> What benefit are individuals who have not been appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self-sufficiency?

This ideology sounds an awful lot like fascism to me, or maybe some kind of psychopathy.

If you start looking around at the highest-leverage contributions to humanity throughout history, a disproportionate number of them come from people who weren’t “appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self sufficiency” (typically without getting anything for their trouble beyond satisfying their own curiosity). So if all you care about is some kind of personal benefit, then someone (often a teacher) nurturing and encouraging those people has been directly responsible for a significant part of your material well being.

But many of us recognize humans as ends in themselves, rather than tools for our personal aggrandizement or slaves to the collective.

I don't think it's psychopathic or fascist to expect that individuals be able to sustain themselves. Nor do I believe it's right to enslave the collective in order to provide a cushion on which those who fail to do so may land. I don't think it just to mandate the protection of people from the full consequences of their own misfortune, failure, or inadequacy. This is the domain of (voluntary) charity.

If you take a harder look at the disproportionate contributors you mention, you'll find that they were motivated to persist at problems for very long hours, often for many years without respite, and for very little reward beyond satisfying their own impulses. None of this indicates poor work ethic, or a reluctance to take responsibility for one's own actions and their consequences.

Individuals can sustain themselves without needing to be forced to spend their entire childhoods attending educational institutions.

There is proof of this everywhere. The vast majority of humans throughout history never engaged in such a system, and plenty of contemporary humans don't either.

What is your ideology?

> The vast majority of humans throughout history never engaged in such a system

It's true, in previous eras children were put straight to work as soon as they were useful. This has been true in every agrarian society across all cultures. Society increased in complexity to the point that it's quite hard to become an independent adult if you go straight to work as a young child, hence the need for an education. However the goal has always been the same: condition yourself (skills, mindset, habits, behaviour, etc.) as required to become a functional, independent contributor to society.

What is new and unusual is the idea that children should have a "childhood" of recreation, protected from the realities of work and life.

Attending an educational institution as a child is much preferable to working on a farm, or in a mine, don't you think?

I don’t know, it is entirely different to sort of become an addict of a specific problem until you solve it vs the day-to-day’s life work addict.

There are plenty of geniuses who did terribly in work/academia, etc, or who were literally outcasts from society.

Children are agents. And children / adults aren't a binary thing, they progress along a spectrum and if we never give them the ability to make their own choices how on earth do we expect them to be independent adults?

Why do we need non-conformists? I don't care about what you need or what society needs. You lack compassion for the individual.

They aren't hurting anyone by choosing a different life path. They can survive the world just fine without having the official educational path shoved down their throat.

> Children are agents

Not really? They don't get to make their own decisions about any meaningful aspect of their lives, and can be lawfully imprisoned, punished, and controlled by their parents. Children have just a few more rights than pets. This has been true for all of history.

> And children / adults aren't a binary thing

Yes, they are. Off the top of my head: once you are legally able to make and be held responsible for your own decisions, can't be punitively confined against your will without due process, are able to enter into legal agreements, and do not need a guardian, you are an adult. Until then, you are a child. These things normally happen around the age of majority, which is 18 in most places [1].

I'm not suggesting that children never be given the opportunity to make their own choices, quite the opposite in fact. I'm suggesting that children be conditioned to the realities of work and life from an early age. The capability to tolerate dull, monotonous, boring work is essential to accomplish just about anything. This is the skill of delaying gratification, and its importance can hardly be overstated.

> They can survive the world just fine without having the official educational path shoved down their throat.

Just how much education do you think is optional to "survive in the world just fine"? Literacy? Numeracy?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shawn

> Why do we need these, exactly? What benefit are individuals who have not been appropriately conditioned to work, suffering, and self-sufficiency?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

In loud stage whisper: He's a 'libertarian'

Doesn't sound libertarian at all. Most libertarians hate the modern education system and hate the fact that we treat children like slaves.

Libertarians are all about individuals making their own choices regardless of whether or not that's the optimal outcome for society as a whole.

This dude is the opposite, a total collectivist.

We're on a forum called "Hacker News". Would you consider hackers to fit better into the conformist or non-conformist category?

Most hackers nowadays are extremely conformist, particularly within the SV startup culture from which Hacker News originates.