Hacker News Reader

Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system. Unfortunately, we're turning them away for various reasons (financial, lack of flexibility, etc) and filling rooms full of people who are there just because they were told to be there. It's quite horrendous, people in their 3+ years and they're still just going through the motions for the paper.

If you're not there to network and find a job, you're the odd one out. This idea of treating these institutions as places for continual higher learning is just not the norm.

It's an interesting predicament, more education for everyone is better, yet our designation of colleges/universities as the "last" required tier has stunted many people in many ways.

> Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system.

That might depend on what you define as 'proper'. These environments are typically tailored toward a certain median individual and if you don't fit that median (above or below), you aren't going to have a good time. In my own experience, I can generally self-educate far better than what I've found in any traditional educational environment available* to me. I just can't deal with the snail's pace of concept introduction, the shallowness of concept exploration, etc. Everything moves so slow and I just tune it out.

* What I've seen of MIT's open courseware appeared interesting and well-paced to me, but that's not a route that was ever available to me.

> Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system

Disagree. I think it's the complete opposite. Higher education is way to structured and inflexible.

> society is much better off when more of the public is educated.

To what extent of educated? What do you mean by educated? A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep thought. It's being told what to think. A lot of the what to think is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are people better off for learning them?

For those who want to think deeply, are modern colleges a place that allow for that? I know PhDs who no longer teach because there is a lack of intellectualism and too much indoctrination.

A dedicated professor telling me what to think (their ideas) rather than teaching me how to think and navigate the space well... for general things... may not be so useful to society.

> A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep thought. It's being told what to think. A lot of the what to think is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are people better off for learning them?

Yes because what it would be replaced with is even worse and likely instantly falls apart under a modicum of critical thinking.

That's just indoctrination. Great I guess if you agree with the brainwashing. Not so great if you're on the other side.

Yes, there's a big overlap between "learning" and "indoctrination". For mysterious reasons we only care about not being indoctrination when it comes to adults or almost adults

People wouldn't learn anything if they had to deeply understand and verify every part by themselves before moving on

Great I guess if you're happy with most of society never moving too far past what's covered in the first stretch of middle school

> Yes, there's a big overlap between "learning" and "indoctrination".

Perhaps if you subscribe to the "chinese master" mentality. I never had much regard for this.

> For mysterious reasons we only care about not being indoctrination when it comes to adults or almost adults

Uh. I sure gave a damn for all of my memorable life --- literally since at least 4 years of age. I don't know about you.

> People wouldn't learn anything if they had to deeply understand and verify every part by themselves before moving on

This is true to some extent of everyone, but I always tried to think for myself as much as possible. Actually, it earned me a lot of scorn and ire, for not just following the herd...

> Great I guess if you're happy with most of society never moving too far past what's covered in the first stretch of middle school

If by middle school you mean social pressure to conform... well, I'd say we want the opposite of that.

If you mean that without indoctrination, people won't move past middle school in terms of knowledge... well, I would argue that most people don't seem to retain most of what they learned in middle school and high school to begin with... hell, that's basically the first half of college right there, just re-hashing those same topics...

It's "indoctrination" to point out arguments that fall apart under a modicum of critical thinking?

You could easily argue that education involves learning to construct solid arguments that do not fall apart.

No, not at all. You have to look at the context here, the post that I'm replying to. I'm a strong, staunch supporter of critical and independent thought. I'm sure some colleges probably teach that well, and I would heartily support, promote and defend such establishments, insofar as those practices were concerned. However, this is not what is being disputed.

> > A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep thought. It's being told what to think. A lot of the what to think is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are people better off for learning them?

The issue is that azinman2 says this is fine (due to a claimed worse alternative). This is not critical thought at all. "Being told what to think", "based on assumptions and beliefs", is simply indoctrination. I cannot and will not support such.

Being told what to think involves thousands of years of the evolution of human knowledge. It involves math, science, chemistry, language, writing systems, etc. Things that have been challenged and evolved by critical thought from subject experts over hundreds or thousands of years. You seem to think it’s necessarily evil in some way, when it’s instead what’s in the best interest for society. Otherwise the entire populous will be flat earther simpletons.

> Otherwise the entire populous will be flat earther simpletons.

At face value, this is obvious nonsense; if the entire populous was naught but simpletons, who would even introduce new concepts to them?

> challenged and evolved by critical thought

This is literally the opposite of what you are advocating for by "being told what to think". Or is it only the elite and privilege few that are allowed to think for themselves (presumably after having been groomed to produce very specific thoughts to begin with)?

Additionally, as noted by Max Planck:

> The German physicist Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time. Or more precisely: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Science basically evolves because the the people carrying the old school of thought literally die out, leaving the ideas that are more popular with the new generation. This could lead to genuine advancement, but the obvious flipside is that you could "advance" in an untrue direction. It's not just science that is like this, you see it for example in IT as well.

My entire point is that in teaching people what to think, you create this

> simpletons

..whereby in teaching them how to think, you promote this

> critical thought

They are more or less mutually exclusive.

> a dedicated professional walking you through a curriculum in a context where you’re dedicating 4 years to the endeavor.

Sounds nice. What I've actually seen is dedicated professionals walking entire classes en masse through curriculum --- a very different situation.