Right, let’s get started. Ten years sounds like a nice round number, but is it optimal? To answer that first we need to consider what age children to admit. We want them young enough to become fluent in English quickly; all the high paying jobs are in English speaking countries, barring Asia—should we consider teaching Chinese as well? Maybe, but let’s think about that later. To ensure they still have a wide range of pronounceable phonemes, they should be younger than seven. The younger the better, though, and we don’t want them to learn wrong things we’ll have to reteach, so before schooling age: at the maximum, five. Should we go younger, though?
Well, what do children learn from their families? Affection might be one, assuming they’re from an affectionate family. If they live in a culture where many children are the norm, then they may learn responsibility as well. They may also learn abuse, if that’s their family culture. Perhaps they’ll gain life experience? I’m not confident about that. Well, if we go younger, then how young? Pre-bowel control training? Certainly not pre-solid foods; breast-feeding will contribute to their IQ. Children learn from anything and everything pre-four or so—this could be an advantage for language learning but also a waste of resources if they’ll be learning in their home environments anyway. I want to move on, so let’s settle on 3~5 for now.
How long to teach them for? Assuming efficient teaching and excellent recall of learnt material, from three to thirteen may be enough, but we have puberty to consider. Should we keep them in an environment with similarly aged children? I don’t think that’s the right question, as it assumes similarly aged children are naturally nasty to each other around puberty. This gets into teaching structure, but assuming curriculum can be ability gated rather than age gated, children of different ages will all work together; I don’t imagine an age gap of greater than three years, though, considering they should all be gifted—responsibility may not be an effect.*
Oh! In the absence of parents, the younger children might need emotional support. Older children can provide that! The school structure could accommodate this by rooming older children with younger children, or just naturally bringing them together for activities. The first generation will need adult role models in order to jumpstart the cycle.
The school should have a library—humanities will be included for pleasure reading. To promote easy bonding via shared interests, publicly listed clubs will be encouraged to the exclusion of the formation of cliques. An older child rearing younger child social dynamic may contribute to this atmosphere.
A caveat: beware the ‘utopian society’ experimental villages. We should look at cultures that have the desired values already, and use them as foundations.
* That was a bit of a tangent—sorry about that. So, if they won’t tear each other apart emotionally during puberty, should we still keep them? Teens started working when in their low teens in the past, but whether they can handle a present day adult job I’m unsure. Oh, right, I’ve been presuming we’ll teach them everything they’d learn at university plus possibly more. Social experiences must be included in that, so maybe they should stay on—if only just to work on original projects.
We could use some parents of the children for security—but must not allow them access to the kids as they are unnecessary confounds. I’m thinking of a large gated complex hundreds of acres in circumference for physical activities and to diminish any feeling of being trapped. I’m thinking a country without an armed militia, militant group, or bothersome government would be ideal. Eurasia might have some candidates, but I’m not sure how fertile the land is, and Russia and China have bothersome governments. South America, perhaps? Is there a governmentally stable African country with fertile, undeveloped land? PR of Congo comes to mind, but I don’t know much about their government’s politics.
That’s enough for now—if I come back to this, I’ll write below the line.
This. I’ve been known to say that if I were a billionaire, my third priority would be building a ridiculous castle and living out my days as an eccentric headmaster.
This belies the more down-to-Earth intention that if, after looking into it in more detail, FAI and life extension both seem like they’ll be insufficient in my lifetime to prevent biological death (even if not information theoretic death), investing in injecting sanity (even if concentrated in a fewworld-beaters) into the world would be a likely next priority. (Cf. MIRI, CFAR.) So I’m definitely interested in the idea of rational!Academy.
Right, let’s get started. Ten years sounds like a nice round number, but is it optimal? To answer that first we need to consider what age children to admit. We want them young enough to become fluent in English quickly; all the high paying jobs are in English speaking countries, barring Asia—should we consider teaching Chinese as well? Maybe, but let’s think about that later.
To ensure they still have a wide range of pronounceable phonemes, they should be younger than seven. The younger the better, though, and we don’t want them to learn wrong things we’ll have to reteach, so before schooling age: at the maximum, five. Should we go younger, though?
Well, what do children learn from their families? Affection might be one, assuming they’re from an affectionate family. If they live in a culture where many children are the norm, then they may learn responsibility as well. They may also learn abuse, if that’s their family culture. Perhaps they’ll gain life experience? I’m not confident about that.
Well, if we go younger, then how young? Pre-bowel control training? Certainly not pre-solid foods; breast-feeding will contribute to their IQ. Children learn from anything and everything pre-four or so—this could be an advantage for language learning but also a waste of resources if they’ll be learning in their home environments anyway. I want to move on, so let’s settle on 3~5 for now.
How long to teach them for? Assuming efficient teaching and excellent recall of learnt material, from three to thirteen may be enough, but we have puberty to consider. Should we keep them in an environment with similarly aged children? I don’t think that’s the right question, as it assumes similarly aged children are naturally nasty to each other around puberty. This gets into teaching structure, but assuming curriculum can be ability gated rather than age gated, children of different ages will all work together; I don’t imagine an age gap of greater than three years, though, considering they should all be gifted—responsibility may not be an effect.*
Oh! In the absence of parents, the younger children might need emotional support. Older children can provide that! The school structure could accommodate this by rooming older children with younger children, or just naturally bringing them together for activities. The first generation will need adult role models in order to jumpstart the cycle.
The school should have a library—humanities will be included for pleasure reading. To promote easy bonding via shared interests, publicly listed clubs will be encouraged to the exclusion of the formation of cliques. An older child rearing younger child social dynamic may contribute to this atmosphere.
A caveat: beware the ‘utopian society’ experimental villages. We should look at cultures that have the desired values already, and use them as foundations.
* That was a bit of a tangent—sorry about that. So, if they won’t tear each other apart emotionally during puberty, should we still keep them? Teens started working when in their low teens in the past, but whether they can handle a present day adult job I’m unsure. Oh, right, I’ve been presuming we’ll teach them everything they’d learn at university plus possibly more. Social experiences must be included in that, so maybe they should stay on—if only just to work on original projects.
We could use some parents of the children for security—but must not allow them access to the kids as they are unnecessary confounds. I’m thinking of a large gated complex hundreds of acres in circumference for physical activities and to diminish any feeling of being trapped. I’m thinking a country without an armed militia, militant group, or bothersome government would be ideal. Eurasia might have some candidates, but I’m not sure how fertile the land is, and Russia and China have bothersome governments. South America, perhaps? Is there a governmentally stable African country with fertile, undeveloped land? PR of Congo comes to mind, but I don’t know much about their government’s politics.
That’s enough for now—if I come back to this, I’ll write below the line.
Upvoted. This is a quite interesting thought experiment, and maybe even worth a post of its own. I encourage you to write more on this subject.
This. I’ve been known to say that if I were a billionaire, my third priority would be building a ridiculous castle and living out my days as an eccentric headmaster.
This belies the more down-to-Earth intention that if, after looking into it in more detail, FAI and life extension both seem like they’ll be insufficient in my lifetime to prevent biological death (even if not information theoretic death), investing in injecting sanity (even if concentrated in a few world-beaters) into the world would be a likely next priority. (Cf. MIRI, CFAR.) So I’m definitely interested in the idea of rational!Academy.