| | This is my comment to On Techies, a Linked In group sponsored by a senior IT recruiter in Austin.
Slate's Jacob Weisberg lards his report with adjectives that betray not just his own bias, but his expectation that the reader will share them. I personally believe that women - and just about anyone who can cross the street without a grown-up - should vote, if we are to really have democracy. However, I also appreciate Peter Thiel's contrarian suggestion - and his unconventional opinions all across the board. It is not so important to agree, as to consider. Weisberg's intellectual castle walls will leave him startled by a future that unfolds in ways that he refused to think about.
As for the proposition, we all know that Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are only the most famous college drop-outs in computing. On the other hand, I have met T. J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor whose master's and doctorate were earned in pursuit of the technology he created and launched. University education can be valuable.
Institutions may matter less than the individuals who come to them. Although I enrolled first in 1967 and continually kept my skills up with classes in programming, Japanese, etc., I finally finished a BS and MA at a mid-range, Midwest, state school (Eastern Michigan University) that brought me a couple of world-class professors - Gregg Barack; Ron Westrum - from whom it was an honor to learn. I also benefited from working for the school's research institute in geospatial education.
That said, college was always for me just one product among many in a marketplace for ideas and skills. Back in 1991, I got a tape from Motorola on programming the 68000, and listened to it over two years of long commutes in a 68000 factory environment. I just finished a certificate in the detection of counterfeit and altered coinage offered by the American Numismatic Association.
So, I doubt that Thiel is opposed to learning, only that the university system does not always (or often) deliver it to those who are not prepared to exploit it for what it is worth. In other words, they come out with a degree but without an education. It is not the fault of the school.
Here and now, we do agree with his view that democracy and capitalism are not compatible because we generally support limited constittutional government of objective law. We know that is not "democracy."
I also agree with his views that seascaping and spacefaring are important to extend freedom. And of course, I am on board with life extension.
And, generally, I agree with his views on education. In 100 years we have gone from the steamship to the spaceship, but education still consists of a person in front of a board lecturing to a passive array of listeners. It is government and govern-mentality that caused this, but they rest on something deeper, Plato's "philosopher king," the idea that a special elite should rule society - that is why The Republic is a standard assignment. The statement in bold is a favorite of mine. I say it often in public. The last time I said it, was to a colleague on a law enforcement committee. Last week, he and I met at the community college where he is a program director. To share our work, we took a computer lab. He was at the front of the lab on the instructor station with the projector and I was at one of 40 student stations in neat rows across the room. So, even with computers, nothing has changed.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/31, 5:26am)
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