[tqi]

> A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.

I wonder if this quote is still something we believe is correct. Implied here is that "learning" and "sharing what they know" are unqualified good. But I think there is lots of that on the internet these days... much of it bad. But then who gets to decide what is or isn't the right kind of learning in this model?

[bsder]

> Implied here is that "learning" and "sharing what they know" are unqualified good. But I think there is lots of that on the internet these days... much of it bad.

There is a vast difference between "On the Internet" and "In person".

"In person" means that your idea has to have enough critical mass in a local area to catch on. If your idea only appeals to 0.01% of people, you're just not going to come in contact with another like-minded individual in your local area. This greatly limits the damage that fringe beliefs can do. On the other hand, if you are the person with the minority belief or interest, you're isolated.

"On the Internet" there is no such geographic limiter. So, if you are the one in the minority, you can find kindred spirits. Unfortunately, very fringe people can find like minded individuals and congregate.

It would be very nice if we could harness the positives of both while minimizing the negatives. I'm not sure that's possible, though.

[argiopetech]

Those "who want to learn it from them" must make the assessment. Any less is censorship of the teacher, which, in my mind, is an unqualified evil.

This is not to say that the material learnt/shared is an unqualified good. The ability of each individual to freely exchange that knowledge and assess it in their context is.

[low_tech_love]

But then how would you separate, for example, teaching from preaching?

[gameman144]

I'd argue preaching is (or rather, ought to be) teaching, so no need to separate them.

Totally fine to restrict subjects that can be taught in schools though, including religion and the like.

[timcobb]

Isn’t that why we call them professors?

[tqi]

> Any less is censorship of the teacher, which, in my mind, is an unqualified evil.

I'm not sure if I agree. I understand the intent is that individuals should in turn be able reject those teachings in their context, but that feels disconnected from the reality of our society. Ultimately I think it comes down to whether you think policies should be made based on intent or outcomes. If, for example, WhatsApp knows that individuals "teaching" about the dangers posed by an ethnic minority, and that those teachings would result in genocide regardless of how much helper text / warning flags you place around the content, I think it would be a moral imperative for them to remove that content.

Of course, who gets to make that decision and how you measure outcomes (what is worse, and for whom?) is a whole can of worms, so I definitely have reservations, but ultimately I believe that a) some limits are necessary, b) there can be genuine disagreement on where that line should be drawn and c) there is no such thing as an unqualified evil or good.

[DistractionRect]

I think there's an implication of central curation that's done by the education system. That would be the difference from the internet. The question of who is qualified to run the system, is not easy answer. Consider academia and publishing to journals. On paper that's the embodiment of the quote. It's been corrupted by money, and perturbed by mandatory publishing. In order to maintain grants, publish X times a year, etc there's plenty of p hacking, unreproducible papers, and straight up fraudulent papers in circulation.

As fas our belief in the quote, it's clear there exists a subset of the population that doesn't believe this quote to be correct. We're seeing a renaissance of anti-intellectualism, where people reject basic science; brag about not reading books; segregate themselves into their own echo chambers; instead of facts informing beliefs, beliefs inform "facts."

A basic example is that diseases we've all but eradicated are seeing a resurgence thanks to trading vaccination for pox/covid/measles/etc parties.