Genius vs. Expertise

The theory by Erik Hoel states that: We're not maximizing the potential of the world's most gifted individuals because we're not educating them the right way. In the past, geniuses did not go to school; they were tutored — getting most of their education at home, for a single person (or a small group of people).

Good ideas are getting harder to find. In 300 BC, if you noticed that the water level in your bathtub got higher when you got into it, you were allowed to run through the streets shouting “eureka!” and declare yourself to be a genius. Now you would need some 400 page mathematical proof drawing on the topology of eight-dimensional manifolds in order... See more

Now consider our current situation. Despite all the language professing otherwise, in general the education system of the United States is based entirely on genetic determinism. A child is born assumed to have innate traits, including, for example, a preference as to what they want to be when they grow up (somehow just waiting fully-formed inside o... See more