US Schools Are Leaving Students Ill-Equipped to Compete with Artificial Intelligence

We have long known that the robots were coming, but now that they are here, the mismatch between our modern education system and the technology-fueled workplace is glaringly apparent. As robots expertly perform routine tasks and increasingly assume broader workforce responsibilities, we must ask ourselves an important question: What is our key human differentiator?

Economics 101: Opportunity Cost & Wizard’s Fifth Rule: Deeds Will Betray a Lie (22m) – Episode 285

Episode 285 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: a list of things teachers say to manipulate and control children in the classroom; he continues the Economics 101 mini-series with “opportunity cost”; he also continues the Wizard’s Rules mini-series with the fifth rule, “Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie”; and more.

Government, Feeling Loved, Children, Tolerance, & America (26m) – Episode 283

Episode 283 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the good and bad of government and governance; how children and adults feel loved by others; the best way that he’s found to deal with children asking you to buy them stuff while you’re out shopping; the incredible intolerance of supposedly tolerant cities like London and New York; why America is neither the “land of the free” nor “the home of the brave”; and more.

Homeschoolers: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

What struck me most about revisiting the Salem Witch Trials with my children was the fact that these English Puritans who had recently settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony had no presumption of innocence. Those accused of a crime at the time, both in the New World and elsewhere, were guilty until proven innocent. The presumption of innocence in trials, with court defenders and impartial juries, would take centuries to catch on.

Poverty and Success

Poverty is not the fault of billionaires or of “greedy capitalists” or of some systemic injustice that keeps “po’ folks” down. Poverty is the natural and predictable result of ongoing poor choices, and until people realize this and start taking responsibility for their own culpability in their financial situations, we will continue to hear the growing chorus of complainers demanding political intervention to redistribute money from those who earned it to those who did not.

The Best Things to Learn about Raising Children (37m) – Episode 275

Episode 275 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: using an essay by Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net, he looks at 18 of the best things to learn about raising children; loving your children unconditionally; helicopter parenting; the harmful effects of harsh discipline; self-directed education; learning independence; democratic family decision-making; leading your children by example; parental contrition; shielding children from sex, drugs, and technology; giving children space; recognizing that your children should be allowed to become their own person; and more.