3052:Education

3052: Education

My real perch above the City of Baltimore exists at the highpoint of UMBC. From there I can see the Key Bridge and the treetops of scattered trees that appear to be a forest from that distance and elevation. The campus is laid out inside a perimeter roadway that confines most of the buildings and most of the several thousand parking spaces. In 3052 that campus will certainly be gone. Even if it remains a center of information, they will not be hosting 20-something students who drive their cars to the primarily commuter campus.

The need for higher education will be greatly diminished as canned information is available in your pocket. History will be ill relevant as formula becomes more basis of next steps. Even today, the history of 1972 is as ancient to students as WWI and WWII was to my generation. Many years after I last left the academic landscape, and I continue to learn, I find that much of what was taught as fact was more precisely defined as opinions and observations of the author(s) of the text books. In the 1970s for instance, we were never exposed to the pre-texts for war that governments used to either stay out of or dive heartily into armed conflict. If you look in the correct places you can find a reason to wage war on just about anyone. With the circa 2004, Bush Doctrine that asserts that America has the right kill anyone who appears to threaten our security, one can attack preemptively for the flimsiest of justifications.   The only part of the history of war and conflict is the tabulations of carnage. Who did what and why, who was the aggressor and the victim all become muddied in the writing and rewriting of the chronicles.

Fact and figures seem to be the more important part of education. Computers can provide that function at a fraction of the cost of a formal higher education. Computers and information portals alleviate the need to read, write, or do arithmetic. And who ever needed that biology class, chemistry class or physics class anyway? Trigonometry and calculus are only useful if you plan to attend college. In the Third Millennium AD all that information will be firmly archived in massive data storage centers accessible by personal devices if and when the need arises.

There will still need to be a form of primary education. Children will still need to know that numbers, colors and letters exist and what they represent. We will need to teach them how to think not what to think. This will require a huge change in the education paradigm. A few children will need to be groomed as the thinkers and planners, inventors and builders of new things. The rest will need to be taught things that will keep them happy and ease their anxieties.  In my high school days, a very few of us learned computer programming while the cool kids and athletes kicked and batted balls around and others cheered them on. Even that electronic pursuit has been reduced to formula and modules of APPs on wireless phones. Computer programs write the new codes that populate the world even today. In 3052, the breadth and depth of numerical processing will far exceed the knowledge base of all but the most highly involved computer scientists.

While the world has become more global, it turns out that there are a few billions more candidates for higher education than the USA has to offer. Our mere 300 million people is but a 5% share of the 6 billion people on the planet today[1]. In that distant future the population could be 100 to 120 billion. At a 1% annual population growth the Earth's population of humans will exceed 51 Billion by 2214 unless we or something curtails us first. , Iif we do not apply what we already know about human energy usage and waste disposal we won't be able to expand much beyond 10 to 12 Billion. Not everyone can attend or needs to attend university to get an education that will result in more income earning potential. As civilization becomes more standardized there is a lesser need for the creative thinking that is performed by the top few of the world’s greatest academics.

High school level education needs to address the needs of the trades: electricians, plumbers and carpenters. And the services: landscapers, nursing care technicians, machine oilers. And even then, the construction techniques of a thousand years hence will be nothing like what we do today. These processes will be more formulated too. Not a lot of need for creative or artistic solutions.

The primary and elementary level education will serve to identify who among the masses of students will be the thinkers and leaders of the next generation. The rest will learn how to live in a world where their labor and brain power is not needed.  Even in this early 21st Century era, more than one-half of the US population does not contribute labor to the economy or the maintenance of our infrastructure. These people are our children, our retired adults and the people who by birth or misfortune cannot provide 40 hours of work per week at a job that would yield in excess of $15,000 per year. For them, people who do work must support those who cannot.

In the third millennium not laboring will be the norm with 90% or more not producing useful labors.

The Principle of Imminent Collapse asserts that no matter how bad things look, we will end up with a New Equilibrium not Extinction.

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[1] 7 Billion people as of 2014.

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