. @NathanTankus’ Substack > undergrad macro econ 101.

When you can learn more from a few paid newsletters than a $$$$ undergrad semester, the system has already crumbled. No amount of Zoom lectures and e-learning software can reassemble the house of cards. https://nathantankus.substack.com/p/purchase-and-sale-policy-monetarypolicy101

The internet has always taught me far more than (most) school, but now the depth of content and quality of writing and podcasts is just so damn good. I wake up every day amazed by how much there is to learn about.

I think the future of academic education (job training is a different thing!) amounts to “everyone do a PhD, but for 1/10th the price, on a compressed timeframe, and just skip undergrad”.

Here’s what I think that looks like:

1. Self-directed reading, listening, writing (professor curates feed of recommended, but not mandatory content)
2. Discuss / debate with peers every day
3. Write/produce something novel, in public, that you have to defend to peers and professor (bar goes up based on “level”)

I think this can happen at all ages, with varying levels of depth. The best teacher I ever had, in 8th grade, took the entire second half of the year and assigned us a single self-directed project called the “I-Search”: https://www.amazon.com/I-Search-Paper-Revised-Searching-Writing/dp/0867092238

The beauty of this process is that it left you with no excuses. You couldn’t complain about the topic being boring or frustrating - you picked it! And pivots were allowed/encouraged.

This was at a public school. Got so popular that all the other teachers followed suit. Ran for multiple decades. I wrote mine on P2P sharing and attended the Napster trial in 2000. Changed the course of my life forever.

It’s just so damn cool how much deeper you can go now than 5, 10, 20 years ago. And how accessible everyone and everything is. If I had kids right now I’d give them a Substack budget and let them go nuts.