Transcription
Our brain has evolved to discard information that it thinks has no relevance. You know, if you think like, what is education like? You're basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain, and it's, it's, it's actually amazingly bad in conventional education because, like, it shouldn't be like this huge chore.
So I think colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores, but they're not for learning. You're self-taught? Yeah, well, I self-taught. Yes, meaning, um, I didn't, I don't have an aerospace degree. So how did you go about acquiring the knowledge? Well, uh, I, I read a lot of books, talk to a lot of people, and and have a great team.
It's important to teach, uh, teach problem-solving or teach to the problem, not to the tools. So this would be like, let's say, um, you're trying to teach people about, uh, how engines work. Or, you know, you could start by a more traditional approach would be to say, we're going to teach you all about screwdrivers and wrenches and and you can have a course on screwdrivers or a course on wrenches and all these things. And it's, this is a very difficult way to do it. A much better way would be like, here's the engine. Now, let's take it apart. How are we going to take it apart? Oh, you need a screwdriver. That's what the screwdriver is for. You need a wrench. That's what the wrench is for. And then a very important thing happens, which is that the relevance of the tools becomes apparent.
You don't need college learning. Learn stuff. Okay, everything is available basically for free. You can learn anything you want for free. It is not a question of learning. Um, there, there is a value that colleges have, which is like, you know, seeing whether somebody's, is, can somebody work hard at something, including a bunch of sort of annoying homework assignments, and still do their homework assignments, uh, and and kind of soldier through and get it done. You know, that's, that's like the main value of college. And then also, you know, if you, you probably want to hang around with a bunch of people your own age for a while instead of going right into the workforce.
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So I think colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores, but they're not for learning. Generally, you want education to be like as close to a video game as possible. Like a good video game, you do not need to tell your kid to play video games. They will play video games on autopilot all day. So if you can make it interactive and engaging, then then you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do. So you really want to, um, disconnect the whole grade level three thing from the subjects. Allow people to progress at the fastest pace that they can or are interested in in each subject. It seems like a really obvious thing.
Um, I mean, I think like most teaching today is is a lot like vodka where, um, and it's, and as a result, just not, not that compelling. It's like somebody's standing up there and lecturing to you, and they've done the same lecture several years in a row. They're not necessarily all that engaged or in doing it. You know, if you're like, what is education like? You're basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain, and it's, it's actually amazingly bad in conventional education because, like, it shouldn't be like this huge chore.
Like the more you can gamify the, uh, process of learning, the better. Like for my kids, I do not have to encourage them to play video games. Yeah, okay. I like pry them from their hands like like crack. Yes, yes. Like drop that crack needle. Um, in fact, I think a lot of things people learn probably there's no point in learning them, um, because they never use them in the future.
Well, you have to say like, people, I think don't stand back and say, well, why are we teaching people these things? And we should tell them probably why we're teaching these things because a lot of kids are just in school kind of puzzled as to why they're there. And I think if you can explain the why of things, then that makes a huge difference to people's motivation. Yeah, then they understand. They understand purpose. Yeah. So I think that's pretty important. And just make it entertaining. But I think just in general, like conventional education should be massively overhauled. I'm sure you very much agree with that.
But well, people do not think critically enough. I mean, there's critical thinking is a skill in short supply where people, you, people take too many things as they assume too many things to be true without sufficient basis in in that belief. Um, so, um, it's very important that people closely analyze what what is supposed to be true and and and try to build up, try to say, let's analyze things from first principles, not by, not by analogy or not by convention. If you assume things are true by convention, which is actually what most people do, um, then it's difficult to gain insight into what how things can be bettered. So, you know, in any argument or any sort of train of thinking, um, you want to make sure that your the underlying premises are valid and applicable and, um, and, you know, and and then in reaching a conclusion, that the conclusion you're reaching is necessarily driven by the underlying premises and the interconnection between those premises. That may seem like a really simple thing to say, but most people don't do that. Um, so it's really the foundation of rational thought.
I think there's maybe there's definitely some good schools out there, but I think the some of the mistakes, at least in my opinion, that I see being made in education is, um, that, um, people, the the teachers do not explain why kids are being taught a subject. Um, you know, just sort of get dumped into math and like, well, why are you learning math? What's the point of this? It seems like some, you know, some people like, maybe it's, I don't know why I'm being asked to do these strange problems. But, you know, the why of things is extremely important because, you know, our brain has evolved to not to discard information that it thinks is has no relevance. So then if on the one hand, you, uh, you're being asked to memorize or learn, say, formulas, but you do not know why this is the case, then you have this cognitive dissonance of it seems irrelevant, but I'm being told to remember it, so I'll be punished. So, so I better remember it. But so the why of things is very important. And then, uh, being able to, and then picking, kind of a, a problem and then, uh, using various educational tools to solve that problem, like using math or physics or economics to to solve that problem, is far more engaging than teaching the tools.
A university education is often unnecessary. Um, that's not to say it's unnecessary for all people, but, um, I, I think you probably learn about as much or the vast majority of what you're gonna learn there in the first two years, and most of it is for your classmates. Now, for a lot of companies, they, they do want to see the completion of the degree because they're looking for, um, someone who's gonna persevere and see it through to the end, and that's actually what's important to them. So it really depends on what somebody's goal is. If the goal is to start a company, I would say no point in finishing, uh, college.
Um, so I think that's how it should be. And it shouldn't be that you've got like these grades where people move in lockstep. Um, and so everyone goes through, you know, goes like normally you will go through English, math, uh, science, and so forth from like fifth grade to sixth grade to seventh grade, like it's an assembly line. But people are not objects on an assembly line. That's a ridiculous notion.