point out that most adults can’t actually do algebra or calculus, and that these skills are almost never used even by professionals who CAN do them, such as engineers, on a regular basis.
This is true, but this information outside of proper context could hurt them, so it should be emphasised that this is not a Fully General Counterargument against learning anything. It is okay to not learn something if you are learning something better instead. (Insert specific examples of things that are better, and things that might seem cool but are not actually better.)
Also, for the “teacher’s password” subjects, your options are not only “learn everything” and “ignore completely”. For example, you can just put all the teachers’ passwords in Anki, remember as much as Anki makes you, and ignore the rest… this would probably still allow you to get decent score and take relatively little time. (And you get some meta-skills by doing this.) This could be useful to avoid some conflicts with your teachers or parents, if they hate the idea of you strategically ignoring a subject.
concerned about having hundreds of hours of their lives wasted following instructions from an unambitious middle aged authority figure
Again, tell them they shouldn’t replace these mediocre authority figures by something worse, e.g. conspiracy websites. And if you tell them to listen to smart and successful people, you might be preparing them to fall for the next MLM scam.
Okay, but how to fix all this? There is no probably no way to jump across the whole inferential distance in one lesson. So maybe there should be some long-term support system where students trying to become more rational could go to ask more questions. Maybe just… give them your e-mail and tell them to feel free to ask anything (after they spent 5 minutes thinking about the problem).
so it should be emphasised that this is not a Fully General Counterargument against learning anything.
I think it’s okay to tell kids that if you’re incompetent you’ll still do fine in life, because it’s true. The function of telling them that the material doesn’t matter could be to reduce their anxiety over the obvious tension between valuing coursework and real world pragmatism.
Another takeaway from the argument could be that adults are generally pretty incompetent. Most people don’t use math or calculus, but in my experience this hurts them quite a bit. If they have a bunch of data they won’t be able to model it as well. If they have to design an experiment they won’t even think to go look at the constitutive equations. All of this cross-applies to evaluating other peoples’ work… Like professional engineers will frequently look at academic literature but only be able to read the abstract/conclusions section. They aren’t punished for it per se, but they aren’t exactly rewarded for it either. So you could go the other way and say: “look, if you want to be in the top 0.1% of achievers, learn this stuff because it actually is applicable if you go out of your way to apply it, and it will be awesome”.
I also just don’t have any sympathy for the people who are hurt by informing them about their biases :)
And if you tell them to listen to smart and successful people, you might be preparing them to fall for the next MLM scam.
Above I told them to google or wiki stuff. Just start doing it. There are so many things the average person believes that are just false upon reading the wiki article. For example, eating breakfast is the most important meal of the day because you’ve heard it in Kellog’s commercials since you were 5. Except maybe that’s not true and you should look deeper into the issue since you’ll be eating every day for the rest of your life. Similarly it boogles my mind that parents can’t summarize expert opinion on corporal punishment for children. Your children are insanely important, and you can’t even spend 5 minutes reading wikipedia to double check what you already “know”?
Regardless of how they get their information though, it would be good for them to get in the habit of discussing their ideas with strangers (on the internet) to serve as kind of a check on them getting too out of whack. You don’t necessarily have to convince other people, but they shouldn’t be able to destroy your belief by just linking a wiki article :P
Maybe just… give them your e-mail and tell them to feel free to ask anything
This is true, but this information outside of proper context could hurt them, so it should be emphasised that this is not a Fully General Counterargument against learning anything. It is okay to not learn something if you are learning something better instead. (Insert specific examples of things that are better, and things that might seem cool but are not actually better.)
Also, for the “teacher’s password” subjects, your options are not only “learn everything” and “ignore completely”. For example, you can just put all the teachers’ passwords in Anki, remember as much as Anki makes you, and ignore the rest… this would probably still allow you to get decent score and take relatively little time. (And you get some meta-skills by doing this.) This could be useful to avoid some conflicts with your teachers or parents, if they hate the idea of you strategically ignoring a subject.
Again, tell them they shouldn’t replace these mediocre authority figures by something worse, e.g. conspiracy websites. And if you tell them to listen to smart and successful people, you might be preparing them to fall for the next MLM scam.
Okay, but how to fix all this? There is no probably no way to jump across the whole inferential distance in one lesson. So maybe there should be some long-term support system where students trying to become more rational could go to ask more questions. Maybe just… give them your e-mail and tell them to feel free to ask anything (after they spent 5 minutes thinking about the problem).
I think it’s okay to tell kids that if you’re incompetent you’ll still do fine in life, because it’s true. The function of telling them that the material doesn’t matter could be to reduce their anxiety over the obvious tension between valuing coursework and real world pragmatism.
Another takeaway from the argument could be that adults are generally pretty incompetent. Most people don’t use math or calculus, but in my experience this hurts them quite a bit. If they have a bunch of data they won’t be able to model it as well. If they have to design an experiment they won’t even think to go look at the constitutive equations. All of this cross-applies to evaluating other peoples’ work… Like professional engineers will frequently look at academic literature but only be able to read the abstract/conclusions section. They aren’t punished for it per se, but they aren’t exactly rewarded for it either. So you could go the other way and say: “look, if you want to be in the top 0.1% of achievers, learn this stuff because it actually is applicable if you go out of your way to apply it, and it will be awesome”.
I also just don’t have any sympathy for the people who are hurt by informing them about their biases :)
Above I told them to google or wiki stuff. Just start doing it. There are so many things the average person believes that are just false upon reading the wiki article. For example, eating breakfast is the most important meal of the day because you’ve heard it in Kellog’s commercials since you were 5. Except maybe that’s not true and you should look deeper into the issue since you’ll be eating every day for the rest of your life. Similarly it boogles my mind that parents can’t summarize expert opinion on corporal punishment for children. Your children are insanely important, and you can’t even spend 5 minutes reading wikipedia to double check what you already “know”?
Regardless of how they get their information though, it would be good for them to get in the habit of discussing their ideas with strangers (on the internet) to serve as kind of a check on them getting too out of whack. You don’t necessarily have to convince other people, but they shouldn’t be able to destroy your belief by just linking a wiki article :P
I think we should emancipate 15+ year olds.