The points made seem very vague and trivially true. For example: “Consider homeschooling and online school. Depending on your situation, these may be superior alternatives to regular high school for you.” Yes, of course, for the “right situation” homeschooling is good. Kind of like how you shouldn’t drink “too much” water or breath “too much” oxygen.
Try giving specific examples of the way the system is bad for them. For example, 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.
However it is pretty easy to get students to admit that at least some of the classes they take are a waste of time. You could try getting them more concerned about having hundreds of hours of their lives wasted following instructions from an unambitious middle aged authority figure. Do we really want children learning from or respecting people who chose one of the easiest careers possible and conceded to be lower-middle class for the rest of their lives? Pfft. Although this point will probably receive a lot of pushback because “education” is a sacred cow and teachers should be worshipped because a few of them claim to have a “passion for teaching”.
Instead of focusing on why high school is bad though, maybe you could get more mileage out of telling teenagers what they SHOULD be doing with their time. Most kids don’t work out or eat properly because their parents don’t have those values. Maybe since teenagers should practice being less biased, because certainly they don’t get any sort of pressure to be rational. Suggesting that they get in the habit of googling the expert consensus on issues before they make up their mind COUGH politics COUGH is a step in the right direction.
Or maybe direct them to radical cultural outlets like RSDNation so they can get some perspective on the monogamous suburban middle class life they’re planning on living.
Once you figure out what you want to do, high school and college just become tools that are very easy to optimize for your goals. But most high school kids are just going through the motions, passively expect to get , passively expect to marry , have kids when they’re 27-30, etc. This is how a lot of people wind up unhappy. If I could tell a teenager anything, it would be for them to become 10,000x more strategic and independent.
… of course convincing someone to ACTUALLY become these things is very difficult.
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
Do we really want children learning from or respecting people who chose one of the easiest careers possible and conceded to be lower-middle class for the rest of their lives?
According to what I’ve heard this isn’t true in Finland...
The points made seem very vague and trivially true. For example: “Consider homeschooling and online school. Depending on your situation, these may be superior alternatives to regular high school for you.” Yes, of course, for the “right situation” homeschooling is good. Kind of like how you shouldn’t drink “too much” water or breath “too much” oxygen.
Try giving specific examples of the way the system is bad for them. For example, 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.
However it is pretty easy to get students to admit that at least some of the classes they take are a waste of time. You could try getting them more concerned about having hundreds of hours of their lives wasted following instructions from an unambitious middle aged authority figure. Do we really want children learning from or respecting people who chose one of the easiest careers possible and conceded to be lower-middle class for the rest of their lives? Pfft. Although this point will probably receive a lot of pushback because “education” is a sacred cow and teachers should be worshipped because a few of them claim to have a “passion for teaching”.
Instead of focusing on why high school is bad though, maybe you could get more mileage out of telling teenagers what they SHOULD be doing with their time. Most kids don’t work out or eat properly because their parents don’t have those values. Maybe since teenagers should practice being less biased, because certainly they don’t get any sort of pressure to be rational. Suggesting that they get in the habit of googling the expert consensus on issues before they make up their mind COUGH politics COUGH is a step in the right direction.
Or maybe direct them to radical cultural outlets like RSDNation so they can get some perspective on the monogamous suburban middle class life they’re planning on living.
Once you figure out what you want to do, high school and college just become tools that are very easy to optimize for your goals. But most high school kids are just going through the motions, passively expect to get , passively expect to marry , have kids when they’re 27-30, etc. This is how a lot of people wind up unhappy. If I could tell a teenager anything, it would be for them to become 10,000x more strategic and independent.
… of course convincing someone to ACTUALLY become these things is very difficult.
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.
According to what I’ve heard this isn’t true in Finland...