Education, Learning and the Transition to the Information Economy

At the DLD panel on education – which was moderated well by Simon Levine from Accel – there was an interesting discussion about the role of teachers and motivation in learning. On one side was Shai Reshef, an education entrepreneur, who is preparing to launch a free online “University of the People." On the other was Alexander Olek, who has helped create a successful school program in Germany that is similar to the KIPP program in the US in that it emphasizes in school learning (longer days, shorter vacations). Shai was essentially arguing that teachers more often than not stand in the way of learning, whereas Alex was essentially saying that without teachers students learn nothing. This difference expressed itself in many ways. For instance, Shai’s own children spend a fair bit of time online, Alex’s don’t (as he put it "they only have half an hour after coming back from school”). Shai argued that students are intrinsically motivated, whereas Alex said that nobody is motivated to learn multiplication tables.

The more I read about education and learning the more I find seemingly conflicting evidence on this issue. For instance, Malcolm Gladwell in his book

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Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration

Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...

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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?

One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...