it's amazing how this metaphor from fiction drove so much of how people in the field of education think about teaching, I had no idea Stephenson resonated outsi

it's amazing how this metaphor from fiction drove so much of how people in the field of education think about teaching, I had no idea Stephenson resonated outside tech. the author problematizing what he calls authoritarianism is freighted with some implicit ideas about truth and enlightenment that are predicated on some radical presumptions as well. the best educated people are those who were mentored into a competence and that's not ever going to be evenly distributed. imo the primer was an expression of replicating that, hence the guiding structure the author criticizes. if you start with what are essentially gnostic ideas about unraveling the illusions of the culture by initiating people into critical mysteries vs. just giving them tools to practice with and guide them to adopt the implicit morality of competence, the primer is less problematized. I think the author may be bringing some prior critical ideas to it that are worth looking at objectively.