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The Lesson to Unlearn

paulgraham.com

11–20 of 588 posts

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#11
I can't find whose quote it is that "the most difficult thing is to teach people to think simply".

Unfortunately education cannot test that, because tests are by definition testing only a fragment of a system. Knowing and understanding one thing end-to-end is meaningful knowledge, and qualitatively better than knowing fragments of 100 things. Perhaps you can assess the former by grading a diploma thesis on a very specific subject. Tests may have an important role in motivating students to delve more deeply in subjects but they don't go beyond that.

There's similarly more value to knowing some technology "end-to-end" rather than specializing in only one level and never understanding what's below.

It's also interesting to read this:

> There are now ways to get rich by doing good work, and that's part of the reason people are so much more excited about getting rich than they used to be.

Which may reflect how things were 15 years ago. There were 2 threads in "Ask HN" last week which basically concluded that these days you're much better off (money wise) working for an uncreative role in FANG.

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#12
It's exactly the same with hiring at FANG/McKinsey/BCG/... :). You optimize for the (well known) interview process. You study 10 hours/day for 2 weeks. And you get the job with 99% accuracy.

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#13

Not sure I agree with this. The real world is very much about optimizing for and beating tests. It might be producing a specific CV or preparing for an interview whiteboard session to land a job. It might be socializing and networking in a specific way in order to land funding. The real world does not commonly reward just being really good at arbitrary things. It's almost always focused on meeting a need that someone…

There is truth to this. It reflects the shift of mentality in tech entrepreneurs since the 2000s (experimentally entrepreneurial, introverted hackers, libertarian) to the 2010s (work for FANG or make a feature that FANG wants to buy, well-curated github and social media, social justice).

I could dare say that this mentality flowed from academia to the greater economy. Academic funding has been generally formalistic and test-driven for decades.

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#15
I think the elephant in the room is the question of purpose. What is the purpose guiding your actions? Getting good grades is a mean that /can/ be necessary to achieve the purpose you have chosen in life. But it’s not sufficient for most purposes. On the other hand, once you have a purpose, you truly make the most of education.

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#16
post #6

This makes me wonder if pg has ever read any of the writings of John Taylor Gatto? Various quotes: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/41319.John_Taylor_Ga...

I feel like he definitely has, he seems like he reads a lot and Gatto is not unpopular for people with thoughts on school

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#17
post #12

It's exactly the same with hiring at FANG/McKinsey/BCG/... :). You optimize for the (well known) interview process. You study 10 hours/day for 2 weeks. And you get the job with 99% accuracy.

The artificiality (?) is what gets to me tbh

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#18
post #11

I can't find whose quote it is that "the most difficult thing is to teach people to think simply". Unfortunately education cannot test that, because tests are by definition testing only a fragment of a system. Knowing and understanding one thing end-to-end is meaningful knowledge, and qualitatively better than knowing fragments of 100 things. Perhaps you can assess the former by grading a diploma thesis on a very spe…

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Gordian_Knot

Re: The Lesson to Unlearn

#20
My wife and I are contemplating unschooling our kids. The longer our son is in primary school, the more we see the deterioration of his willingness to learn anything school-related. He hates homework (as do most kids), and this is even more painful to see given that it has been shown that homework is essentially useless for learning performance. He still likes to write and do math, but as long as he is in school, we have to take care that his interest doesn’t go south.

During school holidays, he actually starts to do school exercises for fun; those are the very same exercises he would fight against doing for hours on a regular school day. Go figure.

Btw, Gates, Page, Brin - all were not in a conventional school. The capacity to just build things without fear of being judged is invaluable.

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