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George Lucas Will Use Disney $4 Billion to Fund Education
- loceng 14y agoGood Guy George
- mythrowaway2 14y agoEnough to attend Harvard for a few years.
- marshallp 14y agoThat's so foolish, he should be investing it into the ultimate medical technology of this generation, focus ultraound http://www.fusfoundation.org/MRgFUS-Overview/about-focused-ultrasound-surgery http://www.fusfoundation.org/MRgFUS-Overview/about-focused-u...
- Xcelerate 14y agoWhat's with all the posts on this?
- marshallp 14y agoWhat do you mean? It's a hugely important low cost high impact tech like 3d printers that doesn't get much attention. Why does that offend you?
- robryan 14y agoI think it is because everyone thinks they know where money is best spent for research. There are tons of highly beneficial areas out there that could do great things with more funds.
- marshallp 14y agoThat's the thing, it's not research. It's like 3d printers, there should be an ultrasound machine in every home. I'd like to see hackers work on it like they did with personal computers so the ultrasound revolution gets going. This is the crowd that can make it happen quickly (ultrasound revolution - daily cancer destruction, fat burning, localized noninvasive growth factor injections for heart/lung/brain regrowth)
- frozenport 14y agodlDaily cancer destruction is quackery. Even if ultrasound kills cancer cells selectively (which is very questionable), it also kills health cells. Health cells don't grow and thus the cancer quickly takes its place. Prolonged treatment causes a feedback scheme which quickly leaves cancer.
- marshallp 14y agoIt also offers the opportunity for precise delivery of medicine, so that you can get some growth factor there (like extracellular matrix pixie dust) and get tissue growth there as well. Calling it quackery is absurd, thousands of people have treated with it already and companies like GE are investing in it. You must be retarded.
- anigbrowl 14y agoEventually you'll grow out of this fear of death. If you are so obsessed with focus ultrasound, invest in it yourself.
- josephagoss 14y agoI disagree, why will he eventually grow out of his fear of death? I think if the majority of the worlds population didn't believe in a god, afterlife, mother nature or something like the spirit world then we would have millions of people with a active fear of death. The only people that truly don't fear real death are atheists that have made peace with that fact. I am a atheist that has not out grown a fear of death, but I can't relate to anyone I know because they all say the same as you, "you will eventually out grow that fear", then I ask what if I am right and when we die we are forever gone and there is no afterlife? They say "Well that is unlikely, there is something else out there" So everyone I know doesn't fear death, because they think they will never truly die anyway. Like I said, the only people on earth that really do not fear death are a small amount of the atheist population that have come to accept death as inevitable. But what I think is that if all of humanity was atheist, we would be pouring billions in immortality research.
- georgeorwell 14y agoDeath is completely painless non-existence. Absolutely nothing to fear about it.
- josephagoss 14y agoI guess its the fear of non-existence. Of course once we are dead its not a issue, but whilst we are alive its something on some of our minds. (not wanting the party to end)
- georgeorwell 14y agoYeah, fair enough, I've struggled with the same fear. I want to stay alive as long as possible too.
- SethMurphy 14y agoThis should silence all the questions of what will happen to the Star Wars franchise, it doesn't matter. Doing good is much more important. We will never relive the past of our childhood in many ways, including seeing another good Star Wars film. Our children (and the world) will be better off because of it and the original should be re-released every generation for them to enjoy also. Good play George, good play.
- nealabq 14y agoGeorge, education is currently in turmoil. A Jedi Benefactor with $4B could help restore balance. Please consider Khan Academy. The padawans would be grateful.
- 2arrs2ells 14y agoI don't think Khan Academy is constrained by capital.
- akozak 14y agoSetting this aside for a much more interesting question: What application of $4B would, right now, generate the most utility for humanity? Or alternatively, for the US?
- wallflower 14y agoFor the world, building school infrastructure/education of girls in cultures that are hostile to neutral to their education For the US, replication and forking off improved variants of the Harlem Children's Zone somewhere other than Harlem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Childrens_Zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Childrens_Zone
- MBlume 14y agoAre we sure building schools will help the girls? http://80000hours.org/blog/100-let-s-stop-building-schools http://80000hours.org/blog/100-let-s-stop-building-schools
- wallflower 14y agoYou're right. It is a complex problem more akin to Christian missionaries who tried to bring their religion to the country that they visited. The country/culture might actively resist change because it threatens the status quo. Can't just build churches, have to build a following. And, as the Crusades showed, that can lead to aggression and war.
- Evbn 14y agoRead the article you linked, then read what wallflower wrote. Wallflower didn't have propose just throwing up buildings.
- Tiktaalik 14y agoThe first thing that pops to my mind would be eliminating homelessness by building affordable housing for the those at risk of homelessness, the homeless and the hard to house.
- stephen_mcd 14y agoStill won't make up for the prequels, sorry George.
- splicer 14y agoI disagree.
- patmcguire 14y agoI've always felt you could do the most good by funding a good chain of community colleges. One of the big causes of the explosion in for profit colleges is that in many areas have more students that want to enroll in community college than they have the ability to provide. For-profit schools fill the gap. Community college has the stigma of "not real college," and I think they tend to get short shrift on funding because of that. What, you don't want everyone to go to a four year school? There's a great article in the Atlantic[1] that makes the case that the way work used to be structured meant a more consistent learning curve - you got better at working one machine, you could transfer those skills to the next and learn on the job - whereas now there tends to be an initial barrier you have to clear before you can learn anything. You can't get a job programming machines until you know the languages and have the math skills, but there's no way to get there through another job. You have to put your life on hold before you can get to an advancement path. That's the main hurdle - once you're past that point you're on the more experience/better skills track again. Community college shouldn't the focus so much because it'll reach nontraditional students and save money for students who want to transfer to four year schools but because the separation between no college and a good two-year degree is the biggest, hardest gap to cross and once you get people across it they're already most of the way to accomplishing whatever they want to next. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/308844/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-i...
- rayiner 14y agoI think this too. There are millions of unfilled jobs right now because people don't have the skills. The answer to that problem is not more crappy four year for profit colleges. Its community colleges that teah what people need to learn.
- 2arrs2ells 14y agoThe Gates foundation funded this effort: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mycollege-foundation-partners-mount-st-130000054.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mycollege-foundation-partners-... seeking to build a low cost, non-profit community college.
- tsotha 14y agoBah. Another billionaire wasting money on education. The last thing we need to do is spend yet more money on the endless money pit that has become the American education system. Well, it's his money; he can do whatever he wants. It's a shame to see this when there are so many other places the money might do some good.
- dmix 14y agoIndeed, it's not so much spending on education, it's spending it the same way education donatations have always been spent (university endowments, buildings, etc).
- EricDeb 14y agoCouldn't agree more. The discrepancy between academia and industry is disgraceful. I just finished a particularly academic Masters in CS, and failed to learn a lot of skills that would have been useful in the real world - specifically languages like C#, python, or Ruby, big-data, server administration, parallel/distributed programming, etc. I'm not opposed to learning these skills on my own but it's annoying that I am not more prepared for industry.
- chubot 14y agoDid you work BEFORE you went to school? I think a lot of this could be avoided by having kids take 1-2 years between high school and college to work. Then they would know what to study. It is kind of a catch-22 though. I gravitated towards the theoretical in my B.S. and Masters subjects because that's what I liked. In retrospect I should have learned more about OS's and such. Though I learned it while working through self-study, so it worked out OK. My education gave the impression that all computer scientists did was various kinds of linear algebra, whereas I don't think I've used linear algebra once in 10 years of professional programming, even working at a video game company, and Google (i.e. I've actually had jobs more likely to use math than most programming I would say) On the other hand, I don't think you should be annoyed... theoretical foundations are worth learning. A lot of stuff you mention will be less important or commodified in some way in 10 years. Your education is supposed to last your whole life, not just prepare you for whatever's hot the decade after you graduate.
- cpeterso 14y agoSF author David Brin has some unusual suggestions for philanthropic billionaires looking to immortalize themselves with a significant legacy. For example, build a third-world university system ($5B), fund a manned Mars mission ($25B), or create an annual prize for whisteblowers ($1M annually plus witness relocation). http://www.davidbrin.com/eon.html http://www.davidbrin.com/eon.html
- pg 14y agoA lot of philanthropists in the US seem to become interested in education. Is this as true in, say, Sweden? I wonder if it is largely an artifact of the brokenness of American schools rather than the universal importance of education. (Not that education isn't important. It's immensely important. But maybe in some places it doesn't seem like a problem.)
- oacgnol 14y agoI don't know if you could say that the impetus is largely because of the brokenness of the American education system. Online education startups like Coursera, Udacity, etc. have a far reaching effect on the rest of the world too. I'm willing to conjecture that a majority of students on Coursera right now are not US citizens, and that the appeal of (quality) college material to the rest of the world is a big factor. There are huge implications for universities to take advantage of this to spread influence.
- diego 14y agoGood education in the US is very expensive, unlike in Sweden. For those of us who believe that quality education for everyone is good for society, it means it's broken. Other people believe that it's better to have excellent education for those who can afford it, and marginal education for the rest. Those people would not say it's broken.
- mrtron 14y agoAn Indian billionaire donated ~2 billion to education. I have always thought investment into education is the optimal strategy for increasing the rate of human progress against time.
- sterna 14y agoPhilanthropy is much bigger in the US than in the Nordic countries so there is much more money to go around. That being said there has traditionally been a feeling among the rich that they have already given their share to education through the high tax rate. Historically construction has been the most popular type of philanthropic project. But in recent years the scope has been broadened a lot because the welfare state has had to retract some of its branches, and thus education has also risen in popularity.
- ScottBurson 14y agoIf I had this kind of money to fund education, I think I'd set up my own voucher systems in some inner cities. I think real choice and the real competition it can bring about are the only way to fix education in this country.
- modernise 14y agoInteractive movies. Psychiatry and schools, two birds w one stone.
- jpxxx 14y agoThis genuinely makes me hate myself a little less for the fifty bucks I threw at the last three movies.
- pella 14y agohttp://www.edutopia.org/mission-vision http://www.edutopia.org/mission-vision ( The George Lucas Educational Foundation ) "Our Vision Our vision is of a new world of learning, a place where students and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve are all empowered to change education for the better; a place where schools provide rigorous project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and access to new technology; a place where innovation is the rule, not the exception; a place where students become lifelong learners and develop 21st-century skills, especially three fundamental skills: -how to find information -how to assess the quality of information -how to creatively and effectively use information to accomplish a goal It’s a place of inspiration and aspiration based on the urgent belief that improving education is the key to the survival of the human race. We call this place Edutopia, and we provide not just the vision for this new world of learning but the real-world information and community connections to make it a reality."
- acabal 14y agoGood for him. I'm picturing him realizing that he's getting older, and that he can either keep spending money on kid's movies, or he can try to make a real difference in the world. Education is a great thing to focus on too. My personal belief is that a lot of our social and political problems stem from a population that, on the whole, lacks critical thinking and analysis skills. When one can't think critically, emotion and fear take over, and people vote against their own interests or slide into apathy. If Lucas is planning to invest in high-school-and-below-level stuff, he might have a chance at changing that for the next generation.
- sergiotapia 14y agoBut what about Jar Jar Binks! Rabble rabble, hate hate! --- I bet the internet feels silly at this point.
- Wohlf 14y agoJar Jar Binks Memorial Film School.