Decentralization is a critical way for humans globally to enjoy a 21st century enlightenment. The idea that only a few can be better than many ecosystems working together and sharing ideas which creates more global opportunity is lost in current power structures. How do we avoid ww3? It appears we are heading there by the end of this year
Have you ever read the Feynman book, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" He has enough of that ingrained in him that I think he'll be just fine. He will influence much more than be influenced.
I am not sure why anyone would mistaken this achievement for genius. Not to say this student isn't a genius because I don't know him or her. For all I know maybe this student has built a perpetual motion machine but getting into an Ivy league and/or scoring well on the USAMO doesn't indicate anything other than a talented math student which is not uncommon unlike genius which is uncommon. If these were interchangeable, every year MIT would dot the landscape with geniuses which obviously doesn't happen and has never happened. Students attending Stanford or the other top schools are no brighter than their peers of yesteryear who also attended these schools (and one could very well argue quite a bit less bright overall though they may be more of a standout in one particular area). This means brighter than average but most do not have the type of genus that make one an Einstein. If they did, then Einstein wouldn't have been Einstein. Look at Stanford or Harvard or even MIT. The students that attend seem highly compliant as can be seen by the uptake of the covid-19 vaccines. Do they really foster or even desire genius? Seems from what I see that they highly discourage it. Noam Chomsky said it best when he talked about the goal of the US education system (which I am paraphrasing) - they want people bright enough and obedient enough to do the work but not so bright that they ask questions. This seems to describe the typical college grad but most especially the ones from Ivy leagues:
The difference between the top students now vs those in the past? The jobs themselves rather than the intelligence of the student. There are many highly technical fields out there than ever before which require far more math literacy to earn the same position in society that one earned in the past without such math knowledge. It is akin to many athletic fields. Compare the top figure skaters of the 60's to the top today and they're not in the same ballpark but that is because the ones today spend far more time and energy but there is also so much known about the techniques and how to teach them compared to the past. The best back then would probably not be able to compete with the worst in the class today. That doesn't elevate all new figure skaters to another class compared to their brethren such as genius. Also, the amount of time and energy they spend to improve their skating means far less time on all other matters which may make them a super-specialist when it comes to skating but they may not be very well equipped to handle other matters of life which is often the complaint some who work in these schools have of the incoming students who may have some talent but are often immature compared with former graduates. Many are not even able to cope with differing opinions. Genius can't be measured on a test or a score board and it seems to require thinking outside the box which is not a trait these schools have any interest in cultivating.
I’ve been wondering where all of the geniuses have gone from England. There used to be an incredible breadth of bright maths persons and it seems to have disappeared. The enigma machine the maths geniuses from England, the creator of the device for longitude (a clock smith and wood worker by trade).
This question has been eating at me for a while. Would love you opinion
I'm really fascinated by your posts on education, and how much they contrast with the view of the 'IQ determinists'. Do you have a sense of the relative contribution of heritable factors vs environmental factors (including parenting and educational setting) to children's capacity for intellectual development? My kids attended a Montessori school for the first several years of their formal education, and I was fascinated by the 'origin story' of the Montessori method i.e. kids who were considered 'mentally deficient' were able to blitz entrance exams when taught by the methods Maria Montessori developed.
"Do you have a sense of the relative contribution of heritable factors vs environmental factors (including parenting and educational setting) to children's capacity for intellectual development?"
Extremely hard to tease out. I don't deny any influences, and I do believe trauma is heritable to a degree (but softens over time). But more importantly, a good approach to education destroys all other factors in magnitude. And the evidence has been there all along, suppressed from many directions.
The Ultimate History Lesson (interview with John Taylor Gatto) opened my eyes to how schooling is used as a tool of social control. If I wasn't a voluntaryist and therefore not in favour of making anything compulsory, I would make it a requirement that all parents watch that interview and read at least one of his books, before making a decision about how to educate their kids. Damn, being philosophically consistent is challenging ;-).
These schools cultivate group think which is how we got into the mess we are in because many of our leading "experts" are in fact graduates from place like Stanford, Harvard etc. I wouldn't agree today with this quote at all:
"Instead, he is off working energetically in one of the world's most rigorous STEM programs."
They have a reputation for such but from what I have seen, the reputation falls short of the reality. Admittedly, I am basing this on the people I know who attended such schools and while some have been very impressive, others leave you wondering how they ever got into their alma mater which was not via legacy or athletics. We need to stop focusing on credentials and this includes giving these schools credit for producing our best and brightest. Many are not the best and brightest as evidenced by the actions they took/supported with regard to covid-19 and thus, these schools don't deserve the reputation they have.
I definitely agree that the elite universities do not necessarily provide the most rigorous educations. They are filtering mechanisms for "the right sort of Mandarin".
However, for those students who are the most dedicated, these schools do have the money and access needed for intense dives into STEM fields. Personally, I believe that the most interested students should be well spread out over the larger university system, and that the greatest progress will be made by those whose personalities are...most tickled by the work---regardless of the "ranking" of their school. But I don't think it's correct to say that the top STEM universities confer no advantages at all to those capable of navigating them well, and so long as a student does not have the moral failings of a sociopathic Mandarin aristocrat wannabe, they'll be just fine.
Being vaxxed is a deal breaker. Any advantage of a Stanford or a Yale pales in comparison to being vaxxed. For a bright person most knowledge can be acquired through books. Even if access to infrastructure and high level academic instructors is not quite on the same level, loss of one’s health trumps all. I have a grandson whose passion is wildlife. He was force vaxxed to attend University of Washington, with its mandates. I wish he would have gone to the University of Florida which has no mandate.
I agree that it's preferable to go to a school where covid-19 vaccine mandates are not in place. I think almost all of the top schools have mandates. It's unfortunate that many students including your grandson felt forced to take a vaccine just to attend.
The fact that that faculty and staff working at these schools didn't question these mandates in large enough numbers should strongly indicate that the reputations of these schools and many of their so-called experts is not warranted. One has to wonder how much of their expertise is due to the fact that no one outside their field can question them. Bret Weinstein's interview with Steve Patterson touches upon this topic where schools of martial arts and their experts were never challenged by outside forces though if and when they finally were, their "expertise" was revealed to be a sham:
I wouldn't state that attending one of these schools doesn't confer some advantages. Having ones of these schools listed on a resume/CV can be enough to open doors to some opportunities so that's definitely an advantage. With regard to learning, they definitely have resources and equipment that many other schools do not and they also can hire whomever they want, often getting many of the best and brightest researchers.
However, there are also disadvantages and I expect we are now at the time when the disadvantages will be seen by many as overcoming the advantages. The elite universities have gone fully woke with no allowance for dissent against their orthodoxy. This is not a conducive environment to learning. People often think that STEM is somehow insulated but it's not. If it were, covid-19 orthodoxy would not have been taken up so readily by the faculty at these same elite institutions, many of whom worked in fields directly or tangentially related. These universities now appear to be powerful nodes of a cult and while there may be people on campus who avoid becoming members, they are unlikely to see the cult for what it is. Even the non-members will likely be affected in the way they view the world.
I'm aware of it. I talked with Heather Heying about it, briefly, though I heard that she stepped away from it. Hopefully it is an improvement over existing models.
My focus is pre-college, and I think that's where the largest difference can be made. And universities might look significantly different after fixing what comes before it.
Aside from that, what the universities need is for the federal money faucet to stop. So long as that dominates the funding, college will be a magnet for corrupt administrators and a financial mindpfuck for the students.
Agreed. And, frankly, Lonsdale’s level of political awareness is well below yours or most commentators on rhis Substack. But his initiative is a baby step in the right direction and last I heard a number of very good academics trying to free themselves from their university bondage were hoping to teach there.
I think she walked away because of a lack of freedom of speech. My understanding and admittedly I could be wrong, is that one can criticize the religious doctrines of the left but not similar doctrines adhered to by the right.
There already is a C change in interest patterns focusing on the schools that do not require these experiments on children. Look at the states and the schools that have no requirement. They are getting the best and brightest. Make no mistake about it. This is why in the next 10 years predominantly the south and a few other states will have the largest contingent of individuals that will be successful in a multitude of fields. The level of entrepreneurialism and brilliance will start to shine. It’s one more of my investments are looking at specific states and corporations that exist in those states. The next 50 years will see a continue brain drain that already started during the pandemic. Sweet tea anyone? Rodeo and mountains anyone?
Have you ever hear of the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential? The founder, Glen Doman, wrote Teach Your Baby to Read in 1962, and went on to identify the "genius" capabilities of all children, when impediments to learning were removed and thirst for knowledge was met by parents. What a child's brain can perceive before it is "vaccinated into antigens sin" by our rote classes is amazing, numeracy included. IAHP still operates today, 49 weeks a year teaching parents to restore the full function of brain-injured children, and 3 weeks with "normal children, whose parents have a home schooling web worldwide" I was lucky enough to attend, and it helped my kids tremendously.
The annoying requirement is that A is not allowed to have leading zeros, right? If this is dropped, the problem becomes symmetric and is just about drawing a black ball (last digit of A) from the ubiquitous urn, which contains one black ball (last digit of B), and six balls that might be white or black with probability 1/2.
The difference between the two versions is night and day. Getting conditional probability right is a crux of a ton of real world problems.
During the pandemic, it's hard to get people to understand that they aren't distinguishing between the overly simple problem and the hard one. Both sides are failing on this basis.
It must be so gratifying to receive such correspondence. It’s certainly heartening to see critical thinking still exists in some small way. However, it’s incredibly disheartening to know that this student chose to attend an institution that mandates the jab! I guess cognitive dissonance usurps critical thinking once again.
A good question that resounds down the millennia. Sadly there are few with your depth of ability and motivation to teach and inspire by example. This is why it remains a mystery. Not just in math. But in all fields of endeavor.
Whether you know it or not you are also informing and inspiring us who follow your substack. For me I have wondered for over 50 years why basic health (mental, emotional and physical) that can only come from taking care of the Earth is also far from common knowledge.
If we look at the movies and tv dramas we find that the emphasis is on strength, cunning and manipulation, rather than nurture, loving kindness or compassion and wisdom. There are few people in the public eye that model those qualities. Instead we are given President Biden as a model.
I have had but one mathematics mentor. But I have been abundantly cared for with those wise and compassionate people that modeled those qualities in the way they engaged me. I am not easy, but I have been touched by that depth of caring. That caring changed me over time. I have a long way to go.
Mathew - you are still teaching lots of students. your subject is now life or death, not some math contest.
World War E does seem pressing.
What if it's a war to enslave humanity, and victory hinges on thorough decentralization of the skills for handling technology?
When it all breaks down, who's going to rebuild it?
Decentralization is a critical way for humans globally to enjoy a 21st century enlightenment. The idea that only a few can be better than many ecosystems working together and sharing ideas which creates more global opportunity is lost in current power structures. How do we avoid ww3? It appears we are heading there by the end of this year
Brilliant. I hope he isn’t disappointed by Stanford. It’s turned out to be the wokeist university administration in the country.
Have you ever read the Feynman book, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" He has enough of that ingrained in him that I think he'll be just fine. He will influence much more than be influenced.
Thanks for the reference. I need to catch up on my book reading - too many great substacks and podcasts these days.
I am not sure why anyone would mistaken this achievement for genius. Not to say this student isn't a genius because I don't know him or her. For all I know maybe this student has built a perpetual motion machine but getting into an Ivy league and/or scoring well on the USAMO doesn't indicate anything other than a talented math student which is not uncommon unlike genius which is uncommon. If these were interchangeable, every year MIT would dot the landscape with geniuses which obviously doesn't happen and has never happened. Students attending Stanford or the other top schools are no brighter than their peers of yesteryear who also attended these schools (and one could very well argue quite a bit less bright overall though they may be more of a standout in one particular area). This means brighter than average but most do not have the type of genus that make one an Einstein. If they did, then Einstein wouldn't have been Einstein. Look at Stanford or Harvard or even MIT. The students that attend seem highly compliant as can be seen by the uptake of the covid-19 vaccines. Do they really foster or even desire genius? Seems from what I see that they highly discourage it. Noam Chomsky said it best when he talked about the goal of the US education system (which I am paraphrasing) - they want people bright enough and obedient enough to do the work but not so bright that they ask questions. This seems to describe the typical college grad but most especially the ones from Ivy leagues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXZuGIMuwQ
The difference between the top students now vs those in the past? The jobs themselves rather than the intelligence of the student. There are many highly technical fields out there than ever before which require far more math literacy to earn the same position in society that one earned in the past without such math knowledge. It is akin to many athletic fields. Compare the top figure skaters of the 60's to the top today and they're not in the same ballpark but that is because the ones today spend far more time and energy but there is also so much known about the techniques and how to teach them compared to the past. The best back then would probably not be able to compete with the worst in the class today. That doesn't elevate all new figure skaters to another class compared to their brethren such as genius. Also, the amount of time and energy they spend to improve their skating means far less time on all other matters which may make them a super-specialist when it comes to skating but they may not be very well equipped to handle other matters of life which is often the complaint some who work in these schools have of the incoming students who may have some talent but are often immature compared with former graduates. Many are not even able to cope with differing opinions. Genius can't be measured on a test or a score board and it seems to require thinking outside the box which is not a trait these schools have any interest in cultivating.
Bingo, bingo, and more bingo.
I’ve been wondering where all of the geniuses have gone from England. There used to be an incredible breadth of bright maths persons and it seems to have disappeared. The enigma machine the maths geniuses from England, the creator of the device for longitude (a clock smith and wood worker by trade).
This question has been eating at me for a while. Would love you opinion
Inspiring, Mathew! Thanks!
I'm really fascinated by your posts on education, and how much they contrast with the view of the 'IQ determinists'. Do you have a sense of the relative contribution of heritable factors vs environmental factors (including parenting and educational setting) to children's capacity for intellectual development? My kids attended a Montessori school for the first several years of their formal education, and I was fascinated by the 'origin story' of the Montessori method i.e. kids who were considered 'mentally deficient' were able to blitz entrance exams when taught by the methods Maria Montessori developed.
"Do you have a sense of the relative contribution of heritable factors vs environmental factors (including parenting and educational setting) to children's capacity for intellectual development?"
Extremely hard to tease out. I don't deny any influences, and I do believe trauma is heritable to a degree (but softens over time). But more importantly, a good approach to education destroys all other factors in magnitude. And the evidence has been there all along, suppressed from many directions.
The Ultimate History Lesson (interview with John Taylor Gatto) opened my eyes to how schooling is used as a tool of social control. If I wasn't a voluntaryist and therefore not in favour of making anything compulsory, I would make it a requirement that all parents watch that interview and read at least one of his books, before making a decision about how to educate their kids. Damn, being philosophically consistent is challenging ;-).
How is he dealing with Stanford's "vaccine" mandate (see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11BrDadiUGN-vQBe7Jolcb_-aWhLT7S2AkWOkSX49M40/edit#gid=532284473), which includes a booster?
See Margaret Anna Alice’ Substack: https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/why-there-covid-vaccine-mandate-students
I wouldn’t choose Stanford. There are other good choices that don’t force Russian Roulette on their students.
These schools cultivate group think which is how we got into the mess we are in because many of our leading "experts" are in fact graduates from place like Stanford, Harvard etc. I wouldn't agree today with this quote at all:
"Instead, he is off working energetically in one of the world's most rigorous STEM programs."
They have a reputation for such but from what I have seen, the reputation falls short of the reality. Admittedly, I am basing this on the people I know who attended such schools and while some have been very impressive, others leave you wondering how they ever got into their alma mater which was not via legacy or athletics. We need to stop focusing on credentials and this includes giving these schools credit for producing our best and brightest. Many are not the best and brightest as evidenced by the actions they took/supported with regard to covid-19 and thus, these schools don't deserve the reputation they have.
I definitely agree that the elite universities do not necessarily provide the most rigorous educations. They are filtering mechanisms for "the right sort of Mandarin".
However, for those students who are the most dedicated, these schools do have the money and access needed for intense dives into STEM fields. Personally, I believe that the most interested students should be well spread out over the larger university system, and that the greatest progress will be made by those whose personalities are...most tickled by the work---regardless of the "ranking" of their school. But I don't think it's correct to say that the top STEM universities confer no advantages at all to those capable of navigating them well, and so long as a student does not have the moral failings of a sociopathic Mandarin aristocrat wannabe, they'll be just fine.
Being vaxxed is a deal breaker. Any advantage of a Stanford or a Yale pales in comparison to being vaxxed. For a bright person most knowledge can be acquired through books. Even if access to infrastructure and high level academic instructors is not quite on the same level, loss of one’s health trumps all. I have a grandson whose passion is wildlife. He was force vaxxed to attend University of Washington, with its mandates. I wish he would have gone to the University of Florida which has no mandate.
I agree that it's preferable to go to a school where covid-19 vaccine mandates are not in place. I think almost all of the top schools have mandates. It's unfortunate that many students including your grandson felt forced to take a vaccine just to attend.
The fact that that faculty and staff working at these schools didn't question these mandates in large enough numbers should strongly indicate that the reputations of these schools and many of their so-called experts is not warranted. One has to wonder how much of their expertise is due to the fact that no one outside their field can question them. Bret Weinstein's interview with Steve Patterson touches upon this topic where schools of martial arts and their experts were never challenged by outside forces though if and when they finally were, their "expertise" was revealed to be a sham:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYMk_OhAqgM
I wouldn't state that attending one of these schools doesn't confer some advantages. Having ones of these schools listed on a resume/CV can be enough to open doors to some opportunities so that's definitely an advantage. With regard to learning, they definitely have resources and equipment that many other schools do not and they also can hire whomever they want, often getting many of the best and brightest researchers.
However, there are also disadvantages and I expect we are now at the time when the disadvantages will be seen by many as overcoming the advantages. The elite universities have gone fully woke with no allowance for dissent against their orthodoxy. This is not a conducive environment to learning. People often think that STEM is somehow insulated but it's not. If it were, covid-19 orthodoxy would not have been taken up so readily by the faculty at these same elite institutions, many of whom worked in fields directly or tangentially related. These universities now appear to be powerful nodes of a cult and while there may be people on campus who avoid becoming members, they are unlikely to see the cult for what it is. Even the non-members will likely be affected in the way they view the world.
Mathew, You might look into Joe Lonsdale’s University of Austin which is being built up in your hometown!
I'm aware of it. I talked with Heather Heying about it, briefly, though I heard that she stepped away from it. Hopefully it is an improvement over existing models.
My focus is pre-college, and I think that's where the largest difference can be made. And universities might look significantly different after fixing what comes before it.
Aside from that, what the universities need is for the federal money faucet to stop. So long as that dominates the funding, college will be a magnet for corrupt administrators and a financial mindpfuck for the students.
Agreed. And, frankly, Lonsdale’s level of political awareness is well below yours or most commentators on rhis Substack. But his initiative is a baby step in the right direction and last I heard a number of very good academics trying to free themselves from their university bondage were hoping to teach there.
I think she walked away because of a lack of freedom of speech. My understanding and admittedly I could be wrong, is that one can criticize the religious doctrines of the left but not similar doctrines adhered to by the right.
There already is a C change in interest patterns focusing on the schools that do not require these experiments on children. Look at the states and the schools that have no requirement. They are getting the best and brightest. Make no mistake about it. This is why in the next 10 years predominantly the south and a few other states will have the largest contingent of individuals that will be successful in a multitude of fields. The level of entrepreneurialism and brilliance will start to shine. It’s one more of my investments are looking at specific states and corporations that exist in those states. The next 50 years will see a continue brain drain that already started during the pandemic. Sweet tea anyone? Rodeo and mountains anyone?
I'd like to swallow your white pill, but family ties keep me in Minnesota, which in November re-elected a Democrat governor in a landslide as well as Democrat majorities in both houses. I will continue to struggle here, and hopefully pointing out sites like https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11BrDadiUGN-vQBe7Jolcb_-aWhLT7S2AkWOkSX49M40/edit#gid=969558203 will help.
Ask you next generation to move to said areas. You'll migrate with them. It's worked in our extended families. I have hope for you!
Have you ever hear of the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential? The founder, Glen Doman, wrote Teach Your Baby to Read in 1962, and went on to identify the "genius" capabilities of all children, when impediments to learning were removed and thirst for knowledge was met by parents. What a child's brain can perceive before it is "vaccinated into antigens sin" by our rote classes is amazing, numeracy included. IAHP still operates today, 49 weeks a year teaching parents to restore the full function of brain-injured children, and 3 weeks with "normal children, whose parents have a home schooling web worldwide" I was lucky enough to attend, and it helped my kids tremendously.
The annoying requirement is that A is not allowed to have leading zeros, right? If this is dropped, the problem becomes symmetric and is just about drawing a black ball (last digit of A) from the ubiquitous urn, which contains one black ball (last digit of B), and six balls that might be white or black with probability 1/2.
1/7 + 6/7 * 1/2 = 4/7.
The difference between the two versions is night and day. Getting conditional probability right is a crux of a ton of real world problems.
During the pandemic, it's hard to get people to understand that they aren't distinguishing between the overly simple problem and the hard one. Both sides are failing on this basis.
This is why human connection eye to eye will save the world.
Everytime you write on this topic you open the world to the idea that more is possible.
Would really encourage you to again consider teaching math to a larger group. Even if you place it on YouTube. Fantastic approach you have there.
Stanford and critical thinking are sadly incompatible
It must be so gratifying to receive such correspondence. It’s certainly heartening to see critical thinking still exists in some small way. However, it’s incredibly disheartening to know that this student chose to attend an institution that mandates the jab! I guess cognitive dissonance usurps critical thinking once again.
> "Why doesn't everybody know this is possible?"
A good question that resounds down the millennia. Sadly there are few with your depth of ability and motivation to teach and inspire by example. This is why it remains a mystery. Not just in math. But in all fields of endeavor.
Whether you know it or not you are also informing and inspiring us who follow your substack. For me I have wondered for over 50 years why basic health (mental, emotional and physical) that can only come from taking care of the Earth is also far from common knowledge.
If we look at the movies and tv dramas we find that the emphasis is on strength, cunning and manipulation, rather than nurture, loving kindness or compassion and wisdom. There are few people in the public eye that model those qualities. Instead we are given President Biden as a model.
I have had but one mathematics mentor. But I have been abundantly cared for with those wise and compassionate people that modeled those qualities in the way they engaged me. I am not easy, but I have been touched by that depth of caring. That caring changed me over time. I have a long way to go.
Keep up the inspired work you do!