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Comment by purringmeow | Hacker News Reader

I am interested in what kind of alternative are you offering? How do you give basic knowledge to the majority of people?

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Well, first you need a sorting hat. Then you have different houses that cater to particular styles of learning. If all goes well, one of the students will figure out how to vanquish evil.

I anticipate that a lot of it will come through other means. Check out http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse, it's doing a fantastic job of making knowledge fun, interesting, engaging and cool.

Here's what I always thought it would work best: free education up to 4th grade (reading, writing, arithmetics, AKA the basics), then free libraries everywhere. It's sad that we already have a lot of public libraries, but few people visit them voluntarily.

Because you can criticize things only if you have a better alternative.

No, but I would think that it is often useful to indicate when one does not know of a better option than the one one is criticizing.

Because "this is a bad choice" has a connotation that that is not the one that should be made, but that a different known one should be made instead, I think.

Of course, the indication can be implicit, or from context, etc.

And there might be exceptions, But I think this generally holds?

Exactly. And I really want to hear his/her opinion, because it interests me. My goal isn't to attack in a passive-aggressive manner.

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