The VPN argument is nonsense. The laptop was obviously set up, by them, to automatically use the VPN.

Again, if the school feels the need to play Big Brother on their VPN, then they should no provide the VPN to the kids at all. If that means they wouldn't provide the laptops either, then so be it.

Nothing excuses their contemptible behavior.

If they believe they need to wiretap childrens' laptops after they take them home, then they shouldn't give the kids laptops at all. Wiretapping them in them privacy of their own home is really creepy, and utterly unethical. It goes against all our values as a society.

We can't let the fact that we're using fancy computer equipment, make us forget that we're still HUMAN BEINGS.

I don't know why you think it's reasonable for the school to monitor what this kid is posting, privately, in his own home, to another person. There's no sense in which this is OK.

If the school find this policy to be necessary, then they should stop giving out laptops for children to take home altogether.

The thing to understand about Linux is that you _don't_ buy software off the shelf. Instead, all the software you need is available - for free!

This is great for many reasons - besides just the reduced cost. For one thing, it's much easier to install software on Linux: just go to Package Manager, select what you want, and press Install. Takes a minute or two. The Windows alternative is to go buy some software, put the disk in, then press Install. That takes alot longer.

And because the Linux software is free, you don't feel constrained - if you're curious about a software package, just go ahead and install it, and try it out!

Because there is no corporate interest behind the software, it won't try to screw you over in some way which is designed to get you to cough up money. For example, it won't try to force ads on you (at least, I've never seen it). It won't try to prevent you from un-installing it. It won't do nefarious things in the background (spyware, or other virus-like activity).

The reason you would use Linux (and Open Source tools in general) is that it gives you total freedom. The users are in control - not corporate interests.

There's something very liberating about that. Once you've tasted freedom, you never want to go back into the birdcage...

I think you're onto something with your splitting of the NT into the earlier Jewish (Mark, Matt), and later Pauline (pretty much everything else - but including Luke) parts.

The Christianity of today is really much more the religion of Paul than of Jesus. That battle was won when the Ebionites and Gnostics were put down as heretics in Constantine's day (once the religion became an instrument of state power). It's very hard to know what Jesus was really about - so thorough was the Pauline victory. Naturally, all non-approved religious texts were burned.

However, in recent decades, some ancient (and hence uncensored) texts have come to light (see Lost Christianities). It seems clear enough that:

1) The original followers of Jesus were Jews.
2) The original Jewish followers of Jesus became the Ebionites.
3) The Ebionites had a single gospel - Matthew, minus the virgin birth.
4) The Ebionites believed in one god (like the Jews) - not the Pauline trinity.
5) The Ebionites kept Jewish law.
6) The Ebionites considered Paul to be a heretic.

Paul's religion started within a few years of Jesus's death. Paul was very big into prosyletizing - hence, his religion spread. Luke was apparently Paul's secretary/doctor/accolyte. In general, Pauline theology is much more elaborate than Ebionite theology - if you compare Luke to Matt or Mark, you see this elaboration. John came much later, and seems to be utterly unconnected to anything Jewish - it's purely Pauline.

So, the Ebionites held sway in the more traditionally-Jewish areas (Middle East), while Pauline ("proto-Orthodox") Christianity spread thru the rest of the Roman world. In particular, it became dominant in Rome.

None of this would have mattered, except that Constantine (300 years later), out of the blue, decided to make Christianity (very much a minority religion at the time) into the state religion of the Roman Empire. Which variant did he choose? Naturally, the Pauline variety. At this point, all competing Christianities became illegal - Ebionities, Gnostics, etc, were branded heretics, were executed (if they wouldn't recant), had their texts burned, etc.

What I'm getting at is, if you're going to call Pauline theology into question, you've got a whole lot of unwinding to do! There's very little left of non-Pauline Christianity to fall back on. You'll have to go back to the most ancient, pre-Pauline texts. Then, you'll need to start keeping Jewish law, stop believing in the divinity of Jesus, etc.

I think your application of Occam's razor is correct.

Ironically, tho, Occam himself (a medieval theologian/logician) used his razor in the opposite direction: his point was that any assumptions besides the existence of God were superfluous. From there, he argued that there could be no good or evil, as applied to God (i.e. God could not be evil, by definition). He thereby justified the many terrible, murderous/genocidal happenings recorded in the Old Testament (as ordered by God).

Some points to consider:

Total outstanding student loan debt recently topped $1 trillion (e.g. see link).

Student loan debt now exceeds household credit card debt (see link).

It isn't possible to escape student loans via bankruptcy - they will follow you your whole life, no matter what. This puts them in a class by themselves.

Obviously, the current system is badly broken. Why should the federal govt be in the business of hooking young adults on these onerous loans? If the goal is social leveling (a goal I can get behind), then we should be talking about grants, not loans. What we're doing is creating a new class of indentured servants.

You say "... many former computer scientists decide to start a career in programming rather than finishing (or after finishing) a degree."

Are you saying that "computer science" is limited to academia? If so, are you saying science in general is limited to academia? Surely not. Then, are you saying that computer science isn't really a science? That seems reasonable - in that science is all about probing the truths of nature via experimentation (i.e. the scientific method).

I think you have that backwards: it's not that climate deniers have come to distrust science because science has it wrong on global warming; it's that the deniers distrust science, period. Distrusting science, you're "free" to believe whatever you want to.

Unsurprisingly, such people end up believing just those things which it is in their interest to believe.