True, plus most people don't have a clue and would just vote for what seems to offer the most short-term gain.
In my ideal world there would be a benevolent dictator who truly had the best interests of the nation/world at heart, and people would know and accept this :C
Then I wake up :(
I kinda agree with you on the peer pressure point of view, but I think that peer pressure is down to the group of friends you have.
One of my best friends (I'm not 8, honest) since high school has just recently graduated as a commercial pilot, and previously went to uni and graduated with a Masters in Aerospace Engineering. During high school he made the decision to change his group of friends, for a number of reasons, I still to this day believe if he didn't do that he wouldn't have been as academically successful as he has been. When comparing the two sets of friends the academic achievements of them are polar opposites.
I'm not saying academic achievement is the most important thing in life but since it's the context of this discussion I think it's relevant.
>>it's also a question of having the correct "required" subjects at appropriate stages, a real selection of optional/selected subjects,
Bollocks. All you need to teach someone are a teacher that knows teh subject, and a teacher that actually knows how to teach. Preferably the same person, tbh.
>>the right framework for providing a taste of different subjects
Do you mean a school?
>>I mean a way to identify what people are good at and what they enjoy, so that they can learn useful and engaging things
So some kind of system where people can learn a bit about everything, like about crevasses and arêtes for instance, so they can understand what they like/are good at and want to study in more depth? Like at, for instance, a university or something?
And I disagree that school is a system that doesn't work for most people. Surely it doesn't work for some people, but most? Come on, Peter. Could schools be better? Hell yes, mainly be teaching teachers how to actually teach, and teaching Heads how to be proper administrators.
What I'd like to see is a system where the party with the most votes wins, not one where the most seats does.
I think in the last election more of the population voted LibDem, however the cons won more seats and thus the election overall (kinda).
For example if out of 10 seats 4 are won by the LD and 6 by Con, Con take power. But 8 million people in total may have voted LD in the 4 seats and only 4million in total voted Con in the 6 seats. So twice as many of the population may have wanted a LD government than a Con one but because they won less seats the Cons take power.