So, what's the future going to be like?
I'm not going to limit your creativity. Decide for yourself. Don't google search. Don't ask the opinions of other people. What will the future be like? Try the combine technicalities and improbability and creativity. Determine the time period for yourself. A scanned drawing and a short insight is preferred. If you can't draw, that's okay. But all neat and insightful drawings will be published. Thanks. Please leave a comment with your email if you wish to compete. If you already know my email, just skip this step.
Nuked caused winter? Flourishing of advanced civilization? Doomed by a black hole? Escape to the 4th dimension? Living on mars? AI take over world? Mutant species take over world?
You decide. The only restriction: Be creative.
14 comments:
Hey its Kevin.
And I know this is totally random, but I honestly think China and India are gonna have major problems with America. Right now, these two countries don't openly go against America, because we're the world power. But in 100 or so years, China and India are going to be the world powers. Why? Because they're work ethic is 10x better than America's. And they're going to have problems with America because of the enormous difference in culture. America is more of the "let's take it slow and easy, let's relax, let's have a good time" type of culture, but China and India (especially China, if I'm right) is the "respect, work, etc." type. Which is bound to succeed? China and India. And when they surpass America, either America's going to have to adapt to working harder or we'll be crushed.
And in a short prediction, like 20 or so years, Japan is going to have a major cultural reform. After WW2, Japanese culture was almost identical to Chinese culture today: "work and respect." Now they're all "Harmony, war is bad (which it is, but its unrealistic to end war), and education isn't as important", which I think is the main reason of their decline over the past decade. But China's already passed up Japan in economic power. And India soon will, too. When that happens, Japan's going to be shocked, and after this shock, they're going to go back to WW2 mode (work harder).
Nice thinking!
But think about it a bit deeper. If the economy of China and India rises, do you think that other countries are going to use their cheap labor anymore? No more cheap labor will stigmatize growth. Also, China and India have a considerable strict teaching style. If you have read my earlier posts. Strict learning style => Afraid to make mistakes => always unoriginal. Did you know that the US is king of making inventions? That's the result of a loose educations system.
Well, Japan makes nice electronics, keepin' me happy!
Also, I think African aid is going to go down drastically. Right now, we can afford to help the Africans eat. But soon we're going to realize (well not "we" really, but the oblivious rich people) that the African situation isn't improving; they're too dependent on us. I don't want to sound cold, but its too impractical to help all of the africans through poverty. One person alone costs thousands of dollars to help. We can't afford that every year.
And our population is growing exponentially right now. We're over 6 billion people right now (world). The Earth can only hold a little over 8 billion people. So what's going to happen? The stronger people are going to take the poorer people's land. That would be America taking Africa. We're too greedy to make laws that restrict children and stuff. Without a doubt, the government will make some excuse to take land from other countries, like by saying that they're "buying" it.
Oh, and to reply to your post, I have to say that strict learning style does NOT make people unoriginal.
Example: Japan
Japan is knows for their awesome inventions. They make new machines all the time. But look at they're educational system. It's a living hell, if you didn't know. In America, students study to apply to colleges (most of the time. IMSA doesn't count for now). In Japan, the competition starts in elementary school when people apply for better junior high schools. After that, they apply to better high schools, and then to colleges. They study until its too late at night. Does that make them uncreative? NO! You said so yourself. And btw, Japan is the king of inventions now. America was so 1800's. Anyway, my comment wasn't about creativity and inventions. It was about success. To be successful, education is WAY more important than creativity.
to address your other point, by 2100, China and India won't have cheap labor as the center of their economy. Right now, Americans are hiring China because America has the upper education (and power). Soon, China's(and India) going to be way smarter than america. THeir economy will boom (or rather continue to boom), and their overall power and influence over the world will increase. And their economy is already stimulated, so the upper trend is just going to continue, but just be more stable (because smart people = good business = good economy)
A bad education system may not hinder creativity, but it doesn't help either. Do you think that studying late at night really helps the Japanese kids succeed? I completely agree that work ethic is one of the most valuable and important values. But I don't think that means that children should be forced to work two full time jobs, nor do I think that's beneficial in the long run. However, I don't think I should say too much before I know more about what I'm talking about. In Japan, do the kids study useful things or useless things? Do they learn about the world in history class or memorize dates? The quality of the education system depends a lot on this answer, of course.
I disagree that education is much more important than creativity in success. You are successful because you offer something important, often something that everyone else can't offer. A good education, while being a valuable and necessary foundation to success, does not lead automatically to success. You don't only need to be good, you need to be the best. Education gets you the former, and a novel idea gives you the latter.
So a good education is necessary for success. Do you think China will ever manage to provide a good (similar caliber as America) education to a majority of its population? (Not rhetorical, just wondering you're opinion.)
I think education is just a form of placement into society. SAT/ACT? It places you into a 'proper' college. Whether you are actually fit to attend the school or not, education places you there. Then colleges/universities places you in high/low earning jobs. And thus into society.
But ignore all that; please respond to this contest; what's the future? Thanks. Also, if there are people that you think would be interested in this blog, please refer.
-Always the best
Bwangme
I still think that a good education is more important to be successful.
If I were to define success in our society, I would say it means to have a good job (and with that, a lot of money).
A good education automatically places a person there. A good education gets a student into a good college. A good college gets a student to land a great job. Creativity, on the other hand, doesn't get a student into a good college. Our education system is based on an array of tests (finals, Sats, Acts, entrance exams, etc.). To get good scores on these tests, students need to memorize a lot of facts. It's that simple. Creativity can't help students get good scores on tests. Creativity is just something that helps you become more successful after you have a foundation for success already.
And I do believe that China will provide a good education. In fact, it already is. The only problem with Chinese (as well as Japanese) education right now is the language. Chinese and Japanese are not dominant languages in the world, but English is because America is the "world's number one country." More people would rather learn in English than in any other language.
Does Harvard offer better/harder education than the University of Tokyo or the University of Hong Kong? Honestly, it doesn't. It's more prominent now because America is a more powerful country. But I think that throughout the next hundred years, China will become more powerful and their colleges will be recognized to be ranked #1 in the world.
What is education anyway. Is education society's organizational method of teaching us, or is it the process of placement into society?
I don't learn anything in school.
Kevin Smith/Chen meet someperson. someperson meet Kevin Smith/Chen
I believe that we are really talking about the same thing with regard to success, just defining "success" differently. We both agree that to be really successful, you need a good educational foundation along with something special. It's just our definition of "success" that differs.
Curious to know what you think: do you think that, if a worldwide study was done today showing that several Chinese universities outrank an American university (i.e. Harvard), will the results be published?
As for what Bwangme has said, I believe there are two main parts in a school system: learning and credentials. You need to learn stuff and show that you have learned it. Both are important, but there needs to be a balance.
Oops, I can't believe I wrote my name as Kevin Chen.
Anyway, Bwang, you do learn things in school. I think the point you were trying to make was that the things we learn in school is unimportant in life, but we already talked about what I think about that.
Someperson, if a study showed that Asian Universities (mainly China, India, and Japan) outranked American colleges, that it will still be published. It's impossible to stop something from being published nowadays. But I think that afterwards, America will try their hardest to twist the study to show that the information and credits are unreliable. The problem is that America has so much power and influence that they can easily control what's in the media.
Back to Bwang, in our last conversation, you told me that the system we have in place right now is inefficient. You told me that all of the learning for tests we do limits our creativity and that it is, in short, a huge waste of time. I told you why I think it's best to have this system, and the conversation ended without you ever replying. I want to ask what you think the education system should be like.
Someperson, do you think we should change our educational system?
Things we learn in school are things we can learn on our own. If we can learn things on our own, why should we bother to learn in school? Math: Go on internet. English: Read Books and analyze books. World History: Buy a book and memorize. P.E. Run around neighborhood.
What the education system should be like: A schedule (and details)
Arrive at school at 6:00 am
Go to math class. Set goals for night
Go to English. Set goals for night
Go to world history. Set goals
Go to rest of classes. Set goals.
9:00am; 1st bus arrives.
Some students arrives directly home to meet their goals.
9:15am to 4:00pm help from teachers. Helps meet their goal.
4:00pm +: after school activies
How's that. Teachers are there to help you, but you 'help yourself'
Yes. Our system needs change.
Well, for starters, I think schools severely underestimate motivation as an important factor in learning. Students who aren't motivated won't learn, and students who are motivated will learn, regardless of external conditions. (Given, of course, resources such as books, articles, or the Internet.) So the school should focus on motivating unmotivated students, not giving them extra worksheets.
Math is my best subject and is really the only one where I have learned the majority of my knowledge outside of school. In math class, I've seen teachers "teach to the requirements", that is, teachers teaching only to get their students to perform well on tests. Regardless of the student's comprehension, as long as they score well on the tests, they're fine. Of course, not all teachers are like this, but some are.
The tests themselves are another thing that should be changed. (will be continued later, gtg for now)
As I've said in some of my earlier comments on this blog, I believe that courses should be target to students' needs, and part of this means not lumping good students and bad students in the same classroom all the time.
The article that, I think, best summarizes my views on math education is Lockhart's Lament. (http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_08.html) It's an article written by a mathematician who teaches at the K-12 level about math, though many of the points he makes are immediately generalizable to other aspects of school.
Regarding math education in particular, I think that the application side of math is severely underemphasized. Problems should be solved by creativity, not by memorizing every example in the book. The tests should have problems that the student can solve but that he has never seen before. Yet the tests will never be this way because what really matters in a math education, problem solving in math and beyond, is much harder to measure than whether the student knows the difference between improper and proper fractions and knows what whole numbers and what natural numbers are. This is what I often ask myself when I am thinking about the school system: are they teaching what matters? are they testing what matters?
Without cause, there is no effect.
Without motivation, there is no effort.
Without purpose, there is no need.
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