Author: Larry Sanger
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Geek anti-intellectualism: replies
My essay on “geek anti-intellectualism” hit a nerve. I get the sense that a lot of geeks are acting–quite unusually for them–defensively, because I’ve presented them with a sobering truth about themselves that they hadn’t realized. Consequently they’ve been unusually thoughtful and polite. This is quite new and startling to me–I mean, there’s something about this…
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Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?
This essay can be read in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge. Perhaps ironically, it is no longer free. UPDATE: I’ve posted a very long set of replies. UPDATE 2: I’ve decided to reply below as well–very belatedly…
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Is college a waste of time?
More from the anti-intellectualism dept.: I admit this is news to me: a “Thiel Fellowship” has been set up by PayPal founder Peter Thiel, which encourages tech entrepreneurship by under-20-olds with the requirement that the recipients not go to college for two years. Peter Thiel, as it happens, has B.A. and J.D. degrees from Stanford,…
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The value of knowledge – the anti-intellectualism problem versus the philosophers’ problem
I need to complain about my fellow philosophers. But maybe I’m confused. Maybe some philosophers out there can set me straight, somehow. In recent years, as my interests have turned away from encyclopedia-building and toward education, I have become increasingly interested in the whole social phenomenon of people appearing to devalue academic knowledge. This is…
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On Robinson on Education
This very striking video has been circulating, and I’m inspired to reply to it: First, let me say that the video design is very cool. Moreover, Sir Ken Robinson is quite an excellent public speaker. Finally, I agree with him entirely that standardization is the source of a lot of our educational difficulties. But much…
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Wikipedia’s proposed legal policies
It looks like Wikipedia might be, finally, accepting its legal obligations. Geoff Brigham, General Counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation (which is the legal owner of Wikipedia), has posted to the Foundation-l mailing list a link to a draft document described as Office of General Counsel “staff policies.” The document is here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Policies When I saw it, one…
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25 Replies to Maria Bustillos
In a recent essay, in The Awl (“Wikipedia and the Death of the Expert”), Maria Bustillos commits a whole series of fallacies or plain mistakes and, unsurprisingly, comes to some quite wrong conclusions. I don’t have time to write anything like an essay in response, but I will offer up the following clues for Ms.…
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Can early education literally create geniuses?
I’m interested in this question, and I am asking in order to be enlightened by you, dear reader. Suppose you had twins, separated at birth, Norman (for “normal”) and Gene (for “genius”). Norman receives an ordinary middle-class upbringing, without much special early learning. Gene gets the most effective early training that you can imagine, whatever…
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Ask DadDude: learning a second language
I regularly get questions from people asking advice about their early learning situations. I always tell them that I’m not an expert, just a fellow parent who is highly involved in his boys’ education and possessed of an interest in educational theory–but they don’t seem to care. So I think I’m going to start answering…
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Any volunteers to help with the reading tutorial?
I need some volunteers for my new free reading program, and I hope someone (or several someones) out there might be able to help! I really need it! If you are interested, please read on. As readers of this blog know, I am working on something that is tentatively being called WatchKnow Reader. Here’s what…