Enstitute, an Alternative to College for a Digital Elite

Re:Enstitute, an Alternative to College for a Digital Elite by rayiner on Sunday May 05, 2013 @04:30PM (#5659628)

Here's the other thing: the college is obsolete folks are targeting the wrong people. Thiel encourages smart kids not to go to college, then asks why we have twitter rather than flying cars. But we've yet to devise an alternative to the educational military industrial complex for capital intensive innovation (flying cars). Elon Musk isn't hiring a bunch of people without college educations to work at Tesla or Space X. Thiel fellows aren't going to perfect nuclear fusion or carbon capture.

The people who shouldn't be going to college are the non elite. We need Thiel fellowships for people who would be going to Perimeter State, not Stanford.

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Re:Enstitute, an Alternative to College for a Digital Elite by dfield on Monday May 06, 2013 @12:03AM (#5660835)

Taylor Wilson might disagree with you... :)

(disclaimer: i'm a thiel fellow)

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Re:Enstitute, an Alternative to College for a Digital Elite by rayiner on Monday May 06, 2013 @12:16AM (#5660866)

Taylor Wilson is obviously brilliant, but he's about a million times more likely to have a lasting impact on nuclear science staying in university and leveraging institutional resources and knowledge than he is going it alone. The $100k you get from a Thiel fellowship is basically pocket change. Maybe he can do something with it, but he could do more faster if he had real resources, like a DOE contract.

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