Ramblings

A couple thoughts -

• modern society is premised on efficiency, yet our education is so horribly inefficient. the idea of liberal education, while well intentioned, is mostly offset by fake news and misinformation on the media, and more recently a profound lack of intellectual leadership from high academic institutions. the modern system confuses knowledge with learning to act like aristocracy, confuses trade skills with curiosity about the world, and confuses well rounded education with classism. I suspect, given the troubles with maintaining GDP growth in first world economies, they would be helped immensely by putting things into their proper place: encourage free sharing of all knowledge; allow specialization into trade skills early and making it a first class choice (instead of expecting it to happen in university); and market universities for what they actually are – places where people grind a treadmill to become something they were not born to be. The productivity gain from people not wasting 20 years of their lives can be immense (imagine routinely see people having 10 years of industry experience by age 25!), and removing those people from the pool would free up resources for those who actually want/need resources from traditional high school and universities.

• In history we tend to attribute failures of historical figures to hubris, pride and arrogance. As if they were negative traits. But very often, the fact that they were driven to challenge themselves and refuse to imagine a ceiling in their abilities put them into history books in the first place. Ambitious and able people are fated to fail at the height of their achievements. We know their limits by the power of hindsight, but they do not. If people did not risk failure, we would never know how great they might become. Failure stories of historical figures should be read as success stories.