[chongli]

Either I'm too dumb to understand much of what he's trying to convey

I have a lot of respect for Alan Kay too but what you're hinting at is something that's bothered me about him for a long time: his "solution" for almost every problem is for everyone to be as smart as his Xerox PARC dream team.

He's like the Phil Jackson of technology: sure he's deserving of a ton of respect, but he wouldn't win anything with the 2012 Bobcats. Well that strategy doesn't work with society at large. You've got to work with the people who are, not those you wish would be.

[mdparker89]

One of the main takeaways in this talk addresses this directly. He's not advocating for everyone being smart, in fact being smart counts for very little. So how do we move forward as a species? The big ideas. However, it's hard to get adults to change and start using the big ideas so teaching kids is our best move.