[keiferski]

There is definitely a lot of information on the internet, but I wouldn’t undervalue the benefits of being in a classroom with a small group of bright people focusing on the same topic every week.

Probably the best class I took for my philosophy degree was a 3 hour metaphysics course, held once every Wednesday. There were maybe 6-7 people in the class, and the discussions we got into were incredibly educational.

I don’t think reading a bunch of books and web pages about metaphysics would have been 10% as insightful. Maybe with talking to an AI, you could get that up to 20%…but still, it’s not the same.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

I don't think I'm undervaluing it, I think it's just low expected value in the first place. Just because you had 36-40 hours of a good experience over a 3 or 4 year degree doesn't actually mean the median or even the 90th percentile classroom experience is better than self-education.

[keiferski]

…I had more than one good class in my four years of college. It was an example.

Self-education is great but is also leads to a kind of idiosyncratic blindness, because no one really forces themselves to study anything that they aren’t already interested in.