Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.withprimer.com

31–40 of 214 posts

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

#31
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…

Could you describe what you think the spiritual and mental costs are?

I love life (I've been fortunate to live in health and relative privilege) and would very much prefer an additional 150 years before eternal nothingness, assuming sound mind and body. It's not clear to me what spiritual downsides I would experience.

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

#32
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…

> Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? Because they're horrific tragedies that we should be fighting tooth and nail until they're extinguished and nobody ever has to deal with them again. They should be consigned to the history books. > Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. Aging is a biological problem that we continue to debug. And nothing should make us "come to terms" with being oblitera…

This sort of leaves out the reality that decomposing bodies are a critical part of the ecosystem, and that eliminating death in humans would have huge ecological consequences beyond just the nutrients of decomposing bodies. If/when you have reasonable solutions for overpopulation, massive resource consumption by advanced societies, and pollution, then we can talk about longevity.

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

#33
post #17
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…

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…

> 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 people become criminals now.

But on the flip-side, would you want to go your entire life without facing any conflicts?

FWIW, I was bullied in middle school, and pretty much had to fight my way through. As in fist fighting. As an adult, I don't tolerate any bullshit - and have no problems saying so , if I'm ever in a situation. I'm not sure I'd be the same person, if I hadn't gone through the things I did (not saying that bullying or fighting is good, just that it molded me into a person with extremely low tolerance for BS and a$$holes)

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

#34

This is super interesting! I wonder what other homeschooled people think of their experiences!

If you want an eye-opening, follow https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ for a bit. I've seen some really terrible examples of homeschooling that left people stunted and overwhelmed by the world. The best I've seen is from parents that spent an immense amount of time working with their kids and who went out of their way to expose their kids to ideas that the parents didn't necessarily agree with.

The worst outcome I've seen has been my sister, who is in her thirties and rarely leaves my father's house.

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

#35
>I grew up homeschooled in NZ with a hilariously small amount of context for what the real world was like.

kind of a blunt take here but yeah, homeschooling will do that because its limited to what your parents know. Public schools work to immerse kids in a diverse environment with many people from many different walks of life. they work to build soft skills like empathy, listening, and conflict resolution. she says she taught herself "calculus and probability and statistics, and French literature and history" betraying her heritage. The wealthy are notorious francophiles (Fussell, Paul, "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System")

Homeschooling may have played a part in her success, but money likely played an even more prominent role in getting a twelve year old into UCSF and MIT from half a world away. The average homeschooled kid is much more likely to miss social cues, stumble through a difficult interaction with feckless ineptitude, or even parrot their parents own myopic stereotypes or falsehoods. Schools may teach "bullshit" to some, but they also arm kids with critical thinking skills. the conflicting role of educator, caregiver, and lawgiver projected by homeschool parents virtually guarantees kids will never rise to challenge the education theyre given. Theyll learn only what theyre told.

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

#36
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?

Come off it, she had access to a research lab at age 12! Even she said it's extraordinary.

> I really felt like I got a cheat code to life early on. It was like being Ben Franklin’s daughter or something... When I first met Cynthia Kenyon... I was 12. She very kindly offered for me to just work in her lab as a normal intern,

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

#37
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…

If you don't believe progress can be made, then don't worry about others who strive to make it. Worst case they're wrong. Best case, you're wrong and the whole world moves upward.

Otherwise it's just crab bucket mentality.

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

#38
post #20
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…

Could you possibly share what you mean by "bullshit"? I am genuinely interested in what that entails.

1. Typical stuff that they try to simplify science and thus teach stuff wrong, like the classical each area of tongue has a specific taste receptor thing.

2. Government heavily interfere with what is taught in classrooms regarding some subjects, most notoriously the government is quite heavy handed in anti-monarchy rethoric, I was actually shocked when I was in my 25s and started to find out a lot of stuff I learned as a kid were not just misrepresentations or wrong interpretation of things, but outright lies and propaganda, one interesting example: schooling here blame a lot of slavery on monarchy and nobility in general, meanwhile the monarchs actually wrote anti-slavery essays, and even made a deal with England at the time authorizing them to attack slaver ships, at some point the government even made it clearer, told England to treat all slavers as pirates, and gave them permission to even attack docked slaver ships freely. Also schools here teach government was "absolutist", but it wasn't, only reason monarch was letting england screw with ships, is because whenever he tried to make a law ending slavery, with nobility support, the liberals would vote AGAINST it (and mostly out of stupidity too, farms that stopped using slaves had bigger profits, maintaining the slaves was more expensive than paying the tiny wages they were paying to the immigrants).

3. Schooling here has a sort of mandatory political bias, not just as in... most teachers being left leaning (something kinda normal in most of western world), but as in the government explicity dictating that certain subjects need to base their theories on Antonio Gramsci, there is some infamous youtube videos where right-wing teachers argue against that with public officials, in one of the videos a teacher outright ask an official what about the parents rights to not have the kid be forced to learn that, and the official replies that the state knows best, that if they don't want their kids to be indoctrinated, they have to pull the kids from school, and face the consequences.

4. Schools here also teach a lot of useless stuff, with teachers insisting you will use all of it... but I guess this applies to most of the world.

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

#39
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…

If someone has been artificially kept alive beyond their natural lifespan, and you had the power to reverse the effect such that they instantly died, would that be ethical?

Attempting to preserve the status quo of aging and death is the same thing in a more roundabout way.

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

#40
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?

Homeschooling also generally has cost of lost potential income for the one doing it.
Post reply on HN