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> I agree with Dwarkesh that we should be doing more to help young people have miracle years Optimizing any system for "geniuses" seems very silly to me. > Lo
by DubiousPusher 5y ago
> I agree with Dwarkesh that we should be doing more to help young people have miracle years
Optimizing any system for "geniuses" seems very silly to me.
> Look, no one talked about how we can engineer miracle years when miracle years were actually still happening. This modern obsession with progress is just a sign of our decadence, of our creative exhaustion and inability to innovate in any meaningful way.
I'm reading this mega-tome about the guilded age right now and I promise you this is not true.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago> mega-tome about the guilded age What's the title? Sounds interesting.
- DubiousPusher 5y agoThe Republic for Which It Stands - The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by Richard White
- jriot 5y agoHave you read the entire Oxford US History series? I have the entire series up to 1945, minus 1896-1929 as that hasn't been published yet. we homeschool our children and my plan is to read those over the next two years to base my teaching of US History to our children when they enter high school. Yes, I'm aware that only provides a one author perspective; multiple authors as each book has a different one. Though at 10,000 dense pages it seems sufficient.
- ianai 5y agoWhat years does it cover? Edit-looks like 1763 onward. Very much left out there.
- jriot 5y agoSeven Years War (The Crucible of War, that is not actually an Oxford history book) - 1974. I don't have the volume from 1945-1974 yet. I have a few other history books covering that period to present. Penguin has a similar series on European history from the Romans to 2017; I currently have three volumes covering 1814-2017.
- dorchadas 5y agoDo you have a link to the Penguin series? That seems interesting as well, especially given the time range.
- jriot 5y agoSorry for the delay in the answer, here is the link to the European History - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/PHE/the-penguin-history-of-europe https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/PHE/the-penguin-hi.... Given the delay here is a bonus link to the Lost Civilizations Series by Chicago Press - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/series/RB-LC.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/series/RB-LC.html
- DubiousPusher 5y agoI have not but they're ceetainly going on my reading list after this one. Considering that this is yet another history book which is de-programming me from my own awful public school/hollywood led history educatiom I would think it would make a very good basis for a realistic and practical understanding of American history.
- hodgesrm 5y agoWhen I saw your initial comment I figured this was the tome. It's outstanding. I got onto it after hearing an interview with Richard White. He's opinionated and some of the opinions are very insightful. In the interview he said that there's no such thing as cycles in history (pace Spengler). Instead there are unresolved issues that keep bubbling up over generations. That completely describes America's problems with racism, starting with the original sin of slavery. States rights is another example. The gilded age illustrates many others. I was sold on the book based on that 30 seconds of the interview alone.
- DubiousPusher 5y agoI am loving it. It's dryer due to its focus on economics but "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" covers a similar era and is worthwhile too.
- throwaway1777 5y agoI actually disagree. It’s kind of a power law distribution thing where 1% of the people make 99% of the real scientific breakthroughs. We should absolutely optimize for geniuses.
- vsareto 5y agoThat seems worthless if they find their own way to knowledge outside of the schools. I think the K12 system destroying potential geniuses is a seriously overblown concern, especially in the internet age.
- DubiousPusher 5y agoYes. The "geniuses" will be alright.
- Mezzie 5y agoDisagree, but I'm concerned about the geniuses as a group of neglected children, not whether or not we're extracting maximum financial/scientific benefit from them. I always sigh whenever the discussion treats these kids/young people as tools. The current system is terrible for genius kids' emotional and social development, and in some important ways it hobbles them. (Particularly when it comes to encouraging them to develop resiliency, accept that sometimes they need help, and develop their own sense of self-worth rather than derive it from the accolades of the adults around them).
- Natsu 5y agoI feel like things are going to diverge further, between people floating around through the system and learning almost nothing vs. those self-learners who ignore that and learn on their own, not letting anything hold them back.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago> 1% of the people make 99% of the real scientific breakthroughs That is maybe the single most dubious statistic I've seen thrown out so offhandedly in my entire time on HN.
- csa 5y ago> Optimizing any system for "geniuses" seems very silly to me. I think there is merit to this argument, but right now most US public education actively restrains geniuses via excessive busywork and limited to no access to accelerated programs. Many/most of our geniuses are lost in the web of mediocrity that currently expends a ridiculous amount of resources on bringing the lowest performers up to a higher level of low (and imho still inadequate) performance. Some folks don’t want to be educated. For anything beyond basic reading, writing, math, and civics knowledge and skills, that should be ok.