in the 21st century, we are flooded with enormous amounts of information, and the censors don’t even try to block it. Instead, they are busy spreading misinformation or distracting us with irrelevancies. If you live in some provincial Mexican town and have a smartphone, you can spend many lifetimes just reading Wikipedia, watching TED Talks, and taking free online courses. No government can hope to conceal all the information it doesn’t like. On the other hand, it is alarmingly easy to inundate the public with conflicting reports and red herrings.
That quote should be filed under “Martin Gurri watch.” But what I really want to get to in this post is Harari’s thoughts on the implication of accelerating cultural evolution. He implicitly agrees that the future belongs to auto-didacts.
Unfortunately, teaching kids to embrace the unknown while maintaining their mental balance is far more difficult than teaching them an equation in physics or the causes of the First World War. You cannot learn resilience by reading a book or listening to a lecture. Teachers themselves usually lack the mental flexibility that the 21st century demands since they themselves are the product of the old educational system.
…So the best advice I can give a 15-year-old stuck in an outdated school somewhere in Mexico, India, or Alabama is: don’t rely on the adults too much. Most of them mean well, but they just don’t understand the world. In the past, it was a relatively safe bet to follow the adults, because they knew the world quite well, and the world changed slowly. But the 21st century is going to be different. Because of the increasing pace of change, you can never be certain whether what the adults are telling you is timeless wisdom or outdated bias.
My advice to 15-year-olds is to treat what I have to say as timeless wisdom, even though I am at an age where I probably lack mental flexibility and what I write may come across as outdated bias.
Another elderly person with timeless wisdom is Peggy Noonan, who writes,
Avoid elite universities if you can; they’re too often indoctrination mills anyway. Aim at smaller, second-tier colleges, places of low-key harmony, religiously affiliated when possible—and get a real education. Every school has a library. Every library has books. That’s what you need.
If you missed her piece, entitled “Kids, Don’t Become Success Robots,” be sure to read it.
Another elderly person with timeless wisdom is Peggy Noonan, who writes,
Avoid elite universities if you can; they’re too often indoctrination mills anyway. Aim at smaller, second-tier colleges, places of low-key harmony, religiously affiliated when possible—and get a real education. Every school has a library. Every library has books. That’s what you need.
———
68 not really elderly. Yeah, who wants higher wages, better jobs prospects , and connections. Even crappy schools indoctrinate, as the Bret Weinstein Evergreen College scandal showed. 90-97% of high school grads aren’t smart enough to get into a tier one school anyway, so it’s not like the have much of a choice in the matter.
If I could have gotten into Harvard I would have. And so would virtually everyone else I went to my nice expensive private (formerly) religiously affiliated college with.
Kids hardly need more encouragement to ignore their elders. Moreover, “old folks” in technology-related jobs have long needed to be autodidacts, so that requirement is nothing new. It’s conceivable, then, that they may have learned a thing or two about it and can give 15-year olds useful advice.
Avoid elite universities if you can; they’re too often indoctrination mills anyway. Aim at smaller, second-tier colleges, places of low-key harmony, religiously affiliated when possible—and get a real education.
Peggy Noonan like David Brooks, going after this kinder gentler capitalism is complete nonsense and it seems the libertarian in you should know better. And if you think leftist going after this is wrong, then why believe in conservative writers? I think is a lot of wishing that local communities matter, and they are giving the wrong advise to young people.
For all the complaints about indoctrination of young people by High Schools and Colleges, the main thing my kids High School is drilling in their heads is:
You need to develop all the skills you can, especially in technology, because the job you will have in 20 years most likely does not exist today. And that seems like the one of the better messages of the future of the world.
But are they also drilling that those skills can only be developed in an accredited academic program?
Are they drilling that any skills you develop in an accredited academic program are, by virtue of being included in an accredited program, useful to those future jobs?
It seems weird that you are posing these as questions.
Is this something you have direct observation of? If that’s true, then that’s both good to know and alarming.
Otherwise, its just projected negativity and not helpful.
I pose them as questions because I am interested in what Collin has to say.
I was a high school teacher for seven years in the 2000s and 2010s. My impression was that my students were scared that they would not get “good jobs” and that the only way to avoid that was to go to school for a long time.
High school (and middle school) teachers tell their students that what they are studying is useful. It is hard to go into a math classroom without seeing a poster something like this, “Think you don’t need math? Think again?”
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Think-you-dont-need-Math-FREE-poster-318067
Textbooks often include attempts to convince students of the usefulness of what the text is about. And, of course, everyone knows that no matter whether you actually use the course material or not, passing the course is necessary to get a diploma, and without a diploma, you’re screwed, so it is extremely useful to learn enough long enough to pass.
“You need to develop all the skills you can, especially in technology, because the job you will have in 20 years most likely does not exist today. And that seems like the one of the better messages of the future of the world.”
To me, that is the crux of a lot of educational problems today. It was once great advice, but now it doesn’t make sense.
Instead, I would recommend that kids coming out of high school start by choosing a concise career direction, then decide on how to prepare for it, mindful of both cost-effectiveness and duration. It isn’t a life sentence, it is a 5-10 year decision. If you can’t decide, work for a year or two at something until you can.
Once you have gotten a foothold working in that path, it is critical to constantly reassess your skills, and prepare for an alternative step as you go. You need to prepare for a changes in conditions, and have the capacity to adapt.
Pre-educating one’s self without any directional certainty for the ultra narrow and deep skills needed in future job markets is an expensive mistake.
“Pre-educating one’s self without any directional certainty for the ultra narrow and deep skills needed in future job markets is an expensive mistake.”
Exactly. My company used to spend a lot of money sending people to formal training. Now, it’s just expected that you’ll pick up the skills you need when you need them.
It strikes me the worst problem with planned career change from early 30ish is that is when people are suppose to get married and have children.
So at the exact moment when somebody is suppose to have a career change is at a moment when they are least able to deal with these changes due to family constraints.
I don’t think that someone should assume they will have to change their careers then, especially if they put in the work to keep current. They only need to recognize that they might have to, and that they need to keep a rolling plan B.
There was a phrase someone came up with “Proud Provincials” that described progressives abroad, but also generally meant “second tier wannabe progressives”. Essentially, second tier mediocre progressives are even worse than first tier progressives, and what you are going to get at mediocre college X isn’t lack of indoctrination, but an even dumber form of indoctrination. “Four legs good, two legs bad” tier progressivism.
Also, I’m not sure religious affiliation matters. Most religiously affiliated schools are either “not actually religious”, “liberation theology religious”, or “cuck-ianity religious.” How the Covington Catholic school handled children under their care during the five minutes hate shows how useful those places are.
“cuck-ianity” This is the first, and I hope last, time I have encountered that term. May it go in the trash can of insults, like “Rethuglican”.
Do you understand the meaning behind the present political usage of “cuck”?
The idea is that some cultures and civilizations and ethnic groups are tricked into nurturing and helping other groups only to be replaced by them in a similar fashion that some birds are tricked into nurturing and raising Cuckoo birds that aren’t their own.
It’s a goofy immature label that makes conservatives look like 13-year-old boys.
Of course it is immature. I personally have never used that language.
I’m sympathetic because it expresses a common, reasonable viewpoint that is being suppressed. No one can stop anyone from writing that viewpoint, but anyone that does is removed from any position of influence or authority.
You would never read the more intelligent version of that viewpoint in any print magazine or from a professor who keeps his employment at any university.
> Every school has a library. Every library has books. That’s what you need.
Printed paper books are not the unique value of universities. If that’s what you want, go to amazon.com. The unique value of the universities is the human motivation factors on top of the knowledge in the textbooks. They provide human peers, human coaches, sense of progress and accomplishment and social validation for spending hundreds of hours studying textbooks and doing practice problems and taking tests. Even auto-didacts need these human motivation factors.
A great analogy is adult fitness + exercise. Many adults do exericse in solitary fashion; but group exercise often makes it easier to stay motivated and push yourself.
Before I got admitted to a good university in my 20s, I personally read math textbooks cover to cover, and pushed myself to struggle through practice problems from every chapter, to make sure I was getting the full value and education experience that I would have gotten from a traditional class. After I got admitted to university, I’ve taken advanced math classes (and other STEM) there: I learn 100% from the book, never from the lectures. I feel the lectures often speed through the material, and I need to work through the material at my own pace. But merely seeing other human peers working through the same material is helpful and motivating. All the content is 100% in the textbook, but the motivational factors that the university offers are very important.
I disagree with Kling: the future belongs to the hyper motivated workaholics, not merely the auto-didact weirdos that avoid any groups and institutions.
Another road to success is to become a network “hub.” As people become more specialized, those who can serve as links between silos become more valuable. Breadth, rather than depth, of knowledge is what’s needed for this function.
The future belongs to the auto-didacts. The future belongs to those who learn how to study rather than hone their gameshow “education” of rapid isolated fact response.
To study is to consider multiple sources, to study is to pass judgement and try to organize the information, to study is to develop your own opinion before considering those of others.
One thing compulsory, public, education, and often even higher education, won’t teach students is how to study. It’s sink or swim. And if the kid falters, the education systems emphasis on age competition instills “I can’t” in the student, or at a minimum, “I’m to far behind”.
I’ve mentioned “How to Study and Teaching How to Study (1909) by F. M. McMurry, Professor of Elementary Education, Teachers College, Columbia University”.
Here are a few excerpts that I believe apply here:
One could speculate that poorer area students are likely to do worse in becoming educated because they are so often not exposed to someone who demonstrates proper studying. Even if we were to presume a teacher has the skills, unlikely, the skill is not one the student sees unless they have a personal relationship with the teacher outside the classroom.
“… the future belongs to auto-didacts.”
This has been true for at least the last 20 years – at least in the field of computers. Where has everyone been?
Avoid elite universities if you can; they’re too often indoctrination mills anyway. Aim at smaller, second-tier colleges, places of low-key harmony, religiously affiliated when possible—and get a real education. Every school has a library. Every library has books. That’s what you need.
In some ways, though, this advice puts a ceiling on what you can achieve. You will never become a Supreme Court Justice, for example. I think it’s highly unlike you will be able to successfully run for national political office. Similarly, a lot of the biggest and most prestigious companies are going to look askance at you, and you’ll have to work a lot harder to stand out.
I think Ms. Noonan’s advice raises the student’s floor, but it also does lower the ceiling, and that needs to be acknowledged and taken into consideration.
I am tempted to say something else, which is a different strategy.
“Strive to become securely employed, as early in your career as possible, at a public sector institution that cannot go bankrupt, and which will not be permitted to go bankrupt, and from which you can retire as early as possible with a defined benefit pension.” In other words, “don’t learn to code, but get a teaching certificate and work at a public school.”
Or here’s more pushback: “Don’t become an engineer, become a cop.”
Both those career paths would have worked out better for some age cohorts, depending on what city and state you lived in, and who your private sector employer would have been, and whether the employer would have stayed in business rather than going bankrupt.
Nursing as an RN is another job strategy that might work out.
I guess what I’m saying is it’s an empirical question. I’d like to see the data, rather than simply assuming that one strategy is superior. You can study nursing at State U–you needn’t go to an Ivy or even a Flagship State U.
Cops often suffer from “moral insult” as they see a lot of bad things. Read _400 things cops know_ by Plantinga for details. Nurses and cops both work weird hours and nurses often injure their backs.
I think the advice we are discussing so far in this thread is for academically promising people who are smart enough to study academically demanding fields, often willing to work in the private sector, and risk neutral, so that job security is not crucially important. They are comfortable with having to move geographically in middle age, and perhaps switch careers altogether.
Society needs those people–academically curious and driven risk neutral strivers. I’m not certain it’s for everybody.
Not untrue, but you should consider Mises’ ‘Bureaucracy’ for a sense of where such a way of life leads
Nice quote–thanks for sharing it.
I think it’s more complicated–large goverment entities probably offer more room for imagination and initiative during wars and crises.
As I look back on what I wrote, much of it has to do with the “product cycle” or the life span of a large enterprise (public or private). There’s a time when things are in flux and various challenges are being faced. Then there’s a time when things run according to routine.
Also, I’m not certain that I look down on public school teachers–I’ve had some very good ones. It can be a demanding job and provide considerable scope for talents. The variable I was looking at was *job security* including the security of the retirement package and the stability of the work schedule.
The job security comes from the local monopoly, staffing practices, shielding from competition, guaranteed customers (the next cohort of students).
Similarly with nursing, it’s not that nurses don’t do anything. They save lives, or extend them, based on conscientiousness and noticing when things are going badly. Every day can be different for an emergency room nurse.
I was making broad generalizations. A better analysis would be more “granular,” looking at specific jobs and titles and functions and firms, public or private–and skipping the broad generalizations.