[rayiner]

By and large we don't need average kids to be able to invent knew things. Heck, even above average kids don't need to invent knew things. Most engineers working at Boeing couldn't invent new things, but they do a perfectly fine job of plugging in the numbers into the right equations and keeping the aircraft rolling out.

[disgruntledphd2]

Note, I don't mean to be in any way negative towards you in any way at all, at all.

However, one could equally as well argue that we don't need average people to be able to read or do maths. They can learn it all from videos on Youtube et al anyway, right?

More seriously, the notion that most people can't produce wonderful things is the single most pernicious lie of our times. Everyone is born with more than enough potential to do great things, and the job of society is to give them the tools and encouragement they need to do this.

So, don't sell the species short. We may not need everyone to create new things, but hell, it couldn't hurt, right?

[rayiner]

We have an economy that is structured such that we need average people to be able to read and do basic arithmetic. We do not have an economy that requires them to do more than that. Indeed, I'd argue that we have over-educated the average person--too many people with college educations working basically the same jobs they could have gotten 50 years ago with just a high school education.

[disgruntledphd2]

Firstly, apologies for the ridiculously late reply.

Secondly, so what? The particular structure of our economy is no reason to constrain our abilities as a species. I would argue that we have crippled, half educated college graduates doing pointless work across the WEIRD (google the acronym) world, and that this is bad.

My argument is not that we have educated the "average person" (presumably you're not one) too much, but rather that we have educated them too little. Just enough to believe that they know enough, but not enough that they actually reflect upon their existence.

[qu4z-2]

I would say we don't need people to invent new things, but we do want them to.