TED talk notes #4, Charles Leadbetter: Education innovation in the slums

in slums to make things work: pull not push (they need to demand, seek learning)

make learning second, activity/interest first, “teach through” (eg, learn music theory THROUGH playing instruments)

mass education started with social entrepreneurship model in 19th century (in other words, innovative, grounds-up individuals and ideas with creative sources of funding)

current school system is largely Bismarckian system of 19th century

most education innovation today is sustaining and formal, as opposed to disruptive and informal

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Full list of TED talk notes here.

Five articles to recommend: Diamonds, Surveilled cities, Zero to One, PG, and Kevin Kelly’s countdown clock

Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? [The Atlantic]

Since “young men buy over 90% of all engagement rings” it would be crucial to inculcate in them the idea that diamonds were a gift of love: the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women had to be encouraged to view diamonds as an integral part of any romantic courtship

The most surveilled cities in the world [Statista]

The Chinese city of Taiyuan, located in the Shanxi province roughly 300 miles Southwest of Beijing, tops the list with 120 public CCTV cameras per 1,000 inhabitants. The highest-ranked non-Chinese city is London, also notorious for its strict surveillance of public spaces, with 67 cameras per 1,000 people, with Los Angeles the highest-ranked U.S. city in the ranking with 6 cameras per 1,000 inhabitants

What makes Zero to One a masterpiece? [Ellen Fishbein]

A great company: a conspiracy to change the world.
(A company’s) secret: a specific reason for success that other people don’t see.

Early Work [PG]

But even if Silicon Valley’s encouraging attitude is rooted in self-interest, it has over time actually grown into a sort of benevolence.

My Life Countdown [Kevin Kellyy]

My friend Stewart Brand, who is now 69, has been arranging his life in blocks of 5 years. Five years is what he says any project worth doing will take. From moment of inception to the last good-riddance, a book, a campaign, a new job, a start-up will take 5 years to play through. So, he asks himself, how many 5 years do I have left? He can count them on one hand even if he is lucky. So this clarifies his choices. If he has less than 5 big things he can do, what will they be?

“Artificial intelligence has the verbal skills of a four-year-old”

This was written in 2013.

Over the decades it has become apparent that simply throwing more processor cycles at the problem of true artificial intelligence isn’t going to cut it. A brain is orders of magnitude more complex than any AI system developed thus far, but some are getting closer.

And in the seven years since this post, we now have GPT-3, capable of writing essays at least as good as college graduates, on just about any topic that interests you, whether that’s cryptocurrencies or the history of feudalism or the chemistry of marijuana.

I’m not trying to single out this article. It’s just a powerful reminder of how difficult it is for anybody to properly assess current technology, because of our inability to fully grasp the effects of exponential growth and the surprises of non-linear innovation.

We keep trying to peer into the future, and we keep being surprised when the future actually arrives.

What else are we getting wrong about our technologies of today? What other technologies have the skills or experience of a four year old?

A few come to mind: Virtual reality. Blockchains. Robots (although this is increasingly not the case).

“You have to remember that in today’s world GDP is a very poor measure of economic health”

Lately I’ve been reading Detlev’s book, Paper Money Collapse. In particular I found the chapter on cryptocurrency and the chapter on solutions to the global monetary debt crisis to be extremely clear and practical and informative.

This online interview he did with ValueWalk was also quite good. I’ve shared a few of my favorite excerpts below:

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But by 2009 I had become very pessimistic on our financial system as a result of my study of Austrian School economics and my own experience after almost two decades in the business

I am convinced this crisis is misunderstood by most. We are witnessing the failure of our fiat money system. This will get much worse. I try to position myself for it.

It is no surprise to me that the Austrian School has such a strong appeal for real-life entrepreneurs and risk-takers. No other school of thought understands entrepreneurship, risk-taking, capital accumulation and capital maintenance, relative prices and the real-life elements of time and error

I think a gigantic intellectual bubble exists in which most financial market participants operate. That bubble will probably only get pricked by real events, i.e. the massive crisis that is now unfolding.

In fact, one of the first historic examples of a paper money system outside Medieval China, was Massachusetts, which, in 1690 when still a British colony, issued paper money to fund military excursions into French Quebec. Then there were the famous continentals, a paper money issued by the Continental Congress in 1775 to fund the Revolutionary War. These early experiments with paper money ended like they always do – with worthless paper tickets

…from 1879 to 1914 there was no meaningful deflation or inflation in the system at all. This was a time of hard, inflexible and stable money. This was a period– in the US and globally – of solid economic growth, rising living standards and growing international trade, and of harmonious economic relationships between countries

The methodology of the Austrians is superior, but the methodology of mainstream macroeconomics, and Keynesianism in particular, is appealing to politicians. These schools perceive the economy as an organism that sometimes performs below potential, which then provides a convenient excuse for the politicians to get involved.

You have to remember that in today’s world GDP is a very poor measure of economic health. In the EU, 50 percent of recorded economic activity is conducted by the public sector. In my adopted home country, the UK, it is 53 percent. The public sector spends more money than all private individuals and corporations put together. This is more socialism than capitalism.

Interviewer: If you were Ben Bernanke what would you do now?
Detlev: Abdicate. His mandate is contradictory and impossible. He is supposed to provide a stable medium of exchange for the American public, and at the same time provide an unlimited backstop for Wall Street and Washington. Well, it is one or the other. We already know which one he chose.

I mean, it makes sense, but then again…?

In short, the bank is already and at all times bankrupt; but its bankruptcy is only revealed when customers get suspicious and precipitate “bank runs.” No other business experiences a phenomenon like a “run.” No other business can be plunged into bankruptcy overnight simply because its customers decide to repossess their own property. No other business creates fictitious new money, which will evaporate when truly gauged.

…only one way to find out ;)

From the free PDF, What has government done to our money? by Murray Rothbard.