A few days ago, I wrote the post below on Facebook, talking about the importance of education in teaching people how to think, rather than what to think. I won’t repeat it all here, you can click below to read it. But I do want to build on the idea, following a different conversation I had with someone more recently.
The Mind is a Dangerous Thing to Lose
Picture this…
Humanity has developed technologies that can do everything a human can do, and do it better. Unlimited storage space remembers every thought, idea, and concept we have ever come up with. Sophisticated computing machines can solve complex problems and equations in seconds. Artificial brains can answer existential questions simply, and illustrate them with images and videos to make them easier to understand. They can even compose music, paint art, write books, and make movies solely based on what you feel like consuming at the moment.
Now put it into the context of a ruthless capitalistic society where your only value is the labor you can provide, and the products you can sell. If the machines do all the thinking, problem solving, and creating, what do you do? How do you make enough money to meet your basic needs?
That world already exists. And we, as a species, need to figure out where human beings, with (so far) fully functioning brains, fit in. What do we do with all that brain power we have managed to evolve if there is no more reason to use it?
Extrapolations, Deductions, and... Stuff...
I want to stress that this is not a condemnation of technology or AI. I want to go beyond that, and look at the bigger picture of where we are as a species and society, and what it means for our long-term survival. Because we absolutely have the capacity to take these tools and use them effectively to benefit us as individuals and as a society. But, as with everything humans create, they are instead being turned into weapons, targeting us where we are most vulnerable: our ability to survive end stage capitalism driven by a small group of ruthless oligarchs.
And it all comes right back to education. Because, in case no one told you, it always does.
Education is the difference between following the herd off a cliff, and sticking your head up to actually see where we’re going so you can change course. But that’s not an easy thing to do.
First, you need to have enough interest and awareness of yourself, those around you, and the world around them, to have the presence of mind to look up in the first place. To question where you are, how you got there, where you’re heading, and why. Second, you need the critical thinking skills to recognize that you might be in a situation that poses a serious threat, which requires a solid basis of general knowledge to make the relevant connections, and big picture thinking and forethought, because you might be just fine for now. But you might not be later. And third, having determined that you are in a situation you need to exit post-haste, you need enough intelligence, creativity, and compassion to think your way to a safe escape, and do it in a manner that also helps others do the same, or at the very least doesn’t cause them further harm.
And each of the above requires a strong desire and ability to do so.
When Evolution Shifts Into Reverse
The problem with the idea that schools are only supposed to train you how to do a particular job is that it plays right into the hand of those who benefit from the masses not having other options. If you only train people to do one thing and tell them that there is no value to be gained from anything else, then they’ll do that one thing and nothing else. They will be locked into a position they do not have the means to escape, so they will take what they are dealt, and blame anyone and anything they can, except the person/organization keeping them there. They will only see people in situations similar to theirs and believe the powers that be when they say, “This is as good as it gets, and you’re lucky to have this much, and you should shut up and be grateful that you have anything at all.” They will not look for something better. They will not organize to demand more. They will not have the time, energy, or resources to do so.
What I see as one of the greatest tragedies of our time is that there are people who have struggled all of their lives because of where they were born, or the way they look, or the way their bodies/brains function. Some of them look at the world around them and say, “This isn’t right. We need to do better.” But others look at that same world and say, “This isn’t right. You should hurt as much as I’m hurting, so you can understand why you’re the problem.” Their anger is feral and born out of pain that’s so blinding they cannot bring themselves to see the potential for a better world, because it would mean admitting that the potential has been there all along, and those who had the power to make it real—whom they’d followed and believed in all their lives—had chosen to exploit and profit off their suffering instead. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you rotten scraps. You turn on the person yanking on your chain trying to free you.
That’s what happens when people are encouraged not to read, not to learn—not to think beyond what is absolutely necessary. When their opportunities to educate themselves are limited or cut off completely. When they start to believe the lie that all they need to be successful in life is learn how to do a job well and never question whether they might be worth more.
Our education system is total shit. It already has so many gaps and fails so many people it’s tragic—and it will only get worse under this administration. But it is still a straw to grasp to pull yourself out of the muck. Which is why it is absolutely essential that we stop looking at education as a chore or burden, and start thinking of it as the path to growth. There is a reason why every level of education has course requirements that are unrelated to your chosen major or career path. They are intended to expand your mind, teach you to look at the world through a different lens, to get at least some exposure to ideas and concepts that will make those neurons in your brain fire along different paths. Those courses are supposed to teach you how the world works, and to understand the things that matter. That there are things so vital to our existence we cannot survive without them, and yet we place almost no value on them.
All of it is important. All of it matters. All of it shows you the paths that exist beyond the blinders that have been forced on you. And we should be teaching—and learning—more. Because when you don’t teach art and music, you don’t have artists or musicians. When you don’t teach history, you can’t see it repeating itself. When you don’t teach science, you believe politicians when they tell you we don’t need life-saving vaccines, or that funding cancer research is a waste of money. When you don’t teach philosophy, you thrust different beliefs into endless wars against each other, with no gray area that would allow for civilized conversation. When you don’t teach media literacy, you lose the ability to verify fact from fiction.
When you portray education as a burden, as something that you have to just get through to reach the next stage in life, you create an environment where taking shortcuts is almost required, and thinking is discouraged. It’s a really good way to keep a population too ignorant of their own exploitation, and too exhausted to do anything about it.
Brains & How to Use Them: A Thesis
Here, it is important to note, as many others have already pointed out, that it is never the rich and influential who are encouraging their children to skip college education and pursue vocational training instead. They only say those things to the lower classes.
It’s also important to note how each job and profession is “ranked” in society, how much value it is perceived to provide, and how it is valued in return. Physical and “low-skilled labor” jobs that we literally cannot function without are paid the least. Professions that take great amounts of compassion and creativity—arts, teaching, etc.—are said to be “worthless”, even though they are essentially the heart and soul of a society. Why do you think this is?
Now, which jobs generally pay the most? The ones that require fashionable suits, expensive watches, powerful connections, and (often) higher education. Executive functions. High level administrators, managers. Lawyers, doctors, psychologists… Technology used to be up there, but it seems to have fallen down the ranks quite a bit now that code can somewhat write itself. Although every experienced IT professional will tell you you can’t function without real people to solve real problems. I am also not including sports professionals, actors, or entertainers, because they don’t pay well across the board. Only about the top 1% of people in those fields gain enough fame to strike it rich.
The point is this: Our greatest evolutionary strength is our intelligence, and we are systematically hitting the breaks on it and reversing the process, relying on outside forces to do our thinking for us instead. When we talk about things like AI, we need to understand that “artificial intelligence” is essentially a system of functions that takes the information it is fed and reorganizing it to answer a prompt or question. It does not think. It uses our collective knowledge and intelligence and spits out an answer faster than a human could respond.
It uses our collective knowledge and intelligence.
What happens when we run out of intelligence to feed it, because we let it think for us for so long we forgot how to do it ourselves?
Your brain is a muscle. You need to use it, often and regularly. Technology and AI can supplement your life, but it should not subsidize it. Teach yourself the discipline of learning. Teach your children that education is important at every stage of life, whether you’re sitting in a classroom or pursuing a topic of interest on your own. Recognize the value in every aspect of the human existence, and that making money for someone else should not be the primary purpose of it.
You need to do these things because there are too many people out there who don’t want you to. Do it because you don’t want to live in a world run by idiots. Do it because the best way to stick it to the oligarchs is to build a world where they become obsolete. Do it so that your kids can live an easier life than you had to.