Prognostications are just part of our daily life, as we navigate dynamic change all around us. Here’s one such YouTube presentation with an economic flavor from Benedict Evans, a partner with Andreessen Horowitz, a VC company. Benedict seems like he might win a “talking fast” competition, and he’s also got a provocative wit…here’s a recent tweet from him:
I have a theory that all the Silicon Valley kids being sent on STEM courses and coding camps aged 3 will grow up to be poets or philosophers out of pure rebellion
Above has zero references to “education” as “consumer spending”. But perhaps if one asked parents of college attending youth and also young adults racking up huge “school loans” debt, if they were involved in “consumer spending”…one would likely get a large number of affirmative answers.
One might suggest that even k-12 is a form of ubiquitous consumer spending, as most of the population pays for it, and are related to those consuming it. True, the “spending decisions” are made by middlemen bureaucrats, and the payments are aggregated by “governmental agents”, but that might be the reason for k-12 stasis over the last 60 years.
The predominant model Today for K-12. might well not be the predominant model Tomorrow… as “learning vendors” arise setting up direct to consumer educational programs. We may have a resultant political thrust to redefine how education works in the US. In a new model for k-12, government could end up having a regulatory function that drives the realization of the public interest in educational commerce, yet in an environment where parents are full partners.(consumers spending).
Some might suggest we are “on the cusp” of big investment in learning tech by private equity. Others would suggest that such an event horizon is farther out, and needs a reform of the whole educational funding structure first.
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Healthcare shows up in Benedict’s presentation as:
•Opportunities to invest in new drugs and cell programming
•New treatment MOs, and
•”Prevention”, which portends disruption of healthcare costs and insurance.
So perhaps healthcare will move away from the present byzantine mess, where costs and services go through so many intermediaries and processes, that it is hard to see healthcare as “consumer spending”. But it really is. Almost zero healthcare is provided in the US by government doctors and hospitals, unless perhaps one is a veteran receiving healthcare. (always inadequate…and seemingly always in need of a total overhaul or re-conception.)
Medicare and Medicare are middlemen bill and payment aggregators, who we might be able to transform into entities that support and enable much greater participation and DIY responsibilities by our citizens in their own healthcare. IOW, transform the healthcare apparatus into a consumer driven enterprise, enabled by AI diagnostics in the home and wholesale lifestyle changes that prevent much of our current widespread health problems…such as obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction and smoking, sedentary daily life, fast food consumption, poor stress management, bad sleep habits…etc.
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My favorite part of the above YouTube (about 20:00) is when Mr. Evans gets to talking about new organizing “Layers”…and “Machine Learning” and “Crypto”. He says we are going to have access to more and deeper layers of understanding and meaning because we can superpower our investigation through connectivity and cloud tools. We can filter and hunt for more specific patterns of value previously obscure. Machine learning can find and create patterns of information we can use in our intents, and purposes, in a decentralized and permission-less environment.
Which is actually a sort of description of “new kinds” of learning, where we have overwhelmingly rich data streams incoming, and we must learn how to find the specific value in that stream. This is sometimes called “Critical Thinking”, and is much touted today in educational circles.This is similar to the idea that learning today isn’t an accumulation of facts in a siloed hierarchy (subjects) but a skill of being able to refine and curate data as above.
This addresses in various ways 3 theories of learning:
Theories of Learning
Constructivism suggests that humans construct knowledge and meaning from their experiences. Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy. Piaget’s theory of Constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements.
Connectionism: The learning theory of Thorndike represents the original S- R framework of behavioral psychology: Learning is the result of associations forming between stimuli and responses. Such associations or “habits” become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings. The paradigm for S-R theory was trial and error learning in which certain responses come to dominate others due to rewards.
Kudos to Gary for the link.
The guy does talk fast which is what is happening all around us. China seems very fast at adapting. The opportunity is looking at new ways to build anything. Education does appear to be a harder market as you mentioned until the consumers expectations drive the market.