As somebody who was homeschooled through middle and high school and accumulated a backpack full of undergrad courses but no degree, that absolutely checks out. Autodidactic learners (myself included) are incredibly prone to thinking they’ve Figured Out The Big Insight, in part because they’ve never had anyone there to temper the cathartic rush of “getting it” with the inevitable realization that There’s A Lot More To It.
I suspect that an autodidact is often going to have a skewed experience, where what they read about leans toward the glamorous. This affects both what they want to read and what is available to them. It's a lot easier to come across "The Mysterious Mysteries of Quantum Physics and Black Holes" than it is to find practical introductions to calculus (although [the latter](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf) do [exist](http://www.larrygonick.com/titles/science/cartoon-guide-to-calculus-2/)). And an autodidact might not be inclined to slog through the exercises that are to science and mathematics what practicing scales would be to a musician.
So, you get people who maybe fancy themselves programmers (well, they know how to copy from StackExchange), and they listen to Eric Weinstein's podcast and want to learn gauge theory so they can work on "Geometric Unity". The revolution in physics and/or economics is at hand, despite those nefarious Cathedral types working to suppress it! Wait, there are prerequisites? Vector calculus, linear algebra, representation theory of Lie groups... Oh, bother.
More broadly, they feel they have been (unfairly) overlooked by liberal institutions (the spooky cathedral). Explains the natural alliance with conservatives and reactionaries.
Yes, I consider myself a strong thinker who asks the tough,
transgressive questions like “what if I looked at education like a 19th
century Prussian school master”.
Like, who woulda thunk that always positioning yourself as “rational”
and “objective” would lead to a deeply misogynistic worldview
It's really depressing; I read LW unironically and enjoy the community for some parts but the misogyny and lack of "eat the rich" attitude is horrific.
Yeah, I find it deeply interesting how so many people can position themselves as transgressive and radical while not just supporting the status quo, but actually going full tilt into reactionary, status quo ante politics
Maybe it makes sense if you're a dipshit contrarian, you're 18, and you're stuck, against your will, in Berkeley.
It may be a function of the smug, wannabe-transgressive facts-and-logic wing of online atheism breaking off from the social-justice wing and later merging into GamerGate, although LW and NRx somewhat predated that.
I was an anxious loner who went to an artsy hippie school, and I could imagine getting sucked into that sort of lib-trolling contrarianism if I'd had no idea what real conservatives were like.
Reactionaries have always had a persecution complex/played the victim. Loss of privileged status and perceived freedoms (free speech warriors) tends to provoke a lot of whining.
I mean not going to lie I aspire to be "rich" but I also aspire to donate large amounts of that wealth to charities which I guess would make me not among the first to be eaten? I probably have a lot of learning to do before I reach full automated luxury gay space communism.
this really has it all: the sexism, the idea that everyone is dumb
except the writer, thinking childhood education is a stupid major and
people only do it because it’s “easy”… wow
True story: my husband was studying to be a maths teacher and he quit after one semester because he couldn't cut it. He's now a data scientist helping fight malaria.
I wish the OP hadn't been deleted because it included other gems like:
- "My girlfriend argues that loving and attentive parents are essential for a well-developed child. I'm far from convinced."'
- "if they have a dirty room, have them talk to Jordan Peterson."
(those are just the ones my boyfriend quoted at me)
He also talked about the kid having an hour of tennis and two hours of chess.
"My girlfriend argues that loving and attentive parents are essential for a well-developed child. I'm far from convinced."'
I don't know why this is so funny to me
Also the idea that "history buffs" (read guys who fantasize about Rhodesia and have Erwin Rommel as their avatar pic) are the ones you really want teaching history to kids.
> The kid would throw lavish parties that would destroy their homes, routinely steal his father's Rolls Royce when he was bored of his Benz, and was overall just a pretty mediocre person. In hindsight, he was desperate for structure
Imagine this level of cope coming from someone who got to see a rich pampered asshole up close and instead of reconsidering their ingrained "richs are better" mentality has to look for excuses and fanfiction a ridiculous training regimen that would make things right. Further imagine some rich guy going to the trouble of actually doing any of this nonsense (nevermind taking education advice from a poor) instead of simply having a lackey occasionally bail out their kid and polish up the Royce.
Funny the LWer just assumes the kids is guy.
Also weird tone going from 'the child' to 'our child' and never worrying about what the child likes. Like a kid is a robot to be programmed.
E: [random related twitter remark](https://twitter.com/AmmoniteInk/status/1387223513401077761) which made me think of this thread.
> Please, for the love of all that is holy. Teach your children how to rest without guilt. I do not need more therapy clients who do not know how rest works. I have SO MANY and this exacerbates EVERYTHING.
> NO GRIND CULTURE FOR CHILDREN.*
> *So please stop modeling it for them.
Lol, my girlfriend thinks kids require love and attention from their parents but what my model presupposes is that this is not true and you can just hire people to act as parents. These guys just pride themselves on reasoning in a vacuum where all of history is non existent to test hypotheses against, don't they.
> If we assume that actual parenting wasn't feasible i.e. the father was too busy or just had more important things in his life than his child
whoo boy
warp power to shields, we're in for a bumpy ride
A self improvement meme is that all the greats in history only slept 5 hours a day or something. There are some weird infographs about half a dozen dead famous well off white guys (Tesla slept 2 hours a day!), and add in cargo cult behaviour and that creates obsession with sleeping, because they all had weird sleeping patterns.
Also the military loves to wake up people early for some reason iirc.
Then add in the dangerous Uberman sleep pattern, and smartish contrarians think they can force creativity/productivity by messing with peoples sleep patterns.
And forcing all this shit on kids is what happens if you try to recreate child raising from first principles without talking to people who actually raised kids.
Like much of rationalism, they're just cargo culting intelligence and success. There's an entire genre dedicated to analyzing smart and successful people's habits that ultimately have little to do with their intelligence or success, and for whatever reason certain people eat it up.
Is it [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography) fan fiction?
> John Stuart Mill was born at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, Middlesex, the eldest son of Harriet Barrow and the Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist James Mill. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham had died.[16]
>
> Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught Greek.[17] By the age of eight, he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis,[17] and the whole of Herodotus,[17] and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato.[17] He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic, physics and astronomy.
>
> At the age of eight, Mill began studying Latin, the works of Euclid, and algebra, and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the commonly taught Latin and Greek authors and by the age of ten could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of his earliest poetic compositions was a continuation of the Iliad. In his spare time he also enjoyed reading about natural sciences and popular novels, such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.
>
> His father's work, The History of British India was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, at about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and David Ricardo with his father, ultimately completing their classical economic view of factors of production. Mill's comptes rendus of his daily economy lessons helped his father in writing Elements of Political Economy in 1821, a textbook to promote the ideas of Ricardian economics; however, the book lacked popular support.[18] Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house for a walk to talk about political economy.
>
> At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed a year in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham. The mountain scenery he saw led to a lifelong taste for mountain landscapes. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a deep impression on him. In Montpellier, he attended the winter courses on chemistry, zoology, logic of the Faculté des Sciences, as well as taking a course in higher mathematics. While coming and going from France, he stayed in Paris for a few days in the house of the renowned economist Jean-Baptiste Say, a friend of Mill's father. There he met many leaders of the Liberal party, as well as other notable Parisians, including Henri Saint-Simon.
>
> Mill went through months of sadness and contemplated suicide at twenty years of age.
I wonder what they'd say about this:
> As a member of parliament, Mill introduced an unsuccessful amendment to the [Reform Bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1867) to substitute the word "person" in place of "[man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_(word))".
The ironic thing is that rationalists are ALL OVER weird sleep schedules and sleep phase delays because Yud (and Harry in HPMOR) have delayed sleep phase disorder (IIRC). This guy obviously didn't get the memo.
And here's where I link to Scott Alexander's psychiatry practice's article on how it might be treated with melatonin in case it might help you: https://lorienpsych.com/2020/12/20/melatonin/ - my husband uses it as a hypnotic at the recommended 300mcg dose and finds it very effective.
Haha I might actually check that out- Scott Alexander might be an awful eugenicist, and I hate eugenicists passionately, but I have no particular reason to distrust him on sleep disorders, lol.
Yeah, as a psychiatrist he definitely knows how to research mind-altering chemicals. If you're in the US the main insight is the melatonin pharmacies sell is like 10x stronger than it should be.
>If you're in the US the main insight is the melatonin pharmacies sell is like 10x stronger than it should be.
Better than the Australian problem where non-prescription shit is homeopathic.
This is a bit of a silly aside, but a nicotine patch while sleeping plus high dose melatonin of the sort you mention produces remarkable dreams.
in reality what they create is miserable, narrow minded pieces of
trash who will have total control over the earth for all their lives.
you’d think someone dedicated to “science” would have made an
“observation” of this at some point in the past
(I originally linked to the source but it appears to have been
deleted?)
I love that the teacher is a woman who is slave to her maternal
instincts and the child is of course a boy. The chef teaching cooking
skills is a man, though (the child is waking up at 5am for cooking
lessons).
The whole (short) post is just pure LW fuckery and I love it because
it’s so naive.
Also, for some reason they recommend Jordan Peterson to encourage the
kid to clean its room instead of, IDK, Marie Kondo or something
Full disclosure: it is currently on 0 points in their upvoting system
and no comments so does not necessarily reflect mainstream LW views;
however as someone who moves in these circles it’s definitely
representative of some of the people in the community.
If you want a blogger in the “rationalsphere” who seems to be doing
parenting right, I recommend Jeff Kauffman:
https://www.jefftk.com/news/kids - committed Effective Altruist.
Idk, Paul seemed pretty well-adjusted for a reluctant psychotropic messiah/result of centuries of Bene Gesserit eugenics. His progeny, on the other hand....
Ah yes I remember reading this after realizing one of my exes had
totally borrowed his plan for “homeschooling” (read, paying others to
teach) his future children and balking at how it assumed people exactly
like me are going into education because of…. Maternal urges.
A lot of rationalists have “kid who thought they were too smart for school” vibes.
Yes, I consider myself a strong thinker who asks the tough, transgressive questions like “what if I looked at education like a 19th century Prussian school master”.
Like, who woulda thunk that always positioning yourself as “rational” and “objective” would lead to a deeply misogynistic worldview
this really has it all: the sexism, the idea that everyone is dumb except the writer, thinking childhood education is a stupid major and people only do it because it’s “easy”… wow
GUYS I FOUND THE FULL TEXT IT WAS IN MY RSS READER HERE YOU GO:
https://pastebin.com/RQBdUrYT
What age does he think a child will Get a love of learning from 6am history lectures.
What’s this obsession with waking up at 5AM?
in reality what they create is miserable, narrow minded pieces of trash who will have total control over the earth for all their lives. you’d think someone dedicated to “science” would have made an “observation” of this at some point in the past
(I originally linked to the source but it appears to have been deleted?)
I love that the teacher is a woman who is slave to her maternal instincts and the child is of course a boy. The chef teaching cooking skills is a man, though (the child is waking up at 5am for cooking lessons).
The whole (short) post is just pure LW fuckery and I love it because it’s so naive.
Also, for some reason they recommend Jordan Peterson to encourage the kid to clean its room instead of, IDK, Marie Kondo or something
Full disclosure: it is currently on 0 points in their upvoting system and no comments so does not necessarily reflect mainstream LW views; however as someone who moves in these circles it’s definitely representative of some of the people in the community.
If you want a blogger in the “rationalsphere” who seems to be doing parenting right, I recommend Jeff Kauffman: https://www.jefftk.com/news/kids - committed Effective Altruist.
Great, sexist and classist in one shot!
Cannot make this shit up
“Disenfranchised”?
I mean, there’s a whole lot of wat going on there, but in particular … “disenfranchised”?
It’s obvious they’re afraid that the history teacher will be a female, but are they also worried that she’ll be a convicted felon?
Reads Dune once and misses the entire point
Ah yes I remember reading this after realizing one of my exes had totally borrowed his plan for “homeschooling” (read, paying others to teach) his future children and balking at how it assumed people exactly like me are going into education because of…. Maternal urges.