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Comment by WhompingWindows | Hacker News Reader

"18 year olds don't know anything about anything"

Come now, that is blatant overstatement. When I was 18, I knew how to read, write, do calculus, use Microsoft Office, do a bit of coding, and even enough to work in a biological research lab.

The problem is most skills needed in the economy are not aligned with the skills taught in school. Is it necessary that a plumber can read Shakespeare and analyze it? Is it necessary that a nurse knows all about the Civil War? Well no, in a purely skills-based sense, their schooling was "not valuable" and they "don't know anything".

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I said most, not all, and do you consider yourself average? I would consider an 18 year old with your skills to be rather exceptional. And 18 year olds like you were tend to go off to college and not enter the workforce right away, anyway.

And your last paragraph is exactly what I'm talking about, we argue about whether a plumber needs to know Shakespeare or whether a nurse needs to know about the Civil War, as if they know those things but would be better served with other, more practical knowledge, but, in my experience, basically nobody knows about those things, anyway, beyond a few cursory facts. Meanwhile, apparently a huge number of people can't do basic math.

As an aside, the kind of people I know who do know a lot about Shakespeare or the Civil War are the kind of people who would have learned it whether or not it was a subject in school.

Knowing about history makes for a more informed voter. In the very short term for the individual it may not seem very valuable but in the long term it is very valuable for the country to have a populace educated in history and the liberal arts. By knowing our past we can hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future.

You haven't been exposed to average 18 year olds if you think one could understand Shakespeare unassisted, let alone analyze it. I have tutored fellow university students at a rather prestigious school who lacked basic skills which should be learned in Algebra I.

The idea that the value is only defined by usefulness to capital is the most pernicious idea in all of American society.

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