Gates Speech (in Off-topic)

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.


Some of you may have seen this, but I thought I will just post it. I find them quite interesting and I like #4 and #11.

Urban Legend. Bill Gates never said or wrote anything like that.

Might as well post the last three:

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.

My bad for not checking. Just got it from an email. But anyway, they are not a bad comments.

Great comments, whoever said them! Very accurate.

I actually like the Steve Jobs at Stanford speech from this year. More relevant to me. Although I'm sure I'll be telling my 7-year old most of these rules before too long.

7 is over halfway to teenage

*shiver*

I personally like the fake Kurt Vonnegut speech about wearing sunglasses.

Yeah, Jon. And to a large extent, he already has the attitude. Too bad my wife and I agreed on 'no spanking'. Although the 'no TV' and 'no Playstation' punishments work pretty well.

Yeah, I know, lax parenting by people who said they would never treat their children like their parents treated them. Even though we turned out OK. (Every time I see my dad, I still look to see what kind of belt he's wearing. :) )

Id have to say our society is in a sad state when the worst punishments parents can give out, in the childs opinion, is taking away their video games and TV....

my son gets spanked, but as he nears 3 it's already nearing the end of its usefulness as a deterrent... most of the time he weighs his options and decides that whatever he's up to is worth getting spanked over.

to a 3 year old mind, losing <favorite toy of the day> is indeed often worse than being spanked.

Jonathan, you obviously haven't learned about the "promotion" to spanking.

The yardstick.

I never had to be disciplined after that. Now, I _am_ a parent's dream (and always was), that much is true, but still...if you are going to go the physical discipline route, you cannot be afraid to make sure the spanking _hurts_.

And I even had an older brother providing perpetual torture. Still, the yardstick kept me in line.

Almuric, not sure whether you made up the "additional" statements, but the one on smoking is, in my opinion, close to the most ineffectual argument ever. You are basically saying, "OK, you think smoking is cool, but try this little bit of wisdom on for size: Smoking ISN'T cool! HA! Gotcha!"

No, that doesn't work. What would work much better (in my opinion), would be a simple little thing I like to call "the truth".

Smoking makes people (some people, most people, definitely not me) feel good. It is like alcohol. We also know another fact about child-rearing (which parents I know of comment on all the time): kids are incredibly smart..."can't pull one over on junior!" So why would you think that saying "smoking isn't cool" is going to work? So many things are telling them otherwise. Ever seen Michael Madsen French inhale or seen Tim Roth flick an exhausted butt? Sure, you think that is silly, but your kid doesn't. It's in the movies!

There's where the truth comes in. You say, "Look, junior, smoking can make you feel good. Just like drugs. It is a drug. An easy to acquire drug. It also is nasty and full of chemicals that will kill you. Yes, it WILL kill you. Plus, the irony is that "the man" adds the things to it to make it particularly harmful and addictive. Tobacco by itself isn't really too bad, though it can cause mouth and throat problems too. Anyway, I trust you. It's your decision."

I watch commercials all the time that portray alcohol and drugs as "uncool". They would work, if they didn't come off as cartoons. "This is your brain on drugs?" Please. Did YOU buy that? I was younger at that time (right at a decent drug-doing age), and I thought those commercials were jokes. And yet I have never done any drug more potent than marijuana, and have no desire to. Why is that? Parental edicts about being cool? Heh, my parents are, quite possibly, the two most uncool people on the planet. Uncool enough that _I_ could tell. That's pretty damn uncool.

As for purple hair and pierced body parts...who cares? Have you ever done anything non-standard as an expression of your own individuality? Believe me, having purple hair in 9th grade would have gone over a LOT better for me than simply being myself...a smart kid screwing up the grading curve for everyone else. If I go back, the purple hair will be a definite must-try. *smile*

Well, anyway. Not sure where all that came from, and it took some writing away from some very important WWSD work, dang it! I have zero right to tell you how to raise a child, or what works for your particular kid. But just giving what is basically a "No it isn't!" back in their direction is probably not going to work as well as just telling the truth. IIRC. IMHO. YMMV. IANAL.

I am going to do more than send my children to time out and take away TV rights.

I do not want to raise kids who live in prison from the age of 18 until death because their parents didn't whip them for acting like a fool.


That is what is wrong with the world, too much hugging, not enough beating.

Does anyone else see the ultimate CB front-page quite in shwta mrwuss just wrote?

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That is what is wrong with the world, too much hugging, not enough beating.

-- mrwuss, via Forums
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/me stops hugging mrwuss and instead picks up a yard stick and commences the beating.

An Elven Yardstick. x675.

Tell me I am wrong,

My generation ( I am 24 ), most of us did not goto the grocery store and scream when our parents told us we could not have a pack of gummy bears, because if we did, we took a back hand for a reward.

Today kids get whatever they want, because unless they get it they toss a fit in the floor knowing the only thing they will get out of it is a hug and more counseling.

IMO it's because there have been quite a few members of our society that have taken physical punishment of a child to a way far extreme now we are filled with a bunch of "do gooders" that would rather worry about you disciplining your own child then worrying with their own dysfunctional lives.

I will never lay a hand on my child. I was unfortunately one of those children who grew up with the extreme end of physical "punishment." I'm not disagreeing with those of you who do spank (and more) or whatnot, but I'm saying that I personally will not be taking that route with whatever children I have.

I didn't say I was going to beat my child for sport, and I knew those who had to deal with such things while we grew up.

I thanked my stars that I was neither beaten like a rag doll nor coddled (sp?) like a fragile being.

One point, though I obviously agree with you, mrwuss (my original yardstick post was not sarcasm or meant to be something light...it was a disciplinary tactic that worked well, at least on me).

We notice the kids throwing fits more these days. As in, we notice it more, not that they are throwing more, necessarily. There are always going to be fit-throwers, and there were fit-throwers in the 1950s. So yes, it is easy to point and say, "what in the name of all that is holy is wrong here???" But I am not going to say it is worse or better in any sort of precise fashion, and my gut tells me that Almuric is an exemplary father (taking it back to my original comments).

But I cannot disagree with you because of the times I have seen the parent's reaction to the thrown fit. The look of confusion, exasperation, and worst of all, capitulation. Be the boss, 'rents.

Let me put it this way: I have a hard time believing shows like Nanny 911 can exist. BUT, if such pap were acceptable fare back in 1960s TV, I guarantee you such a show could have (and would have) existed. We are all being made aware of more.

I do not feel I am making any coherent sense, so I am going to stop. Anyone who can crystallize my point, please feel free to do so with my kindest regards.

Well I was talking from experience on my comment. I was brought where physical discipline was very accepted. My wife was raised in a house where children were never spanked. Well I have 2 teen age step children and I have never laid a hand on either but I have no problem letting them know that I would have no qualms whatsoever doing it if they do anything to deserve it. My oldest stepson (he's 17) actually felt it necesarry to "enlighten" me one fine afternoon of me chewing on him about failing in school that I had better keep my fing hands off of him or he would call the cops on me..... LOL now I am always one for a good challenge so I "enlightened" him that it would indeed take the police about 30 minutes to get to our home since we leave out in the boonies basically and for him to just think of all the pain I can inflict on his person in that amount of time. Funny thing is that was the last time we ever had that discussion. But my point was I was never foolish enough to threaten my parents let alone scream and cuss at them.

My father and I got into one of those arguements one day, he had gotten back from a party and was being loud when I was trying to sleep.

I told him it was time to goto bed, either on his own or with a sharp blow to the back of the head to help it along.

It is a good thing he was not going to remember what I said the next day.

:) Time for me to learn how to become a parent from the CB community.

The funny thing is, I was never really beaten when I was younger and I seemed to have turned out alright(I'm 17..).... At least thats what I think... Well, I've been living alone in Japan for 5 months now....

Personally, I'm a firm believer of 'not beating the children'. But I still think that our children should learn the trials of hardship... and not to spoil them like brats. I know quite a few people who've been spoiled like crazy by their parents and they've turned out pretty bad, they've all dropped out of school and leech off people they know as they are unable to control themselves with spending etc...It's probably because they've always relied so much on their parents. Sorta like feeding a baby...

:) I really enjoy reading all these interesting conversations that pop up out of nowhere....

i just dont see time outs and taking things away as being as effective as spankings. my parents were divorced and i feared my father he kept me in line through spankings or the threat of them also the threat of beatings and i never got to out of line because i knew he would beat me if i did...where as my mother did time outs and taking things away. now i love and respect my mother but her punishments were a joke and were never anything that would keep me in line....

Kids are different. One size does not fit all...

im sure me, sutekh, and mrwuss are pretty different....

Mrwuss, I'm of your generation, and I was never beaten (or threatened to be beater) growing up. There was probably the occasional spank when I was under 3, as Jon is doing.

My mother is a teacher and studied child psychology, so she knew how to behave towards us to achieve better responses than violence. For instance, to an 8 year old, there is nothing more disconcerting than to be asked "why did you hit your younger brother?", and actually have to give justification. The answer "he started it!" wasn't good, since as the older brother, I was supposed to be more mature. "He was annoying me!" wasn't good either, since I was told to annoy him back, instead of hitting. But as everyone knows, there is nothing more annoying than a younger sibling, so that didn't work for me.

After a while, with that sort of "reasonable behaviour" expected, you learn either to be "good" all the time, how to make up really interesting excuses, or just how to make sure the parent's don't find out!

"Go sit on the bottom stair..."

As for me, I was once set to bed with no supper because I could not eat our chinese take away with chop sticks. I was given two pencils and told to go to my room and practice.

Now, my dad has no recolection of the event, and Insists I imagined it...

I belive the type of punishment is based more on lifestyle as well.

I do not want to open another can of worms with mentioning why either.

No, not the bottom stair!! /me shudders

GL, wasn't that incident in a movie or TV show? Are you "remembering" TV character lives? :p

And yes, I see what you mean, mrwuss. But another strong factor in the way I was raised was that my parent's both wanted to do the opposite of what their parent's did. They were each beaten by their fathers, and in school, as punishment.

Now, I am not talking about beating your children, I am not talking about bruising, or the like.

I am talking about things such as,

Your child back talks you to your face, mocking you
--In my book, this results in a pop to the mouth.

Your child does something which would cause them injury or harm another person,
--This can vary depending on the situation, if the child was to toss the plate of dinner to the floor in protest of eating peas, the child would get a spanking and sent to bed.


Please do not think I am meaning one should blacken eyes, or leave bruising to teach that boy a lesson.

Discipline does not mean abuse.

I agree; I meant and understood that we were only talking about punishment, and not abuse.

I agree as well, and never meant my yardstick comment to start any sort of war here... *smile*

Chet, you can not start a war no matter how much you smile ;)

Who's Chet?

uh huh ;)

Maelstrom, the TV show probably took ideas from my Dad... But I'm 100% sure it really happened! ;)

Seemingly this is Chet. Who's Chet?

Awww, he's "family rated" and all. I want Chet to be my dad. :)