5 ms·

> "The way I see it, it's the educators who hold all the power in the world. No, stop laughing and hear me out. A good instructor can, over the course of their

by ftxbro 3y ago

> "The way I see it, it's the educators who hold all the power in the world. No, stop laughing and hear me out. A good instructor can, over the course of their career, create hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of GDP. Let's say a teacher teaches 40 students a year for 30 years. And Each of those students goes on to work for 40 years. And, due to the quality of instruction, they earn $10,000 more per year than they would have otherwise. That's $480 million in extra revenue. From one good instructor." OK but providing value isn't the same as having power. It's almost the opposite thing.

whimsicalism 3y ago
What are you quoting?
- ftxbro 3y ago
  it's beej saying why he write guides
jrumbut 3y ago
> OK but providing value isn't the same as having power. Providing value is absolutely a way of having power. You change the world, that's power. Having power isn't the same as yielding benefit (for yourself).
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  When people talk about having or not having power, they rarely mean magnitude alone. The more important component is control. Can you wield your power to achieve some specific goal of yours? Can you use this power to overall improve your life, and lives of those you care about? Can you use this power to protect yourself from someone else using their power to achieve something at your expense? Beej's teaching power only answers "Yes" to the first question here - and that's only if your goals have something to do with teaching or improving the world overall, somewhere, for some people.
  - jrumbut 3y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your third question, but I think beej's teaching power fulfills the second question in a very radical way which is that it is an act of caring for a large audience of strangers and does improve their lives. Power that isn't attached to the desire to reap a direct benefit is a strange thing to witness, but it's power nonetheless!
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > I'm not sure I understand your third question It's whether or not a particular type of power you have can help you and yours in adversarial situations. Can your Power of Teaching help you if a local thug wants you gone? Or, can your Power of Teaching help you when local governor decides to close down and raze your school, to be replaced with a factory? In both cases, someone else is exercising their power to directly or indirectly take away your livelihood (or life) - can your power prevent it, or at least mitigate the blow? No power is good against all other powers, but some kinds of power are better at this in general. For instance, a wealthy businessman or politician could answer "Yes" to both scenarios above (replacing "school" with closest equivalent) - their money and influence can buy protection and work as a deterrent against the thug, and it can outweigh the influence of the local governor (or just allow for an effective bribe). > I think beej's teaching power fulfills the second question in a very radical way which is that it is an act of caring for a large audience of strangers and does improve their lives. Caring about large audience of strangers (or humanity in general) resonates with me, so I'll give this a passing mark here :). > Power that isn't attached to the desire to reap a direct benefit is a strange thing to witness, but it's power nonetheless! True. What I am trying to highlight here is that, when people talk about "power", in the sense of seeking more of it, or comparing people by how much of it they have, they usually don't count magnitudes of raw power, but rather how generic and how controllable it is. This is similar to wealth, btw. Having $1M in cash makes you more wealthy in the immediate term than someone who has $1M in stocks, equipment, etc., as that other person won't get anything near a $1M if they try to convert their assets to cash.
oreally 3y ago
Yea he's using economic output as a measure.. then equating it to having power, which is laughable. Anyway, in an age of information abundance and videos, educators are overvalued if they just give instruction alone. It's the whole package, the checks and balances on the student, that possibly provides some sort of value. Then again, there are irregularities, like the programmer who's never been to college who contributes as much or even more.

by ftxbro 3y ago

whimsicalism 3y ago

What are you quoting?

ftxbro 3y ago
it's beej saying why he write guides

jrumbut 3y ago

> OK but providing value isn't the same as having power. Providing value is absolutely a way of having power. You change the world, that's power. Having power isn't the same as yielding benefit (for yourself).

TeMPOraL 3y ago
When people talk about having or not having power, they rarely mean magnitude alone. The more important component is control. Can you wield your power to achieve some specific goal of yours? Can you use this power to overall improve your life, and lives of those you care about? Can you use this power to protect yourself from someone else using their power to achieve something at your expense? Beej's teaching power only answers "Yes" to the first question here - and that's only if your goals have something to do with teaching or improving the world overall, somewhere, for some people.
- jrumbut 3y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your third question, but I think beej's teaching power fulfills the second question in a very radical way which is that it is an act of caring for a large audience of strangers and does improve their lives. Power that isn't attached to the desire to reap a direct benefit is a strange thing to witness, but it's power nonetheless!
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > I'm not sure I understand your third question It's whether or not a particular type of power you have can help you and yours in adversarial situations. Can your Power of Teaching help you if a local thug wants you gone? Or, can your Power of Teaching help you when local governor decides to close down and raze your school, to be replaced with a factory? In both cases, someone else is exercising their power to directly or indirectly take away your livelihood (or life) - can your power prevent it, or at least mitigate the blow? No power is good against all other powers, but some kinds of power are better at this in general. For instance, a wealthy businessman or politician could answer "Yes" to both scenarios above (replacing "school" with closest equivalent) - their money and influence can buy protection and work as a deterrent against the thug, and it can outweigh the influence of the local governor (or just allow for an effective bribe). > I think beej's teaching power fulfills the second question in a very radical way which is that it is an act of caring for a large audience of strangers and does improve their lives. Caring about large audience of strangers (or humanity in general) resonates with me, so I'll give this a passing mark here :). > Power that isn't attached to the desire to reap a direct benefit is a strange thing to witness, but it's power nonetheless! True. What I am trying to highlight here is that, when people talk about "power", in the sense of seeking more of it, or comparing people by how much of it they have, they usually don't count magnitudes of raw power, but rather how generic and how controllable it is. This is similar to wealth, btw. Having $1M in cash makes you more wealthy in the immediate term than someone who has $1M in stocks, equipment, etc., as that other person won't get anything near a $1M if they try to convert their assets to cash.

oreally 3y ago

Yea he's using economic output as a measure.. then equating it to having power, which is laughable. Anyway, in an age of information abundance and videos, educators are overvalued if they just give instruction alone. It's the whole package, the checks and balances on the student, that possibly provides some sort of value. Then again, there are irregularities, like the programmer who's never been to college who contributes as much or even more.