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Huh. I'm mildly surprised that I'm the first click on "Other". (That's "no high school", for those of you who've never looked me up in Wikipedia.) -- Eliezer

by Eliezer 17y ago

Huh. I'm mildly surprised that I'm the first click on "Other". (That's "no high school", for those of you who've never looked me up in Wikipedia.) -- Eliezer Yudkowsky PS: I used to be shyer about this, but I'm now sufficiently convinced that Something Is Rotten In Education that I'm willing to go around presenting myself as a case in point. Certainly going through life Outside the System is extremely difficult and inconvenient, but the high yields if you can do so are an important fact about the overall health of the system. I'm not advocating that everyone should drop out before high school, but they might be able to take the data into account in other decisions, like how much effort to invest in high grades in college versus extracollegiate self-education.

tpyo 17y ago
How did you escape that terrible, terrible prison?
- Eliezer 17y ago
  ...I honestly don't know. I just didn't go. No truant officers ever showed up that I heard anything about.
- bkovitz 17y ago
  I also dropped out of high school. I just stopped showing up, and spent my days writing code. Way better education than classes. About truant officers: One day, walking along the sidewalk at 10:00 a.m. or so, I saw a truant officer walking along the sidewalk, too, in the opposite direction. He spotted a different teenager, also walking along, and arrested him. I think the truant officers ignored me for two reasons: because I didn't look like a truant, and because I lived near a college campus. I didn't have a computer of my own, so I went to the college campus and wrote code there every day. I probably looked like a "precocious" college student (I was 15, and probably appeared 13). BTW, I never saw any difficulty later in life due to dropping out of high school. I've never seen anyone look at anyone's grades on a résumé or job application, never had anyone give a damn about my lack of credentials. And now I'm a Ph.D. student.

by Eliezer 17y ago

tpyo 17y ago

How did you escape that terrible, terrible prison?

Eliezer 17y ago
...I honestly don't know. I just didn't go. No truant officers ever showed up that I heard anything about.
bkovitz 17y ago
I also dropped out of high school. I just stopped showing up, and spent my days writing code. Way better education than classes. About truant officers: One day, walking along the sidewalk at 10:00 a.m. or so, I saw a truant officer walking along the sidewalk, too, in the opposite direction. He spotted a different teenager, also walking along, and arrested him. I think the truant officers ignored me for two reasons: because I didn't look like a truant, and because I lived near a college campus. I didn't have a computer of my own, so I went to the college campus and wrote code there every day. I probably looked like a "precocious" college student (I was 15, and probably appeared 13). BTW, I never saw any difficulty later in life due to dropping out of high school. I've never seen anyone look at anyone's grades on a résumé or job application, never had anyone give a damn about my lack of credentials. And now I'm a Ph.D. student.