Lunch with Alan Kay, https://futureofcoding.org/notes/alan-kay-lunch.html: " “You also need to be embedded in a community of others who have diverse perspectives to bounce these ideas off of.” Alan argued passionately in favor of college and grad school. While he is well aware of its imperfections, he believes it’s still better than an “oral culture” or being an autodidact (just following your nose where your curiosity leads you)." Do you agree that college and grad school are the best way to learn? I think that traditional education system is "below what is actually needed"; there are some fundamental flaws in a system where other people decide for you what you should learn and how (they have neither knowledge nor incentives to decide what is best for you). I understand that we need to stand on the shoulders of giants and not reinvent the wheel all the time, but this is just a challenge of a non-coercive education system, and it is solvable. I think the best solution for education lies in this space, and we should look for / invent it here. We should raise the quality of learning collaboration to much higher level, we should seek mentors and thought leaders like Alan Kay and take their advice and recommendations, but it should be up to us learners to decide what to do with this advice. What is your opinion?

I agree that it is essential to always to get frequent reality checks and to get your assumptions checked; otherwise it is easy to get stuck in your own world and delude yourself that you are doing great stuff. Graduate school is probably the easiest way to be part of this kind of community, at least if there are frequent seminars, colloquia and discussions with where different viewpoints are present. On the other hand, if you stay in the same university and group throughout undergraduate and graduate school you might also become a bit blind to other perspectives and other ways of doing things.

Unfortunately today's academic system has grown so large and expensive and wealthy that it has become like the Pentagon, a universe unto itself, that serves itself. We really need to return it to a more basic structure where it connects to the rest of the world. That it costs $45 to read an article in the journal of poverty is just insane.