Why Cell Phones Will Kill the Public Schools Before 2040
"The Ron Paul Curriculum is 100% digital. It does not use classrooms. It does not require parents to buy any textbooks. It is the wave of the future -- the not too far-distant future.
This is because of Moore's law: computer chip density doubles every 18 months. That was in 1965, when Gordon Moore of Intel made this observation. Today, it's close to every 12 months.
I take seriously Ray Kurzweil's estimates on information costs. His article on the law of accelerating returns (2001) is a classic. It has influenced my thinking.
Moore's law is accelerating. Kurzweil wrote this in 2001:
'In line with my earlier predictions, supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by around 2020. By 2030, it will take a village of human brains (around a thousand) to match $1000 of computing. By 2050, $1000 of computing will equal the processing power of all human brains on Earth.'
What will a public school teach a student who owns a computer as powerful as Hillary Clinton's village? What if this computer is a cell phone?"
Does technology growth meeting the conditions of Moore's Law, portend the end of the current public school paradigm in 25yrs and the problems facing it today?
What are the potential benefits for Objective thinking?
This is because of Moore's law: computer chip density doubles every 18 months. That was in 1965, when Gordon Moore of Intel made this observation. Today, it's close to every 12 months.
I take seriously Ray Kurzweil's estimates on information costs. His article on the law of accelerating returns (2001) is a classic. It has influenced my thinking.
Moore's law is accelerating. Kurzweil wrote this in 2001:
'In line with my earlier predictions, supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by around 2020. By 2030, it will take a village of human brains (around a thousand) to match $1000 of computing. By 2050, $1000 of computing will equal the processing power of all human brains on Earth.'
What will a public school teach a student who owns a computer as powerful as Hillary Clinton's village? What if this computer is a cell phone?"
Does technology growth meeting the conditions of Moore's Law, portend the end of the current public school paradigm in 25yrs and the problems facing it today?
What are the potential benefits for Objective thinking?
SOURCE URL: http://www.garynorth.com/public/12032.cfm
I mean, sure the invention of television wiped out kid's attentions spans (because everyone under the age of 12 always payed attention in class before the 1950s). And listening to the the phonograph instead of participating in perpetually insightful 19th-century conversation turned everyone into mindless zombies. Let's not forget that rascal Guttenberg and his damned printing press, allowing kids to have their own copies of books so they didn't ever have to take notes or listen to the teacher in class.
Human nature is human nature. Those who want to learn, or have the capacity to, will. As for public school - it depends whether you view it as an opportunity for education or a center for indoctrination.
While I was on a school strategic plan team one time, a teacher who wanted all laptops, no books, said, "Kids don't need to know stuff anymore. All they need is access to the Internet." Same woman who admitted they were trying to turn kids against their parents. I asked how they were to evaluate what they read on the Internet, She had no answer, it had not even been under consideration in her brain. That stuff, that is in the human brain, those liberals teachings, are what lead one to evaluate and process random information in a rational way. Think of the super brainiacs who have no common sense at all. You can dump all the facts in the world into a brain, but without experience and philosophy, what do they do with it all? And what is the limit of the human brain, when they make the predictions of how many a computer can replace?
I think there is a great danger in going all digital. Rand showed in "Anthem" what happened when books were not available to the population. If there was an electro magnetic attack, who would be left with the stuff in their heads to start again? I still order books, not online nor electronic books. We already know that the schools are being dumbed down with Common Core, so the goal is not super smart citizens, obviously. Aren't we going to reach some kind of limit as far as how many smart phones can be in operation at once at some point, anyway? He who controls the programming will control your mind, It is already bad enough with the brainwashing going on with the human mind. I will not grieve the demise of the public school system, but neither do I think we have an alternative that is free of control factors.
I think I paid $3.50 for my copy of AS, shipped.
It's a great time to be a reader!
Don't let that be the next area that Socialists in Democratic clothing use as their platform.
You have touched on a point that futurists like the author often miss. The human element in these matters is an all important one. I can remember predictions in the 1960" of flying cars and many other wondrous things by the late 1980's, I've yet to see some of these things. Frankly, the authors belief that all poverty will be gone by 2040 is probably a pipe dream, the reason there is such poverty is twofold. many of the people just don't want to make the necessary effort to raise themselves out of poverty and second that many governments are simply so corrupt that change will come very slowly if at all. While technology may change at a lightning speed, sadly the human condition seldom does.
Fred Speckmann
commonsenseforamericans@yahoo.com
One might argue: who needs a brain when one has a computer (or to use the example of countless retail clerks: who needs a brain when you have a phone to someone who has one)? The question of course is what is one supposed to do when the batteries go dead or no one answers the phone.
How many of you remember the days prior to the invention of the home computer? Remember when computers were going to do everything for us, leaving us to do better things with our time? What became of that vision?
Then there is EMP, I gran a small possibility currently) but a relatively low yield device detonated at 100,00 feet will shut ddown 90% of the electricity and electronic devices in the US , Canada and Mexico. Fry them to a crisp. How do we recover from that with no printed material for text books. Put us back to the frontier days at a minimum.
Just hypothecating. But until those questions are answered, I don't think we should go completely digital on anything.,
Recent examples of the alternatives are:
Kahn Academy - small conceptual chunks followed immediately by twice as much time in practical exercises to concretize and habituate use of the principle.
On TV, perhaps 20-20, I saw a school reversing the role of class vs home work. Independent learning of the book work and teacher/group support of the application practice.
I teach in industry and keep looking for better techniques.
The human brian is vastly more complex and powerful than that quote suggests. Yes, it can do many things faster than a human brain, but there are many things it cannot do even remotely close to a human being.
When you are driving down the road for instance, there are so many things going on in your brain that you don't even understand, let alone are able to replicate on a computer. You're throwing away more information than you realize, without even knowing that you're doing it.
edit: now, realizing this is way off topic, but yeah, I see public screwels going away hopefully some day.
About 20 years ago, my wife was a Product Manager for healthcare industry software at DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.), at one time, the world's second largest computer company.
They had a visit from some Chinese (PRC) healthcare informatics folks. She noted they all had FAX numbers and concluded that if they needed that to work, freedom of communication could no longer be contained! She was right and the technology has evolved to IM'ing in Chinese ideograms - big leverage over Faxing.
In contrast - instantaneous mobile access to answers in the moment, ala Google and Wikipedia, can positively change understanding and behavior. Think of structuring a question about what history shows on a particular approach in economics or politics - or ethics.
Can users formulate question that will get good answers based on fact and history? What will they get in a culture full of mistaken premises? That's our challenge and ARI is making a valiant effort with its Electronic Campus initiative. Therefore it's my first choice for my charitable investments.
Image the possibilities then, when there are virtually no barriers to communication?
And they will be instruments of revolution.
Internet and smartphone-network servers (4G-LTE or whatever number of G they'll be up to) will become the military objectives of the physical battles of the future.
Welcome to a new era of asymmetric warfare.
Imagine what Ragnar Danneskjöld could have done on land with a militia of smartphone-equipped soldiers.