Mark and Sarah King are the web admins and claim to have been designated to stay behind on the away mission to continue to spread their message. Although there’s still some contention around them from ex members that left before they all put on the white suits, laced up their Nikes, and drank the kool aid.

I vaguely remember a documentary where they were interviewed but can’t recall many specifics. There was also a sub reddit that (supposed) ex-members used to post in and many of them had a bone to pick with Mark and Sarah King about some of their claims.

What information are professors giving you that you can’t get anywhere else?

It’s more the experience of learning from someone that is highly experienced in their field. They can guide you through multiple sources, and help understand your misconceptions and correct them. There’s also the advantage of having a question about a source and having someone who can help bring more context, and additional sources, to the discussion quickly. There’s just a lot that I personally gained from learning from another professional and I don’t think there’s a ton of on the job training, or independent study, that gets you that sort of intellectual understanding nearly as effectively.

Maybe my educational experience varies greatly from yours? There’s just an absolute ton I learned in college that wouldn’t have been nearly as efficient, quick, broad, or dense compared to doing independent study. I think that’s probably mostly true for most people in most fields as well. Having the experience of learning from someone that has already experienced many pitfalls of learning a subject is quite valuable.

I think you have some wires crossed somewhere because I didn’t say the thing you quoted me as saying here:

everything they teach should come from a source other than the professor.

I’m not sure how to rebuttal this section because it seems to rest on the fact that I said the aforementioned quote.

However, none of that requires college in order to learn. It’s honestly something that our parents should be teaching us, because it’s relevant to considerably more than history.

I will say I think it’s incredibly silly to put the burden of learning a highly specific subject on your parents. There’s just no way for anyone’s parents to give you a complete understanding of any field out there that’s comparable to someone who has devoted decades to a highly specific subject. That’s just incredibly naive and honestly gave me a chuckle.

You have a very poor understanding of how to learn history and what historians do professionally. I only have a history minor but know several professional historians. What you’re describing is a historian hobbiest. Ironically this misconception is one that a lot of people clear up by going to college.

College didn’t just teach me about history, that’s just one of the many things I learned there. The biggest thing I learned was strategies for learning (learned how to learn better), and that learning from an expert in their field can accelerate that learning more than most other methods.

The rest of your gripe seems to be misplaced understanding of what happens at a normal undergraduate institution and cost of education. I don’t think I can approach your misunderstandings in this format, but as for cost of education? Give me a piece of paper that says college should be free for everyone and I’ll sign it. The only thing I personally paid for to go to college was food. I don’t think starving was really an option for 3.5 years so I probably would’ve had to pay for that anyway.

Dunno what college you’re talking about but that was one of the first places where I learned history without a incredible spin. Was also taught that a lot of history is/was written by the victors in their favor and how to approach the study of history to try and remove some of those biases.

Maybe some institutions are shitty at teaching, and slant one way or the other, but I don’t think that’s the norm.

I like the idea of referring to Pol Pot as “some asshole.”

I still don’t get how it isn’t a gay hookup. How are you supposed to read it?