381–390 of 505 posts
I got to wonder how 11 year old Einstein, Von Neuman, Russell or Dawin would have turned out if they had been subjected to all the extremely compelling distractions that modern day kids encounter, aristocratic tutors and all. How much greek and latin would have been learned with a PS5 in the room? How much of Marcus Aurelius would have been read if young Russell had had a Instagram account and a magic glowing rectang…
Not to mention that science, math, and tech have become even more social and collaborative enterprises with large, sometimes huge, teams involved in making major breakthroughs.
So the article seems to be slightly lamenting that a single charismatic individual cannot corner an entire field in the public imagination any more? Or that they can, but they just do it for being an "entrepreneur"? Or maybe it's just that Elon Musk (for example) can only convince a small minority that he has expertise in any actually "real" field of endeavour (other than grift, PR, whatever) where in the past he may have been able to read a handful of books and sound a lot more convincing. Perhaps we just need to define genius more carefully.
As for whether highly privileged people will again decide to spend their money on tutors (instead of yachts or Rolex watches or whatever else they spend it on) seems to be a question of very niche interest and almost no social consequence.
"If you’re to do anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of people who are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not compelled to waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must have a class of which the members can think and, within the obvious limits, do what they please. You must have a class in which people who have eccentricities ca…
The quality of this thread is really disappointing. Conservatively, about 80% of the replies, criticisms, suggestions, re-framings, here are addressed in the article by the author. About 20% of the replies here are responding to the title alone (and therefore focused on Einstein/progress in hard science). The piece is about the kind of education the children of the aristocracy received and how it has disappeared enti…
"If you’re to do anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of people who are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not compelled to waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must have a class of which the members can think and, within the obvious limits, do what they please. You must have a class in which people who have eccentricities ca…
If you look at the sports world, you will see that its equivalent of tutoring is hugely beneficial and is alive and well. The Williams sisters and their father are one obvious example but if you dig deeper, you will see many more examples. Rafael Nadal was tutored by his uncle. Tiger Woods was tutored by his father. Also, look at coaches. They are often the sons and daughters of coaches. Tutoring allows exploring and…
In fact, talking to someone one on one in any depth will instantly reveal one side's mastery or misunderstading of a subject. One-on-ones for elementary through high school students would be an intersting experiment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not talking about watching videos on the internet. I'm talking about libgen, scihub, MITs entire curriculum for free on the internet, forums and chatrooms to discuss topics with others, and some videos on the internet. And that's just the free ones.
That's still not anywhere near the same though, a tutor is able to figure out what the student is missing through observation and also teach in a way that the student will learn fastest. Whereas any internet resource relies on the student being able to figure out what they themselves don't know and isn't tailor-made for them.
Having a person sit down with you and walk you through everything one on one is great. Having swathes of useful information available to everyone that's interested and determined is a sure way to create a much more highly educated society at a low cost. And as a bonus, geniuses are more able to hone their gifts so you get more of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Distraction is for less focused and less ambitious people. We don't have to look at Einstein level genius. Take a look at the competitive programming the kids there solve puzzles at such speed who are grown in the era of all the distractions. If one can not be genius in this era, there is no way they could have been genius in the past. The other way is not true due to access to knowledge in the past is very much rest…
Alternately, the markers of what makes one a "genius" have changed. In the past, being a genius meant having enough leisure time to spend learning what was a comparably small body of knowledge. Then spending more of that time expanding that knowledge, ultimately transmitting it through a written or spoken medium to a broad body of people. Today we often pay attention to raw skill in a field as a proxy for "genius". W…
Competitive coding is still quite creative, which you contrast with brick-laying where muscle memory instead plays a big part. Perhaps compare instead to middle ages masonry experts who used custom cut rocks to build various curved outer walls and arches.
I agree that competitive coding is less creative generally than many other types of programming - often it is learned pattern matching combined with great quality execution.
If you wanted to know whether people are breaking marathon records in 100 years time, would you rather know the population of the earth or the population of Kenyan and Ethiopian men 25-40?