4 ms·

It's funny and sad when you realize that you care more about knowledge, learning etc. when you're out of school. Or maybe I was just not mature enough to apprec

by Marwy 15y ago

It's funny and sad when you realize that you care more about knowledge, learning etc. when you're out of school. Or maybe I was just not mature enough to appreciate it.

TeMPOraL 15y ago
I think it's not about maturity, it's about having reasons to know. School can kill ones's interest in pretty much everything, as soon as your curiosity gets replaced by tests, grades, homeworks, rote, memorizing etc. But it's a long topic, covered on HN many times. For me, most of the school subjects were utterly meaningless. I didn't understand then why could I care about how we produce electricity, where are the resources located. I didn't see any use for learning about kings and battles of the centuries behind (the only date I really remembered back then, is the 6th of June 1944, Operation Overlord; Second World War at least seemed interesting to me personally). Or genetics. Or social things. Or entrepreneurship. Or whatever. I don't miss the school per se. I only wish I put up with crap back then, I wouldn't have to learn some this stuff right now the second time. I still believe the subjects, the way we're taught, are devoid of meaning. To pick one example, physics and geography classes contain enough of knowledge for people to make smart decisions about complex subjects, which scales up in democracies to nation-level. Instead, we see e.g. young mothers boycotting the construction of nuclear power plant in Poland, or whatever. Society seems to be unaware as of where do we get power from, how much do we need, and why it is a damn important problem. People only complain about gasoline prices going up; but hell, if the society doesn't care (or, doesn't even understand enough to be able to care) about energy, how can it expect politicians to care? It's a lack of mental picture of issues the world is dealing with. And energy is only one example. I remember being taught all those things in school; I didn't really understand anything back then, and I think most of the people didn't. Things like "renewable" / "not renewable" resources were to me like Lisp symbols. Their only meaning for me was in tests, like: (member 'coal renewable-resources); get it wrong, have 0 points. Somehow, between grades, tests and homework, the real meaning of things we learn got lost. Anyway, I wish to go once again through the school material, this time for real, and try to extract some meaning out of it for myself and others around me.
- personlurking 15y ago
  I recently made my own list Linguistics (psychological, pragmatics) Anthropology (social, cultural) History (Colonial, Victorian, social) Psychology (social) Etymology Humanism (Renaissance) Philosophy (Epistemology) Libertarianism Barter Economies Generalism Miscegenation Languages (Romance) Entrepreneurship Technology Startups Film (foreign, documentary) Music (folk, world, classical) Literature (fiction, creative nonfiction) Coffee Houses Salons WWOOF Wordplay Photography Curation I used to study them all quite frequently but have stopped in the last few years without knowing why. Now I realize it's because I'm trying to justify knowledge vs. usefulness. Trying to get back to some of them now, though. It's interesting that I have yet to find others who also like to learn about varied topics, outside of those who enjoy learning about technical topics. I guess that's why I'm a generalist (and why generalists are usually INTPs).
  - personlurking 15y ago
    I should add cultures and languages, too. CULTURES Brazil (10 years) Spain (5 years) Colombia (5 years) Argentina (3 years) Portugal (1 year) Cuba (months) Italy (months) Germany (months) Australia (months) LANGUAGES Brazilian Portuguese (fluent, self-taught) Spanish (semi-fluent, self-taught) Italian (intermediate, self-taught) French (basic, self-taught) German (attempted) Swedish (attempted) Russian (attempted) Catalan (attempted)

by Marwy 15y ago

It's funny and sad when you realize that you care more about knowledge, learning etc. when you're out of school. Or maybe I was just not mature enough to appreciate it.

TeMPOraL 15y ago

I think it's not about maturity, it's about having reasons to know. School can kill ones's interest in pretty much everything, as soon as your curiosity gets replaced by tests, grades, homeworks, rote, memorizing etc. But it's a long topic, covered on HN many times. For me, most of the school subjects were utterly meaningless. I didn't understand then why could I care about how we produce electricity, where are the resources located. I didn't see any use for learning about kings and battles of the centuries behind (the only date I really remembered back then, is the 6th of June 1944, Operation Overlord; Second World War at least seemed interesting to me personally). Or genetics. Or social things. Or entrepreneurship. Or whatever. I don't miss the school per se. I only wish I put up with crap back then, I wouldn't have to learn some this stuff right now the second time. I still believe the subjects, the way we're taught, are devoid of meaning. To pick one example, physics and geography classes contain enough of knowledge for people to make smart decisions about complex subjects, which scales up in democracies to nation-level. Instead, we see e.g. young mothers boycotting the construction of nuclear power plant in Poland, or whatever. Society seems to be unaware as of where do we get power from, how much do we need, and why it is a damn important problem. People only complain about gasoline prices going up; but hell, if the society doesn't care (or, doesn't even understand enough to be able to care) about energy, how can it expect politicians to care? It's a lack of mental picture of issues the world is dealing with. And energy is only one example. I remember being taught all those things in school; I didn't really understand anything back then, and I think most of the people didn't. Things like "renewable" / "not renewable" resources were to me like Lisp symbols. Their only meaning for me was in tests, like: (member 'coal renewable-resources); get it wrong, have 0 points. Somehow, between grades, tests and homework, the real meaning of things we learn got lost. Anyway, I wish to go once again through the school material, this time for real, and try to extract some meaning out of it for myself and others around me.

personlurking 15y ago
I recently made my own list Linguistics (psychological, pragmatics) Anthropology (social, cultural) History (Colonial, Victorian, social) Psychology (social) Etymology Humanism (Renaissance) Philosophy (Epistemology) Libertarianism Barter Economies Generalism Miscegenation Languages (Romance) Entrepreneurship Technology Startups Film (foreign, documentary) Music (folk, world, classical) Literature (fiction, creative nonfiction) Coffee Houses Salons WWOOF Wordplay Photography Curation I used to study them all quite frequently but have stopped in the last few years without knowing why. Now I realize it's because I'm trying to justify knowledge vs. usefulness. Trying to get back to some of them now, though. It's interesting that I have yet to find others who also like to learn about varied topics, outside of those who enjoy learning about technical topics. I guess that's why I'm a generalist (and why generalists are usually INTPs).
- personlurking 15y ago
  I should add cultures and languages, too. CULTURES Brazil (10 years) Spain (5 years) Colombia (5 years) Argentina (3 years) Portugal (1 year) Cuba (months) Italy (months) Germany (months) Australia (months) LANGUAGES Brazilian Portuguese (fluent, self-taught) Spanish (semi-fluent, self-taught) Italian (intermediate, self-taught) French (basic, self-taught) German (attempted) Swedish (attempted) Russian (attempted) Catalan (attempted)