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Hot takes from people with no experience in the field are only interesting to other people who have no experience in the field. It seems developers are particul

Hot takes from people with no experience in the field are only interesting to other people who have no experience in the field. It seems developers are particularly prone to this hubris. I don't find many doctors writing about the future of programming languages, or teachers writing blogs about the future of medicine. Yet you can find thousands of these hot takes from developers about the future of education. Or pick your subject. Even worse you can find startups by these folks. Startups who are getting it wrong with people's education. I would have way more tolerance for these articles if they started with "I have never studied education, I have not taught children, I haven't done the homework or any reading on pedagogy, but I would like to do some thought experiments on hacking education...". Brainstorming can be useful and bad ideas should be welcome during brainstorming. I understand why it is embraced on HN. But it has to be closer to the end of the spectrum of experts brainstorming than it is closer to the end of the spectrum of monkeys randomly typing a work of Shakespeare. Imagine junior programmers brainstorming the future of cryptography. It's just going to be cringe. Nothing significant is going to come out of it. Of course they should do it between themselves. And that's where it should end. As far as why video games are not the future of education, there are many things worth learning that are best learned by doing them, not by taking part in a simulation. Speaking and understanding a language, playing a musical instrument, painting, public speaking, tying knots, soldering electronics, using shop tools, and many more. All things I learned in public school and many of which I still use. My public school wasn't amazing. I could point out many flaws. But the good teachers I had were pretty amazing. Take that human out of the picture and replace it with a video game and I would have learned far less. If you want to know the things that could immediately be improved about public education and have a measurable positive outcome, talk to teachers and get ready for some pretty obvious answers that are generally going to require more money. Does that mean video games don't have any future in education? Of course not. But they are nothing near the silver bullet promised by the author.

chromanoid 6y ago
Everybody can make children, so how hard can it be to educate them? /s I totally agree with you. I think especially teachers face such know-it-alls much more than other occupations. Not that I know it better, but thinking video games can replace human interaction is so silly. Probably all teachers knew it long before Hattie's meta study, the teacher is the key to good learning....
- yiyus 6y ago
  I also agree with you, but I think there are good reasons teachers face this more than other people. Everybody has been educated, all we have been exposed to the work of educators. All we have thousands of hours of experience of how the education system works. That does not make us capable of doing their work (and, certainly, it does not make us capable of doing their work better), but everybody has a relatively well formed opinion. On the other hand, most people do not have an opinion about how to improve programming languages, for example.
  - chromanoid 6y ago
    That's a really good and probably true explanation!
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  Yeah, but what if that teacher is not Human. There is a lot of really short sighted thinking in this thread. AI will be better than us at everything within the next few hundred years. It's kind of a flippant remark, and not very useful, but its true. AI will be better than a human at making me happy, and it will be better at comforting me when I'm sad. It will be better at motivating me and it will be better at teaching me and my kids things.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> I don't find many doctors writing about the future of programming languages That's because they don't care, not because they are more humble. Similarly, I don't see many programmers opining about surgerical techniques or scalpels or whatever the medical equivalent to PL design might be. There are lots of doctors and lawyers who opine about education. And not just opine, but also shape policy. Go check the professions of the SB members in the closest wealthy suburb. I guarantee there will be at least one doctor/lawyer/business owner with zero education experience. Not just stating opinions, but spending considerable resources to win an elected office and shape local education policy. SB members with some prior experience in education are much more likely to humbly defer to the administration than lawyers/doctors/etc. IME. And there are lots of teachers posting hot takes about covid or policing. I don't think hubris is unique to programmers. You just see it more often because you hang around programmers.
- blondin 6y ago
  i agree with OP and i also see what you are trying to say but OP is saying something that is deeper that resonates with me. OP is saying that we are trying to integrate or otherwise assimilate other fields. you know, the software is eating the world thing. now doctors you just gave as example aren't trying to do that, are they?
gfodor 6y ago
Modern education is such an abject failure that those “experts” you mention should be begging people from other fields for new perspectives.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  Based on what criteria? Which countries? When was it better and by how much? Also worth mentioning that everyone is the best armchair quarterback in the world. If you've got new perspectives that are so effective, start your own school and show the experts how wrong they are. Get rich by offering such a better product. It should be child's play to do measurably better than an abject failure.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Most people will just home school their kids. I am in the US so that is what I was referring to. Not really worth the effort trying to argue the point - many people on this site went through the US educational system and would cite it as not preparing them for their adult lives, and in many cases caused immense harm to their growth as educated citizens.
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      Most (all) people have no counterfactual to compare against. We can compare across cultures, though, and say that more educated ones tend to be more prosperous along nearly every dimension than less educated ones.
      - barry-cotter 6y ago
        Yes, richer countries buy more consumer goods and experiences. You have the relation right but the causality reversed. Large parts of Africa and almost all of Latin America are more highly educated now than 1970s Europe and poorer than it. Richer countries buy more of everything they want. The most obvious example of economic growth not being associated with education is post Deng Xiaoping China. The huge majority had primary school education at best and the economy just kept growing and growing. On the other side look at any of the Arab petrostates, many university graduates, no real economy except pumping oil.
Alex3917 6y ago
> Hot takes from people with no experience in the field are only interesting to other people who have no experience in the field. It seems developers are particularly prone to this hubris. This is definitely true about developers, and this is one of the biggest problems with HN. That said, I think this particular article is spot on. Not everything is best taught through games, but right now 99% of stuff isn't taught at all, and a lot of the stuff that isn't taught could be taught through games. FWIW the specific mistake you're making is thinking about this in a way that overemphasizes the context of the school system. There’s also no contradiction between learning through games and learning by doing. Everything we do in real life has game-like properties, you just have to find them.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  > FWIW the specific mistake you're making is thinking about this in a way that overemphasizes the context of the school system. I am? I have spent literally thousands of hours volunteering for a free online education platform that operates entirely independently from school systems. Although some schools do use it. Some of my family was home schooled. Along with that I have actual teaching experience outside the public school system. I still don't consider myself an expert because I know far less about teaching than I do about my main gig: programming and technology. But claiming I am thinking about this in a specific way is a wrong assumption on your part. > There’s also no contradiction between learning through games and learning by doing. Everything we do in real life has game-like properties, you just have to find them. The article is about video games, not games. For some things there is a contradiction. If you want to learn to ride a horse or play guitar then a guitar or a real horse is the game. A video game will never come anywhere close to just picking up a real guitar or riding a real horse.
  - cloverich 6y ago
    I picked up a real guitar for years, mastered quite a few techniques but never learned to see the music on the fretboard. I suspect a good game would have got me over that hump quite easily. The last time I rode a horse it bucked me off; maybe a game would not help me so much there. So yes, for _some_ things there is a contradiction but I don't think that is a useful point. The arguments are not diluted by "Video games don't cover 100% of things you could learn".
jay_kyburz 6y ago
I think this is because developers can see where software and AI is going, and what it can do. We see our human weaknesses, and can imagine what tools could do better. We want to build tools that will help teachers do their best. (Also sometimes you need to just burn down the establishment and start over because everything we know is wrong. )
imtringued 6y ago
You might not understand the nature of video games if you compare it with an extremely narrow topic like cryptography. Video games are closer to media than to a tool that enables a certain outcome. The definition of a game according to Total Biscuit was basically "A game must have an explicit or implied failure state". The potential space for things that can be considered a game is incredibly vast but it is still a powerful enough definition to exclude other vast forms of media such as audio, video, written text or static visuals. Obviously the idea of a silver bullet doesn't work. The term "media mix" exists for a reason. Popular franchises are conveyed through lots of different media and the same is also happening in education. Video games are just adding to the "media mix" not replacing it.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  That's a fun and useful definition, so thanks for that. I think it's worth clarifying that I did not compare video games to cryptography. I compared programmers brainstorming about education to junior programmers brainstorming about cryptography.
amatic 6y ago
> Yet you can find thousands of these hot takes from developers about the future of education. Or pick your subject. I think you've missed one big point of the article. Videogames will become the reality of education when they become easy to make, so that it doesn't require an army of programmers to implement.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  I didn't miss that point. I explained why a video game or any kind of simulation is never going to be better for many subjects. No matter how easy video games become to create, they are often not the best teaching tool at hand.

chromanoid 6y ago

Everybody can make children, so how hard can it be to educate them? /s I totally agree with you. I think especially teachers face such know-it-alls much more than other occupations. Not that I know it better, but thinking video games can replace human interaction is so silly. Probably all teachers knew it long before Hattie's meta study, the teacher is the key to good learning....

yiyus 6y ago
I also agree with you, but I think there are good reasons teachers face this more than other people. Everybody has been educated, all we have been exposed to the work of educators. All we have thousands of hours of experience of how the education system works. That does not make us capable of doing their work (and, certainly, it does not make us capable of doing their work better), but everybody has a relatively well formed opinion. On the other hand, most people do not have an opinion about how to improve programming languages, for example.
- chromanoid 6y ago
  That's a really good and probably true explanation!
jay_kyburz 6y ago
Yeah, but what if that teacher is not Human. There is a lot of really short sighted thinking in this thread. AI will be better than us at everything within the next few hundred years. It's kind of a flippant remark, and not very useful, but its true. AI will be better than a human at making me happy, and it will be better at comforting me when I'm sad. It will be better at motivating me and it will be better at teaching me and my kids things.

throwawaygh 6y ago

> I don't find many doctors writing about the future of programming languages That's because they don't care, not because they are more humble. Similarly, I don't see many programmers opining about surgerical techniques or scalpels or whatever the medical equivalent to PL design might be. There are lots of doctors and lawyers who opine about education. And not just opine, but also shape policy. Go check the professions of the SB members in the closest wealthy suburb. I guarantee there will be at least one doctor/lawyer/business owner with zero education experience. Not just stating opinions, but spending considerable resources to win an elected office and shape local education policy. SB members with some prior experience in education are much more likely to humbly defer to the administration than lawyers/doctors/etc. IME. And there are lots of teachers posting hot takes about covid or policing. I don't think hubris is unique to programmers. You just see it more often because you hang around programmers.

blondin 6y ago
i agree with OP and i also see what you are trying to say but OP is saying something that is deeper that resonates with me. OP is saying that we are trying to integrate or otherwise assimilate other fields. you know, the software is eating the world thing. now doctors you just gave as example aren't trying to do that, are they?

gfodor 6y ago

Modern education is such an abject failure that those “experts” you mention should be begging people from other fields for new perspectives.

tchaffee 6y ago
Based on what criteria? Which countries? When was it better and by how much? Also worth mentioning that everyone is the best armchair quarterback in the world. If you've got new perspectives that are so effective, start your own school and show the experts how wrong they are. Get rich by offering such a better product. It should be child's play to do measurably better than an abject failure.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Most people will just home school their kids. I am in the US so that is what I was referring to. Not really worth the effort trying to argue the point - many people on this site went through the US educational system and would cite it as not preparing them for their adult lives, and in many cases caused immense harm to their growth as educated citizens.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Most (all) people have no counterfactual to compare against. We can compare across cultures, though, and say that more educated ones tend to be more prosperous along nearly every dimension than less educated ones.
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      Yes, richer countries buy more consumer goods and experiences. You have the relation right but the causality reversed. Large parts of Africa and almost all of Latin America are more highly educated now than 1970s Europe and poorer than it. Richer countries buy more of everything they want. The most obvious example of economic growth not being associated with education is post Deng Xiaoping China. The huge majority had primary school education at best and the economy just kept growing and growing. On the other side look at any of the Arab petrostates, many university graduates, no real economy except pumping oil.

Alex3917 6y ago

> Hot takes from people with no experience in the field are only interesting to other people who have no experience in the field. It seems developers are particularly prone to this hubris. This is definitely true about developers, and this is one of the biggest problems with HN. That said, I think this particular article is spot on. Not everything is best taught through games, but right now 99% of stuff isn't taught at all, and a lot of the stuff that isn't taught could be taught through games. FWIW the specific mistake you're making is thinking about this in a way that overemphasizes the context of the school system. There’s also no contradiction between learning through games and learning by doing. Everything we do in real life has game-like properties, you just have to find them.

tchaffee 6y ago
> FWIW the specific mistake you're making is thinking about this in a way that overemphasizes the context of the school system. I am? I have spent literally thousands of hours volunteering for a free online education platform that operates entirely independently from school systems. Although some schools do use it. Some of my family was home schooled. Along with that I have actual teaching experience outside the public school system. I still don't consider myself an expert because I know far less about teaching than I do about my main gig: programming and technology. But claiming I am thinking about this in a specific way is a wrong assumption on your part. > There’s also no contradiction between learning through games and learning by doing. Everything we do in real life has game-like properties, you just have to find them. The article is about video games, not games. For some things there is a contradiction. If you want to learn to ride a horse or play guitar then a guitar or a real horse is the game. A video game will never come anywhere close to just picking up a real guitar or riding a real horse.
- cloverich 6y ago
  I picked up a real guitar for years, mastered quite a few techniques but never learned to see the music on the fretboard. I suspect a good game would have got me over that hump quite easily. The last time I rode a horse it bucked me off; maybe a game would not help me so much there. So yes, for _some_ things there is a contradiction but I don't think that is a useful point. The arguments are not diluted by "Video games don't cover 100% of things you could learn".

jay_kyburz 6y ago

I think this is because developers can see where software and AI is going, and what it can do. We see our human weaknesses, and can imagine what tools could do better. We want to build tools that will help teachers do their best. (Also sometimes you need to just burn down the establishment and start over because everything we know is wrong. )

imtringued 6y ago

You might not understand the nature of video games if you compare it with an extremely narrow topic like cryptography. Video games are closer to media than to a tool that enables a certain outcome. The definition of a game according to Total Biscuit was basically "A game must have an explicit or implied failure state". The potential space for things that can be considered a game is incredibly vast but it is still a powerful enough definition to exclude other vast forms of media such as audio, video, written text or static visuals. Obviously the idea of a silver bullet doesn't work. The term "media mix" exists for a reason. Popular franchises are conveyed through lots of different media and the same is also happening in education. Video games are just adding to the "media mix" not replacing it.

tchaffee 6y ago
That's a fun and useful definition, so thanks for that. I think it's worth clarifying that I did not compare video games to cryptography. I compared programmers brainstorming about education to junior programmers brainstorming about cryptography.

amatic 6y ago

> Yet you can find thousands of these hot takes from developers about the future of education. Or pick your subject. I think you've missed one big point of the article. Videogames will become the reality of education when they become easy to make, so that it doesn't require an army of programmers to implement.

tchaffee 6y ago
I didn't miss that point. I explained why a video game or any kind of simulation is never going to be better for many subjects. No matter how easy video games become to create, they are often not the best teaching tool at hand.