Future of Education

A 1SQ-inspired Policy Brief About Education

The trajectory of public education in the US isn’t slightly misaligned without our long-term interests; there is significant non-alignment and, left unchecked, will generate consequences from which we likely don’t recover. If this sounds alarmist, you are missing the signs that futurists – from Ray Dalio to Elon Musk to Warren Buffet to Will MacAskill – are pointing toward. The school boards of the 14,000 school systems across the US need more effective governance not just because our children deserve a quality education, but because our society relies on it.

1squint offers a perspective into what’s at stake and what it will take to address it. These are distant future predictions based on past and present evidence so by definition, they are inaccurate. I share them, nevertheless, because the potential cost of these predictions only being 1% accurate and us not acting on that 1%, is great enough to overwhelm my ego’s reluctance to share ideas that won’t be entirely accurate.

Constraints
Observed through this lens, several limiting factors present themselves.

The baselayer of this construction is a degree of sapiosentience – of the confluence of intelligence and self awareness strong enough to step outside of the constraints imposed by our biology’s survival priority. As a species, we have powerful built-in survival mechanisms that, while useful in the face of actual physical danger, frequently hijack our mental processes when psychological danger is perceived as well. The greater the degree of self awareness one has cultivated, the more stalwart the defenses they have against these internal betrayals. Unfortunately, such a large percentage of the current human population lives in conditions that require active vigilance to continue living, survival priority as a core mindset is nearly impossible to avoid.

In addition to sapiosentience, there is a separate but related construct: maximization. This idea suggests that within each sapiosentient being is an estimation of the extent to which they are fulfilling on all of which they are capable. Here too, societal realities play a significant role in the pursuit of personal maximization. Have we provided a quality education? Have we ensured that individuals are measured on the content of their character, not merely on biological or sociological characteristics? If you have ever had the pleasure of talking to someone who was enthusiastically full-blown nerd about a topic they love and have invested much of their professional and personal time into, you have experienced the excitement that humans on right side of the maximization bell curve can generate – you might know absolutely nothing about their area of nerdery, but their excitement makes it hard for you not to experience some measure of excitement yourself. Imagine a human society where that phenomenon is increasingly common!

What would it take – what steps would we need to be taking today – to place us on the path to having a sapiosentient, maximized human society of one quintillion (1squint, if you will)?

There are an untold number of variables that come into play. For a taste of the larger idea, I’ll focus on three that are immediately relevant: location, lifespan, and language.

Earth isn’t a viable location for that many humans in the current configuration. There’s not enough space on earth for that many people – or even a fraction of that many people – at once. One solution is a post-terrestrial migration. With significant advances in propulsive and metallurgical technologies, the quantity of material from the Kuiper Belt inward would be sufficient to create a constellation of post-terrestrial habitats – both in space and on planets and moons.

The current productive lifespan of humans is so short – especially after accounting for the build up sequence at the beginning that we call education, and the slow sequence at the end that we call retirement / invalidity – the average human today is only in a place of contribution for maybe 60-70% of their lifetime. But if the average human lifespan were measured in multiples of hundreds instead of tens, the benefit of that contribution percentage increases dramatically. Alternately, if the education and invalidity phases could be compressed, that contribution percentage could increase dramatically.

Another significant limitation of human contribution is the incredibly lossy ideation compression and transmission process we refer to as language. Whether in audio form (spoken language) or visual form (written language), the bandwidth for transmitting and receiving language is much lower than the bandwidth for composing language. In part because of these limitations, the human education process that results in an independent person capable of contributing to themselves and society frequently takes 18-26 years. If science revealed a means to increase the input/output capabilities of humans such that language transmission could be increased by even one or two orders of magnitude, what each human would be capable of – and the timeline involved in reaching that capability – would radically improve.

100 Year Policy Priorities
Long term, once the societal inequities and scarcities that perpetuate a mindset of survival priority have been lessened or eliminated, human longevity, internal data storage, and input/output systems can no longer be allowed to continue being a limitation on sapiosentient contribution. Ideally, sapiosentients should be able to measure their opportunity to contribute in centuries, not decades, without significant data degradation or impedance.

Significant focus should be placed on science and technology development that extends sapiosentient longevity, whether through biological or technological means.
Significant focus should be placed on science and technology that protects neural activity from degrading over time and that augments neurological function, including memory, whether through biological or technological means.
Significant focus should be placed on science and technology that increases the rate at which humans can input data (transfer in/write) and the rate at which they can output data (transfer out/read), whether through biological or technological means.

Even longer term, the human mind can not be allowed to continue being a limitation on sapiosentient contribution. Ideally, sapiosentients should be able to communicate mind to mind without filtering it through an extremely lossy audio/visual I/O compression layer (language), should be able to entirely backup their sentience to an external storage medium, and should be able to entirely shift their sentience to another biological or non-biological vehicle other than the one assigned at birth.

Significant focus should be placed on science and technology that allows for direct connections and communication between two sapiosentients without a linguistic component and that allows for transfer of sentience, whether through biological or technological means.

50 Year Policy Priorities
Children should be afforded, by society, the best possible physiological chance to be successful in life. To accomplish this, all parents will be heavily incentivized to participate in 0-5 programming and all public school systems will be heavily incentivized to directly or indirectly provide 0-5 programming. The intention of this sequence of programming is to create a maximally healthy environment — nutritionally, psychologically, educationally — for the neurological development of all children. Eligible 0-5 programming focuses on the following:

Conception to 6 Months: nurse/family partnerships with the basics and family therapy
6 Months to 3 Years: parents as teachers with meal mentoring and secure attachment focus
3 Years to 5 Years: early learning academy with self regulation focus

Children should be afforded, by society, the best possible psychological chance to be successful in life. To accomplish this, all school systems are heavily incentivized to provide personal optimization programming during the kindergarten through 12th grade experience. The intention of this sequence of programming is to create a maximally healthy environment for each individual to self-identify potential opportunities for self-optimization and to have access to the external supports necessary to pursue them. Eligible personal optimization programming focuses on the following:

K to 3rd: empathy and perspective taking
3rd to 6th: metacognition and self regulation
7th & 8th: emotional intelligence, media literacy, and bias awareness
9th to 12th: psychology of self, sense making, and 21st century skills

There should be a strong bias toward wealth creators using their wealth while they are living under the assumption that the creators of wealth are the best vehicles for the distribution of that wealth and that society doesn’t benefit nearly as much by the accumulation of assets by wealth receivers. Simultaneously, there should be a strong bias toward health and preventative health and away from exhaustive end of life expenditures. To accomplish these ends, the right to die is both legally acknowledged and incentivized, funeral/burial services are heavily disincentivized, estates are taxed at 50% for all assets over 100x the national average salary and 90% for all assets over 200x the national average salary, and the maximum income tax any individual can pay — municipal, state, and federal combined — is capped at 25%. The intention of this sequence of policy changes is to shift resource utilization and redistribution away from end of life and post-life, and to cause a bias toward wealth creators determining resource utilization rather than wealth receivers.

Those who personally exercise the right to die are taxed at 50% for all assets over 125x the national average salary and 90% for all assets over 225x the national average salary (DNRs count unless they are violated; medical directives executed by others do not).
Those who utilize burial services are taxed at 50% for all assets over 50x the national average salary and 90% for all assets over 150x the national average salary and this overrides the right to die benefit.
All trusts (and any similar wealth transfer vehicle) pay a 50% annual trust tax on all assets still held in the trust starting 5 years after the death of any past or present contributor to the trust (ie: if someone contributes $1 to the trust today and then dies tomorrow, the 5 year clock begins); the 5 year clock begins immediately upon the contribution by any corporation or non-human entity; any funds transferred between trusts at any time and all non-eligible distributions at any time are taxed at 50%.

A significant percentage of societal effort should be invested in strategies that ensure societal survival, given that human-triggered extinction level events have surpassed naturally derived extinction level events in likelihood. To accomplish this, terrestrial and post-terrestrial strategies should immediately be prioritized in societal expenditures. Terrestrial strategies include armageddon-hardened knowledge banks, biology banks, and societal reboot technologies and preparations that are viable at only 1% of current population. Post-terrestrial strategies include augmenting the existing earth community with a self-sustaining lunar community, a fleet of self-sustaining O’Neill cylinder-based (or equally appropriate space habitat-based) communities, and a self-sustaining martian community. The intention of these policies would be to ensure that annihilation of any one community would not trigger societal extinction.

At least .005% of the federal budget should be allocated to research, development, manufacturing, and deployment of armageddon prevention strategies and/or of armageddon-hardened knowledge banks, biology banks, and societal reboot technologies.
At least 5% of the federal budget should be allocated to research, development, manufacturing, and deployment of post-terrestrial strategies until at least three self-sustaining post-terrestrial communities exist.

10 Year Policy Priorities
To create the context for these future policy priorities, certain changes must be marshaled in the present. And while many of these ideas are capable of being enacted at the local school district level, they would have the most powerful impact when enacted at the federal level.

First and foremost, our teacher preparation practices must create the most highly effective teaching force in human society. To accomplish this, global federal funding for institutions of higher education is provided on a sliding scale where 100% of federal grant awards to an institution are provided if 90% or more of students in their education and/or teacher preparation programs are optimal candidates. Optimal candidates are education/teacher prep students who graduated in the top 25% of their high school graduating class.

If the percentage of optimal candidates in the education/teacher preparation program declines below 90%, the institution is ineligible to receive any federal grant dollars.
This policy will create short term scarcity. this is a good thing long term.
To address short term impacts, this policy would need to be phased in over a 5yr period where 100% of funding is available when at least 10% of students enrolled in the education/teacher preparation program are optimal candidates in year 2, 50% in year 3, 75% in year 4, and stopping at 90% in year 5.

Our schools must be staffed with the most highly effective teaching force in human society. To accomplish this, all federal funding for state and local education agencies is provided on a sliding scale where 100% of allocated federal title funding to an LEA is provided if 90% or more of educators are optimal educators. Optimal educators are teachers and principals who 1) have a bachelors in education, and 2) have a graduate degree in one or more of the content areas they currently teach or administer OR who are currently nationally board certified.

As the percentage of optimal educators employed declines below 90%, so too does the percentage of title funds awarded.
This policy will create short term scarcity. this is a good thing long term.
To address short term impacts, this policy would need to be phased in over a 10yr period where 100% of funding is available when at least 10% of the workforce are optimal educators in year 4, 50% in year 6, 75% in year 8, and stopping at 90% in year 10.

Our communities must be served by the most effective public education institutions in human society. To accomplish this, all federal funding for all cities, counties, and states is provided on a sliding scale where 100% of allocated federal funding is the city, county, and/or state is provided if 90% or more of public school districts within their boundaries are optimal institutions. Optimal institutions are public school systems that 1) directly or indirectly provide 0-5 programming for 90% or more of children within their boundaries, 2) provide personal optimization programming, and 3) where 90% or more of educators are optimal educators.

As the percentage of optimal institutions operating within a city, county, or state’s boundaries declines below 90%, so too does the percentage of federal funds awarded.
This policy will create short term scarcity. This is a good thing long term.
To address short term impacts, this policy would need to be phased in over a 10yr period where 100% of funding is available when at least 10% of the school systems are optimal institutions in year 4, 50% in year 6, 75% in year 8, and stopping at 90% in year 10.

Our communities must be served by the most effective public education governing teams in human society. To accomplish this, governance — and potentially the organization it leads — must be brought to an end and only then recreated, but with different actors. Once a predefined threshold for underachievement, underperformance, or both is reached, the following options become available based on a simple majority vote:

All board members removed from office and current board members are not eligible to run in the subsequent election.
Regional grade cards for school boards that are largely composed of student outcomes data.
Current student outcomes data being mandated to appear on school board ballots next to the incumbent’s name.
All district contracts being terminated, all board members being removed, all staff being let go (but eligible to re-apply)
Any time that student outcomes improve in a local school system by more than double the rate that the state projected the prior year (projections would need to be created for each local school system individually based on trend data), school board members up for re-election in the subsequent nine months would only require 40% of the vote, instead of a majority, in order to win.

Our nation’s citizenry must be peopled by the most capable minds in human society. To accomplish this, citizenship should be a prize reserved for those who are most contributing to the well-being of human society. As such, all birth-based and other existing citizenship pathways will be phased out and a new merit-based citizenship system will replace it. Being born in the US will definitely earn points toward citizenship but will cease to guarantee it. National service (military, peace corp, etc), high demand science and technology skills, very high net worth, and other considerations would count toward citizenship with the intention that anyone who wants it and is willing to work for it should reasonably be able to achieve it, and that attainment by foreign-born individuals of exceptional talent should be nearly as doable as it is for natural-born individuals of minimal talent. Non-citizens would not be subject to immediate removal so long as they lawfully remained, and anyone born in the US would always have a right to residency. But only citizens could vote. The only legal differences between a legal resident and a citizen may be 1) that citizens may vote (and no citizen can ever be prevented from voting in elections for which their residence makes them eligible for any reason) and legal residents may not and 2) that certain federal crimes may be punishable by temporary or permanent revocation of citizenship status.

Given the disruptive nature of this policy, the final version of the citizenship requirements would need to be announced 5 years prior to being enacted.
All current citizens and those achieving citizenship prior to enactment are grandfathered into citizenship and are not subject to temporary or permanent revocation.
Effective at enactment, citizenship is required to be in the first 10 seats in the presidential line of succession and to be a supreme court justice