We have to get 300 million people to kind of internalize (or at least be vaguely familiar with) a small number of algorithms (constructing/reading a written sen

We have to get 300 million people to kind of internalize (or at least be vaguely familiar with) a small number of algorithms (constructing/reading a written sentence, long division, mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell). That's the point of the broader education system, and that's all that really matters. Kids who are curious will follow some weird path and do all kinds of cool shit, kids with money will follow some orchestrated path that makes their parents happy, and most kids will do some variant of a contrived path at a community college and/or state school. So, who cares? None of it matters. It's 2020. There's no card catalog. There's no ENIAC in the basement that some dweeb wearing a pocket-protector gatekeeps. Feynman doesn't have to sign off on your lab time. HOPE is on DVD, K&R is free on PDF, some crazy guys in the bay are selling DIY CRISPR kits, 3D printers are $200, FPV drone racing is affordable, and Steam sales are so cheap it makes my head spin (they remade both RE1 and Half Life!!!). They sell 2600 at Barnes and Noble for god's sake. You can buy Knuth on Amazon, Erickson is available on NoStarch, and Xorpd's Udemy course is like $20 bucks. If you're a curious person, that will keep you pretty busy until you build Ben Eater's 8-bit computer, and work your way through building Dave Gingery's entire machine shop, and finish the Coursera Bioinformatics specialization. Then you can discover trad climbing and spend a sabbatical at Yosemite Camp 4 planning how you're gonna free The Nose on El Cap. That will give you plenty of time to ponder your first FreeBSD device driver, which will give you technical skills to construct your first botnet that you sell to the FSB for enough to film your first music video at your crib in Quetzaltenango. If you're smart and curious, you're busy no matter what bullshit job you have to do or what bullshit tests you have to take. Tests, no tests, who cares? The hackers hack, the lanyard guys swipe in at FAANG, the boring people stress about their tests, and the weirdos make a living playing online poker from a palapa in Thailand. The world turns.