Ideas For Academic Subjects In a Post-Scarcity World

Train of thought
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We all know that one of the major changes in society If/ when we achieve some kind of positive change in the future will of course be and depend upon the field of Education. As it is today a sad factory for producing uninterested wage slave zombies teeming with unrealized potential. We can only imagine what effects a true RBE and a society not driven by profit - competition - infinite growth could have on schools and academia.
Working with instead of destroying children’s natural curiosity and love for learning and understanding new things - and the type of adults that would grow out of that. People that actually love what they do (god forbid) and fields of science pursued out of curiosity and a tendency towards research and understanding the world… etc…

If you can imagine this world,
What would be some of the Subjects or fields you think would be taught in schools/ higher academia?
I came up with some topics and I liked the sound of them - feel free to elaborate more on yours.

I’ll start:

  • Sustainable economics
  • Causal history (history, but in context)
  • Fractal geometry and patterns (recurring patterns in nature and structures on the micro and macro level - from atomic to planetary)
  • Agricultural geography (maybe agricultural is the wrong word but in essence a study of earths lands and seas but this time divided by regions of biodiversity and not arbitrary borders)

Just an idea im playing around with and thought i’d share :man_shrugging:

1 Like
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I think this strongly depends on where you live. Because in nl there are already quite a lot of sustainability education programs. Although, these are not at the major universities. So it could use some work on that. But at the other hand, I only Duck’d it for a minute. Ehm yeah, I Duck’d it for another minute, also the big universities offer these studies.

Perhaps you can contact universities in your area and ask them what they have to offer or what they are planning to offer in the future. Maybe just asking this might trigger something. Or who knows, maybe they already exist :nerd_face:

But I agree that things should be better arranged. The fun is taken out of work and studying because of the market pressure. That’s true enough. But so far I was able to find a healthy balance, as far as I know what healthy is of course.

I think what’s truly needed in every class, on all levels, is the scientific method. And how to apply that to basic problem → solution steps. And how to do proper source analysis, especially now in the golden age of fake information. And as a last note, I think it would be really important to also be aware of our biases, so that we may recognize when we’re fooling ourselves when e.g. presented with new information that’s in conflict with existing believes.