago); poker, like
education, is an industry the foundation of which is a culmination of the critical
tasks described above. In the end, both
systems will produce successes and failures; however, it is the average student
with which we should be most concerned. Unlike
school, a poker game has the potential to turn a run-of-the-mill student into a
societal gem. So what’s the point? Poker, despite its recent legislative gains,
remains a highly regulated activity with a precarious reputation; while, on the
other hand, schools are about as common as AIDS in Africa. It’s time we start using a little more common
sense when it comes to the future of our society. It’s time we start thinking about what’s best
for our children. Besides, if we start
getting rid of schools, we’d have a lot less school shootings….and who can
argue with that?
approved!
ReplyDelete