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Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

blog.withprimer.com

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Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#141

Post by twic »

mc32 wrote: post #19
nathanbarry wrote: post #6

Such a great interview. It's fascinating to see how different education styles can have such a big impact. While homeschooling isn't the right fit for everyone, I was homeschooled and it had a huge impact on me. My habits now for constant learning, working to complete tasks quickly, building projects with my hands (remodeling, woodworking, etc), and my desire to start companies all came from the time and energy that…

One of the biggest advantages as well as disadvantage of homeschooling I think would be limiting the amount of school induced brainwashing. I don’t mean they make kids into automatons, but there is a tendency to _tell_ kids this is right and that is wrong along ideological lines without allowing kids to discover those things for themselves. I’m talking about things like tax policy, education, religion, government, et…

Kids get vastly more indoctrination through homeschooling than at any state school.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#142

Post by realtalk_sp »

scandox wrote: post #9

> But with longevity and other deeply existential problems, the horror of what’s happening has been tragically normalized. I will never understand this attitude. Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? How can we possibly reframe this as a "horror". The horror is this idea that personal identity can go on indefinitely. Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. None of this is being "tragically norm…

The only reason we exist is because our genes "wish" to remain immortal. Not dying is the fullest realization of our biological (and likely only empirically valid) purpose. Science also suggests that consciousness ceases with death. It seems strictly preferable to exist as opposed to not exist. Looked at this way, pursuing immortality is utterly rational. In fact, it's surprising this isn't our highest current priority.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#143

Post by lisper »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #136
lisper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying we should stop people from trying to live longer. I'm saying be careful what you wish for.

I am aware that there are many additional things we'll have to solve as people live longer. Bring them on, they're better than the alternative. And I appreciate that you aren't saying that we should stop people, but others are, and that's a serious problem.

To be clear: I do think it's a bad idea (or at least fraught with all manner of peril), and I do want to stop people, but not by force, but rather by persuading them that it's a bad idea, which is what I'm trying to do here. But if I fail to persuade you, I'm not going to stand in your way.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#144

Post by lliamander »

DavidVoid wrote: post #30
speeder wrote: post #11

I want to homeschool my future kids but it is still illegal in my country (illegal as in: if you attempt it, the government will arrest you and send the kids to an orphanage) Thing is: public schools here outright suck, teach lots of bullshit and are dangerous. Private schools are crazy expensive, and although they are more useful they still teach a lot of bullshit. Also the educational style of all schools here is o…

> illegal as in: if you attempt it, the government will arrest you and send the kids to an orphanage If you repeatedly attempt it I presume? I highly doubt that they'd send your kids to an orphanage after the first offense. > public schools here outright suck, teach lots of bullshit Bullshit such as what? (if I might ask) IMO, although homeschooling is great for some kids, the cons of legalizing it far outweigh the p…

> IMO, although homeschooling is great for some kids, the cons of legalizing it far outweigh the pros. One of the most important aspects of schools is to let kids interact with other kids from different (social, economic, religious, etc.) backgrounds. Homeschooling should be banned for the same reason that religious schools should be banned, i.e., to avoid abuse, indoctrination, and segregation of kids from different (social, economic, religious, etc.) backgrounds.

This statement both doesn't reflect the actual statistics around homeschool and private school outcomes, and makes the false assumption that public schools don't indoctrinate (let alone abuse) their students.

> If we want to allow brighter kids to learn faster then the focus should be on improving schools, not on abandoning them.

Keeping kids (and parents) trapped in a broken system in the hopes that someday the system will be fixed is pointlessly cruel. It also denies public schools one of the most important tools for facilitating improvement: competition.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#145

Post by User23 »

dx87 wrote: post #128
swiley wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was homeschooled and socialized almost exclusively with other homeschoolers as a kid, I was on the fence about it. Then I grew up and met people who went to public school. Holy cow I can’t believe people think it’s ok to put their kids through that! I can’t believe we collectively accept children being exposed to the violence and other problems that are pervasive there! It’s not surprising so many peop…

Crime rates have been dropping for a long time, and you're trying to say that schools are the reason people become criminals. This is honestly one of the most ignorant things I've read in a long time on this site. Maybe if you were allowed to socialize outside of your homeschooled bubble, you wouldn't have that opinion.

The school to prison pipeline is still a major problem. Don’t insult the parent poster for caring about the poor statistical outcomes of urban public school students.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#146

Post by corpMaverick »

1123581321 wrote: post #23
specrux wrote: post #12

Given that her family inherited the Murphy Oil fortune (Tulane's Department of Medicine is named after them), it's not that surprising she would have exemplary homeschooling resources

She doesn’t describe anything expensive or exclusive. Homeschooling typically does not have a cost beyond materials. What struck you as exemplary?

She is sounds very young and she is already a venture capitalist.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#147

Post by lliamander »

realtalk_sp wrote: post #142
scandox wrote: post #9

> But with longevity and other deeply existential problems, the horror of what’s happening has been tragically normalized. I will never understand this attitude. Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? How can we possibly reframe this as a "horror". The horror is this idea that personal identity can go on indefinitely. Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. None of this is being "tragically norm…

The only reason we exist is because our genes "wish" to remain immortal. Not dying is the fullest realization of our biological (and likely only empirically valid) purpose. Science also suggests that consciousness ceases with death. It seems strictly preferable to exist as opposed to not exist. Looked at this way, pursuing immortality is utterly rational. In fact, it's surprising this isn't our highest current priori…

"Genes" remaining immortal is quite distinct from an organism remaining immortal. I would say that death+reproduction is a better solution to preserving genes than immortality.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#148

Post by JoshTriplett »

lisper wrote: post #143
JoshTriplett wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware that there are many additional things we'll have to solve as people live longer. Bring them on, they're better than the alternative. And I appreciate that you aren't saying that we should stop people, but others are, and that's a serious problem.

To be clear: I do think it's a bad idea (or at least fraught with all manner of peril), and I do want to stop people, but not by force, but rather by persuading them that it's a bad idea, which is what I'm trying to do here. But if I fail to persuade you, I'm not going to stand in your way.

And I would like to persuade you to stop that, because I believe that in doing so you're making it marginally more likely that more people will die.

What would it take to convince you that whatever problems you're envisioning, they are not worse than 150,000 people dying every day, or 100 people ever minute? Take whatever value you attach to an individual specific identified human's death, say someone you actually care about dying rather than just a statistic, and try to imagine that happening almost twice a second, forever. There are problems that are still worth considering in comparison to that, but they're few and far between, and they all also involve human lives (e.g. "making the planet uninhabitable"), so they need solving at the same time and nobody is arguing for not solving them.

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#149

Post by Aperocky »

joshfraser wrote: post #131

I was homeschooled and it worked out well for me. You have to be intrinsically motivated and have a deep curiosity about the world. Actually, all kids are born curious but they lose it over time as adults get annoyed with all their questions! I appreciated the freedom to blow an entire day learning about something just because it was interesting. This turned out to be super valuable for my career. Being homeschooled…

Glad it worked out for you, did you eventually went to college or were you completely educated without institutions?

Re: Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

#150

Post by dannykwells »

causality0 wrote: post #112
dannykwells wrote: post #108

"Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being an heiress with nearly infinite resources to pursue her dreams". I think the homeschooling is likely second to being rich in terms of her world view and success.

The article also describes her as a scientist and I'm struggling to figure out why. According to Wikipedia she did lab assistant work at ages 12-13 but dropped out of university after accepting a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship to become a venture capitalist. If she does any actual longevity research work I haven't been able to find it.

Yes exactly. Anyone rich can be a scientist with the right PR. This us the postmodern dystopia we live in. (Alternatively, always has been like that, in some sense.)
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