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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 5 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.004s | source

This request originated via recent discussions on HN, and the forming of HARC! at YC Research. I'll be around for most of the day today (though the early evening).
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germinalphrase ◴[20 Jun 16 21:15 UTC] No.11941649[source]▶
Hi Alan,

As a high school teacher, I often find that discussions of technology in education diminish 'education' to curricular and assessment documentation and planning; however, these artifacts are only a small element of what is, fundamentally, a social process of discussion and progressive knowledge building.

If the real work and progress with my students comes from our intellectual both-and-forth (rather than static documentation of pre-exhibiting knowledge), are there tools I can look to that have been/will be created to empower and enrich this kind of in situ interaction?

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alankay ◴[20 Jun 16 21:31 UTC] No.11941741[source]▶
This is a tough one to try to produce "through the keyhole" of this very non-WYSIWYG poorly thought through artifact of the WWW people not understanding what either the Internet or computer media are all about.

Let me just say that it's worth trying to understand what might be a "really good" balance between traditional oral culture learning and thinking, what literacy brings to the party, especially via mass media, and what the computer and pervasive networking should bring as real positive additions.

One way to assess what is going on now is partly a retreat from real literacy back to oral modes of communication and oral modes of thought (i.e. "texting" is really a transliteration of an oral utterance, not a literary form).

This is a disaster.

However, even autodidacts really need some oral discussions, and this is one reason to have a "school experience".

The question is balance. Fluent readers can read many times faster than oral transmissions, and there are many more resources at hand. This means in the 21st century that most people should be doing a lot of reading -- especially students (much much more reading than talking). Responsible adults, especially teachers and parents, should be making all out efforts to help this to happen.

For the last point, I'd recommend perusing Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking: Fast and Slow", and this will be a good basis for thinking about tradeoffs between actual interactions (whether with people or computers) and "pondering".

I think most people grow up missing their actual potential as thinkers because the environment they grow up in does not understand these issues and their tradeoffs....

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jbrennan ◴[20 Jun 16 22:02 UTC] No.11941946[source]▶
>I think most people grow up missing their actual potential as thinkers because the environment they grow up in does not understand these issues and their tradeoffs....

This is the meta-thing that’s been bugging me: how do we help people realize they’re “missing their actual potential as thinkers”?

The world seems so content to be an oral culture again, how do we convince / change / equip people to be skeptical of these media?

Joe Edelman’s Centre for Livable Media (http://livable.media) seems like a step in the right direction. How else can we convince people?

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heurist ◴[21 Jun 16 00:04 UTC] No.11942605[source]▶
Marijuana helped me realize there was a lot about myself I didn't understand and launched my investigation into more effective thought processes. I've become much more driven and thoughtful since I began smoking as an adult.
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1. tomp ◴[21 Jun 16 12:18 UTC] No.11945114{3}[source]▶
What kinds of changes to your thought processes did you make?
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2. heurist ◴[21 Jun 16 16:04 UTC] No.11946716[source]▶
First of all, I now enjoy talking about myself :)

I stopped assuming I knew everything, and a childlike sense of wonder returned to my life. I began looking beyond what was directly in front of me and sought out more comprehensive generalizations. What do atoms have in common with humans? What does it mean to communicate? Do we communicate with ecosystems? Do individuals communicate with society? What is consciousness and intelligence? Is my mind a collection of multiple conscious processes? How do the disparate pieces of my brain integrate into one conscious entity, how do they shape my subjective reality?

I found information, individuals, and networks to be fundamental to my understanding of the world. I was always interested in them before, but not enough to seek them out or apply them through creative works. I discovered for myself the language of systems. I found a deep appreciation of mathematics and a growth path to set my life on.

I was able to do this exploration at a time when my work was slow and steady. It came along a couple years ago when I was 25, which I've heard is when the brain's development levels off. I feel lucky to have experienced it when I did because I was totally unsatisfied with my life before then.

Since then I've found work I love at a seed stage startup where I've been able to apply my ideas in various ways. I have become much more active as a creator, including exploring latent artistic sensibilities through writing poetry and taking oil painting classes with a very talented teacher. I've found myself becoming an artist in my work - I've become the director and lead engineer at the startup and am exploring ways to determine and distribute truth in the products we sell, and further to make a statement on what art is in a capitalistic society (even if I'm the only one who will ever recognize it). I've also become more empathic and found a wonderful woman and two pups to share my life with, despite previously being extremely solitary. Between work and family I have less time for introspection now, but I expect I'll learn just as much through these efforts.

Ultimatey, I've learned to trust my subconscious. I was always anxious and nervous about being wrong in any situation before, but now I trust that even if I am wrong in the moment my brain can figure out good answers over longer stretches of time.

I don't know how far cannabis led me down this path but it definitely gave me a good strong push.

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3. tomp ◴[21 Jun 16 18:22 UTC] No.11948091[source]▶
Thanks, this is very interesting!
4. bpchaps ◴[23 Jun 16 16:23 UTC] No.11962219[source]▶
This is almost exactly my experience! I don't think HN talks about it much, but cannabis is a great way to approach intuitive depth on subjects. For me it was ego, math, music, civics and information theory concepts.

When I started, it was at a job that I absolutely hated (rewriting mantis to be a help desk system), and it helped me get out of it by opening up better understanding of low level systems. That eventually led to high frequency trading systems tuning and some pretty deep civics using Foia.

Not that it was a direct contributor, but I do consider it a seed towards better understanding of the things around me. I don't necessarily feel happier, but I feel much more content.

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5. socrates666 ◴[24 Jun 16 22:23 UTC] No.11973961{3}[source]▶
It is IDENTICAL to mine as well. Even down to the information theory bit. Very bizarre, but reassuring.