[ExI] Teaching kids was roboburgers to go

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 11:43 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> On 2013-09-27 16:42, Keith Henson wrote:
>
>> Robert Heinlein was a major influence in my life. There is a list of
>> skills in _Time Enough for Love_ "A human being should be able to change a
>> diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building,
>> write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the
>> dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations,
>> analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal,
>> fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." I can,
>> and have, done most of those. Those I have not, such as "plan an invasion"
>> just have not come up in my life. I have, however, done every single step
>> in making bread. For a few years I made virtually all the bread the family
>> ate. (It was a sink for the excess eggs from the chickens and ducks.)
>>
>
> That quote is one of the main inspirations for me to study nearly
> everything. Still not even close to doing all of that, but it is early days.
>

One of my favorite books of all time. Everyone on this list should take the
time to read it if they can.


> Actually planning on having a long and eventful life leads to some
> interesting considerations. One is that you will likely find yourself in
> situations for which you are not trained, yet will need to adapt quickly -
> having a broad knowledge base and enough fluid intelligence (or some
> substitute, like chutzpah) is essential. You will outlive people,
> institutions and nations - make sure you are not devastated by that. Even
> if events like world wars or 1917 flu-style pandemics have a return time of
> once per century, you have a decent chance of experiencing them. There are
> going to be long tail events on both the plus and minus side, and being
> able to catch the plus events when they happen is important - they rarely
> come around again, whether they are a photo opportunity or a financial
> windfall. You will also miss plenty of opportunities and not have the time
> to ingest all relevant information, but it is better than the alternative
> (too few opportunities and little relevant stuff). Not figuring out what
> you want (and why) means that you are less likely to get it.


I take a few hours a day to sip gently from the fire hose of knowledge.
Keeping broad is really difficult. I appreciate what this list does in
keeping me abreast of so many things.

-Kelly
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20130929/fe8764e2/attachment.html>