maybe it isn't an issue anymore, but i meant education in a broader sense, not just software engineering. i grew up in a remote village and the library was 45

maybe it isn't an issue anymore, but i meant education in a broader sense, not just software engineering. i grew up in a remote village and the library was 45 minutes away on the bus. (also, thank god for child fares.) i loved that place. but it wasn't an english speaking country, so apart from badly translated novels and technical books that were 20 years out of date, the only good thing they had were CDs of classical music. my exposure to technical and academic topics (anything outside the basic stuff they teach at school: philosophy, economics, psychology, "modern" physics, computer science, etc) as well as english/american language and culture is pretty much all down to the internet - and pirating. and it isn't like i had a hard life. this was in a first-world country, so the education system was okay and i was completely healthy. i agree that today, pirating might not be necessary - except if you're interested in music (jazz, blues, etc) or modern-ish films. the courses that american universities put out for free are absolutely fantastic. in fact, most of my bona fide CS knowledge comes from MIT CS courses which i worked through years later. because when you learn something yourself, it usually involves more experimentation and doing, and less formal theory.