Sunday, April 19, 2020

Some Random Facts.

It is about "education"--no, not those funny papers which one puts on the wall and call those "degrees"--I am talking about education as a constant process of developing knowledge based on understanding fundamental processes in our constantly changing world. And I already pointed this fact out in a discussion board today and since Dillon brought yesterday up this issue of IYI--Intellectual Yet Idiot, I think it is a good time as any to recall such event as October 8, 2017, Apple's co-founder, Steve Wozniak's lecture to the students of famed Moscow State University (MGU) in which he, citing himself as "practical" and an engineer predicted what is going to die in the future in terms of technologies. Here what he said:
Translation: it is fairly difficult to predict what will be developing in future, but it is fully possible to predict what will "die out". For example, mechanics obviously is passing away. For me, as an engineer, it is absolutely clear that we will not fly to other planets. I am a realistic man--I know what is possible and what is not. 

Couple of Russian comments under the summary of Wozniak's "speech" leave no doubts about how this "engineer" was looked at. I am sure NASA must be completely stupefied by Wozniak's profound "knowledge" of astronomy, since Moon is definitely "the other planet" and NASA flew to it many times throughout its Apollo program. But this is not even the point, the point is that this "engineer" never studied "mechanics" (in fact, he may never heard of it) because he, obviously, couldn't comprehend that if not for this "mechanics", starting from the building of MGU, though the passenger plane which took him from the US to Russia, to the car which drove him from hotel to MGU--all that and much more was built primarily by "mechanics", starting from resistance of Materials, Material Science, Theoretical Mechanics and other parts of this real science which deals with the study of the properties of physical bodies and materials without which there is no modern world, including computers.

But that brings us to the other issue, how this guy reached such a level of arrogance as to parade himself as a complete dumbfvck who has zero background for passing any competent judgements on subject matter which is way beyond his purely electric and computer engineering field. I guess I have at least part of the answer. Take a look at other computer "genius" Bill Gates, who parades his utter lack of systemic, and hardly won, understanding of the surrounding world daily by promoting utterly medieval and insane health and social agenda. Bill Gates may be good at writing code, but he is obviously not an educated man, including this formal education, or a degree, since he dropped out of university after two years. So, one needs to ask a question, how people who reached primarily a financial success in one-two fields and who often are not really educated properly "earn" their right to pontificate? Only through PR and media, who ARE illiterate themselves. The hero of Generation Z Elon Musk doesn't have proper engineering education--the guy is, actually, entrepreneur with primary focus on business. "Majoring" in physics through 4-year old BS (yes, yes, BS) program does not provide serious engineering education, which requires a much longer term and rigorous training. In fact, 4 year Bachelor's Degree in engineering field is primarily a joke. Especially when one is starting from the American public schools where systemic cluster of rigorous Mathematics (Algebra, Trig, Geometry, Intro to math Analysis, Intro to Calculus)--Physics--Chemistry (Organic, Inorganic) simply do not exist, even on the level of some "elite" schools whose programs only begin to approach complexity of curricula of regular public schools in Russia, Japan, China. Yet, we have those victims of SAT/ACT fraud pontificating on the most complex issues of our time. 

No surprise then, that Wozniak doesn't understand basics of Newtonian Mechanics or Gates pushes for eradication of CO2 as such from the planet. The guys are certified morons, they may pass some BS IQ test, but they have no scientific-engineering foundation, let alone cultural level, upbringing and taste not to parade themselves as ignoramuses whose only real success is measured by their stock option and value of real estate. They are Exhibit A of a failure of US educational system which allows, under the guise of freedom of speech, for modern snake-oil traders to pour streams of pseudo-scientific trash over the heads of immature and badly educated public, convincing them that being irrational is normal.  

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