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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3660 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What science excites you?

The above is the best argument for humility. Or, to paraphrase the immortal words of Don Rumsfeld (a decidedly unhumble man), "It's the unknown unknowns that you worry about." Teenagers are pricks (present company excluded, obviously :), because they don't yet know how much there is to learn about the world. Once the light becomes strong enough to allow you to see that you're standing at the edge of the abyss, then you start to understand the depth of the world. Or at least understand that you don't understand it.





nowaypablo  ·  3660 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I spend a large part of my day, at school, slouching over a desk covering my english notebook with dickbutt. I spend a lot of time half-listening to my teacher thinking:

"Oh my god, I knoooooow."

That inevitable attitude sticks with us, unfortunately. So I'll apologize on behalf of today's teens, if you get where we're coming from with that. Like I said, this is my first year learning about physics for real. Yeah there was "physical science" and bullshit like that, but no intensive courses to challenge me, both with an interest in the subject– "Hey, this shit matters!"– and a course that will be pushing me to make an effort.

Why the hell should I have to wait until a year before I leave our education system to learn about something like physics? Maybe if our teachers looked us in the eye day 1 of middle school and said,

"Listen punk, you don't even know how much you don't know. Don't believe me? Bam. Isaac newton. In less than a decade you'll be as old as he was when he invented calculus. Now go burn a village in Minecraft you little shit."

Maybe that would do a lot of people a lot of good. Myself especially included.