Kind of. The reason college is usually touted as irrelevant is because while a lot of this type of thing is interesting and to some it is necessary knowledge, m

Kind of. The reason college is usually touted as irrelevant is because while a lot of this type of thing is interesting and to some it is necessary knowledge, most people don't need to know most of the material. (Some of HN may find zero-knowledge proofs interesting, a few might even need to know it, and the vast majority doesn't really care a whole lot. If everyone here was forced to read about it, there would probably be whining and gnashing of teeth.) The support for that position is because of what you said. Namely, if you find yourself needing it later in life you can just look it up. Because you can stitch together the curriculum when needed, doing it all up front isn't necessary. (So goes the argument; but personally I think it's somewhat short-sighted in some ways.)