Nov 27

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“How will children be disciplined without school?”

“If a child doesn’t do her homework on time and isn’t punished for it, how will she ever learn discipline?”

The problem here is that schools teach coercive obedience advertising it as “discipline”.

In this view, discipline is a strong regard for authority. It is being forced into doing what you’re told by those who “know more about you”, without questioning. It is coercive obedience.

Society (and especially authority) tends to value those who are disciplined in this sense.

But know this. One who follows the rules even when they are wrong is disciplined. One who questions the validity of unquestioned norms is virtuous.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

1. How civilization has organized itself throughout the ages; a thread by Amjad Masad. See illustration also.

2. Elon Musk on the virtue of making and correcting mistakes quickly:

“We’re not aspirationally dumb. We’re aspirationally not dumb. But despite [that], we’ll still do dumb things. And there’s some element here of nothing ventured, nothing gained. If we do not try bold moves, how will we make great improvements?… these come with some risk, but the key is to be extremely agile. So if we do make a dumb move, or when we make a dumb move… we correct it quickly. That’s what really matters.”
— Elon Musk (in a recent Twitter Space)

3. Reading to acquire knowledge is unlikely to be adequately replaced anytime soon, explains Paul Graham in a short essay. “Reading about x doesn't just teach you about x; it also teaches you how to write.” And writing matters.

4. Should we “go against nature”? Or live in “harmony” with it? A short essay by Jason Crawford inspired by our recent conversation together.

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” — Francis Bacon

5. The Beginning of Infinity is one of the most important books ever written. However, it's quite dense and can be a tough read for the layman. This website shares some very succinct high level notes explaining important concepts well.

New Podcast Episode

This week, I released my podcast with Chiara Marletto, a quantum physicist at Oxford. We talked about her keen interest in fundamental physics, humans being a force of nature, knowledge, information being physical not abstract, constructor theory, constraints that are good and more!