And what America needs second-most is for people to recognize the toolkits of >rationality and appreciate their power.
I think one related problem is that people view the goal of becoming educated and intelligent in roughly the same way as they view the goal of becoming good at sports. In typical tournament-style contests, it’s the winners who reap most of the benefits. There’s no benefit to becoming a good tennis player in absolute terms; there’s only a benefit to becoming one of the best tennis players. If you’re one of the worst tennis players, you’re not going to have much of an incentive to improve; it makes more sense to just give up and cut your losses.
In terms of education and rationality, the opposite is true. Education will make your life better, even if you are never good enough to be one of the top 10%. But most people don’t realize this and so they have no desire to educate themselves.
Note: I thought this was an interesting post with several nice points, but it’s a bit disorganized. I think you’d be better off to examine each small point (e.g. the one about physics tainting the other sciences) in finer detail.
I don’t think most people think about either sports or education that way. Most Americans start college. I’m not sure what they think they’re getting out of it and I’m pretty sure their ideas of learning are entangled with credentials, but the ones in community colleges certainly don’t think that they’re in the top 10% of a tournament. I don’t think that they realize that credentials are zero-sum, either.
Maybe 10% or fewer make a really prestigious team in their high school or college, but a lot more than 10% gain the status benefits of being jocks, at least in high school. I think that outside the really popular sports, the number of slots is not fixed, so becoming the marginal jock is not a zero-sum game. Moreover, I think that most athletes can identify general skills (eg, teamwork) that they gain from sports, while most people cannot tell what they’re supposed to be getting out of education.
I think one related problem is that people view the goal of becoming educated and intelligent in roughly the same way as they view the goal of becoming good at sports. In typical tournament-style contests, it’s the winners who reap most of the benefits. There’s no benefit to becoming a good tennis player in absolute terms; there’s only a benefit to becoming one of the best tennis players. If you’re one of the worst tennis players, you’re not going to have much of an incentive to improve; it makes more sense to just give up and cut your losses.
In terms of education and rationality, the opposite is true. Education will make your life better, even if you are never good enough to be one of the top 10%. But most people don’t realize this and so they have no desire to educate themselves.
Note: I thought this was an interesting post with several nice points, but it’s a bit disorganized. I think you’d be better off to examine each small point (e.g. the one about physics tainting the other sciences) in finer detail.
I don’t think most people think about either sports or education that way. Most Americans start college. I’m not sure what they think they’re getting out of it and I’m pretty sure their ideas of learning are entangled with credentials, but the ones in community colleges certainly don’t think that they’re in the top 10% of a tournament. I don’t think that they realize that credentials are zero-sum, either.
Maybe 10% or fewer make a really prestigious team in their high school or college, but a lot more than 10% gain the status benefits of being jocks, at least in high school. I think that outside the really popular sports, the number of slots is not fixed, so becoming the marginal jock is not a zero-sum game. Moreover, I think that most athletes can identify general skills (eg, teamwork) that they gain from sports, while most people cannot tell what they’re supposed to be getting out of education.