Thread by @patio11

I think we’re excessively surprised as to what happens if you e.g. read literally every book in the library on WWII.

Intuitively, we know what is likely to happen. We discount the possibility of it happening for a 10 year old to protect our understanding of the status of adults.

https://twitter.com/Halsrethink/status/1259694101865418752

One level out from “I totally believe a bright 10 year old could memorize literally every capital ship in the Imperial Japanese navy by outline; that would be an unexceptional level of expertise or dedication to bring to Minecraft”, what does this suggest about nudges to make?

Because I think one level out from “Some ten year olds can have graduate student levels of understanding of raw historical facts, but we can’t acknowledge that” is probably “Some ten year olds can be about as productive as graduate students at e.g. programming X models, but...”

And while I know there is a strong undercurrent of “Lets let kids be kids! Crickey the endless competition is value destroying!”, I don’t think it is a bad thing for society if we present children the choice of “Say as you do your voyage of self discovery have you considered...”

“... that for the effort you’re about to spend on League of Legends you could, and I’m going to just throw this possibility out there, create something that society values in the hundreds of thousands of dollar range. Just a thought; part-time job at McDonalds also an option.”

“That sounds like a ludicrous hypothetical.”

I literally know high school students who sold mid $X0k of e-books which were not obviously different in artifact character than a well-executed school project, and I think I have a really well-calibrated understanding of SaaS math.