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Well, the same fundamental idea applies to your situation as well. I think that it's rather ignorant to have double standards like you do... when we don't want to study constantly it's because we have been influenced far too much by peers, but when we are led (and essentially forced) into a life devoted entirely TO studying, no psychological coercion is taking place? ...I don't think so.
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<p>Okay, you provide an interesting rebuttal.</p>
<p>In that, it's impossible to quantitatively compare which student would face the greater amount of coercion. Indeed, all environmental influences are coercive in one way or another.</p>
<p>However, my original argument was as follows:</p>
<p>"There could be many students who are exposed to homeschooling and the wonders of polyphasic sleep/modafinil. Now, perhaps it's the case that most of those students don't indeed want to study all day. They still have the choice to study as much as possible, but most of them will not elect to do so. Of course though, since this system is a bottom-up self-organizational system, the parents have a lot of freedom in directing the activities of their children. Some of the parents will be kind, others will coerce their children (psychologically) to study with all of the spare time they have.</p>
<p>So as to the first concern, homeschooling, I think it's the case that some children will have to go through more psychological coercion, whereas other children will not go through this psychological concern, depending on whether the children have substantial external peer groups or not (homeschoolers may fit into particular peer groups - just peer groups that are external to school). Most parents of homeschoolers do have more influence over their children, but some of the parents are liberal enough to let the children decide their own education for themselves (provided that the children are well-guided).
Second question is this - will cutting into the sleep time of children produce less social freedom than not cutting into the sleep time of children?</p>
<p>There are some indirect influences. People tend to compare themselves to the mean of the social group that they belong to. Now, when the sleep time of children is cut into, and people become homeschooled, the standards for such children may get higher. But on the other hand, the children may also be expected to play for more hours each day. It could go either way.</p>
<p>So the question is, does this system allow any more social freedom than the type of education that existed before the institutionalization of mass education? </p>
<p>Hmm. Now I'll have to say that it's really difficult to say. Notwithstanding this, what if a liberal parent tells the child to discover his own interests for himself, and to take modafinil/do polyphasic if the child wants to? (Or what if the parent say, only provides vegetarian meals for the child? Is that coercion?).</p>
<p>There are psychological coercive forces w.r.t lifestyle choices, and psychological coercive forces w.r.t attitudes, beliefs, and activities. The former type of psychological coercive force may include vegetarianism and polyphasic sleep, and that sort of coercive force is independent of the second type of coercive force (the one that really restricts social freedom).</p>
<p>More time in a day though = more freedom to do what you want. Again, I'm saying that the children can have the freedom to do what they want - some of them will find math interesting (of course, having certain books in the library is also some sort of environmental coercive force)</p>
<p>Now, of course, we're assuming a change in parental attitudes. The question is, how likely is the child to embrace polyphasic sleep? It depends. Children who play video games may be the types who would most look forward to polyphasic sleep/modafinil. ;)</p>
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Polyphasic sleeping is not safe for people who are still growing. They need as much sleep as possible to grow.
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<p>While your argument is understandable, we still haven't compared the outcomes of children on polyphasic sleep/modafinil vs. children without polyphasic sleep/modafinil. It is true, though, that developing brains have different needs than full-grown teenage brains (brain stops growing at age 14)</p>
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Whatever happened to having a life? There are other reasons to go to school besides learning. Part of the experience is learning to socialize with others.
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<p>Your argument is cliched.</p>
<p>(a) public education is a very recent 1800s invention. People had social lives before public education. This argument betrays a lack of imagination about the number of other opportunities that children can pursue
(b) most homeschoolers do engage in a wide variety of extra-curricular activities. Some may not, and it's their own choice (were I homeschooled, I would have none - but I've always had my Internet friends)</p>