There's a big missing point in this argument: it says "better" or "worse", "it works" or "it doesn't work", but does not specify how this is tested.
If we test students with standardized tests of their knowledge of facts and simple routines, I'm 100% convinced that direct instruction works better. I'd like to see if it's better also on aspects like student welfare, ability to reason and solve complex problems, creativity and innovation.
It _is_ possible that direct instruction also works better in these metrics, I just think this should be made explicit.
> There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness.
This is very well put.
I think the culture today is what pushes us towards that: we have a very individualistic culture, which I think comes from the US. I'm from southern Europe, where family used to be very important, whereas now we've adopted a much more individual-centered view.
We have "freedom" as a value, but it's hard to tell what to do with it. You are privileged, therefore you can do whatever you want. But what is it that I want? What do I do with my freedom, privilege, options? We also need an objective, and "to be happy" is not a good objective, because we humans are very bad at predicting what will make us happy. Seeing stereotyped photos of happy people on tropical beaches on Instagram makes it even harder to remember what happiness is.
For happiness you need objectives, things you believe in, a sense of purpose.
I think this is an oversimplification of a much more general social phenomenon. In much of the world, the mainstream social message is still that kids are what you should get your life's purpose and fulfillment from. Maybe not so much for men, but very much so for women. There is a reaction to that social expectation, which is independent of Reddit (it's true even in China etc).
I'm myself very happy I don't have children. I'm gay and can't adopt in my country, so I'm also happy I don't have any desire to have children, because that would be a problem. However I do really like working with teens, and it's very important to me on a gut level.
I've quit my career in academia three years ago and teach high school kids instead. I can totally relate, I'm just so much happier: I love those four things he listed, except the fourth for me is physics instead of basketball.
Indeed, and it's a topic that would not be covered by big tech. I think this idea that academia must compete on the same terrain as big AI companies is misguided. There are areas where only academia can be successful, because they would not be profitable, and others where academia doesn't have the resources.
I feel this isn't quite a failure of the Alan Turing or of the UK, but rather of university research vs big tech -- the latter has a significant advantage in this specific field, for a number of reasons. There was an interesting paper about that and relative discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35564013
This is a typical misunderstanding of British politics. In theory the King is supposed to have power on a range of things, but there are very clearly set constitutional conventions that mean he does not. These are now so powerful that not even the "theory" is able to supersede them. This was found out the hard way by Boris Johnson when he tried to prorogue (suspend) Parliament using the Royal Prerogative. The supreme court cancelled his 'advice to the Queen' very quickly and restored Parliament.
Yes it's confusing and it would be better to write down a constitution reflecting how things actually are, but that's how it is.
Uhm, what? I think UK politics is pretty sane actually. It has a lot of problems, but definitely not this almost civil-war-like type of language that you have in the USA. And although the UK is getting worse and worse, there are European countries that still have a worse political environment.
If we test students with standardized tests of their knowledge of facts and simple routines, I'm 100% convinced that direct instruction works better. I'd like to see if it's better also on aspects like student welfare, ability to reason and solve complex problems, creativity and innovation.
It _is_ possible that direct instruction also works better in these metrics, I just think this should be made explicit.