From: rich@example.invalid   
      
   D  wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   > On Wed, 26 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:   
   >   
   >>> This was a painful read. =( I thought I saw this due to the fact that   
   >>> I teach at the vocational school level and not university level. Are   
   >>> yo useriously telling me that this b.s. goes one (and comes out of)   
   >>> the university level?   
   >>   
   >> I'm afraid it is.   
   >   
   > =(   
   >   
   >>> If so...  we'll soon enter a period of decline, if even   
   >>> universities turn out CS student so ill equipped to develop new   
   >>> brilliant services in todays world.  =(   
   >>   
   >> Perhaps the crowd that's brilliant is a minority that hasn't changed   
   >> much compared the previous times.  (Perhaps it has.) Just because a   
   >> lot of people are joining university and coming out of them pretty   
   >> clueless, it doesn't mean that we've reduced that small group that   
   >> carries the rest of the world on their shoulders.  Perhaps this   
   >> group is still the same percent compared to the last centuries.   
   >> (Just guessing hypotheses here.)   
   >   
   > That would be a comforting thought!  Maybe the nr of brilliant people   
   > stays at the same percentage!   
   >   
   > In my experience, the brilliant guys hardly need a teacher.  All I do   
   > is to feed them problems when they get bored.  Then they go away,   
   > work at it 24/7 until they solve it, and come back for more.  When I   
   > teach, and have to keep it at a level that is appropriate for the   
   > average level, they get bored and space out.   
      
   I've seen this too.  Actually, we all have.  The "brainiac" in the   
   front row of the calculus or physics class that's the one asking   
   questions that sometimes befuddle the instructor for a moment....   
      
   But I've also long felt that 'intelligence', just like most everything   
   else, tends to follow surprisingly closely a bell curve.  There's   
   always a small percentage of "ultra high" on one end, a large middle of   
   "good to great, but not at the same level of the 'ultra high'" and a   
   following tail who just can't, ever, get it.  It just is the way it is.   
      
   And the ones who strike it rich if you go digging you find out that   
   they were the "survivor bias" ones (i.e., the lucky one that survived)   
   or that they had "generational backing" (family wealth) that could be   
   leveraged to "buy" the right people to increase their odds of becoming   
   the "survivor bias" one.   
      
   I've also seen what you describe at $job.  I spent somewhere on 15-20   
   years helping train new hires, and it didn't take very long until I got   
   quite good at "picking out" the new ones who were going to succeed from   
   the ones who were likely to wash out just by interacting with them for   
   a surprisingly short period of time.   
      
   > So I give them the lecture slides and material to read at their   
   > leisure and keep feeding them problems.  Occasionally they get stuck,   
   > but very rarely, and then I zoom in.   
   >   
   > Those students give me immense joy!   
      
   Yes, these are the students you want, sadly, they usually are never   
   more than about 3-4% of the class.  They are also the ones you want HR   
   to filter through to you from new applicants, but sadly, HR is piss   
   poor at doing that filtering.   
      
   >> But I think you're totally right in that we've entered a period where we   
   >> have a lot of people who are completely wasting their degrees, specially   
   >> in an area such as computer science.  I could be wrong, but it seems   
   >> that computer science is housing a lot of nonsense.  I'm sure there are   
   >> declines in mathematics and physics too (likely more so on physics than   
   >> in mathematics, I'd guess), but I believe computer science might be the   
   >> worst.  When I look at the student body in computer science, the vast   
   >> majority seems totally uninterested in computer science---they're   
   >> interested in /playing/ video-games, not producing them.   
   >   
   > When I wwas young, it was considered a virtue to expand your mind, to learn   
   new   
   > things, to develop yourself. My home was full of books, we watched   
   > documentaries, went to museums. When the computer arrived, I was fascinated   
   with   
   > linux, BSDs, programming.   
   >   
   > I hope that this culture is still alive.   
      
   It is.  Go look into the "maker community" or "maker space".  It has   
   shifted somewhat from our days back then but much of it is still there.   
      
      
   > It would be so incredibly depressing if the majority of the young   
   > today were to waste away their lives watching podcasts and playing   
   > computer games.  It feels they would just waste their lives that way   
   > instead of exploring it and challenging their limits, and breaking   
   > through their limits.   
      
   Sadly, remember my 'bell curve' above.  Half of them will fall on the   
   "below median" point, and those will often be the ones who *do* waste   
   away their life on consuming that which others create.   
      
   And a lot of it is motivation.  They, for whatever reason, seem to be   
   unmotivated by most any argument to do other than consume for   
   consumptions sake.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)