[ExI] today's news

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Mon Nov 1 16:21:30 UTC 2021


...> On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat


On Mon, November 1, 2021 11:15, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
wrote:
>>... "Let's punish the winners."

(snips)

>>... The gifted and talented will succeed anyway in all probability...
>

>...... unless the gifted and talented are so bored or turned off that they
go to bad behaviour or drugs.  I saw that with one of my kids... even in a
select school, bored bored bored.  Near the top of the class, scholarships
to college - bored bored bored.  Dropped out, never finished school, doing
manual & non-technical work now age 40s.    At least working & currently
self-supporting, for which I am exceedingly grateful.

Regards,
MB

_______________________________________________



BillW and MB, it appears we (as a society and as a planet) are struggling
with the notion that everyone is the same, that all differences can be
somehow educated away and classes will graduate all with comparable skills
and knowledge base.  In reality, students are very different in ability, and
are diverging faster than ever, as some rely on the (failing) school system
to spoon feed them what they need to know, while others go online to find
the excellent educational opportunities available there free.  Some students
find use the hell outta those resources (thank you a million times Sal Khan
(may you achieve whatever is the atheist version of sainthood while yet you
live (what is the atheist's version of sainthood?)))  

I see actual engineering courses available online which is equivalent to, or
really I would say superior to the college education I paid good money for,
tragically many decades ago, and it is free as a bird.  This is an example,
a particularly good one:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm5mt-A4w61lknZ9lCsZtBw

...and this is a lecture from Steve's collection introducing classical
controls:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7l8mMjYVE

...but there are others like Steve, so if one is driven and focused, and if
one does Khan Academy (for instance) to gobble up the equivalent of a high
school diploma, one can take these free online courses and have a very
competent education for zero money invested, never leaving home, regardless
of one's ethnic background, nationality, political views, economic
situation, orientation or gender.

In our times, higher education went from being the domain of the privileged
to something anyone can have.

spike



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