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Comment by BrianOnHN | Hacker News Reader

> they won't unquestioningly do what some untrusted adult tells them to

How is this any different than the job market they're being groomed for?

They are doing it for money. A student is told to do countless things they have absolutely no interest in, 'for their future'.

> They are doing it for money

Then we should pay kids to be good students?

Sounds good to me.

That's not the conclusion I would draw

If we assume that people who did well in school end up being a positive return for the government, then this sounds good. Even if people abuse it by making their kids study hard or have multiple kids, it would end up being a positive return for the country and the pressure wouldn't be much different than what is seen in some east asian countries.

It isn't different from the market they're being groomed for, but the brilliant ones don't have to work in that kind of job market in the first place. There's no point grooming them for it.

If the education system was designed for the brilliant ones, our society would fall apart in a generation.

HN thinks the world revolves around them, see: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26131258

It doesn't have to be designed for them, it just has to stop trying to crush their spirit.

> crush their spirit

As a kid I was reprimanded and shamed for my entrepreneurial endeavors, so I get this point.

Nowadays, I think it's already different. 20 years ago we didn't have Shark Tank and the rest of the entrepreneur-as-a-rockstar environment that makes the general population recognize the value of a young entrepreneurial spirit.

The fallacy is, thinking the system has to be the same for everyone. I think a lot of my talents were wasted by being "stuck" in the "slow lane" with the rest of the kids (in subjects I excelled at, e.g. math). Thank god those of us who were the best at national competition got some extra training, outside of school.

> thinking the system has to be the same for everyone

True. The problem is meritocracy quickly falls apart when humans are responsible for implementing it, for example see the recent celebrity college admission bribery scandal. The Netflix series "3%" is based on this.

Given we don't radically change the % of GDP spent on education, a single system focussing on the lowest common denominator makes sense.

I mean, we could coddle your genius, but if the trade-off is lack of workers, or a society that succumbs to populist autocracy...

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