12 ms·

Education as civilization-building

69 points by educated 4y ago

ako 4y ago
Completely agree, and that is also the reason I think education should be in a large part socially/government funded: I benefit from other people around me being educated. I’d expect there must be some research that indicates that for every euro spend on education by the government, society benefits more than that one euro.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Ebree 4y ago
  Not when conditioning people into one-minded herd-tube. It should not be funded by taking away from those funding it themselves or educating themselves. Nothing harms more than state propaganda, except state propaganda funded by corpostate. Homeschooling should be promoted. Nothing teaches you more than walking 1000 miles. PS Society & Europe was better when there were marks instead of euro. Especially looking at South of Europe. Two marks sounds even better than one ;-)
IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
Yeah, that's the basic idea of the liberal arts curriculum and the institutions teaching it. In recent years, there has been a lot of opposition against the idea. "Learn to code!" or anything "STEM" are the two most popular slogans in that regard.
- educated 4y ago
  Understanding code is a necessity in a technocratic society because as more and more things are automated understanding code becomes a necessity just like literacy. It's gotten to the point now that most people carry supercomputers in their pockets but instead of utilizing those computers to augment their intelligence for navigating the world people are absorbed in mindless consumption of algorithmic entertainment. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    Keeping masses entertained has been an important feature of holding power in most past civilisations. It distracts them from taxation and elite corruption.
    - educated 4y ago
      Which is why I said it's not sustainable. Sustaining democracies requires a citizenry who are more than just puppets controlled by the powerful. An obvious example is Twitter and social media in general. It's downright depressing to see so many people addicted to applications that have turned human interactions into engagement games just so the companies operating those interaction sandboxes can present ads for commercial activities to as many people as possible. The whole setup is outright anti-democratic and it wouldn't have happened if more people understood how computers worked and how they could utilize them to express themselves in less restricted ways.
  - Ebree 4y ago
    You have it opaque. Technology is for people not people for technology. We want minimal, simple & easily understandable law. But the more law is created the more middleman control and bloat it. The more technocrats you will have the more inhumane technocracy will become. Nobody needs to understand code. The only entities that needs it are machines. When you use a printer you need to know where to push print button not how printing was implemented. You can't expect humanity to adjust to technology by force, especially knowing natural limitation of this. Next decade you will side with sterilisation of unfitting "modern civilization". GDP flows & spreads in economy on all jobs shaping salaries. If humanity do makes technological progress it means GDP do grows and so people with lowest salaries should gain buying power. If they don't it's not their fault, it means something goes wrong with the progress that we all blindly assume is happening. But since 1970 there is no progress on West. There is a centralisation of global wealth scheme going on & we don't get natural replacement of those generations of civilization and progress builders as before. Middle class is literally being eradicated. Mindless consumption is 99% of what people do in shops. Healthy human species proper diet food is 1% of products in shops. Most of stuff around is toxic & fake. We don't need augmenting human intelligence. We need to build civilization for everyone & for humans. Society is a pyramid. Bottom produces top and achievements of top are co-owned by bottom from where they originate. I agree fully with algoentertainment. But making whole society into mindless efficient machines will be the other extreme to go to. Coding in itself is not normal natural human activity and the optimum for humans is what they evolved for in nature in their natural environment. Not observing matrix code. Fixing eyes & natural vision, not augmenting it first. Starting with true human food not replacing it. Making humans drug free before drugging them for specific performance. What people do is shaped by their (re)education, parenting, quality of their sources of information, choices surrounding them, their understanding of what a civilized human behaviour & ethics standard is, what their subjective self-assessment & habits let them become. Big part of it is infosphere around them which they never consciously chosen to be exposed to. Human don't even have a free will so how can he be fully responsible for "own" choices? A physical ratcage in overcrowded concrete labirynth seems far from humane thing. Digital escapism is like wrapping shit up in shiny paper of a magic pill to avoid facing true colours of modern reality & degredation of civilization. We made enough progress to start reverting millennia long unnatural changes & mistakes, reinventing our optimal human state with technology & push the technology evolution in direction serving human true self. Processing this basic truth gives a profound insights.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  While we do enjoy roman and egyptian art, it’s usually the quality of their engineering that makes us look in wonder.
  - CyanBird 4y ago
    You shouldn't overgeneralize your own perspectives to the broader population
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
      I would disagree this is just a perspective with no objective element to it. The thing about art is that assessing it is an inherently culturally-bound and personal taste bound endeavour. Which is the better piece of art: 1. The Mona Lisa 2. The Great Wave off Kanagawa This will inherently be subjective as there will be so many biases that come into how we assess these things. However, which is the better piece of engineering: 1. The first plane built by the Wright Brothers 2. A modern 737 By any reasonable analysis it is the 737. It is objectively more complex and indicates a far greater achievement both in its own creation as well as the civilisation that was sophisticated enough to build it. Engineering has an objective standard you can compare things across, art doesn't. This isn't to say art has no value, life would be so much poorer without it. And they can certainly intersect in something like an iPhone which is both beautiful and amazing engineering. However, there is an objective point where we have to ask: does this grant the civilisation that built it a greater control over its environment and its capacity to solve problems and this objective standard is what makes a lot of engineering so impressive.
- TheCapeGreek 4y ago
  Ideally it should be both. Everyone doing liberal arts means nobody has the skills to run the modern technologies that power our society. Nobody wants to pay for a vague qualification Teach arts as part of a rounded education sure, but also teach STEM so we can actually get things done and people can get paid for doing something that organisations actually want done. Over-optimisation towards one or the other leads to either arts qualified young adults who can't do much for work, or highly literal engineering types who only see value as utility.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    The S and M from STEM are liberal arts. It's simply a term to distinguish fields like physics, anthropology, etc from "vocational training"-type programs like med schools [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_...
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
      …and math is among the “liberal arts”.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
imgabe 4y ago
> Education is the process through which the body of knowledge and culture that we have been accumulating for thousands of years passes from our generation to the next one. In aggregate, yes. But no one person gets the entire body of knowledge that humanity has accumulated for thousands of years. This is impossible for any single person to understand. Each person can only hope to get a piece, and hopefully some of those useful skills the author derides so that they can contribute a piece of their own back to the whole. Because simply understanding civilization - even if it were possible for one person to do - does not prevent any of the decay the author is concerned about. It must be improved upon and re-transmitted to the next generation in order for it to endure.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Ars longa, vita brevis: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
nynx 4y ago
I love the idea of education as something people do because they love to learn and to think and I think it’s important that it exists. At the same time, we can’t expect everyone to want to do that.
- mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
  Why do some kids want to learn and others don't? Why do some kids have infinite curiosity about the world and want to figure out how it works? Perhaps we should focus on figuring out how to encourage this curiosity in humans. A newborn seems to be incredibly curious about the world. With age, this curiosity seems to fade, for some more so than others. If we can prevent curiosity from fading, people would be excited about learning.
  - nickelpro 4y ago
    Ah yes, let's force a government mandated culture on people. Can't imagine anything going wrong with that.
    - educated 4y ago
      None of what the OP said indicated anything of the sort.
truly 4y ago
It helps to first discuss what the purpose of the education system is before trying to reform it. In my view, the purpose should be: - enable each individual to function independently in society. For poor individuals, a technical education that helps land you a good job is absolutely great and is an enabling factor for many things to come. For individuals from richer families with a wide array of opportunities (e.g., middle class in the west), no doubt a traditional liberal arts education is fantastic.
- kqr 4y ago
  This confuses me. Wouldn't it be more important to enable people to work together in society?
- bestouff 4y ago
  A different education system if you're poor or rich ? From a french point of view, that's horrible. A sure good way for keeping a class system.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    French education is rigidly divided into liberal-arts/prep school ("baccalaureat") and vocational-only ("CFA/CAP") at the secondary level. If anything, the typical U.S. high school is a lot more flexible and "unified", though de-facto quality is of course extremely variable.
    - bestouff 4y ago
      Of course the french system is flawed, but at least its founding principle is to give everyone the same chance. Starting your life with a different education depending on your wealth is shocking.
      - truly 4y ago
        Giving everyone the same chances is a principle pretty much everyone reasonable agrees with. What I'm saying is that if you are poor, your best bet is to choose to pursue whatever education brings you the best possible job.
temptemptemp111 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
Is this written by an AI? I was waiting for the article and it never arrived.
- educated 4y ago
  You are very smart, thank you for your very important and pertinent contribution.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Low quality articles that people only read the title of is how web forums die. This is an extremely low quality article that I hope was written by an AI model so no human brains were harmed during it's production.
    - educated 4y ago
      Yes, thank you. Only a smart person like you could notice that. Once again, I can't thank you enough. Please keep up your efforts of informing people about what you think is useless drivel so that brains won't be harmed in the future.
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        The brains harmed were the ones who created this, not the ones consuming it. Happy to see that AI models are so close to reading comprehension though.
        educated 4y ago
        Yes, computers these days can perform very sophisticated statistical calculation to simulate the appearance of intelligence. Very similar to some people that comment on HN. I'm not as smart as you so I often have a hard time telling the difference. Thanks again for your very informed viewpoint. I have learned a lot from these engagements.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
janmarsal 4y ago
I've never been as depressed as I was back in the university when I was looking for open jobs and realized the employers want a completely different set of skills than what I had. It hit me like a hammer when I realized all this time I had spend studying didn't even pay off in the end. I know how to code (no thanks to our education system), so I ended up getting a job anyway, but I have unemployed friends who are around 30yo with master's decrees and the best they can get is a part-time job as a cashier. They've mostly just given up on life at this point and live on welfare. They're very civilized though. How's that opioid crisis going on btw?
- educated 4y ago
  What exactly is the point you're making? That treating people like replaceable cogs in an economic machine is bad or do you have some other point?
  - gloryjulio 4y ago
    I think the point is that we need to be honest and transparent with ppl. We don't have enough good jobs to accommodate, and there won't be. The so called middle class positions is and will be shrinking and we have to face the fact.
    - educated 4y ago
      What exactly is a "good" job in your opinion?
      - gloryjulio 4y ago
        What I mean is on macro perceptive, a good job should sustain a 'middle class' life style, let the ppl to afford housing, cars, children etc. And apparently by this standard, the percentage of good jobs are shrinking, and it's a global phenomena. Shrinking middle is not something I come up with. I just totally agree with it. Think about the good old days in America We have increasing number of ppl getting higher educations, coupled with shrinking good job markets, the competitions to get good jobs is only more fierce by the day. Whatever the reason, the automation, the shifting economy, the depletion of resources, the fact doesn't change. The supply of university graduates just outpase the shrinking 'good middle class' job markets.
simple-thoughts 4y ago
Educations function is already civilization building. The uncivilized are people who live outside of the system of state control. Civilization is the process of indoctrinating education to bring additional assets under the control of the state. However, job training does increase the long term value of state assets and a transition began in the 20th century and continues today. Some such as the author resist this trend because they prefer the traditional education system without understanding it’s historical social function.
- throwuwu 4y ago
  Civilization and State are not synonymous. A civilization has many more components than just its governing body. If you don’t think so then answer this: why is it so hard for conquering nations to hold onto and integrate the lands and peoples they have conquered?
  - simple-thoughts 4y ago
    You are correct in a strict technical sense. However in most media, and in this article in particular, state and civilization are used interchangeably. The author is not discussing education as a parent might teach their child but rather as to how a state institution indoctrinates its students.
hoseja 4y ago
> maximally realizing human potential It's not though, it's about maximally inserting the human into the machine. That's why the machine is funding the education.
trabant00 4y ago
First: in most of the world the first 8 to 12 years are already focused on general knowledge with plenty of history, arts, culture, social studies, etc. Not job training. Second: "civilization building", "maximally realizing human potential" and so on are occupations that very few individuals can have. Civilizations simply don't have the disposable resources to sustain a significant portion of their population focusing on such things.
netmonk 4y ago
Thank you mister obvious.
nucatus 4y ago
This is rather a simplistic view with the wrong conclusion of what the education means to our society and culture. The scientific progress has always been carried out by a small percent of population, and not a mass process. Its only recent when the education was made available to the masses. I also suspect the author mistakes the term education for kwoledge. And yes, some knowledge is lost, but that is due the technological progress. It's always been that way.
mikewarot 4y ago
Earlier today my child was bemoaning the lack of practical skills in education. No education about filling out taxes, dealing with bank accounts, courts, etc. has been given at school. I'll rectify those deficits soon.

69 points by educated 4y ago

ako 4y ago

Completely agree, and that is also the reason I think education should be in a large part socially/government funded: I benefit from other people around me being educated. I’d expect there must be some research that indicates that for every euro spend on education by the government, society benefits more than that one euro.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ebree 4y ago
Not when conditioning people into one-minded herd-tube. It should not be funded by taking away from those funding it themselves or educating themselves. Nothing harms more than state propaganda, except state propaganda funded by corpostate. Homeschooling should be promoted. Nothing teaches you more than walking 1000 miles. PS Society & Europe was better when there were marks instead of euro. Especially looking at South of Europe. Two marks sounds even better than one ;-)

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago

Yeah, that's the basic idea of the liberal arts curriculum and the institutions teaching it. In recent years, there has been a lot of opposition against the idea. "Learn to code!" or anything "STEM" are the two most popular slogans in that regard.

educated 4y ago
Understanding code is a necessity in a technocratic society because as more and more things are automated understanding code becomes a necessity just like literacy. It's gotten to the point now that most people carry supercomputers in their pockets but instead of utilizing those computers to augment their intelligence for navigating the world people are absorbed in mindless consumption of algorithmic entertainment. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Keeping masses entertained has been an important feature of holding power in most past civilisations. It distracts them from taxation and elite corruption.
  - educated 4y ago
    Which is why I said it's not sustainable. Sustaining democracies requires a citizenry who are more than just puppets controlled by the powerful. An obvious example is Twitter and social media in general. It's downright depressing to see so many people addicted to applications that have turned human interactions into engagement games just so the companies operating those interaction sandboxes can present ads for commercial activities to as many people as possible. The whole setup is outright anti-democratic and it wouldn't have happened if more people understood how computers worked and how they could utilize them to express themselves in less restricted ways.
- Ebree 4y ago
  You have it opaque. Technology is for people not people for technology. We want minimal, simple & easily understandable law. But the more law is created the more middleman control and bloat it. The more technocrats you will have the more inhumane technocracy will become. Nobody needs to understand code. The only entities that needs it are machines. When you use a printer you need to know where to push print button not how printing was implemented. You can't expect humanity to adjust to technology by force, especially knowing natural limitation of this. Next decade you will side with sterilisation of unfitting "modern civilization". GDP flows & spreads in economy on all jobs shaping salaries. If humanity do makes technological progress it means GDP do grows and so people with lowest salaries should gain buying power. If they don't it's not their fault, it means something goes wrong with the progress that we all blindly assume is happening. But since 1970 there is no progress on West. There is a centralisation of global wealth scheme going on & we don't get natural replacement of those generations of civilization and progress builders as before. Middle class is literally being eradicated. Mindless consumption is 99% of what people do in shops. Healthy human species proper diet food is 1% of products in shops. Most of stuff around is toxic & fake. We don't need augmenting human intelligence. We need to build civilization for everyone & for humans. Society is a pyramid. Bottom produces top and achievements of top are co-owned by bottom from where they originate. I agree fully with algoentertainment. But making whole society into mindless efficient machines will be the other extreme to go to. Coding in itself is not normal natural human activity and the optimum for humans is what they evolved for in nature in their natural environment. Not observing matrix code. Fixing eyes & natural vision, not augmenting it first. Starting with true human food not replacing it. Making humans drug free before drugging them for specific performance. What people do is shaped by their (re)education, parenting, quality of their sources of information, choices surrounding them, their understanding of what a civilized human behaviour & ethics standard is, what their subjective self-assessment & habits let them become. Big part of it is infosphere around them which they never consciously chosen to be exposed to. Human don't even have a free will so how can he be fully responsible for "own" choices? A physical ratcage in overcrowded concrete labirynth seems far from humane thing. Digital escapism is like wrapping shit up in shiny paper of a magic pill to avoid facing true colours of modern reality & degredation of civilization. We made enough progress to start reverting millennia long unnatural changes & mistakes, reinventing our optimal human state with technology & push the technology evolution in direction serving human true self. Processing this basic truth gives a profound insights.
yrgulation 4y ago
While we do enjoy roman and egyptian art, it’s usually the quality of their engineering that makes us look in wonder.
- CyanBird 4y ago
  You shouldn't overgeneralize your own perspectives to the broader population
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    I would disagree this is just a perspective with no objective element to it. The thing about art is that assessing it is an inherently culturally-bound and personal taste bound endeavour. Which is the better piece of art: 1. The Mona Lisa 2. The Great Wave off Kanagawa This will inherently be subjective as there will be so many biases that come into how we assess these things. However, which is the better piece of engineering: 1. The first plane built by the Wright Brothers 2. A modern 737 By any reasonable analysis it is the 737. It is objectively more complex and indicates a far greater achievement both in its own creation as well as the civilisation that was sophisticated enough to build it. Engineering has an objective standard you can compare things across, art doesn't. This isn't to say art has no value, life would be so much poorer without it. And they can certainly intersect in something like an iPhone which is both beautiful and amazing engineering. However, there is an objective point where we have to ask: does this grant the civilisation that built it a greater control over its environment and its capacity to solve problems and this objective standard is what makes a lot of engineering so impressive.
TheCapeGreek 4y ago
Ideally it should be both. Everyone doing liberal arts means nobody has the skills to run the modern technologies that power our society. Nobody wants to pay for a vague qualification Teach arts as part of a rounded education sure, but also teach STEM so we can actually get things done and people can get paid for doing something that organisations actually want done. Over-optimisation towards one or the other leads to either arts qualified young adults who can't do much for work, or highly literal engineering types who only see value as utility.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  The S and M from STEM are liberal arts. It's simply a term to distinguish fields like physics, anthropology, etc from "vocational training"-type programs like med schools [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education#Modern_...
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
    …and math is among the “liberal arts”.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

imgabe 4y ago

> Education is the process through which the body of knowledge and culture that we have been accumulating for thousands of years passes from our generation to the next one. In aggregate, yes. But no one person gets the entire body of knowledge that humanity has accumulated for thousands of years. This is impossible for any single person to understand. Each person can only hope to get a piece, and hopefully some of those useful skills the author derides so that they can contribute a piece of their own back to the whole. Because simply understanding civilization - even if it were possible for one person to do - does not prevent any of the decay the author is concerned about. It must be improved upon and re-transmitted to the next generation in order for it to endure.

zozbot234 4y ago
Ars longa, vita brevis: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/

nynx 4y ago

I love the idea of education as something people do because they love to learn and to think and I think it’s important that it exists. At the same time, we can’t expect everyone to want to do that.

mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
Why do some kids want to learn and others don't? Why do some kids have infinite curiosity about the world and want to figure out how it works? Perhaps we should focus on figuring out how to encourage this curiosity in humans. A newborn seems to be incredibly curious about the world. With age, this curiosity seems to fade, for some more so than others. If we can prevent curiosity from fading, people would be excited about learning.
- nickelpro 4y ago
  Ah yes, let's force a government mandated culture on people. Can't imagine anything going wrong with that.
  - educated 4y ago
    None of what the OP said indicated anything of the sort.

truly 4y ago

It helps to first discuss what the purpose of the education system is before trying to reform it. In my view, the purpose should be: - enable each individual to function independently in society. For poor individuals, a technical education that helps land you a good job is absolutely great and is an enabling factor for many things to come. For individuals from richer families with a wide array of opportunities (e.g., middle class in the west), no doubt a traditional liberal arts education is fantastic.

kqr 4y ago
This confuses me. Wouldn't it be more important to enable people to work together in society?
bestouff 4y ago
A different education system if you're poor or rich ? From a french point of view, that's horrible. A sure good way for keeping a class system.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  French education is rigidly divided into liberal-arts/prep school ("baccalaureat") and vocational-only ("CFA/CAP") at the secondary level. If anything, the typical U.S. high school is a lot more flexible and "unified", though de-facto quality is of course extremely variable.
  - bestouff 4y ago
    Of course the french system is flawed, but at least its founding principle is to give everyone the same chance. Starting your life with a different education depending on your wealth is shocking.
    - truly 4y ago
      Giving everyone the same chances is a principle pretty much everyone reasonable agrees with. What I'm saying is that if you are poor, your best bet is to choose to pursue whatever education brings you the best possible job.

temptemptemp111 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

Is this written by an AI? I was waiting for the article and it never arrived.

educated 4y ago
You are very smart, thank you for your very important and pertinent contribution.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Low quality articles that people only read the title of is how web forums die. This is an extremely low quality article that I hope was written by an AI model so no human brains were harmed during it's production.
  - educated 4y ago
    Yes, thank you. Only a smart person like you could notice that. Once again, I can't thank you enough. Please keep up your efforts of informing people about what you think is useless drivel so that brains won't be harmed in the future.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      The brains harmed were the ones who created this, not the ones consuming it. Happy to see that AI models are so close to reading comprehension though.
      - educated 4y ago
        Yes, computers these days can perform very sophisticated statistical calculation to simulate the appearance of intelligence. Very similar to some people that comment on HN. I'm not as smart as you so I often have a hard time telling the difference. Thanks again for your very informed viewpoint. I have learned a lot from these engagements.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

janmarsal 4y ago

I've never been as depressed as I was back in the university when I was looking for open jobs and realized the employers want a completely different set of skills than what I had. It hit me like a hammer when I realized all this time I had spend studying didn't even pay off in the end. I know how to code (no thanks to our education system), so I ended up getting a job anyway, but I have unemployed friends who are around 30yo with master's decrees and the best they can get is a part-time job as a cashier. They've mostly just given up on life at this point and live on welfare. They're very civilized though. How's that opioid crisis going on btw?

educated 4y ago
What exactly is the point you're making? That treating people like replaceable cogs in an economic machine is bad or do you have some other point?
- gloryjulio 4y ago
  I think the point is that we need to be honest and transparent with ppl. We don't have enough good jobs to accommodate, and there won't be. The so called middle class positions is and will be shrinking and we have to face the fact.
  - educated 4y ago
    What exactly is a "good" job in your opinion?
    - gloryjulio 4y ago
      What I mean is on macro perceptive, a good job should sustain a 'middle class' life style, let the ppl to afford housing, cars, children etc. And apparently by this standard, the percentage of good jobs are shrinking, and it's a global phenomena. Shrinking middle is not something I come up with. I just totally agree with it. Think about the good old days in America We have increasing number of ppl getting higher educations, coupled with shrinking good job markets, the competitions to get good jobs is only more fierce by the day. Whatever the reason, the automation, the shifting economy, the depletion of resources, the fact doesn't change. The supply of university graduates just outpase the shrinking 'good middle class' job markets.

simple-thoughts 4y ago

Educations function is already civilization building. The uncivilized are people who live outside of the system of state control. Civilization is the process of indoctrinating education to bring additional assets under the control of the state. However, job training does increase the long term value of state assets and a transition began in the 20th century and continues today. Some such as the author resist this trend because they prefer the traditional education system without understanding it’s historical social function.

throwuwu 4y ago
Civilization and State are not synonymous. A civilization has many more components than just its governing body. If you don’t think so then answer this: why is it so hard for conquering nations to hold onto and integrate the lands and peoples they have conquered?
- simple-thoughts 4y ago
  You are correct in a strict technical sense. However in most media, and in this article in particular, state and civilization are used interchangeably. The author is not discussing education as a parent might teach their child but rather as to how a state institution indoctrinates its students.

hoseja 4y ago

> maximally realizing human potential It's not though, it's about maximally inserting the human into the machine. That's why the machine is funding the education.

trabant00 4y ago

First: in most of the world the first 8 to 12 years are already focused on general knowledge with plenty of history, arts, culture, social studies, etc. Not job training. Second: "civilization building", "maximally realizing human potential" and so on are occupations that very few individuals can have. Civilizations simply don't have the disposable resources to sustain a significant portion of their population focusing on such things.

netmonk 4y ago

Thank you mister obvious.

nucatus 4y ago

This is rather a simplistic view with the wrong conclusion of what the education means to our society and culture. The scientific progress has always been carried out by a small percent of population, and not a mass process. Its only recent when the education was made available to the masses. I also suspect the author mistakes the term education for kwoledge. And yes, some knowledge is lost, but that is due the technological progress. It's always been that way.

mikewarot 4y ago

Earlier today my child was bemoaning the lack of practical skills in education. No education about filling out taxes, dealing with bank accounts, courts, etc. has been given at school. I'll rectify those deficits soon.