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Saturday, November 28, 2015

The End of Academic Elites

Unlike the revolution started by the printing press which soon stabilized, internet changes are not merely drastic but continually accelerating.
In the liberal arts, one can practice Spanish with a native speaker in Argentina on Skype for free. No need for four years in college with an American professor who never learned how to trill an r. No need for a community college degree in graphic design, when Roberto Blake does a far better job of it for free on YouTube.
Academia will soon die out. The relic courses designed only to make work for obsolete professors will no longer be tolerated. The debt, and the social bloat, will have to collapse. Education has now become truly democratized. Only Engineering, the Sciences, and Medical Education will survive -- and these in only an abbreviated form.
This has the advantage of removing the last holdouts of a vestigial intellectual aristocracy which distorts our Republic with claims of expertise, and high salary requirements. However, the downside, as evinced by YouTube reporting, will be the total lack of responsibility. We will happily lose the Ivy League elite; but alas we may pay for this liberty with BDS coming out of every pore.
For those who say the servers can be shut down, you can learn how to set up your own for a few hundred dollars. In fact, older computers are perfect for such servers.
It will be interesting. I, for one, feel that it will be good to see ossified, overpriced universities disappear. I would rather exercise my own discretion than have choices made by some elite dinosaur. Academia was the last vestige of medievalism. Good riddance! Long live the internet.