The people celebrating this story seem weird to me because this looks more like a nightmare. It's having your entire childhood traded away in order to function in a system that's responsible for making your entire family poor.
I know some people look at it as the whole 'self-made capitalist can do anything' sort of ideal but to me I see the failures of multiple systems.
I often find nebulous discussions around "systems" tiresome, not because there aren't better or worse systems, not because we can't make improvements, but because very often it results in a waste of time and energy spent on grievance and kvetching and wanting the stars to align perfectly instead of making the best of your situation.
Countries rise and fall by systems. If the US adopts an unschooling strategy that minimizes math learning, then it will certainly take the country in a direction. It’s a topic that powerful people are clearly taking sides on. I think it’s valid to discuss what the implications would be.
In general, I don’t really understand the dismissal of the use of systems language for social topics. Other domains on this site are debated in very analytical terms looking at historical factors and second order effects.
What makes social issues different where it’s uncouth to perform the same type of analyses?
Yea I got the same feeling. Like those “inspirational” stories like the kid running a lemonade stand to pay for his school lunches or a family getting enough GoFundMe donations to afford cancer treatment. There’s nothing inspirational or wholesome about these. They are macabre depictions of our unnecessarily cruel social systems.
I took off my rose tinted glasses after getting to this part of the narrative:
“Then Kevin discovered the wealth of information in county property and tax records, including the concept of “lawyers’ liens.” A lawyer who is owed money from a client can put a lien on the client’s property to get paid when the land is sold, just like a tax lien. And lawyers’ liens can be bought and sold. Kevin found one such lien languishing in the Iron County property records and bought it for half the value from the lawyer who had forgotten it was there. Kevin doubled his money when the property sold within a few weeks.”
The hand waved details of this purchase and sale illuminated the authors intentional bias for me.
And was born to a very rich noble family as almost a polar opposite, which likely led him to pursue more abstract things and forget about the material.
I would imagine this kid was on a similar level of genius, but seemingly more interested in making as much money as humanly possible instead.
I know some people look at it as the whole 'self-made capitalist can do anything' sort of ideal but to me I see the failures of multiple systems.