some thoughts on education and the future.

shannon and i talked through some ideas about the educational system under compassionate fascism.

the whole talk started with a discussion of the operating system used in a lot of computers in future movies. you might be familiar with the one i talking about. it's the one tony stark uses in 'ironman.' they use it in 'minority report' too. they also use it in 'vanilla sky.' the basic idea is that everything is controlled with your hands. 'ironman' has it floating in 3D space, and he's just poking stuff and tossing it around and talking to his super-computer. i was more impressed with the one in 'vanilla sky,' which was otherwise a totally weird, forgettable movie.

in that movie, the computer was a flat panel on tilda swinton's desk, and she was using it a lot like we use iphones. again with the poking and flinging and dragging, but with her hands.

that is some future technology that i think isn't far away, and i am stoked on ways it can be applied to schools and to business.

so, computers will be one panel, either propped up in front of you with perhaps a wireless, touch-sensitive mouse pad, or laying flat on the table in front of you. the entire thing will be a screen, like an iphone. the keyboard will hide or be shown as needed. you'll drag things manually from one place to another. you'll poke a file with your finger and drag it into the trash. easy as pie, right? i'm predicting this isn't far away. not next year but within the next 10 years, i think we'll probably see that.

students will have laptops that they are given when they arrive at school, probably from the youngest possible age. preschool kids will play shape and color games on them. they'll have writing recognition programs, so that you'll learn to write on them, too, using a stylus. all tests will be taken on them, and then sent to the teacher's computer, via wireless internet. no textbooks, because everything will be downloaded to the computers as needed.

bibliophiles, you'll still be able to buy real paper books. but we need to do something about the paper useage in books and people we don't need to be printing hundreds of thousands of copies of the newest diet fad book. save the trees for something that matters. like celebrity gossip magazines.

kids will take notes on their school laptops. they can have their own home laptops, but the ones for school will be mandatory. everyone will carry flash drives with them everywhere they go, in case they need to get some work from their school/work computer onto their home, or vice versa. lectures will be automatically recorded and made available to students. attendance to classes will be monitored by thumb scans at the doorways of classes. each professor will decide on their attendance policy.

all papers will be written on the laptops and, again, sent to the professor via wireless connection.

shannon and i had some disagreements about upgrades, like what will happen when it's time to get new computers.

i felt like the old school computers would be collected, expertly refurbished, and sold online, with proceeds going to the ministry of education. perhaps they could be refurbished by students in higher level computer engineering classes!

shannon brought up an interesting point. he suggested that products under compassionate fascism be built to last, like old american cars. there is no conceivable reason why people need to buy the newest model of computer every year when the majority of the really important changes are software and operating system changes. so why not have a body that is so simple but so reliable that there's really nothing to update for? what if it was built to be used for an entire lifetime? so a kid is assigned a school computer when they're in kindergarten and they use the same one for their entire educational careers, until they graduate. any new changes to the model will be because of significant advances, not something dumb like changing the sharp edges into rounded ones, or changing the body from black plastic to titanium alloy.

i like this idea. i like the idea of america making cars that are built to be passed on to your kids and your grandkids with pride. and not as a cool, expensive luxury, like many classic cars are now, but as heirlooms, with standardized parts that make it fixable by a wide array of people, not just people with the expensive computers for diagnostics and crap. to balance the need for consumer spending to fuel the economy with our government's firm commitment to sustainability in all industries, at every level, we would allow auto upgrades for each driver every 5 years, let's say. no changing before that. you certainly don't have to upgrade every five years, and in fact you're encouraged not to, but as long as you wait five years, you are allowed to buy trade for a new model. that being said, i think the the auto industry, and all consumer industries, will be strictly controlled in the amount of new products or new models of old products that they're allowed to put out. if the main change is blue fog lights instead of yellow, wait until you have some other, seriously important changes and then release something new. say, every ten years, the auto industry gets to release a brand new model. however, all subsequent models need to be adaptable to the older models, and new advances in car components need to take into account that most people will just be getting upgrades to their old cars, because as a society we frown on conspicuous consumption.

some other odds and ends:

1) all professions are paid the same amount. you can be given bonuses for good performance, but there are no professions that are guaranteed money-makers. likewise, there are no specializations in medicine that pay more or less. being in public health will pay the same as holistic nutrition. also there will be no plastic surgery allowed unless the situation is related to a medical problem, like a burn or something. no gastric by-passes, no lipo, no vaginal rejuvenation. doctors of these things, you're wasting the world's time and money. please devote yourself to something that actually benefits mankind, not helps it become more lazy and image-obsessed.

2) doctors don't get paid by their patients until they've either cured the problem, passed the patient along to a different practitioner, or made a measurable contribution to the curing of the ailment. there will be no repeated visits for issues that aren't ever solved, for which you, the patient, are expected to pay. not that it matters because we'll OBVIOUSLY have universal health care and the insurance industry will seem as quaint and bizarre as the idea of barbers as surgeons.

3) there are way more doctors, and each doctor has fewer patients. this will give them more time to devote to solving individual problems, instead of making the patient clamor for help to no avail. doctors will be trained to understand that curing illness is their only job, and to the extent that illness is not being cured on their watch, they're failing. this won't put pressure on doctors to solve difficult cases, and there will be unlimited resources available for consultations with other doctors, and trying experimental treatments, or collaborating with practitioners of other healing styles (e.g. chinese herbs, ayurveda (sp?)) what it will do is force them to keep their attention focused on a case for as long as it takes to resolve the problem, or create a long-term treatment plan. for debilitating, long-term cases, one doctor will be in charge of all aspects of treatment, coordinating with the various others.

4) everyone automatically has a chiropractor, a therapist, a dentist, a doctor and a massage therapist.

i have more thoughts but it's late and i need to go to bed, so i'll leave you with this question to ponder for next time's discussion: while considering the case of the nutbar who gave birth to octuplets, is there such a thing as a country that's too free? (obviously that fertility doctor is also crazy and should be retired and sent to work in an apiary or something. no more medicine for you.)