Mentatul

Tag: education

  • Education in the New Machine Age

    Education in the New Machine Age

    Nobody can deny that we’ve entered a new era of technological progress. The so-called Digital Revolution^ is but the latest in a series of intellectual milestones that started with the Industrial Revolution^. However, there’s something special about this era: exponential development. Our technology advances faster than ever before.

    It’s not only board game players that lose to software algorithms^. It’s all of us^. It’s not that we’re stupid; far from that. After all, we created the software that is right now outperforming us in an ever-increasing number of areas, eliminating jobs across all industries.

    But the human brain is perfectly capable of adapting to the intellectual explosion going on. The problem is that our social structures aren’t. And there’s a very simple reason behind that…

    Education

    Our children are our future. Cliché? That which is a fact of nature cannot be cliché. But there is still a long way to go until we can claim that we truly have integrated this knowledge. Yes, we all know that our children will write history. Despite this, when the educational system is examined thoroughly, it’s obvious that most governments and societies on Earth see education as just a way to teach children to behave (i.e. program them to respect rules^).

    As this article^ points out, “education’s goal seems to have devolved into facilitating the creation of a homogenized population, which has impacted everything from the job market to mental health.” Children are being taught the dos and don’ts, some skills so they can contribute to society, and then served some special sauce consisting of various forms of indoctrination (be it religious, nationalistic, materialistic – anything that can impair their decisional capabilities and make them easier to control).

    That strategy worked for a while, but its days are numbered. We live in an age when vulnerable people can be manipulated by foreign agents instantly, through the Internet. We need look no further than the Russian interference in the 2016 USA elections^.

    This is an age when almost everything can be (or will be) automated, an age when the push of a button can bring down entire nations^. We need empathic, creative, open-minded people that can keep up with the rampant technological development; not only to harness it, but also to defend us from those that would misuse it.

    We can’t afford to have madmen in control of nuclear buttons. We can’t afford to have megalomaniacal CEOs in control of software that can easily cripple our economic ecosystem^. What we need is a generation of brave explorers that think beyond borders, race and culture^.

    It’s only a matter of time until certain societies on Earth realize this. It is those societies that will prevail in the current phase of evolutionary competition on this planet. Those that manage to educate their population to take full advantage of the technology at their disposal will give rise to the next superpowers.

    Agile Education

    We have entered what one visionary calls the New Machine Age^. I highly recommend watching the 12 minutes video I just linked, or perhaps this article^. There, Erik Brynjolfsson explains how even though software can outperform humans, the winning combination is when both software and humans work together. In his words, the key is to “race with the machines”.

    The current educational system has advanced a lot in the past centuries, no doubt about it. Every decade or so, it takes one small step forward. But now that our technology leaps ahead year after year, it’s time to unshackle our children’s minds. So, how do we do that?

    The educational platform of the future can no longer be tied to update cycles longer than a month. Even in developed countries, the slightest of changes to what students are taught still take around a year until trickling down to educational institutions. That, simply will not cut it in the coming decades.

    In the software industry, there’s something called agile software development^. In a nutshell, it’s a method for building a product through an iterative approach. The methodology facilitates product development through quick cycles of experiment, fail, learn, implement, improve. When executed correctly, this ensures that the product is kept up to date from both a market requirements perspective and also from a technology perspective.

    In contrast with that, we have our current educational system, which is, at best, sluggish to adapt to market demands while in the same time woefully behind when it comes to what’s technologically possible. This isn’t surprising from a system that is, for the most part, stuck with a conveyor belt mentality.

    It’s true that in the past 150 years education became available to many more^ social categories. Unfortunately, the way the expansion was implemented has more than one resemblance with a 1900s factory – one of the reasons is probably because it is around that period when governments realized they’d better educate their population so that their nations can be more productive.

    There are, however, some countries that are slowly but surely dismantling the industrial education model; for example, Finland^. Such countries have understood that the educational platform has to be updated to meet the challenges of the Digital Age.

    Goodbye Industrialized Education

    The classroom of tomorrow isn’t comprised of a bunch of students studying the same material, being subjected to the same exam questions and then benchmarked in futile, wasteful contests. The classroom of tomorrow is a team of cross-disciplinary minds that solves challenges; each bringing their own skills, but relying on tutoring and technology to gather and integrate exactly the required knowledge to reach a certain goal.

    The teacher of tomorrow isn’t a slave to a platform, blindly reciting from The Book and then throwing countless hours out the window rating duplicated work. The teacher of tomorrow is a capable leader that knows what challenges to throw at a team in order to stimulate intellectual growth and skill development based on real life needs. And just to be clear, art is a real world need too.

    It’s interesting to note that both kindergartens and universities have educational models that are reasonably open and challenging. But everything in between has, in most countries, been reduced to a steady and boring destruction of potential^. Children wait too long until they can be part of a team addressing real-world problems.

    Throughout the past century wiser people have thought about changing the educational system, with varying degrees of success. There is an education philosophy called constructivism^. There were attempts to integrate technology into the classroom. Some attempts failed short because of lack of funding (it’s expensive to train teachers, and even more expensive to train leader-teachers).

    Other attempts failed due to gross miscalculations. Remember the $100 laptop^ that was supposed to unleash children’s minds? Unfortunately, throwing technology around without a systemic paradigm shift does little else than to disrespect the environment and cause cultural pollution.

    But most of all, the timing just wasn’t right. And that’s about to change.

    The age of educational enlightenment is about to dawn, of that, I am convinced. It is an evolutionary need that will burst into existence with unstoppable force. The first societies that manage to bring their educational systems up to speed will reap unimaginable rewards.

    Empathy and tomorrow’s criminals

    From education, straight to crime. How’s that for a detour? I’ve written at length about the dangers posed^ by the irresponsible use of technology^. One problem that arises when training high-performing teams is that those same teams might one day turn into the villains terrorizing society. Fortunately, there’s a human ability that, if properly cultivated, can greatly reduce the risk of us being hurt by destructive tendencies.

    I’ve also written at length about empathy^. I believe that the only mandatory subject in the schools of tomorrow should be empathy. We simply cannot build a free high-tech society without empathy. Sure, perhaps a police state solution such as the one China envisions might work for a while. But punishing the inherent mischievousness that comes in the same package with human curiosity will always end up stifling innovative capability.

    This is evolution’s catch 22: the smarter you get, the greater the responsibility becomes. And there’s no way to hide from that responsibility either. If you tie yourself up to a tree just to make sure you won’t drown, that will also mean you won’t be escaping any hungry tigers that might be lurking in the jungle.

    Here’s to the next generation of teachers, students and problem solvers. May you prevail through the most glorious of challenges. May you prove that it wasn’t all in vain.

    [ax_meta fbimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/03067-EducationNewMachineAge-Share.jpg’ lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/03067-EducationNewMachineAge-Thumb.jpg’ fbimgw=’1170′ fbimgh=’350′ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Education in the New Machine Age’ desc=’Nobody can deny that we’ve entered a new era of technological progress. It’s not only board game players that lose to software algorithms. It’s all of us.’]

  • Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence

    Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence

    Every year or so, there’s one article/essay that stands out from everything I come across. This is one such work. It shows the correlation between violence and repressed sexuality, lack of affection towards children, sensory deprivation and various forms of social damage. It’s a long read, but you can also read just parts of it and I’d wager you’ll still be enriched by this amazing work:

    http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html^

    You don’t need to be a psychologist to see how all this makes so much sense. A sick society will produce sick individuals.

    If you choose to read only one of my weekly recommendations every 6 months, I would beg you to read this one.

    And I’ll do one other thing I do as rarely as possible. And that is to passionately ask you to share this with the world! Thank you!

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/02982-BodyPleasureOriginsOfViolence-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence’ desc=’See the correlation between violence and repressed sexuality, lack of affection towards children, sensory deprivation and various forms of social damage.’]

  • Walmart Pulls T-Shirts Advocating Murder of Journalists

    Walmart Pulls T-Shirts Advocating Murder of Journalists

    In a surprising move, major American retailer Walmart actually decided to remove from its inventory t-shirts that advocated killing journalists. So apparently the USA hasn’t completely gone astray:

    https://nypost.com/2017/11/30/walmart-yanks-shirt-threatening-to-kill-journalists/^

    Obviously, I was being sarcastic. The USA has gone completely astray.

    By “completely”, I mean the outcome of an election. When a democratic country elects to pursue a certain course, then it is a complete commitment. Yes, there may be opposition, but the overall direction has been set – and in the case of the US of A, I believe that the direction is astray.

    By “astray”, I mean that while most of society (world-wide) considers murder to be wrong, the USA has managed to devalue life in such a way that murder can be commercialized with incredibly little public backlash. I believe that the lack of a major social response against the retailers, users and companies that produce such merchandise is due to Americans having been desensitized to violence^.

    I can’t describe how sad I am to see beautiful, smiling, presumably honest people, congregate and laugh about murdering journalists, the very profession that is supposed to propagate information.

    In the USA, Murdering Journalists is now considered a funny topic.
    In the USA, murdering journalists is now considered a funny topic. (c) Reuters.

    Well, it’s true that now-a-days most “journalists” distort rather than propagate information. Mind the quotes. Those are not really journalists. The true journalist is impartial and just. Unfortunately, ever since the invention of writing, there are those who are not spreaders of truth, but propaganda writers. Crafty wordsmiths that have either chosen or have been fooled into the employ of people whose purpose is to redirect and manipulate (they’re pretty good at fooling others).

    Even if the t-shirts would have said “kill all liars”, I still believe that such messages are childish, stuck in an epoch we should move away from. Don’t kill liars; stop producing them^. Don’t kill propaganda; change the message^. Don’t blame manipulators; understand why they exist in the first place^.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/02951-MurderJournalistsHorror-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Walmart Pulls T-Shirts Advocating Murder of Journalists’ desc=’The USA has managed to devalue life in such a way that murder can be commercialized with incredibly little public backlash.’]

  • Kids Start School Too Early

    Kids Start School Too Early

    A Stanford University study has shown that children who postponed kindergarten for up to one year showed dramatically higher levels of self-control. The study uses data from Denmark, where children have access to good pre-kindergarten (starting as early as 12-18 months).

    The results of this study make perfect sense to me. It’s a confirmation of something I long believed to be true. I think that whatever parents can do to delay the institutionalization of their child (enrollment into the current industrialized educational system) will greatly help any young mind. I believe more studies like this will show up in the coming years. The sooner the better:

    https://qz.com/546832/stanford-researchers-show-were-sending-many-children-to-school-way-too-early/

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/02702-KidsToSchoolTooEarly-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Kids Start School Too Early’ desc=’A Stanford University study has shown that children who postponed kindergarten for up to one year showed dramatically higher levels of self-control.’]

  • Kids and Screens

    Kids and Screens

    There’s been a lot of research in the past years regarding exposing children to screens (of various kinds). The “when and how much TV to watch” debate has been raging on for decades (with clear results but with even harder to apply rules, especially as a lot of people seem to not care about the facts).

    However, the new screens available to children today, namely mobile phones, pads, portable game consoles and other such interactive entertainment devices are an order of magnitude more powerful when it comes to influencing brain development.

    Alarm bells should start ringing when some of the most famous people dealing with technology try to protect their children from these sort of devices:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bill-gates-and-steve-jobs-raised-their-kids-tech-free-and-it-shouldve-been-a-red-flag-a8017136.html^

    I’m young enough to have been influenced by handheld game consoles and I distinctly remember how my school performance and social skills suffered due to how enticed I was by these gizmos. I have worked with software during the past 20 years and I am in a good position to understand how it is built in order to capture minds^, both young and old. Here’s what Facebook’s first president had to say about “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”:

    https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/facebooks-founding-president-on-stage-yesterday-we-created-a-monster.html^

    But enough with the technology part. Here’s what psychologists have to say about all this:

    http://www.somedaily.org/ipad-far-bigger-threat-children-anyone-realizes/^

    Like I said in another article, parenting advice is a dime a dozen these days^. But this is not advice. This is presenting actual cold hard science and even colder and harder decisions that must be taken. In our family, we will politely prohibit (guide with kindness, offer healthy entertainment alternatives) our son from getting near these things at least until he’s five years old. We are also curtailing the use of such devices when he’s around. Being constantly online is mind poison anyway.

    Update: And then, of course, there’s the Trojan horse aspect these devices pose. Privacy? What privacy?

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/02558-KidsAndScreens-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Kids and Screens’ desc=’Alarm bells should start ringing when some of the most famous people dealing with technology try to protect their children from these sort of devices’]

  • The Importance of Empathy

    The Importance of Empathy

    This wonderful video explains in no uncertain terms why empathy is important, how empathy should work and examples of proper empathetic behavior:

    http://lifehacker.com/the-importance-of-empathy-in-everyday-life-1791961488^

    The video can also be found below:

    https://www.facebook.com/lifehacker/videos/10154117508751356/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED^ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzPMMSKfKZQ^

    Some people are empathy deficient while others have so much of it that it can become overwhelming under certain conditions. But empathy is a skill and like all skills it can be trained. Through practice, we can hone our empathy so that it aligns with our society’s natural tendency towards evolution and success through mutual support.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/02005-TheImportanceOfEmpathy-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The Importance of Empathy’ desc=’This wonderful video explains in no uncertain terms why empathy is important.’]

  • Boys Need Extra Empathy Lessons

    Boys Need Extra Empathy Lessons

    The fact that empathy is a career-enhancing skill should give parents enough reason to instill it in their children. The fact that empathy can also stimulate a social group’s technological progress through increased collaboration and innovation should give governments enough reason to implement it throughout the educational system.

    Here’s an article that explains exactly why empathy is so important, complete with the necessary explanations to drive the point home:

    https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/25/why-its-imperative-to-teach-empathy-to-boys/^

    Even though we evolved emotionally quite a bit in the past centuries our society continues to often exhibit a severe lack of empathy, especially when it comes to the male demographic. Perhaps it’s time for governments to realize that empathic men are more useful than those whose emotions were twisted in order to condition them to become obedient soldiers, ready to slaughter each other to fill somebody’s coffers. Perhaps that made sense last century, but we’re past the point where we can survive a third world war, so any investment in that sort of competition is a recipe for social bankruptcy.

    I insist on the government aspect because it is the fastest and most efficient way to implement such changes. Government controls standardized education. Education is what forms not only our children, but future parents as well. It is of critical importance that future parents are empathic, so that the children to come develop in a proper environment both at home and at school.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/01861-WhyBoysNeedEmpathyEducation-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Boys Need Extra Empathy Lessons’ desc=’The fact that empathy is a career-enhancing skill should give parents enough reason to instill it in their children.’]

  • The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten

    The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten

    The fact that the educational system is flawed is not news. However, one would think that at least we’re working on improving the situation. Well, not quite. Apparently, in some countries they keep cutting into creative classes and replacing them with reading class:

    http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Lecker-The-disturbing-transformation-of-5256686.php^

    Perhaps what’s desired of children by the many countries following this sort of educational paradigm is to be able to read instructions and be nice little drones? Is this some sort of revenge of the support technicians that waste too much time due to users that don’t read the manuals that came with their products? Regardless of the source of this misguided change, it’s probably not going to help, unless the goal is to ruin our children’s creativity and thus, happiness.

    Still, let’s be thankful that at least we have such a thing as an educational system. It certainly has its merits. At least it got us thinking about the system itself. Now let’s continue thinking about it while in the same time act for improving it, because let’s get one thing straight: we didn’t get here as a species by reading instructions, but by being creative.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/01020-DisturbingKindergartenTransformation-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten’ desc=’The fact that the educational system is flawed is not news. Apparently, in some countries they keep cutting into creative classes and replacing them with reading class.’]

  • Social Contribution Inequality

    Social Contribution Inequality

    There has been a lot of talk in the past decades about income inequality and for good reason. Various factors contribute to income inequality, such as the political orientation of a country or its economic status. But at the root of unfair reward systems lies a way of thinking that associates people with the immediate economic benefit that they bring to a group. In other words: no long-term strategy.

    Such reasoning made more sense in a past when a famine could threaten the survival of an entire culture. Even though we live in quite different times (many countries are approaching post-scarcity economy^), our instinct hasn’t quite caught up yet. This is not entirely surprising given how fast we’ve evolved in the past centuries. Our “firmware” hasn’t had enough time to adapt. So, we’re still prone to terribly pragmatic and survivalist decision-making. Social contribution inequality is the result of this style of thinking. It is the poor rewarding of some members of society because others do not immediately see them as being profitable.

    Valuing the unexpected

    As history shows, the leading figures that have shone the light upon our evolution have come from the most unexpected of backgrounds. It is not only the producers (the “immediately profitable people”), but also the inventors and artists who have contributed into bringing us here, alive and prosperous. Therefore, we have a lot to gain by updating our social platforms to favor and nurture everybody. Otherwise, the next Leonardo Da Vinci, Nicola Tesla or Albert Einstein may never get the opportunity to change the course of history.

    On the other side, we have those that we consider parasites, or those that, due to a lack of education or opportunity, have turned to crime. How many of them could have found something useful to do, had society given them the means to? And how many people actually turn to crime precisely because the educational system hasn’t found an economically-viable label to slap onto their foreheads?

    There are many people who, despite not having a job, are heavily engaged in ensuring the well-being of a community. These are people who care, who help, who volunteer for all sorts of projects. Often, incredible and unexpected ideas spring from such individuals. Today, I think we are wise enough to understand that the smartest investment that we can do is in our society.

    Getting rid of the stigma

    The hardest but most important step that we, as a society, might have to take in order to usher a new age in cooperation, is to release humans from the social stigma of not having met certain social obligations. This is not to say that we should do away with education or jobs. But, respecting people and their potential without obligation or strings attached is a fantastic motivator. Humans have an inherent desire to improve themselves. Make room for this to happen and watch in awe.

    However, this will require extensive social changes. Some countries in Europe are in an advantageous situation when it comes to their ability to implement the next-generation social infrastructure. Other countries will need a long time to twist their outdated mentalities into groundbreaking new directions. It might be, however, the only way any nation can remain competitive in the digital age.

    As a bit of a side-note here: smaller entities and organizations will outrun sprawling bureaucratic nation-states. The sooner governments realize this, the better for all of us. The race for supremacy in the 22nd century has already begun.

    Appreciating art

    Artists improve our quality of life. The importance and reach of this sort of contribution is beyond imagination. Beside the revenue generated by artistic events and tourism, art has inspired people to do things that have furthered our civilization. Just think of how many inventions originated from the ideas of artists. Let’s take Star Trek for example. It is a highly profitable franchise, but has also served as an inspiration for several revolutionary technologies.

    Yet, artists are among the worst compensated members of society. In some countries, even in Europe, children are warned against trying to become writers or painters because “you can’t make a decent living off of that”. This is a revolting state of affairs. We’re surrounded by the creations of countless generations before us, which should stand testament to the everlasting power of art.

    Solutions

    No country has yet implemented Unconditional Basic Income^, but it would be a step in the right direction. However, this will still not remove the stigma placed on people who do not seem to contribute to society in any way. But are they really not contributing? Many heroes have risen from anonymity. Countless artists were inspired by people who we might never know.

    The discussion surrounding Universal Basic Income is still too heated. Perhaps we should take the middle path and create an array of new “jobs”. This might appease those people that are not yet ready to understand that the concept of a “job” is eventually going to be outdated^.

    There should be no need to enroll in a political party or in a corporation. These jobs should be done in the service of the community one belongs to. In this way, we may find fine organizers, inspiring leaders, enterprising spirits and who knows what other synergies of talents?

    Once we’ve taken this step, we can continue by offering education in all sorts of such jobs. People could be trained to become better volunteers or leaders or whatever activity they can find for themselves in the context of the current technological revolution. It is not outrageous to think we can trust most people to find a purpose for themselves.

    Somebody wants to play games all day? Fine, there’s a huge market for that. Here’s some education on how it can be done better. The only reason for restricting education is because an educated, independent population is a huge threat for those that wish to manipulate it.

    This isn’t going to erase criminality or provide an instant fix for all of our society’s problems, but it will probably improve the quality of life. With the proper education, humanity is ready for the next step. Luckily, the digital age is the perfect ramp to launch us in the right direction. Now the question is: will we use this ramp wisely?

    [ax_meta fbimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/00700-SocialContributionInequality-Share.jpg’ lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/00700-SocialContributionInequality-Thumb.jpg’ fbimgw=’1170′ fbimgh=’350′ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Social Contribution Inequality’ desc=’Social contribution inequality is the poor rewarding of some members of society because others do not immediately see them as being valuable.’]