16 ms·

Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled

113 points by mksm 6y ago

giacaglia 6y ago
This is super interesting! I wonder what other homeschooled people think of their experiences!
- DLarsen 6y ago
  I enjoyed reading this recent post from Nathan Barry, which tells some of his story: https://nathanbarry.com/homeschool/ https://nathanbarry.com/homeschool/
  - kaypro 6y ago
    Thanks for posting this... I found his write up super interesting.
  - nathanbarry 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed the article.
  - giacaglia 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing! this is super cool!
- csa 6y ago
  Some of them dislike it intensely and don’t want to talk about it. An extremely intelligent friend of mine is one of those people, and he has hang ups about it. Note that there are good home schooling experiences as well, but there may be some selection bias regarding the stories we typically hear.
- mminer237 6y ago
  I was homeschooled my whole life. It was fantastic. I wish I had more of a chance to socialize with other kids after school or something, but I'm not any worse for wear for it. I feel like I learned a lot more than people did in public schools, and that it's really served me well. It allows for a very personalized education with a very good student-to-teacher ratio. You can be pushed where you're capable and can do more, and you can receive personal help where you struggle. It's not for everyone, but I've met a lot more homeschooled people since, and I've never met someone who's wished they hadn't been.
- popcornarsonist 6y ago
  I was homeschooled, and there are a wide range of homeschoolers in the US. Generally it breaks down into three categories: "religious", "hippie", or "academic". It sounds like Laura was from academic branch, where her parents were probably very engaged, and thought they could do a better job than the school system--which is great. My parents, and most of their friends who homeschooled were from the religious branch of the movement, which is fairly large in the US. Their main motivation was to basically prevent the school system from teaching us things they didn't approve of, like evolution, etc. Of course, we learned about evolution, but from a very different (and very incorrect) perspective. Regardless, we still took standardized tests, and performed really well on them every year. Overall I did fine in college--aside from a few academic blind spots, and I'm doing fine as a programmer today. The social stuff was a steep learning curve once I hit college, but I made it. I will say there are a number of people I know who didn't "make it out". College can be a really big jump for a lot of these kids.
  - WWLink 6y ago
    When I was in high school, my school district had a homeschool program where you'd meet up with a teacher once a week and they'd give you the same tests (and general course plan) that you'd do if you were in a regular school. It was awesome! The best part was I could take the tests any time to finish a class sooner. So I did a lot of my 2 semester classes in one, and then took community college classes. It's too bad there aren't more things like that.
- bgutierrez 6y ago
  If you want an eye-opening, follow https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ for a bit. I've seen some really terrible examples of homeschooling that left people stunted and overwhelmed by the world. The best I've seen is from parents that spent an immense amount of time working with their kids and who went out of their way to expose their kids to ideas that the parents didn't necessarily agree with. The worst outcome I've seen has been my sister, who is in her thirties and rarely leaves my father's house.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    Meh... if you want to read about the trauma of public schools just read the 'normal' mental illness subreddits. Public schools is so normalized that all the trauma it causes isn't attributed solely to schooling. Think of the number of kids upset about being bullied, suicides from peer pressure, etc.
- ryandelk 6y ago
  I was homeschooled K-8th, went to a traditional school for high school, and then a big public college (University of Florida) and dropped out Junior Year to move to SF and join a startup. My parents' goal for our (me and my siblings') educations was basically just to teach us how to think. They cared a lot more about what we were like at 25 than what we'd be like at 15. I found this to be super freeing, and something I valued a lot. We didn't have much money growing up, and my dad worked 3 jobs so that my mom could stay home and homeschool us. My mom was actually a public school teacher, and wrote a paper in college on why homeschooling should be illegal. I have always loved her willingness to change her mind on that once she realized that public school wasn't the best fit for us. My parents both sort of split the "education" responsibilities, and they really tried to empower us to view learning as a journey we could join them on vs. something that was compulsively forced upon us. So, whenever possible we would learn things from the "real world" vs. a textbook or classroom setting. I remember when we were learning about the pulmonary system, my mom convinced a local butcher to give her some cow lungs so that she could show us how inflating / deflating lungs worked. When we learned about the founding of America, she put us in a van and drove from Florida to all 13 colonies and visited all the historical sites. I found the transition to traditional school and then a big public university with 50k students to be quite easy. I also played a lot of sports growing up, and I find that sports / music / other forms of community tend to give kids plenty of socialization, and the "homeschoolers are socially awkward" meme is a bit of a myth in most cases. Anyways, it was hugely positive for me. It's not for everyone, and requires a specific type of parent with a specific type of motivations, but I think it can be incredible for many families.
nathanbarry 6y ago
Such a great interview. It's fascinating to see how different education styles can have such a big impact. While homeschooling isn't the right fit for everyone, I was homeschooled and it had a huge impact on me. My habits now for constant learning, working to complete tasks quickly, building projects with my hands (remodeling, woodworking, etc), and my desire to start companies all came from the time and energy that my parents put into crafting a unique education for me. I'm so excited to see more and more parents considering homeschooling their kids.
- mc32 6y ago
  One of the biggest advantages as well as disadvantage of homeschooling I think would be limiting the amount of school induced brainwashing. I don’t mean they make kids into automatons, but there is a tendency to _tell_ kids this is right and that is wrong along ideological lines without allowing kids to discover those things for themselves. I’m talking about things like tax policy, education, religion, government, etc. For example, kids are indoctrinated to believe if they get good grades they can go to college and they’ll be set. That government is there to take care of you, that the education system is good, etc. So these kids graduate, go to college, university and then wonder why after doing all that their humanities or business classes don’t land them jobs. They should be allowed to discover more and question the whole system more. Some should be tracked for vocational schools rather than everyone expecting they are fit to work anywhere they desire... its unrealistic.
  - DavidVoid 6y ago
    I feel like this would be a strong argument against homeschooling (and private religious schools for that matter). Because if they're home-schooled then they'll get exposed to fewer people from different social backgrounds than themselves, and that would reasonably reduce the amount of "brainwashing".
    - mc32 6y ago
      It depends for sure. However most households have a diversity of friends and the kids do have to go in group outings. Besides, depending on school district your claim might not be accurate (ie you may attend a school full of rich brats, you may attend a school full of ne’er do wells, or a school where everyone is on the lunch program) neither broadens horizons). Religion might be a problem with strictly religious parents, but I don’t see the damage being worse than that done by school systems. I experienced way too many friends who didn’t fit in and dropped out and other kids who believed in the system and believed things their teachers told them.
newfeatureok 6y ago
Is homeschooling actually better once you control for the types of people who are capable of doing it? I would imagine a good chunk of people who homeschool their children are incredibly active in their children's education, by definition. These children I would argue, would be fine with or without homeschooling. Homeschooling also just seems unsustainable. Modern society generally requires two parents to be working. Can an average family afford to homeschool their children? At least in the USA, most indications give a pretty firm "no." That being said, I really enjoyed this article. People definitely should have more control over their education and how it relates to their own children's needs.
- flyingfences 6y ago
  In some cases it will not be better. In some cases it will be better. It is important that homeschooling remains an option for those cases.
  - DavidVoid 6y ago
    Is it though? I feel like this is a strong case of "what is best for society is not best for each and every individual". If allowing homeschooling will help 100 kids to learn faster and be happier, while at the same time causing another 1000 kids become socially isolated by giving their parents the authority to more easily cut them off from the rest of society and indoctrinate them, then is that trade-off really worth it?
    - ksdale 6y ago
      I believe if you think that 91% of parents are going to indoctrinate their children in a way that harms society, that society is probably doomed, as that 91% should theoretically have control of the government already...
      - DavidVoid 6y ago
        > I believe if you think that 91% of parents are going to indoctrinate their children in a way that harms society The numbers were just chosen to give a counter-point and are purely hypothetical, but even then I think you are misrepresenting them with your 91% statistic. The 100 good and 1000 bad experiences only represent home-schooled kids in my example, they do not represent all kids (as I presume most kids would still attend normal schools).
scandox 6y ago
> But with longevity and other deeply existential problems, the horror of what’s happening has been tragically normalized. I will never understand this attitude. Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? How can we possibly reframe this as a "horror". The horror is this idea that personal identity can go on indefinitely. Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. None of this is being "tragically normalized". What's being normalized is the idea that we can have everything we want all the time forever without any spiritual or material costs.
- apsec112 6y ago
  "If a young child falls on the train tracks, it is good to save them, and if a 45-year-old suffers from a debilitating disease, it is good to cure them. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle which says “Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad.” If so – and here we enter into controversial territory – we can follow this general principle to a surprising new conclusion: If a 95-year-old is threatened by death from old age, it would be good to drag them from those train tracks, if possible. And if a 120-year-old is starting to feel slightly sickly, it would be good to restore them to full vigor, if possible. With current technology it is not possible. But if the technology became available in some future year – given sufficiently advanced medical nanotechnology, or such other contrivances as future minds may devise – would you judge it a good thing, to save that life, and stay that debility? The important thing to remember, which I think all too many people forget, is that it is not a trick question." http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified/ http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified/
  - mc32 6y ago
    I think one big problem I see is that there becomes no need for younger generations. It’ll all be old people. If you have low turnover then there is little change —society stagnates. If people had discovered 3x lifespans and birth rates were thirded in the 1900s, we’d be living near-ossified lifestyles (and other things) from back then. Also, the longer you live the more mental trauma there is to deal with. One lifetime is enough. As it is we have enough people who slowly decline and go crazy.
speeder 6y ago
I want to homeschool my future kids but it is still illegal in my country (illegal as in: if you attempt it, the government will arrest you and send the kids to an orphanage) Thing is: public schools here outright suck, teach lots of bullshit and are dangerous. Private schools are crazy expensive, and although they are more useful they still teach a lot of bullshit. Also the educational style of all schools here is outright awful, there is an article from 1950s I believe written by Richard Feynman and it still applies 100%
- swiley 6y ago
  As someone who was homeschooled and socialized almost exclusively with other homeschoolers as a kid, I was on the fence about it. Then I grew up and met people who went to public school. Holy cow I can’t believe people think it’s ok to put their kids through that! I can’t believe we collectively accept children being exposed to the violence and other problems that are pervasive there! It’s not surprising so many people become criminals now.
  - TrackerFF 6y ago
    > I can’t believe we collectively accept children being exposed to the violence and other problems that are pervasive there! It’s not surprising so many people become criminals now. But on the flip-side, would you want to go your entire life without facing any conflicts? FWIW, I was bullied in middle school, and pretty much had to fight my way through. As in fist fighting. As an adult, I don't tolerate any bullshit - and have no problems saying so , if I'm ever in a situation. I'm not sure I'd be the same person, if I hadn't gone through the things I did (not saying that bullying or fighting is good, just that it molded me into a person with extremely low tolerance for BS and a$$holes)
    - Meekro 6y ago
      Some kids will "toughen up," others will spend the rest of their lives with anxiety disorders that could have been prevented if they'd had a safe environment. Many public schools straight-up don't care about violence in their halls, or are powerless to stop it. To say that a parent must send their kids there to be beaten is wrong.
specrux 6y ago
Given that her family inherited the Murphy Oil fortune (Tulane's Department of Medicine is named after them), it's not that surprising she would have exemplary homeschooling resources
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  This seems like an important piece of information!
- 1123581321 6y ago
  She doesn’t describe anything expensive or exclusive. Homeschooling typically does not have a cost beyond materials. What struck you as exemplary?
  - specrux 6y ago
    Moving from New Zealand to UCSF to work in a lab is relatively exemplary...
  - morelisp 6y ago
    Come off it, she had access to a research lab at age 12! Even she said it's extraordinary. > I really felt like I got a cheat code to life early on. It was like being Ben Franklin’s daughter or something... When I first met Cynthia Kenyon... I was 12. She very kindly offered for me to just work in her lab as a normal intern,
    - earthscienceman 6y ago
      No wonder she's obsessed with longevity. If everything I ever wanted or was interested in was handed to me on a silver platter, I'd want to live forever too. How can people like Peter Thiel et al not feel disgusting spending a fortune on personal longevity when there is still starvation and hunger killing children every day? I would love to see the wealthy/privileged hackernews crowd try to justify this. I have less caustic words for Laura Deming. She's young and she's at least investigating the world.
boxcardavin 6y ago
I also grew up in NZ idolizing Faraday. I feel sad to see obviously smart and passionate folks like this with deep technical interests end up in venture so young.
- apsec112 6y ago
  I'd rather have smart, passionate people with deep technical interests judge whether to fund my company than a dumb, lazy person who doesn't know math or science :)
  - divbzero 6y ago
    Exactly, with her background and informed outlook [1] she’s probably picking up on ideas that other investors would miss. In addition, being in venture now doesn’t preclude direct involvement in research or startups in the future. [1]: https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq
rubidium 6y ago
“One thing he (her father) told me was ‘action comes before motivation’ - that’s always been an incredibly powerful thing in my life.“ Good advice!
- ryandelk 6y ago
  Ha, yes this was my favorite line as well.
nimbius 6y ago
>I grew up homeschooled in NZ with a hilariously small amount of context for what the real world was like. kind of a blunt take here but yeah, homeschooling will do that because its limited to what your parents know. Public schools work to immerse kids in a diverse environment with many people from many different walks of life. they work to build soft skills like empathy, listening, and conflict resolution. she says she taught herself "calculus and probability and statistics, and French literature and history" betraying her heritage. The wealthy are notorious francophiles (Fussell, Paul, "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System") Homeschooling may have played a part in her success, but money likely played an even more prominent role in getting a twelve year old into UCSF and MIT from half a world away. The average homeschooled kid is much more likely to miss social cues, stumble through a difficult interaction with feckless ineptitude, or even parrot their parents own myopic stereotypes or falsehoods. Schools may teach "bullshit" to some, but they also arm kids with critical thinking skills. the conflicting role of educator, caregiver, and lawgiver projected by homeschool parents virtually guarantees kids will never rise to challenge the education theyre given. Theyll learn only what theyre told.
- jonstewart 6y ago
  Exactly—one anecdote about homeschooling doesn’t apply generally. In the US, the average homeschooled kid is likely to be raised in a very religious family with little to no science education.
  - GuiA 6y ago
    Even then, it's an uneven distribution. Homeschooled in Montana? Probably. Homeschooled in the Bay Area? Probably not.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    The fact that homeschoolers in the US are likely to be religious also tells you nothing about homeschooling if done by someone who's not particularly religious and cares about science.
  - pnw_hazor 6y ago
legitster 6y ago
I know a lot of homeschoolers. Some had great experiences. Some had truly terrible experiences. But regardless, they turned into functional, developed adults at about the same rate as publicly schooled kids. I think it's important for parents to realize that a lot of these choices are mostly about enjoyment and convenience, and they don't need to beat themselves up if they feel like they are failing because they can't put a square peg through a round hole. Although, that said, I think one trend I do see is that successful people had the ability to move on when they were ready. I for one was lucky enough to get to go to college early (I hated high school). I can't think of how many kids had to be stuck in the system because they were forced into a timetable.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Honestly timetable isn't bad if your school stops abusing you. Stop punishing kids. Stop grading them like factory workers or defective products. Stop putting them all in one classroom. Change their course work to be more interactive and make an environment where people can naturally be social... I follow this Japanese light novel where they simulate real world in a school setting. The school campus has everything - malls, bars, gaming areas, hair saloons, library, parks and everything else you would visit outside the campus. Students are given monthly allowance based on the performance of their classes and live inside the campus until graduation on their own. I wonder how feasible it would be to create something like that. People who think that getting bullied or living in a toxic place when you have no experience in dealing with it is great make me sad. Not everyone has a decent life at home (some have dysfunctional families). For those people, it's misery on top of misery. And then there are folks with autism, bipolar and ADHD. I was dealing with both. Broken for 2 years now. I don't have any goals, dreams or plans that I had before. Now I have to fight against pessimism at every point and is getting harder to socialize each passing days. I have a different outlook on life now that people find very controversial or against their moral compass. But I can justify it. The disconnection keeps growing even if you quit. Life gets better motto stings and disconnect me from others because I can't remember a single nice memory that isn't reading something obscure on the internet or communicating with other internet dwellers. I have to ask people how they feel about something, what their thought process is and why/how. I can't understand it. I have difficulty understanding your common moral compass. I am not joking when I tell you to explain small gestures and facial expressions. And I feel sad too. I just can't show it always. I don't need to cry or look dead serious to say something serious.
barrkel 6y ago
A lot of people talk about repairing decrepitude of the body, but what about decrepitude of ideas and world views? What if advancement depends on the death of people with outdated ideas?
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Yep. Death is the one true source for renewal we have. A world without death is a world with potentially immortal dynasties and dictators straight out of Altered Carbon. Science progresses one funeral at a time, markets function by companies dying out, at the very fundamental biological reproduction relies on death. If you think 70 year old politicians and university deans are corrupt, wait for the 400 year old boomers. The end of death is essentially the beginning of stagnation. It's a libertarian fantasy pushed by Thiel et al, because death is the one last thing these people can't buy themselves out off. Death puts a natural end to even the worst individuals, wiping the slate clean is, sadly but necessarily, what keeps our species and our culture moving .
- philipkglass 6y ago
  About 0.7% of the American public dies each year: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm An idea that sees its support changing substantially faster than 0.7% per year is not primarily driven by older members of the public dying. The original Civil Rights movement, the fight for gay marriage, cannabis legalization -- all of these saw public acceptance shift much faster than population turnover can account for. Do you have examples in mind of trends that actually required the die-off of older people?
  - barrkel 6y ago
    "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?" - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161574 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161574 Another one is dictators. It seems like it took Franco's death for things to change in Spain, and Salazar's brain hemorrhage to change things in Portugal. Would Mubarak have been able to control the situation in Egypt if he was physically younger?
Havoc 6y ago
>My dad just always told me that I was exceptional I was under the impression that this runs contrary to current thinking. i.e. Tell kids they're the best and they stop taking risks for fear of failure. Rather encourage effort & persistence. Anyway...sometimes I think the whole elite private schooling model are the sweet spot. Actual effort goes into the teaching without the social isolation that (often) comes with home schooling.
dannykwells 6y ago
"Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being an heiress with nearly infinite resources to pursue her dreams". I think the homeschooling is likely second to being rich in terms of her world view and success.
- causality0 6y ago
  The article also describes her as a scientist and I'm struggling to figure out why. According to Wikipedia she did lab assistant work at ages 12-13 but dropped out of university after accepting a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship to become a venture capitalist. If she does any actual longevity research work I haven't been able to find it.
  - dannykwells 6y ago
    Yes exactly. Anyone rich can be a scientist with the right PR. This us the postmodern dystopia we live in. (Alternatively, always has been like that, in some sense.)
throwawaysea 6y ago
Homeschooling is a very important freedom for parents to retain. Otherwise, parents are increasingly at risk of not being in control of how their children are raised. Schools and colleges are increasingly politicized and are being used by politicians and activists to instill certain values into children early on. Those values are derived from whomever has the most power in a given jurisdiction. For instance, in Seattle there is a push from activists to introduce progressive politics into schoolrooms, to influence children's culture and values beyond what is appropriate. It started with the NAACP pressuring Seattle Public Schools to introduce ethnic studies into their K-12 curriculum (https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-board-passes-ethnic-studies-resolution/454537210 https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-...). Then the school board proposed converting subjects like math into propaganda channels for social justice politics (https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultural-woke/ https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultur...). Now they're planning to include gender identity material as early as Kindergarten (https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kindergarten-washington/ https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kinde...). In each instance, I see that the parents' role is being overridden by the state, going far beyond the mandate of core education and clearly into the realm of controversial politics. I am not trying to just single out Seattle or progressive politics, mind you. It's just what I'm most familiar with. In Arkansas some schools teach that the age of Earth is a controversial topic (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_public_schools_mapped_where_tax_money_supports_alternatives.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...). And outside the US as well, governments use education as a means to undermine parents and steal away their children's minds, turning them into willing adopters of the government's values/culture/politics (https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-education-policy-tibet/tibetan-medium-schooling-under-threat https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-educa...). Homeschooling and school choice more broadly (like charter schools) are the antidote to having children propagandized. Homeschooling is generally very successful, to the point that it is viewed by some as a threat to public education (https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-students/ https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-...) and now there are activist researchers claiming that homeschooling is vector for child abuse despite evidence to the contrary (https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-on-homeschooling-flawed-failure-terribly-timed/ https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-...). I hope people take note and fight to retain their rights as parents.
RickJWagner 6y ago
I live in an area where homeschooling is fairly popular. There were some snide remarks before Corona, but these days it seems like it's not looked down upon so much.
joshfraser 6y ago
I was homeschooled and it worked out well for me. You have to be intrinsically motivated and have a deep curiosity about the world. Actually, all kids are born curious but they lose it over time as adults get annoyed with all their questions! I appreciated the freedom to blow an entire day learning about something just because it was interesting. This turned out to be super valuable for my career. Being homeschooled gave me the chance to play with computers all day and I started coding at age 10. This gave me a huge head start on my peers who didn't start coding until college. I also credit homeschooling for teaching me to think outside the box. As a kid I always complained about the social aspect and the lack of team sports. I found ways to interact with other kids, but it took a lot of intentional effort. My mom was an English teacher and my dad was an engineer, so they were reasonably equipped for the task of giving me an education. It's not for everyone, but I'm thankful I was homeschooled.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Glad it worked out for you, did you eventually went to college or were you completely educated without institutions?
  - joshfraser 6y ago
    Yeah I gradated w/ a Computer Science degree from Clemson. My siblings all graduated college as well.
laurademing 6y ago
Hi guys! This is Laura :) - everyone here is really cool and I can't believe this made the front page of HN so just wanted to drop my email here in case anyone wants to catch up on longevity stuff or other cool science discussion - ldeming.www@gmail.com. Sorry, I just really love geeking out and this seemed like a good place to find more thought buddies. Anyway, I love talking about most interesting things (physics / how computers work / all the stuff I don't know) so if you're down for it drop me a line! (not sure how to verify but that's the email associated w all my public stuff / twitter posts so hopefully that's enough)
- d136o 6y ago
  There seems to be research exploring links between blood sugar regulation (diabetes) and aging. I guess that shows up in metformin <-> aging correlations/links. Do you have pointers to research linking liver function to diabetes and perhaps to aging research. It’s known that non alcoholic fatty liver is common in people who will develop type 2 diabetes. But the link is not well understood. (There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how the two are linked?). Any solid references would be helpful, I’ve only found older nature reviews from 2006 and 2010. Maybe that’s the state of understanding but curious to get any additional pointers. Asking for a friend :)
  - zanybear 6y ago
    Peter Attia talks about metformin (https://peterattiamd.com/ https://peterattiamd.com/) also in the context of exercise and I've heard Dave Asprey (https://daveasprey.com/)talking https://daveasprey.com/)talking about it.
- 1996 6y ago
  Thanks! Do you have a list of which simple interventions have the most data behind (ex: metformin, resveratrol?), and which long shots have the most potentials (ex: rejuvenating stem cells by expressing Yamanaka factors, then reinjecting them, as bone marrow transplants have shown the new cells find their way in about every tissue)
pnathan 6y ago
Homeschooled, myself. Academically, I have a MS CS. My sibling has a PhD. It worked, academically. I don't particularly recommend it for anyone without substantial need. I would put genius-level children at that level. We weren't geniuses. I can imagine an... alternative... schooling coop which would work well. But there are whole volumes of good behavior that I had to intake as a teen & young adult that homeschooling had no ability to teach me. Parents of homeschooled kids don't notice, I think. Because this is about peer behavior and interaction. Not child-parent interaction.
dnprock 6y ago
I think the homeschool movement has become too extreme. You can do homeschool if you want. But you also need to learn from others. The school system does help. I went to a 4-year university. I got a degree in Computer Science. I think it's very valuable. It helped me build a good career. I would say half of the professors were solid. At school, after lectures, we have to do homework. It's a practice to get a deeper understanding of the knowledge. Then we have to take test. It's a validation of our understanding. People certainly cheat their ways through college. But if you are into learning, you can learn a lot. Laura Deming mentioned that she had a hard time with entropy. I think this is because of not having a formal education. Entropy is an overloaded term. It means different things in different fields. In physics, it means one thing. In information theory, it means another thing. If Laura had gone to a university to study the concepts in different classes, she would have grasped the concepts. Laura is likely a generalist thinker, polymath. That's why she has a hard time digging into deep concepts. To really understand them, you need to practice (homework) and validate (test). I work in cryptocurrency space. Vitalik is another generalist, polymath thinker. He makes some wild claims like quantum computer can break Proof of Work. If you study Computer Science, you'd see how dubious this claim is. You don't know what you don't know. Schools are good for teaching you what you don't know. Both Vitalik and Laura come out of the Thiel Fellowship. When you are young and got chosen by a billionaire, it may have gotten you hype up about your intellect. You buy into your billionaire's view. You think professors are idiots. Nowadays, social media give people a microphone. So they get even more indulgence. They see themselves already successful. I think the young generation, like Laura and Vitalik, is talented. But they live in the fame bubble too early. Albert Einstein had this problem. He was an early achiever. He made his important discoveries when he was young. Those achievements became burden. He had a hard time with quantum mechanics. He spent endless time with the theory of everything. He was miserable in his later life. I teach my kids at home after their public school time. When they grow up, I hope there're still good universities for them to go. Go to school, take some test, you'd see how much you really understand.
dgfitz 6y ago
I was homeschooled and I have mixed feelings about it. I turned out very well socially adjusted and I am very gainfully employed. I don’t have a specific direction for this comment but I’m happy to answer questions if people have them.
ykevinator 6y ago
I hate home schooling. It is an arrogant assertion that you are smarter than the highly trained system of educators and that their skills and training are not as good as what you can do for your precious and special child. Plus its usually a thinly veiled religious thing or a cover for a narcissistic male.
ykevinator 6y ago
And I'm sorry, " Theil Fellows" are not scientists. You can't just declare yourself a scientist without a phd
iamthepieman 6y ago
We homeschool our 5 kids but sometimes I think we shouldnt. Something I tell my wife, kids, parents, well wishers, hecklers and friends is that parents get both too much and too little credit for how their kids turn out. Stay involved. That's what homeschooling (done well) forces you to do. Ask questions, allow failures, try (you WILL fail) to practice detachment, and understand that you do not.
creed98 6y ago
And not a thing about longevity, consciousness, or microtubules..
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113 points by mksm 6y ago

giacaglia 6y ago

This is super interesting! I wonder what other homeschooled people think of their experiences!

DLarsen 6y ago
I enjoyed reading this recent post from Nathan Barry, which tells some of his story: https://nathanbarry.com/homeschool/ https://nathanbarry.com/homeschool/
- kaypro 6y ago
  Thanks for posting this... I found his write up super interesting.
- nathanbarry 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed the article.
- giacaglia 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing! this is super cool!
csa 6y ago
Some of them dislike it intensely and don’t want to talk about it. An extremely intelligent friend of mine is one of those people, and he has hang ups about it. Note that there are good home schooling experiences as well, but there may be some selection bias regarding the stories we typically hear.
mminer237 6y ago
I was homeschooled my whole life. It was fantastic. I wish I had more of a chance to socialize with other kids after school or something, but I'm not any worse for wear for it. I feel like I learned a lot more than people did in public schools, and that it's really served me well. It allows for a very personalized education with a very good student-to-teacher ratio. You can be pushed where you're capable and can do more, and you can receive personal help where you struggle. It's not for everyone, but I've met a lot more homeschooled people since, and I've never met someone who's wished they hadn't been.
popcornarsonist 6y ago
I was homeschooled, and there are a wide range of homeschoolers in the US. Generally it breaks down into three categories: "religious", "hippie", or "academic". It sounds like Laura was from academic branch, where her parents were probably very engaged, and thought they could do a better job than the school system--which is great. My parents, and most of their friends who homeschooled were from the religious branch of the movement, which is fairly large in the US. Their main motivation was to basically prevent the school system from teaching us things they didn't approve of, like evolution, etc. Of course, we learned about evolution, but from a very different (and very incorrect) perspective. Regardless, we still took standardized tests, and performed really well on them every year. Overall I did fine in college--aside from a few academic blind spots, and I'm doing fine as a programmer today. The social stuff was a steep learning curve once I hit college, but I made it. I will say there are a number of people I know who didn't "make it out". College can be a really big jump for a lot of these kids.
- WWLink 6y ago
  When I was in high school, my school district had a homeschool program where you'd meet up with a teacher once a week and they'd give you the same tests (and general course plan) that you'd do if you were in a regular school. It was awesome! The best part was I could take the tests any time to finish a class sooner. So I did a lot of my 2 semester classes in one, and then took community college classes. It's too bad there aren't more things like that.
bgutierrez 6y ago
If you want an eye-opening, follow https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeschoolRecovery/ for a bit. I've seen some really terrible examples of homeschooling that left people stunted and overwhelmed by the world. The best I've seen is from parents that spent an immense amount of time working with their kids and who went out of their way to expose their kids to ideas that the parents didn't necessarily agree with. The worst outcome I've seen has been my sister, who is in her thirties and rarely leaves my father's house.
- tathougies 6y ago
  Meh... if you want to read about the trauma of public schools just read the 'normal' mental illness subreddits. Public schools is so normalized that all the trauma it causes isn't attributed solely to schooling. Think of the number of kids upset about being bullied, suicides from peer pressure, etc.
ryandelk 6y ago
I was homeschooled K-8th, went to a traditional school for high school, and then a big public college (University of Florida) and dropped out Junior Year to move to SF and join a startup. My parents' goal for our (me and my siblings') educations was basically just to teach us how to think. They cared a lot more about what we were like at 25 than what we'd be like at 15. I found this to be super freeing, and something I valued a lot. We didn't have much money growing up, and my dad worked 3 jobs so that my mom could stay home and homeschool us. My mom was actually a public school teacher, and wrote a paper in college on why homeschooling should be illegal. I have always loved her willingness to change her mind on that once she realized that public school wasn't the best fit for us. My parents both sort of split the "education" responsibilities, and they really tried to empower us to view learning as a journey we could join them on vs. something that was compulsively forced upon us. So, whenever possible we would learn things from the "real world" vs. a textbook or classroom setting. I remember when we were learning about the pulmonary system, my mom convinced a local butcher to give her some cow lungs so that she could show us how inflating / deflating lungs worked. When we learned about the founding of America, she put us in a van and drove from Florida to all 13 colonies and visited all the historical sites. I found the transition to traditional school and then a big public university with 50k students to be quite easy. I also played a lot of sports growing up, and I find that sports / music / other forms of community tend to give kids plenty of socialization, and the "homeschoolers are socially awkward" meme is a bit of a myth in most cases. Anyways, it was hugely positive for me. It's not for everyone, and requires a specific type of parent with a specific type of motivations, but I think it can be incredible for many families.

nathanbarry 6y ago

Such a great interview. It's fascinating to see how different education styles can have such a big impact. While homeschooling isn't the right fit for everyone, I was homeschooled and it had a huge impact on me. My habits now for constant learning, working to complete tasks quickly, building projects with my hands (remodeling, woodworking, etc), and my desire to start companies all came from the time and energy that my parents put into crafting a unique education for me. I'm so excited to see more and more parents considering homeschooling their kids.

mc32 6y ago
One of the biggest advantages as well as disadvantage of homeschooling I think would be limiting the amount of school induced brainwashing. I don’t mean they make kids into automatons, but there is a tendency to _tell_ kids this is right and that is wrong along ideological lines without allowing kids to discover those things for themselves. I’m talking about things like tax policy, education, religion, government, etc. For example, kids are indoctrinated to believe if they get good grades they can go to college and they’ll be set. That government is there to take care of you, that the education system is good, etc. So these kids graduate, go to college, university and then wonder why after doing all that their humanities or business classes don’t land them jobs. They should be allowed to discover more and question the whole system more. Some should be tracked for vocational schools rather than everyone expecting they are fit to work anywhere they desire... its unrealistic.
- DavidVoid 6y ago
  I feel like this would be a strong argument against homeschooling (and private religious schools for that matter). Because if they're home-schooled then they'll get exposed to fewer people from different social backgrounds than themselves, and that would reasonably reduce the amount of "brainwashing".
  - mc32 6y ago
    It depends for sure. However most households have a diversity of friends and the kids do have to go in group outings. Besides, depending on school district your claim might not be accurate (ie you may attend a school full of rich brats, you may attend a school full of ne’er do wells, or a school where everyone is on the lunch program) neither broadens horizons). Religion might be a problem with strictly religious parents, but I don’t see the damage being worse than that done by school systems. I experienced way too many friends who didn’t fit in and dropped out and other kids who believed in the system and believed things their teachers told them.

newfeatureok 6y ago

Is homeschooling actually better once you control for the types of people who are capable of doing it? I would imagine a good chunk of people who homeschool their children are incredibly active in their children's education, by definition. These children I would argue, would be fine with or without homeschooling. Homeschooling also just seems unsustainable. Modern society generally requires two parents to be working. Can an average family afford to homeschool their children? At least in the USA, most indications give a pretty firm "no." That being said, I really enjoyed this article. People definitely should have more control over their education and how it relates to their own children's needs.

flyingfences 6y ago
In some cases it will not be better. In some cases it will be better. It is important that homeschooling remains an option for those cases.
- DavidVoid 6y ago
  Is it though? I feel like this is a strong case of "what is best for society is not best for each and every individual". If allowing homeschooling will help 100 kids to learn faster and be happier, while at the same time causing another 1000 kids become socially isolated by giving their parents the authority to more easily cut them off from the rest of society and indoctrinate them, then is that trade-off really worth it?
  - ksdale 6y ago
    I believe if you think that 91% of parents are going to indoctrinate their children in a way that harms society, that society is probably doomed, as that 91% should theoretically have control of the government already...
    - DavidVoid 6y ago
      > I believe if you think that 91% of parents are going to indoctrinate their children in a way that harms society The numbers were just chosen to give a counter-point and are purely hypothetical, but even then I think you are misrepresenting them with your 91% statistic. The 100 good and 1000 bad experiences only represent home-schooled kids in my example, they do not represent all kids (as I presume most kids would still attend normal schools).

scandox 6y ago

> But with longevity and other deeply existential problems, the horror of what’s happening has been tragically normalized. I will never understand this attitude. Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? How can we possibly reframe this as a "horror". The horror is this idea that personal identity can go on indefinitely. Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. None of this is being "tragically normalized". What's being normalized is the idea that we can have everything we want all the time forever without any spiritual or material costs.

apsec112 6y ago
"If a young child falls on the train tracks, it is good to save them, and if a 45-year-old suffers from a debilitating disease, it is good to cure them. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle which says “Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad.” If so – and here we enter into controversial territory – we can follow this general principle to a surprising new conclusion: If a 95-year-old is threatened by death from old age, it would be good to drag them from those train tracks, if possible. And if a 120-year-old is starting to feel slightly sickly, it would be good to restore them to full vigor, if possible. With current technology it is not possible. But if the technology became available in some future year – given sufficiently advanced medical nanotechnology, or such other contrivances as future minds may devise – would you judge it a good thing, to save that life, and stay that debility? The important thing to remember, which I think all too many people forget, is that it is not a trick question." http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified/ http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/simplified/
- mc32 6y ago
  I think one big problem I see is that there becomes no need for younger generations. It’ll all be old people. If you have low turnover then there is little change —society stagnates. If people had discovered 3x lifespans and birth rates were thirded in the 1900s, we’d be living near-ossified lifestyles (and other things) from back then. Also, the longer you live the more mental trauma there is to deal with. One lifetime is enough. As it is we have enough people who slowly decline and go crazy.

speeder 6y ago

I want to homeschool my future kids but it is still illegal in my country (illegal as in: if you attempt it, the government will arrest you and send the kids to an orphanage) Thing is: public schools here outright suck, teach lots of bullshit and are dangerous. Private schools are crazy expensive, and although they are more useful they still teach a lot of bullshit. Also the educational style of all schools here is outright awful, there is an article from 1950s I believe written by Richard Feynman and it still applies 100%

swiley 6y ago
As someone who was homeschooled and socialized almost exclusively with other homeschoolers as a kid, I was on the fence about it. Then I grew up and met people who went to public school. Holy cow I can’t believe people think it’s ok to put their kids through that! I can’t believe we collectively accept children being exposed to the violence and other problems that are pervasive there! It’s not surprising so many people become criminals now.
- TrackerFF 6y ago
  > I can’t believe we collectively accept children being exposed to the violence and other problems that are pervasive there! It’s not surprising so many people become criminals now. But on the flip-side, would you want to go your entire life without facing any conflicts? FWIW, I was bullied in middle school, and pretty much had to fight my way through. As in fist fighting. As an adult, I don't tolerate any bullshit - and have no problems saying so , if I'm ever in a situation. I'm not sure I'd be the same person, if I hadn't gone through the things I did (not saying that bullying or fighting is good, just that it molded me into a person with extremely low tolerance for BS and a$$holes)
  - Meekro 6y ago
    Some kids will "toughen up," others will spend the rest of their lives with anxiety disorders that could have been prevented if they'd had a safe environment. Many public schools straight-up don't care about violence in their halls, or are powerless to stop it. To say that a parent must send their kids there to be beaten is wrong.

specrux 6y ago

Given that her family inherited the Murphy Oil fortune (Tulane's Department of Medicine is named after them), it's not that surprising she would have exemplary homeschooling resources

agentdrtran 6y ago
This seems like an important piece of information!
1123581321 6y ago
She doesn’t describe anything expensive or exclusive. Homeschooling typically does not have a cost beyond materials. What struck you as exemplary?
- specrux 6y ago
  Moving from New Zealand to UCSF to work in a lab is relatively exemplary...
- morelisp 6y ago
  Come off it, she had access to a research lab at age 12! Even she said it's extraordinary. > I really felt like I got a cheat code to life early on. It was like being Ben Franklin’s daughter or something... When I first met Cynthia Kenyon... I was 12. She very kindly offered for me to just work in her lab as a normal intern,
  - earthscienceman 6y ago
    No wonder she's obsessed with longevity. If everything I ever wanted or was interested in was handed to me on a silver platter, I'd want to live forever too. How can people like Peter Thiel et al not feel disgusting spending a fortune on personal longevity when there is still starvation and hunger killing children every day? I would love to see the wealthy/privileged hackernews crowd try to justify this. I have less caustic words for Laura Deming. She's young and she's at least investigating the world.

boxcardavin 6y ago

I also grew up in NZ idolizing Faraday. I feel sad to see obviously smart and passionate folks like this with deep technical interests end up in venture so young.

apsec112 6y ago
I'd rather have smart, passionate people with deep technical interests judge whether to fund my company than a dumb, lazy person who doesn't know math or science :)
- divbzero 6y ago
  Exactly, with her background and informed outlook [1] she’s probably picking up on ideas that other investors would miss. In addition, being in venture now doesn’t preclude direct involvement in research or startups in the future. [1]: https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq

rubidium 6y ago

“One thing he (her father) told me was ‘action comes before motivation’ - that’s always been an incredibly powerful thing in my life.“ Good advice!

ryandelk 6y ago
Ha, yes this was my favorite line as well.

nimbius 6y ago

>I grew up homeschooled in NZ with a hilariously small amount of context for what the real world was like. kind of a blunt take here but yeah, homeschooling will do that because its limited to what your parents know. Public schools work to immerse kids in a diverse environment with many people from many different walks of life. they work to build soft skills like empathy, listening, and conflict resolution. she says she taught herself "calculus and probability and statistics, and French literature and history" betraying her heritage. The wealthy are notorious francophiles (Fussell, Paul, "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System") Homeschooling may have played a part in her success, but money likely played an even more prominent role in getting a twelve year old into UCSF and MIT from half a world away. The average homeschooled kid is much more likely to miss social cues, stumble through a difficult interaction with feckless ineptitude, or even parrot their parents own myopic stereotypes or falsehoods. Schools may teach "bullshit" to some, but they also arm kids with critical thinking skills. the conflicting role of educator, caregiver, and lawgiver projected by homeschool parents virtually guarantees kids will never rise to challenge the education theyre given. Theyll learn only what theyre told.

jonstewart 6y ago
Exactly—one anecdote about homeschooling doesn’t apply generally. In the US, the average homeschooled kid is likely to be raised in a very religious family with little to no science education.
- GuiA 6y ago
  Even then, it's an uneven distribution. Homeschooled in Montana? Probably. Homeschooled in the Bay Area? Probably not.
- ksdale 6y ago
  The fact that homeschoolers in the US are likely to be religious also tells you nothing about homeschooling if done by someone who's not particularly religious and cares about science.
- pnw_hazor 6y ago

legitster 6y ago

I know a lot of homeschoolers. Some had great experiences. Some had truly terrible experiences. But regardless, they turned into functional, developed adults at about the same rate as publicly schooled kids. I think it's important for parents to realize that a lot of these choices are mostly about enjoyment and convenience, and they don't need to beat themselves up if they feel like they are failing because they can't put a square peg through a round hole. Although, that said, I think one trend I do see is that successful people had the ability to move on when they were ready. I for one was lucky enough to get to go to college early (I hated high school). I can't think of how many kids had to be stuck in the system because they were forced into a timetable.

searchableguy 6y ago
Honestly timetable isn't bad if your school stops abusing you. Stop punishing kids. Stop grading them like factory workers or defective products. Stop putting them all in one classroom. Change their course work to be more interactive and make an environment where people can naturally be social... I follow this Japanese light novel where they simulate real world in a school setting. The school campus has everything - malls, bars, gaming areas, hair saloons, library, parks and everything else you would visit outside the campus. Students are given monthly allowance based on the performance of their classes and live inside the campus until graduation on their own. I wonder how feasible it would be to create something like that. People who think that getting bullied or living in a toxic place when you have no experience in dealing with it is great make me sad. Not everyone has a decent life at home (some have dysfunctional families). For those people, it's misery on top of misery. And then there are folks with autism, bipolar and ADHD. I was dealing with both. Broken for 2 years now. I don't have any goals, dreams or plans that I had before. Now I have to fight against pessimism at every point and is getting harder to socialize each passing days. I have a different outlook on life now that people find very controversial or against their moral compass. But I can justify it. The disconnection keeps growing even if you quit. Life gets better motto stings and disconnect me from others because I can't remember a single nice memory that isn't reading something obscure on the internet or communicating with other internet dwellers. I have to ask people how they feel about something, what their thought process is and why/how. I can't understand it. I have difficulty understanding your common moral compass. I am not joking when I tell you to explain small gestures and facial expressions. And I feel sad too. I just can't show it always. I don't need to cry or look dead serious to say something serious.

barrkel 6y ago

A lot of people talk about repairing decrepitude of the body, but what about decrepitude of ideas and world views? What if advancement depends on the death of people with outdated ideas?

Barrin92 6y ago
Yep. Death is the one true source for renewal we have. A world without death is a world with potentially immortal dynasties and dictators straight out of Altered Carbon. Science progresses one funeral at a time, markets function by companies dying out, at the very fundamental biological reproduction relies on death. If you think 70 year old politicians and university deans are corrupt, wait for the 400 year old boomers. The end of death is essentially the beginning of stagnation. It's a libertarian fantasy pushed by Thiel et al, because death is the one last thing these people can't buy themselves out off. Death puts a natural end to even the worst individuals, wiping the slate clean is, sadly but necessarily, what keeps our species and our culture moving .
philipkglass 6y ago
About 0.7% of the American public dies each year: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm An idea that sees its support changing substantially faster than 0.7% per year is not primarily driven by older members of the public dying. The original Civil Rights movement, the fight for gay marriage, cannabis legalization -- all of these saw public acceptance shift much faster than population turnover can account for. Do you have examples in mind of trends that actually required the die-off of older people?
- barrkel 6y ago
  "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?" - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161574 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161574 Another one is dictators. It seems like it took Franco's death for things to change in Spain, and Salazar's brain hemorrhage to change things in Portugal. Would Mubarak have been able to control the situation in Egypt if he was physically younger?

Havoc 6y ago

>My dad just always told me that I was exceptional I was under the impression that this runs contrary to current thinking. i.e. Tell kids they're the best and they stop taking risks for fear of failure. Rather encourage effort & persistence. Anyway...sometimes I think the whole elite private schooling model are the sweet spot. Actual effort goes into the teaching without the social isolation that (often) comes with home schooling.

dannykwells 6y ago

"Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being an heiress with nearly infinite resources to pursue her dreams". I think the homeschooling is likely second to being rich in terms of her world view and success.

causality0 6y ago
The article also describes her as a scientist and I'm struggling to figure out why. According to Wikipedia she did lab assistant work at ages 12-13 but dropped out of university after accepting a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship to become a venture capitalist. If she does any actual longevity research work I haven't been able to find it.
- dannykwells 6y ago
  Yes exactly. Anyone rich can be a scientist with the right PR. This us the postmodern dystopia we live in. (Alternatively, always has been like that, in some sense.)

throwawaysea 6y ago

Homeschooling is a very important freedom for parents to retain. Otherwise, parents are increasingly at risk of not being in control of how their children are raised. Schools and colleges are increasingly politicized and are being used by politicians and activists to instill certain values into children early on. Those values are derived from whomever has the most power in a given jurisdiction. For instance, in Seattle there is a push from activists to introduce progressive politics into schoolrooms, to influence children's culture and values beyond what is appropriate. It started with the NAACP pressuring Seattle Public Schools to introduce ethnic studies into their K-12 curriculum (https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-board-passes-ethnic-studies-resolution/454537210 https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-...). Then the school board proposed converting subjects like math into propaganda channels for social justice politics (https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultural-woke/ https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultur...). Now they're planning to include gender identity material as early as Kindergarten (https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kindergarten-washington/ https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kinde...). In each instance, I see that the parents' role is being overridden by the state, going far beyond the mandate of core education and clearly into the realm of controversial politics. I am not trying to just single out Seattle or progressive politics, mind you. It's just what I'm most familiar with. In Arkansas some schools teach that the age of Earth is a controversial topic (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_public_schools_mapped_where_tax_money_supports_alternatives.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...). And outside the US as well, governments use education as a means to undermine parents and steal away their children's minds, turning them into willing adopters of the government's values/culture/politics (https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-education-policy-tibet/tibetan-medium-schooling-under-threat https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-educa...). Homeschooling and school choice more broadly (like charter schools) are the antidote to having children propagandized. Homeschooling is generally very successful, to the point that it is viewed by some as a threat to public education (https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-students/ https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-...) and now there are activist researchers claiming that homeschooling is vector for child abuse despite evidence to the contrary (https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-on-homeschooling-flawed-failure-terribly-timed/ https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-...). I hope people take note and fight to retain their rights as parents.

RickJWagner 6y ago

I live in an area where homeschooling is fairly popular. There were some snide remarks before Corona, but these days it seems like it's not looked down upon so much.

joshfraser 6y ago

I was homeschooled and it worked out well for me. You have to be intrinsically motivated and have a deep curiosity about the world. Actually, all kids are born curious but they lose it over time as adults get annoyed with all their questions! I appreciated the freedom to blow an entire day learning about something just because it was interesting. This turned out to be super valuable for my career. Being homeschooled gave me the chance to play with computers all day and I started coding at age 10. This gave me a huge head start on my peers who didn't start coding until college. I also credit homeschooling for teaching me to think outside the box. As a kid I always complained about the social aspect and the lack of team sports. I found ways to interact with other kids, but it took a lot of intentional effort. My mom was an English teacher and my dad was an engineer, so they were reasonably equipped for the task of giving me an education. It's not for everyone, but I'm thankful I was homeschooled.

Aperocky 6y ago
Glad it worked out for you, did you eventually went to college or were you completely educated without institutions?
- joshfraser 6y ago
  Yeah I gradated w/ a Computer Science degree from Clemson. My siblings all graduated college as well.

laurademing 6y ago

Hi guys! This is Laura :) - everyone here is really cool and I can't believe this made the front page of HN so just wanted to drop my email here in case anyone wants to catch up on longevity stuff or other cool science discussion - ldeming.www@gmail.com. Sorry, I just really love geeking out and this seemed like a good place to find more thought buddies. Anyway, I love talking about most interesting things (physics / how computers work / all the stuff I don't know) so if you're down for it drop me a line! (not sure how to verify but that's the email associated w all my public stuff / twitter posts so hopefully that's enough)

d136o 6y ago
There seems to be research exploring links between blood sugar regulation (diabetes) and aging. I guess that shows up in metformin <-> aging correlations/links. Do you have pointers to research linking liver function to diabetes and perhaps to aging research. It’s known that non alcoholic fatty liver is common in people who will develop type 2 diabetes. But the link is not well understood. (There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how the two are linked?). Any solid references would be helpful, I’ve only found older nature reviews from 2006 and 2010. Maybe that’s the state of understanding but curious to get any additional pointers. Asking for a friend :)
- zanybear 6y ago
  Peter Attia talks about metformin (https://peterattiamd.com/ https://peterattiamd.com/) also in the context of exercise and I've heard Dave Asprey (https://daveasprey.com/)talking https://daveasprey.com/)talking about it.
1996 6y ago
Thanks! Do you have a list of which simple interventions have the most data behind (ex: metformin, resveratrol?), and which long shots have the most potentials (ex: rejuvenating stem cells by expressing Yamanaka factors, then reinjecting them, as bone marrow transplants have shown the new cells find their way in about every tissue)

pnathan 6y ago

Homeschooled, myself. Academically, I have a MS CS. My sibling has a PhD. It worked, academically. I don't particularly recommend it for anyone without substantial need. I would put genius-level children at that level. We weren't geniuses. I can imagine an... alternative... schooling coop which would work well. But there are whole volumes of good behavior that I had to intake as a teen & young adult that homeschooling had no ability to teach me. Parents of homeschooled kids don't notice, I think. Because this is about peer behavior and interaction. Not child-parent interaction.

dnprock 6y ago

I think the homeschool movement has become too extreme. You can do homeschool if you want. But you also need to learn from others. The school system does help. I went to a 4-year university. I got a degree in Computer Science. I think it's very valuable. It helped me build a good career. I would say half of the professors were solid. At school, after lectures, we have to do homework. It's a practice to get a deeper understanding of the knowledge. Then we have to take test. It's a validation of our understanding. People certainly cheat their ways through college. But if you are into learning, you can learn a lot. Laura Deming mentioned that she had a hard time with entropy. I think this is because of not having a formal education. Entropy is an overloaded term. It means different things in different fields. In physics, it means one thing. In information theory, it means another thing. If Laura had gone to a university to study the concepts in different classes, she would have grasped the concepts. Laura is likely a generalist thinker, polymath. That's why she has a hard time digging into deep concepts. To really understand them, you need to practice (homework) and validate (test). I work in cryptocurrency space. Vitalik is another generalist, polymath thinker. He makes some wild claims like quantum computer can break Proof of Work. If you study Computer Science, you'd see how dubious this claim is. You don't know what you don't know. Schools are good for teaching you what you don't know. Both Vitalik and Laura come out of the Thiel Fellowship. When you are young and got chosen by a billionaire, it may have gotten you hype up about your intellect. You buy into your billionaire's view. You think professors are idiots. Nowadays, social media give people a microphone. So they get even more indulgence. They see themselves already successful. I think the young generation, like Laura and Vitalik, is talented. But they live in the fame bubble too early. Albert Einstein had this problem. He was an early achiever. He made his important discoveries when he was young. Those achievements became burden. He had a hard time with quantum mechanics. He spent endless time with the theory of everything. He was miserable in his later life. I teach my kids at home after their public school time. When they grow up, I hope there're still good universities for them to go. Go to school, take some test, you'd see how much you really understand.

dgfitz 6y ago

I was homeschooled and I have mixed feelings about it. I turned out very well socially adjusted and I am very gainfully employed. I don’t have a specific direction for this comment but I’m happy to answer questions if people have them.

ykevinator 6y ago

I hate home schooling. It is an arrogant assertion that you are smarter than the highly trained system of educators and that their skills and training are not as good as what you can do for your precious and special child. Plus its usually a thinly veiled religious thing or a cover for a narcissistic male.

ykevinator 6y ago

And I'm sorry, " Theil Fellows" are not scientists. You can't just declare yourself a scientist without a phd

iamthepieman 6y ago

We homeschool our 5 kids but sometimes I think we shouldnt. Something I tell my wife, kids, parents, well wishers, hecklers and friends is that parents get both too much and too little credit for how their kids turn out. Stay involved. That's what homeschooling (done well) forces you to do. Ask questions, allow failures, try (you WILL fail) to practice detachment, and understand that you do not.

creed98 6y ago

And not a thing about longevity, consciousness, or microtubules..

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