Big Brain Time - Information Vaccination To Prevent "The Stupid" (Ignorance)

9/25/22 Here's my hypothesis. I think that information is divided into "need to know" and "want to know." Also that with the right quality of information you can get everything you need. Knowing more than that, you can potentially pursue what is enjoyable, fun, and good for you. The first, needs, gives you life and liberty, the second gives you the pursuit of happiness. I think that once we hit a point of no return in terms of offering a free education for what all humans genuinely need to know, everything is going to change, and people will then be able to actively pursue what makes them happy. This is essentially why I am funneling as much information as possible into the site.

Compulsory education violates the 13th amendment rights of US citizens, namely children, that are not considered US citizens under the law but are legally considered property Constitutional Amendments 11-27

When it comes right down to it, the education system in the United States, and possibly other countries, is fundamentally Communist and has been for at least 30 years. The American public education system produces people who have been taught what to think, how to think, and why to think, but stripped them of the ability to come up with any original thoughts or ideas of their own. Ironically so because the only way to maintain a Capitalist democracy is to ensure the citizens are educated enough to be free of mind, understand national issues, have high morale, think for themselves with creativity and imagination, maintain their individuality, and enjoy learning; if the USSR set this up it was a master stroke of evil genius. I think the biggest red flag was that we learned not a goddamn thing about the USSR during the entire time I was in school. Not a single thing. I will be digging up their history with great interest in the next few years now, stay tuned y'all. Personally, watching Blade Runner and V is for Vendetta gave me flashbacks to public school and dealing with authority figures in my area, so yeah, it's a problem. We are only seeing the fruits of uneducated and groupthinking citizenry now but it has been a long time coming. In fact, most Boomers are also fundamentally Communist. So is most religion. So when I say "fuck the educational system," "fuck religion," and "ok, Boomer," what I really mean is "fuck Communism, give me freedom." By casual or rigorous observation, you and I can easily infer that the real purpose of the US educational system is to make students despise learning and to function as a daycare so their parents can work all day and prop up the stagnating economy. In fact, what it actually is is a glorified prison, and a perpetual Stanford Prison Experiment. In fact I don't think the people who made Great Teacher Onizuka had any idea that they were making a very realistic version of the school system I went through as a Millenial brat (minus Great Teacher Onizuka. Yes, really. It's so spot on it's scary.). It's also arguable whether Jim Benton had any idea It's Happy Bunny Life. Get One. is an exact mirror of the American public education system when he was writing it but anyone who's gone through it will know exactly what I'm talking about if/when they read it. My purpose with this section is the exact opposite. I want to get you hungry for information, and I don't know about you, but I'm starving for it. I feel like Major Payne in that one scene where he's hunting rats. Hungry.

4/22/21 UNDER CONSTRUCTION: This now contains all of the information that I learned in K-12 as a Millenial. More, in fact. It is not sufficient for meeting homeschooling requirements because the public schooling I received was a joke, but it is more condensed and way more informative than what I had. Disclaimer: I have absolutely no credentials in education. Use your own big brain when trying to teach yourself or others and don't blame me if you or your kid don't meet educational standards in your area because it varies from place to place and because again - I have no credentials. Just ten plus years' worth of sifting through thousands of books to find good ones plus some (okay, more than some) experience tutoring younguns and classmates and babysitting. My goal with this section is to get you just as smitten with each of these subjects as I am. The more I worked on it the more fascinating it all became until essentially I was bit by the bug to learn, really learn, all of them. I hope for that for you as well. 5/23/23 Okay this now has college level information, at least some 101s. I wouldn't call it well rounded, but my public school education wasn't either. However, the sad truth is that despite the fact this is most useful for homeschooling and for public school teachers, homeschool and education regulations from state to state vary wildly and are usually arbitrary and stupid. The emphasis of rote memorization of math over practical realistic applications for math as case in point. And I can't really change them. Parents and teachers and education administrators have to give a damn, and too few of them do. No, it's usually a "let's grow children like vegetables in a veggie patch" attitude, and when the schooling starts it's just dumping the kids in a chum bucket. I can't fix this on my own. Maybe help?

A message to good teachers: Better idea 4/24/22 (see older idea crossed out at end of this): We are currently facing an epidemic of three kinds. An epidemic of covid-19, an epidemic of evil, and an epidemic of ignorance. With these things in mind a moon shot for education and eradication of ignorance worldwide might just do the trick to help end all three. I said worldwide because this never was just about America but about the fight of democracy, the notion that humans have rights, and the victory of freedom over slavery. So each one teach one, but you better know your shit, because in my experience misinformation is often worse than no information at all. Also, the might of nations or lack thereof depends on three variables. Education, virtue, safety. You want to see better conditions where you're at then put more effort into promoting any or all of these. Also it is mostly teachers that can fix the major issues in the system so DO IT because who else can?! Actually change the system from the inside out. I've heard thousands of teachers complaining about the system but how many of these are currently in politics? I rest my case. Are you tired of working in a system that destroys young minds, creates a hatred of learning and independent thought, and crushes the human spirit? I implore you: cut your losses. Quit. Our educational system is a failure and does nothing but traumatize kids. Hell, I learned more in one year of intensive reading of library books than I did in twelve in public school. Don't be part of the problem. Take what you learned from being a teacher and put everything you really want to teach kids online, on a website like this one on Neocities, or on a blog. Teach people how to homeschool in the best way possible. Assist people in your hometown with homeschooling as a tutor and as a teacher for homeschool groups and charge a fair price. It's an idea. You'll earn more money that way too.

7/16/22 Note to all teachers in the US: were you aware that in the early 2000s Israel already had metal detectors in many of its schools? Yes, for youth, not just colleges. And were you aware that Israeli citizens are basically all veterans and therefore the teachers and security guards in these schools were probably veterans? This might not be relevant but Israeli schools also don't censor the kids' freedom of speech or religion, especially with regards to burqas as like a large chunk of Israel's population is Muslim. Couple things to bring up at your next board meeting.

Image source: that is Markiplier, from Youtube, which please watch.

CLEP Tests administered for a fee (currently seems to be about $89 per course) by Collegeboard, the grifting low-quality-teaching guys that also administer AP and SAT tests. By the way, AP is useless, don't bother, just learn the material on your own or in a college 101 class. CLEP tests are done to determine if you need to take a college 101 course. Pass one, and in many if not most colleges you won't need to take the course, saving you a lot of money. So study at home and study hard. Then, if possible, you could finish up an undergrad in a community college, and work hard for scholarships in a higher ed program. Wa la. Let's hope you avoid crushing student debt. Also note: trade schools are underrated for a steady career and paycheck because we seem to be low on skilled trade professionals in the US.

New 3/22/25 GED Test Prep Book Presumably there are others like this but McGraw-Hill tends to be the best quality textbook-wise. I'll take a glance at this book's contents and get back to you but it should contain what you need to know. My high school teachers all lied. I didn't need to know a goddamn thing from what they taught in my adult life. Junior high and elementary covered it all, and my high school taught me nothing else of value. However it is not clear in each state or federally if someone in high school is legally allowed to take the GED test and if they take it and pass they get a get out of jail free card from the jail that is high school. So I think lawyers in each state need to take this on, for the kids' sake.

Suggestion: Please try to find at least two other sources to learn whatever you learn from here in order to compare and contrast and think of things on your own. I don't want to be some kind of dogmatic "authority" or pretend to be The Source of Pure Truth.

Why bother learning anything?

Undo some damage from public school

Guide to understanding homeschool laws

To find specific homeschooling laws, government practices, and educational standards in your state, see: State departments of education

Instructables' Teachers Section

Covers Many Topics

Studying Tricks Hopefully this makes it easier for you to learn anything cause learning itself is tough

Field Trip Time

Condensed Version of Big Brain Time K-12 Homeschooling or Supplemental Resources, Summarized

Adulting

Math

Science

Fun Also known as recess and playtime. Neglected and extremely important.

Engineering UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Medical Science UNDER CONSTRUCTION

OpenCulture Free online courses, usually offered as MOOCs; high school and 101 level courses

MIT OpenCourseWare - college courses online for free. Generally speaking, the best quality I could find online. Requires a major time commitment. I HIGHLY recommend also buying the recommended textbooks, reading them, and doing all of the homework problems in the courses.

Yale OpenCourseWare - more college courses online for free, from Yale. I don't know if these are better, worse, or just different from MIT's.

MIT Open Learning Library Seems to have some good info but also is behind a subscription wall.

Open Syllabus Project This website lists some of the most commonly assigned textbooks in colleges today, saving you the trouble of figuring out what is considered "101"

PBS Now, no matter where you are in the world, if I understand this correctly you can watch basically anything from PBS, anytime, for $60 (yearly membership fee). If it doesn't work, beef up privacy protocols on your computer, such as by using Tor and Privoxy or by using a Raspberry Pi and Pi Hole plus a whole bunch of stuff as listed in Computer Science (see link above) and pretend you have a zip code in Brooklyn, like these. Or, use one of the many free proxies and pretend you live in one of their zip codes. I hope that works, and if it doesn't let me know on this site's Discord server. When I was growing up we just caught PBS with bunny ears as one of the channels that were picked up because we couldn't afford cable. Now, it seems like you can grab PBS like most people grab Netflix: User 1, Parasite 1, Parasite 2, etc. 5/23/23 Check at your local library to see if they've got documentary PBS DVDs. They're fantastic.

PBS Learn At Home resources PBS PreK-12 learning resources This is PBS's version of homeschooling resources. I don't know if it's any good, but it's PBS, check it out, see if it's worth the time. From a cursory glance through these resources I would guess they are good supplementary learning materials but definitely not sufficient framework for education. Too much filler, but sometimes filler is entertaining.

5/23/23 Either some, or many libraries also have The Great Courses series DVDs. They are at college level and are just as grueling to learn from; taking notes while watching them can help a lot. Highly recommend.

Note for teachers in K-12: it has been mentioned that teachers often lose their cool because so much time is spent on discipline and so little on teaching. There is a very simple way around this: understand that your students are being held as prisoners in a chair, in a room, in a building against their will despite having never committed a crime, and proceed accordingly. Let me spell it out for you morons: explain to them why they should bother learning what you're teaching, and if it's utterly useless, just quit, you buffoon. Here's another helpful hint: don't violate the terms of the Geneva Convention. Geneva Convention Protocols More details, particularly part II, part 2 Wow, imagine, so easy.

This is intended either for parents who homeschool or for 18+ folks because there is sex ed and crude language in here and I don't want people to get their panties in a twist. If you're a parent look it over and make the decision if your kids are mature enough to read this stuff. If something is listed as "helpful for homeschooling" then that means it is intro-level and you should start there. It doesn't mean it's easy. In fact all of this material is high school to college level because the common misconception that children are too dumb to understand this stuff is just plain wrong. In fact it's the most dangerous and delusional belief of all educators, be they homeschoolers or teachers: children can and will grasp "difficult scientific principles" and other tough stuff, and usually faster than adults - why? I don't know, but I've seen it over and over again. My goal with this subsection of the website is to provide a viable alternative to K-12 that anyone can get through with a maximum of 3 years study time. It is possible because everything taught in public school is watered down so much that it mainly functions to waste time. Don't believe me? Give these resources a try. You can find a lot of them at your local library or from cheap bookstores. Hopefully these resources can also help you to CLEP out aka test out of/automatically pass college courses, saving you time, money, and sanity. I have not yet made this stuff conform to the guidelines of the US (crap) educational system to help homeschoolers meet educational "standards," and it won't yet help you pass high school exams, the SAT or ACT with flying colors, but I am working on it & will let you know when it does. Getting there. 9/11/22 pretty close. However, it is sufficient for anyone who wants to learn subjects for real after wasting 12 years staring at the wall. Technically speaking, and truthfully speaking, public school is slavery, and anyone who thinks this Tips and Tricks for Teachers kind of stuff is normal is deluded. Why? Because the only thing keeping students in school is legal requirements, and they're not getting paid for their work, yet teachers demand total obedience out of social custom and a knowledge the students can't leave. Attendance at school is nothing more than a gilded prison. Abuse is rampant. Many of the administrators and teachers are abuse- or politics-motivated ghouls looking to boost their own social standing and make themselves feel big by making children feel small. And do they have any idea what they're teaching? Doubtful, given how low wages are for teachers and how powerful the teacher's union is. Finally, literally everything in school is taught using school textbooks as a backbone, and those textbooks are pretty much worthless. Plus they're a sick system. Issendai article. Homeschool is the way.

The ideal way to go through this stuff is as follows: I'll assume you have basic literacy and know how to read and write. If you are a voracious reader and talk to friends on Discord or text, then reading and writing will be natural to you. So start with Adulting, Art, Science, Fun, and Math. These are the basics for everything else; art is in there to ensure you aren't bored but also because in my own experience and that of some teachers I know, people learn better when they're learning art as well as hardcore STEM stuff (nope, there isn't enough evidence to suggest it matters, but it is what Leonardo da Vinci did). Then follow this route: Adulting (including Social Studies), Science, Art, and Math -> Physics -> Chemistry -> Biology -> Earth Sciences and Astronomy. Add other stuff on top of that at each step as needed. *Edit 2/17/25 I suggest, among other items you choose yourself, Scouting stuff, like old Girl Scout and Boy Scout manuals. It's actually worth looking into.* It helps you understand all of it better. And don't forget to rest, relax, play around. Life's short. If you are a parent that works full-time, know that kids are totally capable of self-study in order to homeschool. In fact it's the only way they'll learn anything in adult life and in college anyway so better they start while they're young. You should know that I am also teaching myself these topics in depth as I am writing this, so it's not just some "fling content at the people and hope they like it" thing. 12/11/24 Here's another idea for you to ponder if you're an adult learner. Chances are very good that you have at some point said to yourself "what the heck? I never learned anything I needed to know in school! It should have these courses, and these, and these, and that's what kids need to learn!" Good. You now know what you can study yourself. Thing is, lots of this kind of stuff is stuff you only think you'll need to know but there needs to be a whole bunch of people actually putting it to the test through trial and error to see what really does help. And a lot of it is individual, except for one thing: ethics. Of all the disciplines out there that one can ruin or fix your life the fastest; reduce or increase the drama and bullshit. And that's the one thing I think will be the toughest thing to teach and to learn. How can you teach someone to be truly virtuous and have a conscience without just creating a yes-man? How can you teach yourself and others to want to do the right thing all the time no matter what? I don't think it's impossible, but it's definitely hard.

It is possible that the "Must Know High School" by McGraw-Hill series of books, the "Handy Answer Book" series, and the "Cartoon Guide To" series by Larry Gonick are all worth working through, but I can't get access to all of these at this time. If you manage it, let me know what you think. Also, the Great Books series is expensive and is the original source material a lot of textbooks basically copied and diluted.

Where to find these resources: Try your public library first. If it sucks, see if you can finagle a library card a couple of towns over, and also get familiar with both inter-library loan and ebooks from your local library. Ebooks from libraries are slowly but surely improving in terms of usability. One priceless tip someone recently told me is to read the original source material for whatever subject you are trying to study. 1/25/24 Bet you've looked for a specific topic to learn before or just high quality information and went "what the heck?! it's all crap!" when you put your search query into a search engine or a library catalog or even browsed a bookstore. Well, a lot of unscrupulous individuals and publishing companies lately have been doing the sociopath of late, the whole "hey I can get passive income by churning out books or blogs that sell or affiliate market whether or not they are good, and then all I gotta do is rake in the dough while the idiots get ripped off by me." Thus it flooded the market and the Internet. There are a couple of workarounds. 1. Seek out people who self-publish stuff like ebooks and promote that kind of thing. 2. Experiment a little to see which publishers and authors tend to publish good things and then seek out more by those people. Anness Publishing is the best publisher I know, and it went out of business but the books still circulate, thank heaven. Like other publishing companies, you often have to seek for each individual imprint under the umbrella of the larger book label when searching for books made by the publisher on say, Walmart.com or some other bookseller, or the stream of books dries up prematurely. Here's their publisher imprint list page. Harper-Collins is another formerly good one though they have been sucking lately. Author-wise, depends on the topic. If they made one they will probably make another that is good. For instance, Theodore Gray made some great Chemistry books, if he publishes another, great. Authors also sometimes write under pseudonyms.

MAXIMIZING YOUR BENEFIT FROM YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY - SECTION ADDED 12/5/24

If you've ever tried searching for a specific topic at your library and found mostly pop culture garbage and children's books, try something different. Search for the same stuff at a library in a bigger town a couple towns over or the biggest library in your state for the same stuff. Amass a list of the best looking books there, and from bookstores that you would buy books from for that topic. Now focus on the author name. Use the author names to search for books at your library. Chances are excellent all kinds of goodies will pop up and you'll go "what the hell? this was here the whole time?" The reason for this is that for whatever reason I think this country has an epidemic of really bad librarians. Petty, bitchy people who classify the books under categories and subcategories that make no sense, such as filing a textbook about glue under "Household - Miscellany." and not under "glue." Or something. Not to mention people who make all the pop culture and trendy stuff really easy to find but the informative textbooks and college level information buried under mountains of schlock. But they can't hide the books based on author name. It will all come up.
One book by an author you like? Others by that author could be fabulous as well
Thanks to difference in quality of online catalogs and what pops up bookwise in each, you can use this to your advantage. If your library catalog online is hard to navigate, again, try one a few towns over in a well populated area, preferably one with a college or a few. Use that online catalog to search for what you want, however you do your search. Now take those book results, and again, use the author names in your local library's online catalog to see what comes up. Chances are very good you'll find other books written by at least one of those authors, and pretty decent you'll find the same book you were looking for in the first place.
Got a DVD player, laptop DVD slot or computer DVD slot you don't care what happens to and don't mind if it busts in a couple years or less? You could easily in theory get rid of your reliance on all cable TV and streaming media and just get a bunch of DVDs from the library. Higher quality of content in a lot of cases, if not higher quality of media itself, since the discs and such really take a beating. If you don't want to destroy your hardware, which for whatever reason tends to happen with library discs, lots of libraries have streaming videos on their online catalog's interface with various third-party software now, but I don't know how well those work if at all.
Ever find yourself at a loss to determine how to entertain your family, friends, or partner with something you can all enjoy? See how they feel about going to the library together. It's free!
Don't be shy about going for whatever accessible media or accessibility modifications you need. Audiobooks, large print books, e-books, re-checking out books if you can't read it all at once. Ask a librarian or even Reddit for additional help if you need it. Foot traffic and checking out books proves to the library and your community that it's actually used and the library isn't going the way of the dodo. You're actually helping it by using it.
This is probably controversial, but if you really need specific information, it's better to check out too many books than too little. Return the ones you can't use before you're done with the others. It's the only way I found works when heavily researching.
If you ever find yourself stuck when trying to search for books at the library, you can maximize your benefit and the quality of the books you find by first searching for what you're looking for not with your library catalog or Amazon but LibraryThing. It's at https://www.librarything.com/, membership is free, and you can search for stuff using the "add books" tool, using Overcat as your search engine under the "search where?" section of that page. This gives you a wide array of books that can't be easily found but are generally speaking what you are looking for. Put search terms in the search bar for "add books," come up with new search terms, watch as the goodies uncrate. Then you can use all the tips from this section of this page using what you found on LibraryThing. It can help you find stuff at your library that's actually useful a lot faster. You can also search for books by subject (tags) by putting any subject in the search bar at the top right of the Librarything page after logging in, then scrolling down til, in hard-to-read small print on the left side of the page, you see a link called "Tags." Click on it, then click on the result that pops up which makes the most sense to you. It will lay out all the books classified as that subject for you. And you can search for books by title using the search bar and the title of the book. - added 1/11/25, addition added 3/31/25
No idea if this service is also available in large libraries of other States in the U.S. but you should check to see if they do this for yours. Texas might be the first state doing this: Houston Public Library MyLink is free for every legal Texas resident. You need the number of your ID card, your address, a valid email address and to come up with a password for the main thing and a password for Hoopla Digital (and other third party services if you use them) if you want to watch free streaming TV shows or movies. And there you go, you now have access to ebooks, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, and music you can enjoy online. Or downloaded if you have a Kindle or iPad and the Libby app. Or both. - 7/6/25

FREE BOOKS ONLINE

Classics at MIT 9/10/23 Surprisingly easy to read classics in HTML format. Of note: stuff by Confucius, stuff by Marcus Aurelius.
The Smithsonian 8/27/23 Has some online books. Mostly historic ones.
Free Classic Kindle Books 5/28/23 Big thanks to https://bucketlistjourney.net for providing the link (which is on #57 of this list if you want to click that link and provide her with affiliate marketing benefits - seriously how does she find these things?!). These books are free to read not only on a Kindle but on any Internet browser if you have an Amazon account. Log in, use 1-click to "buy" the book for $0, and read it in the browser with what Amazon calls its Kindle Cloud Reader. 2/7/24 The address for that one is https://read.amazon.com/landing. In theory you do not need to own a Kindle, just whatever you're reading this web page on, but in practice, you could be SOL.
Barnes and Noble NOOK reading online 2/7/24 Can't afford a Nook? You might be able to read Barnes and Noble ebooks online. Here's the page.
Dummies 3/16/23 I honestly didn't believe it when I saw that they had all these resources. Holy cow. This and Cliff's Notes are now available for everyone online for free. Distinction not shared with the usual education-for-the-beginner books including: Everything Guides, Idiot's Guides, Schaum's Outlines, Barron's. You still have to buy those.
Wambooli 12/5/23 The site of the first author of the For Dummies series of books, Dan Gookin. It's fun to read
Cliff's Notes 3/16/23 Here it is. For free.
OpenCulture 4/30/23 Finally, this website is possible to navigate
OpenCulture audiobooks section 4/30/23
Gutenbergs and other internet ebooks section NEW 3/10/23 I am compiling a list of favorites from Project Gutenberg and other legal internet sources on this page. Giving heavy preference to stuff that is in HTML as that is easiest and quickest to read in large amounts.
NYPL Ebook Resources As the world starts shifting to more digitization it looks like the NYPL is following suit. Of particular interest is their digital collections where you can legally read whole books online
Bartleby
The Literature Network
You can also try Openstax
Wikibooks
Project Gutenberg
Google Books, filtering all results by "full text," which is at the top left of the page in a drop-down menu beneath that little magnifying glass that says "all," though I recommend using a public computer because it will sell your browsing data to the highest bidder, yuck.
Wikisource is a new and interesting resource declaring it is essentially like another library.
There's also The Internet Archive which is the internet library of the world, but has issues.

FREE BOOKS - POTENTIAL

Check Craigslist's Free section.
6/11/23 The Krazy Coupon Lady has a whole section dedicated to this Ways To Get Free Hard Copy Books
6/11/23 Possibly the largest book exchange in the world, Book Crossing is an international book swap website
6/11/23 Here are Paperback Swap and Bookmooch, which are similar
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Not currently available in all US states but surprisingly has overseas branches. It seems that if you're really motivated you can actually start your own branch of it and work with the main charity to make it happen for your local area.

FREE ONLINE RESOURCES

Playclassic.games Educational Dos Games You don't need to download anything, just play the game in browser. Added 8/17/24
Here's something actually overpowered as a lifehack. Get a Pinterest profile. Do the Pinterest thing as you like to teach Pinterest's very good algorithm to serve up stuff that interests you. Takes a few months. As you do this, create Pinboards and categories within the Pinboards for all of your interests, keeping each one private or public as you choose. At some point, either at the beginning or after a while getting to understand Pinterest, start finding Instructables links on Pinterest for all of your interests. It also helps to sort these into stuff that's accessible as well as affordable to you right now, and stuff that isn't (yet). This maximizes the benefits of each website. Instructables has some of the best quality information on everything on the Internet but its website is hard to navigate and find what you're looking for on it. Pinterest has one of the best search algorithms in the world for research, particularly with organizing hoarded information so you can access what you need when you need it instead of spending half an hour looking through your files, but is packed with absolute garbage information, Amazon affiliate marketing clickbait and people posting unnecessarily, and you need fantastic search terms to get what you need there. It's the best of both worlds, get it while you can. And back up your findings. Save all the tutorials, pdf recipes, screenshots. Corporations can change. - 12/31/24. Wikihow can also be used the same way as Instructables, in tandem with Pinterest, and can be surprisingly helpful - 7/18/25

NON FREE ONLINE RESOURCES

Educational or helpful Youtube channels

NON FREE BOOKS

Consider this. How much per month do you spend on entertainment? Cable, internet, city nightlife, phone service? Is there any way you can get on a cheaper plan or use a cheaper service for any of these, perhaps substitute some of them with library resources? You ever consider what would happen to your life if you bought books each month with that money instead? - added 11/23/24
Bookstores section
Ebay
Half Price Books is good in person.
Goodwill Books sells good books.
Other places to get good books include The Strand
There are other sources online, particularly certain websites for pirating and free reading of books. There are methods. I can't teach you these because I'll get sued or something, but bear in mind that if you're going to pirate something because you can't afford a regular education, it might be morally better than not being educated at all. Why? Take a look at all the damage uneducated idiots are doing. I rest my case. To make sure you don't rack up too much bad karma/pay it forward, you could certainly buy the books you pirated later after you learn the material and earn dough and then donate them to a library or to someone who needs them. I'm attempting to find online quality free resouces for all of this but it's slow going.

Everyone reading this is (I hope) 18 or older. And here's the thing. If you are ignorant and make dumb, even harmful, mistakes if you're 18 or younger, that's okay. It's chalked up to lack of life experience and people are justifiably lenient. But if you're over that age it is no longer cute to be ignorant. In fact, it is your duty and the only right thing to do, to improve your overall level of education every single year from the age of 18 on up, in order to prevent mass disasters like what we're living through as well as smaller scale disasters in your immediate sphere of influence. The current paradigm/belief that you learn everything you need to in K-12 or college and then that's it, you're done learning because you're smart enough to be a well-educated citizen that knows how to do adulting, is utter b.s. In fact, it's clear now that if we do not mandate well-rounded adult continuing education for every citizen that has a right to vote via self-study or some other method, every year, our civilization is doomed. Until then the only way to solve this problem on an individual level is to add to the solutions instead of the problems: somehow obtain a well-rounded education every year, any way you can, from now on.

10/25/24 Some additional thoughts about the educational system

I think one of the biggest reasons why people have kids or why they decide to work in a school is that they want to have someone to control. And who's easier to control and manipulate than kids? Or overworked, overstressed administrative officials in schools? I think that's a big reason why so many monsters wind up working in childcare, or becoming parents. One not-too-shabby way of determining who is not like that is paying attention to someone who helps kids when they need help, but is otherwise fairly hands off with the kids and lets them make their own mistakes and learn their own lessons. The right candidates for any job like that have to strike a right balance between helping too little and helping too much. But the biggest two ways to truly prevent such problems are a. a parenting exam, mandatory for all parents and taken yearly (see Rights section), and b. body cameras on all teachers, with all video data viewable by the local police station and easily accessible to pull up by date and time.
You should know that, despite any experience with the education system, the hallmark of a good education is not "I'm smarter than youuuu!!! I'm smarter than youuuu!!!" behavior like my teachers (and possibly yours) exhibited. Nor is it necessarily being richer in terms of money or having a higher social status. It's simply a better life. - 7/12/25
Upon getting halfway through The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, I realized two things. 1. This is one of the best books I've ever read 2. I need to bump up the priority of my personal education to the same level as the priority of my/my loved ones' survival or my fortunes simply will not change for the better no matter how much I struggle. Also realized in the age old argument of "is the pen mightier than the sword?" it's the same age old argument as "is the will of God or the will of Man stronger?" Same difference in power level, the mightier listed first in both examples here. Speaking of power level if you doubt this consider all the people Toriyama influenced to work harder and fight harder. I wasn't sure about telling you all this because this is such powerful information, and not everyone can be trusted, but I decided to do this in order to help level the playing field a bit in life. Why have the rich keep all the power for themselves? Spread the word, education is the revolution - 7/24/25

6/9/25 What to look for in a university or college

First thing is to know what not to look for. Academia has truly stagnated, and now even college students and people with Ph.Ds excitedly tell people ways to pass tests in college and graduate school because that's something to be excited about. Then what do they tell you what about what happens afterwards? Nothing! Nada! The assumption is that you get a higher paying job, but doing what? Too often, quality control for stuff people have already invented, or maintaining the status quo at some giant corporation, or going right back into academia and teaching people how to pass more tests. Usually since it's so hard to get in via the application process and the high tuition, you only tend to find out about this hustle when it's too late. Also, if you seek colleges in other countries, you should avoid those that have a history of extreme and brutal human rights violations. Particularly China, with its Tiananmen Square protest (yes, it did happen, and it was a massacre, and I know this from thirdhand but direct sources) and its genocide of Uyghurs and its likelihood of slave labor camps for dissenters. This is for the same reason you should avoid any school with an overt political agenda - bias and allergy to truth - in other words, brainwashing. The exact opposite of what you need when you are engaging in the noble pursuit of truth that is genuine education.
Another thing to avoid if possible is any college that seemingly handholds you in the first few years, probably by targeting people fresh out of high school. Common Core, homerooms, mandatory living and cafeteria plans, extreme emphasis on college sports and social life, you need absolutely none of it and it is expensive. These places know you have no experience fresh out of high school in living by yourself so they take care of it for you, so it seems, but it's really just a way to ensure you are more dependent on staying there for longer (and to attract rich students with parents who don't know any better). Get your living situation, job situation, food situation, roommate and friend and family and even romantic situations sorted out before you go to college if at all possible. I cannot overemphasize the importance of knowing how to do these things before you get there.
Another thing to avoid: falling prey to the fallacy that college can bring you better self-esteem. This was something public school did to seemingly my entire generation of Millenials - destroyed all our self-esteem, self-respect and trust in our own judgment and convinced us all that if we would just get a great degree and job, we'd finally be worth something. Bullshit. All bullshit. If you have this problem you are better off sorting out your self-esteem issues with other resources.
Another thing to avoid is non-diverse campus. A place devoid of people of color, aside from perhaps a few "token additions" due to Affirmative Action or what have you, is just as bad as a place where it's specifically for a subset of people of color. In my experience it's always covering up something heinous. Think about it, when it comes to education you want and need a place that values merit above all else. A place that values skin color over and above merit in its hiring decisions for its staff and in its application admissions for students simply doesn't place merit as its top priority and that's a problem. Same deal for places that value either the super rich or the super poor more than merit. Or really, anything else but merit. Seek the places that obviously put top priority on academic rigor. - added 6/12/25
Know precisely what you want to get out of your degree. Figure out your career path, yes, but also figure out what you want to do with any education besides earning a living. Do you want to invent things? Start a business? Get into politics? Explore new frontiers? Get into a trade? Exactly how? Can you be specific? Once you figure that out you can better screen places to see if they truly have what you are looking for. Probably the most important piece of career and life advice I never got in school was that understanding yourself, truly and completely, and spending a bunch of years figuring out who you are and where you want to go in life and what you want to do with yourself are all things that are far cheaper done while working some random job BEFORE you go to college (or at least before you go to a college for stuff that actually interests you as opposed to stuff that's intended to get you better paid). College is a bit like a bow-wielding archer and you're a bit like an arrow. It's really important to figure out at least the general direction you want to land before you get catapulted somewhere. It's also important to choose a college that lets you decide on your ultimate direction instead of just firing you out somewhere at random.
If you actually are fresh out of high school or are at a place where you just need a better job and you need one now, please see Least Worst Workplaces and Careers to figure out the job or career you will even be going to college for, before you start applying to places willy-nilly. Figure out what's the least worst option for you and try to remember that no matter what job it is, even essential work that is seemingly "brainless" (actually, no job is truly brainless) the foodservice maxim "work smarter not harder" applies to literally everything. If you get a good education for it that is and not just one that constantly tells you "Work hard and just think positive!" (see: Just think positive! Just think positive, ja!)
Once you have figured out which universities, trade schools or colleges have degrees, courses and/or certifications that match what you want, here's a bit of unconventional advice: pursue the ones you want most, particularly your personal favorite, and ignore the cost. High or low, it does not matter if it has what you truly need and want. (I have a personal liking for very specific community colleges but quite a few of them suck too so there is that) If you really love a particular place, seeking out scholarships for it is worth the effort. Believe me, the people working there who care about the students want students who give a shit way more than they want people with prestigious backgrounds or fat wallets. Any given university (just like any business or government institution) will have some amounts of corruption in its higher echelons but the best ones keep it at a manageable level and put students first.
Visit the places you are thinking about and talk to their teachers at length. I can think of no better metric for gauging the quality of a school. If you are searching for one that is online, do this by communicating through many emails. Phone calls and video calls too if possible.
Bear in mind every place of higher education has its quality vary from department to department. To make sure your department is any good, go visit in person if possible (much, much preferred to any other method), and at least online. See what it specializes in and what resources there are. Talk to the professors while they are having office hours. Ask to sit in on a class. Whatever you find out, ask yourself repeatedly if you can see yourself doing ANYTHING with the stuff they are teaching after you graduate - and not to impress an employer or get higher wages or conform to whatever, but to achieve something worthwhile for you. Something that makes you at least content and if possible happy. If you don't understand why, go watch that film The Graduate because I'm telling you, it hits different when you're in your 30s
It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with your chosen field of study before you ever get to college. Check out library books, research the subject online, see if there are any businesses or public places near you, or clubs or groups that deal with that subject. Swim around in the shallow end before you dive in. Get comfortable enough to understand if the teacher of a class you are sitting in on knows (ugh) less than you did in the first weeks you started learning this topic. I've seen it happen before and I don't wish it for you.
Banish your vision of what college could be with what you have directly witnessed at wherever you have visited or gone. Then balance your knowledge of what college can do for you versus if you can teach yourself the subject as well as or better than the would-be college. There is no point paying for what you can do yourself. Continually ask yourself, "What can this school do for me that I can't do for myself with a good batch of textbooks, a good library, an internet connection and maybe a home lab for experiments?" That golden piece of paper called a diploma is no longer good enough. In fact, I don't think it ever truly was. See the entry dated 5/27/25 here.
The dessert after the meal or the cherry on top for a good college would probably be if it teaches you enough to help you continue to teach yourself in that discipline for the rest of your life through books, experiments, resources, contacts, and so on. Or if it provides continual after-graduation opportunities to collaborate with other alumni and/or staff to do research or projects together. That would definitely be a good addition to earning a diploma.
6/11/25 You Can Do It! by Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas has invaluable information for finding accessible ways to get a college education even if you are in less than ideal circumstances. Emphasis on "accessible" as in if you have the will you might find a way with the research tips this gives you. I can't recommend it highly enough. Plus it has resources helpful for a wide variety of other things that are still relevant and helpful this long after 2005.

12/5/22 This site no longer accepts donations.

11/6/22 NEW Self-Study Curriculum 1 I started making one of these for myself and figured might as well just put it here as an example curriculum. My advice: know thyself. Know what you are capable of learning in a given semester, quarter, or year, and plan your studies accordingly. If you are a parent of homeschoolers, the same general guideline applies: know your pupils.

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