Covid

ALSO REFERENCED IN:

---

• Homo Deus –– Yuval Harari
  
  • "For generation after generation humans have prayed to every god, angel and saint, and have invented countless tools, institutions and social systems - but they continued to die on their millions from starvation, epidemics and violence."
  • "For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined".
  • War is possibly the only thing that's still around, with political agendas and more. But this was before #covid-19. I wonder how Harari's thoughts have changed since the epidemic.
  • Up until now the human agenda was: don't die, procreate, protect your tribe. The new agenda considers how we can become Gods. We want more power, more money, and we want to live forever. We're just fighting death - even though we may call it famine, plague or war. The real enemy is death and the way we'll fight against it is by extending life span.
    • "Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity's next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity."
• Made You Think –– Homo Deus
  
  • ""For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined". "
  • "There are no more natural plagues": this was pre covid. #covid-19
    • Everything that he says in the intro about what we've done is true.. until it isn't.
    • Reference to [[Black Swan - [[Nassim Taleb]]]], based on perspective.
  • War is the only thing still around - political agendas, and more.
• Notes On Teaching By An Inexperienced 20 Year Old
  
  • People don't want to learn from the greats –– they want to be like the greats, but learn from someone closer to them in reach. I've noticed that students want to learn from someone on the path to becoming great, but not yet there. You need to be one "rung" above, instead of many –– that way you're knowledgable, but also accessible.
    • Ofcourse, everyone likes the thought of having learnt from an expert in the field. But, the greater you are, the more intimidating you are.
    • Maybe the greats are where they are because of talent and skill, but there's a lot to do with luck, too. [[Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb]]
  • The cliched "learn by teaching" actually works. Some lessons I've learnt while teaching:
    • Knowledge is meant to be shared.
    • The most successful people put their egos aside and ask for help and get the help they need to better themselves.
    • Constant learning is a sign of wisdom.
    • Knowledge can’t be forgotten because it is almost like a "personal truth". Knowledge is pure understanding of a subject or concept - even if that means facts or not (biases or other) - but if you understand it, you can’t “forget” it.
  • The Socratic Method, I'm yet to read more articles by Richard Garlikov, but I think there's a lot more for me to learn in this field.
  • Why are teachers so under-valued, under-paid and under-appreciated in communities?
  • #covid means a lot of change for the education world. Getting schools to "normal" after the pandemic is certainly not enough. There's both good and bad things that can come out of this.
  • How can schools/colleges/other education institutions set us up for life-long learning? Why don't they know? And why is the current education system so flawed?
• Highlights from Homo Deus
  
  • Harari on #covid-19 before it even happened.
    • "So while we cannot be certain that some new ebola outbreak or an unknown flu strain won't sweep across the globe and kill millions, we will not regard it as an inevitable natural calamity. Rather, we will see it as an inexcusable human failure and demand the heads of those responsible."
    • "Such criticism assumes that humankind has the knowledge and tools to prevent plagues, and if an epidemic nevertheless gets out of control, it is due to human incompetence rather than divine anger."
    • "It is therefore likely that major epidemics will continue to endanger humankind in the future only if humankind itself creates them, in the service of some ruthless ideology. The era when humankind stood helpless before natural epidemics is probably ever. But we may come to miss it."