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Seeing how the educational system that we have now was nonexistent 100 years ago that routinely offers information one can find online now, I feel like the auth

Seeing how the educational system that we have now was nonexistent 100 years ago that routinely offers information one can find online now, I feel like the author is referring to something that was more valuable and more applicable to a point in history than the current state of affairs (at least in the way our society values/rewards formal education with assumed employability and/or a necessary prerequisite for any further study for many things) . Though on some level I can appreciate the need for patience when undergoing a process with a well defined end-point worth the wait that is understood by the person doing the waiting, I am failing to see how the current state of affairs in the education system deliver this to the students as they apparently have in the past (which I doubt seeing they ways things are now). I would even doubt career academics would attribute their success to their patience (or being told that they should be patient) before their own curiosity.

coldtea 14y ago
>Seeing how the educational system that we have now was nonexistent 100 years ago I'm not sure what you mean with "nonexisting". Attended by fewer people? If so, yes. Still, a century ago (and quite a lot more for that matter), there were excellent universities and great curriculums, of the kind that put a lot of modern university curriculums to shame. Is fields such as literature, history, sociology and such there is no comparison even, compared to the watered down modern equivalents. But also in hard sciences. Our knowledge might has progresses, but university courses have more often than not declined, to adapt to "market needs" (something with is also widely admitted by professors). >that routinely offers information one can find online now It's not about information, it's about knowing how to evaluate information. Information without the skills to evaluate it is just white noise. To put it in another way, a 20 year old with full access to the Internet, is not (as a sum of his and the internets information) smarter and wont be more productive than Einstein or Bertrand Russell. >I feel like the author is referring to something that was more valuable and more applicable to a point in history than the current state of affairs Nope. The availability of huge amounts of information online even makes it much more important a skill -- for if you can show the necessary patience, then you have much more information at your disposal to evaluate and take advantage off. Just the information without the patience = the typical internet user's attention span and non-productivity. >I would even doubt career academics would attribute their success to their patience (or being told that they should be patient) before their own curiosity. Most of them (of what I've read in biographies and interviews) attribute their success to hard work and study, which sure sounds like "patience" to me. Curiosity without patience = Reddit.
- cinquemb 14y ago
  >I'm not sure what you mean with "nonexisting". Attended by fewer people? If so, yes. Still, a century ago (and quite a lot more for that matter), there were excellent universities and great curriculums, of the kind that put a lot of modern university curriculums to shame. I'm talking about K-12 and the notion of public schools as well not just universities themselves. >To put it in another way, a 20 year old with full access to the Internet, is not (as a sum of his and the internets information) smarter and wont be more productive than Einstein or Bertrand Russell. I was implying nothing of the sort. I see it as those who would never have the type of access to the infrastructure associated with our educational system (you know, K-12, free lunch, public transportation, student loans, and etc), could learn how to evaluate information without the aid of a such an institutionalized system (and even as the cost of the degree goes up, most americans are going to essentially be priced out of even mediocre universities if they don't want to live their productive lives paying student loans if they can get a job not soon to be automated by computers/robots, of course, for the chance [seeing as students today are lacking this ability even with the degree according to this author] to learn how to evaluate information with patience). The 20 year olds I sat in class with during MatSci seemed to equate evaluating information with regurgitating what the professor regurgitated from his lecture notes that he wrote up and posted online in the previous years, and seemed so incompetent when unable to apply their "evaluation skills" when trying to etch/dope wafers in lab (but able to deftly copypasta a lab report together with their peers for that good ol' "A"). >Most of them (of what I've read in biographies and interviews) attribute their success to hard work and study, which sure sounds like "patience" to me. Curiosity without patience = Reddit. Notice how I wrote "…would attribute their success to their patience (or being told that they should be patient) before their own curiosity." and not "Curiosity without patience" as I noted before that when I qualified the circumstance where patience would be valuable in this context.

coldtea 14y ago

>Seeing how the educational system that we have now was nonexistent 100 years ago I'm not sure what you mean with "nonexisting". Attended by fewer people? If so, yes. Still, a century ago (and quite a lot more for that matter), there were excellent universities and great curriculums, of the kind that put a lot of modern university curriculums to shame. Is fields such as literature, history, sociology and such there is no comparison even, compared to the watered down modern equivalents. But also in hard sciences. Our knowledge might has progresses, but university courses have more often than not declined, to adapt to "market needs" (something with is also widely admitted by professors). >that routinely offers information one can find online now It's not about information, it's about knowing how to evaluate information. Information without the skills to evaluate it is just white noise. To put it in another way, a 20 year old with full access to the Internet, is not (as a sum of his and the internets information) smarter and wont be more productive than Einstein or Bertrand Russell. >I feel like the author is referring to something that was more valuable and more applicable to a point in history than the current state of affairs Nope. The availability of huge amounts of information online even makes it much more important a skill -- for if you can show the necessary patience, then you have much more information at your disposal to evaluate and take advantage off. Just the information without the patience = the typical internet user's attention span and non-productivity. >I would even doubt career academics would attribute their success to their patience (or being told that they should be patient) before their own curiosity. Most of them (of what I've read in biographies and interviews) attribute their success to hard work and study, which sure sounds like "patience" to me. Curiosity without patience = Reddit.

cinquemb 14y ago
>I'm not sure what you mean with "nonexisting". Attended by fewer people? If so, yes. Still, a century ago (and quite a lot more for that matter), there were excellent universities and great curriculums, of the kind that put a lot of modern university curriculums to shame. I'm talking about K-12 and the notion of public schools as well not just universities themselves. >To put it in another way, a 20 year old with full access to the Internet, is not (as a sum of his and the internets information) smarter and wont be more productive than Einstein or Bertrand Russell. I was implying nothing of the sort. I see it as those who would never have the type of access to the infrastructure associated with our educational system (you know, K-12, free lunch, public transportation, student loans, and etc), could learn how to evaluate information without the aid of a such an institutionalized system (and even as the cost of the degree goes up, most americans are going to essentially be priced out of even mediocre universities if they don't want to live their productive lives paying student loans if they can get a job not soon to be automated by computers/robots, of course, for the chance [seeing as students today are lacking this ability even with the degree according to this author] to learn how to evaluate information with patience). The 20 year olds I sat in class with during MatSci seemed to equate evaluating information with regurgitating what the professor regurgitated from his lecture notes that he wrote up and posted online in the previous years, and seemed so incompetent when unable to apply their "evaluation skills" when trying to etch/dope wafers in lab (but able to deftly copypasta a lab report together with their peers for that good ol' "A"). >Most of them (of what I've read in biographies and interviews) attribute their success to hard work and study, which sure sounds like "patience" to me. Curiosity without patience = Reddit. Notice how I wrote "…would attribute their success to their patience (or being told that they should be patient) before their own curiosity." and not "Curiosity without patience" as I noted before that when I qualified the circumstance where patience would be valuable in this context.