What Kids Learn in School Today Will Be Irrelevant in 20 to 30 Years

May 10, 2017

WRITER

In part one of his conversation with Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and his latest book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Glenn dove into democracy and the free market.

"You say [democracy and the free market] will collapse once Google and Facebook show us a better way to know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to network algorithms. You just kind of mentioned it there, but tell me what that means exactly," Glenn asked.

Essentially, Dr. Harari contends that our capability as humans will lessen as we depend more and more on technology for answers.

"It means that as they gather more and more information about us and have the computing power to analyze all that information, they can make more and more decisions on our behalf. And people will increasingly just rely on these systems to make the most important decisions of their lives," Dr. Harari said.

Everything will change over the next 20 to 30 years --- and in ways we haven't even begun to understand.

"Yuval, what do we do with our kids right now? Can you give any hint as to, you know, college, no college, debt, what they should study. What should we be doing?" Glenn asked.

Dr. Harari believes most of what kids learn today in school will be irrelevant by the time they are 40, and won't help them much in the job market.

"The one thing they will definitely need --- I mean, nobody knows what the job market will be like and precisely because of that --- the one thing they will need is the ability to keep learning and to keep reinventing themselves throughout their life," Dr. Harari said.

Because of that need to stay nimble, flexible and relevant to the future job market, Dr. Harari named two things that will be more important than any lesson in history, mathematics or chemistry: emotional intelligence and mental balance.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: So one of my communist progressive friends just wrote to me this morning. He said, "This is crazy what's going on. Last night, after the firing of Donald Trump (sic), the thing that seemed so crazy was moments after the firing, everyone on both sides was expected to switch sides and have a perfectly reasoned and thoughtful statement for doing so." How true. Mike Lee will be joining us here in just a moment at the top of the hour to talk about that and the firing. He has an interesting perspective.

We're talking to Yuval Harari. He's the author of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

I want you to talk a little bit about democracy and the free market. And you say it will collapse once Google and Facebook show us a better way to know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to network algorithms. You just kind of mentioned it there, but tell me what that means exactly.

YUVAL: It means that they -- as they gather more and more information about us and have the computing power to analyze all that information, they can make more and more decisions on our behalf. And people will increasingly just rely on -- on -- on these systems to make the most important decisions of their lives.

It starts to happen today, with very simple things. Like, you -- you want to find your way around the city, so you increasingly trust Google Maps and not your own instincts. You reach an intersection, your gut feeling says, "Turn right," but Google says, "No, no, I have better information. Turn left." And you learn from experience to trust Google.

And then very soon, you lose the ability to find your own way around the city because it's a use it or lose it situation. You lose the ability.

GLENN: Man. Ray Kurzweil and I talked about this. I said, "Ray, if you can upgrade yourself, you're going to lose just remembering things." We've already done this. We can Google anything. We lose the ability to reason. We lose the ability to think. He said, "No, you'll just use that space for other things." I don't think so.

You, for instance, I have security -- I have 24-hour security. When my security is not with me, it is almost impossible for me to function outside because I've lost the sense of normal situational awareness.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: You know what I mean?

YUVAL: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And you lose -- you lose that, and you don't realize how important just that simple situational awareness is.

JEFFY: Big time.

GLENN: But it goes away.

YUVAL: Yeah. And the same thing will increasingly happen with more important decisions, like you need to choose what we study at college. So previously, you rely on your own feelings and on the influence of your family, friends, and so forth. But increasingly, people will just ask Google or Facebook, hey, you know me much better than my mother. And you know the university and the job market much better than my friend.

So what do you say? What should I study? And it's an empirical question. If people will receive good answers, they will increasingly trust these systems, until they will reach a point that they can't make any important decision by themself because they lost the ability.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. And that's when we turn into pets.

The -- you tell a story about Gorbachev coming over to London. And he notices that there's no bread lines. And he asks, can you put me in charge of -- who is in charge of bread? Because we can't really get this working in the Soviet Union.

And this is an example of the old way of doing things and the really old think of the Soviet Union. And this is kind of what you're talking about, how the information in the Soviet Union, they couldn't process all of that in a central bank.

Now we can.

YUVAL: Yeah. I mean, in a way you can think about it as kind of perfect communism. There is a theory that communism in the end failed because they couldn't process all the information fast enough and efficiently enough. And in order to plan, say, the bread supply for the Soviet Union, just so much information about hundreds of millions of people, that they just couldn't do it. And the free market worked much better because it decentralized, it distributed the -- the process of -- of gathering information and making decisions, basically everybody makes their own mind.

But theoretically, if you reach a point when you have enough information and enough computing power, you can create a central system of decision-making, which will actually work better than individual choices.

GLENN: Okay. So now this is where we -- this is where the rubber meets the road. I believe that, and I believe that is almost the free market system, almost. I mean, it is predictive in its nature. It's putting the resources where the resources need to go because it's predicting the human behavior. But at some point, where is the dog, and where is the tail? And the other part is -- and this is critical -- you talked about that -- that worthless class. You -- part of the reason why the Soviet Union failed is because you no longer had a drive to seek, to learn, to expand. And communism really took that human spark and in many cases, snuffed it. How do we not snuff that spark?

YUVAL: That's a big question. And, again, part of the problem is that you could preserve a creative elite. I mean, the problem is not with the elite. The problem is with the masses. The real danger -- I mean, if you talk about, say, medicine -- so you will always or at least for the foreseeable future, you will need extremely creative researchers to discover new medications (inaudible), or whatever. But you won't need the average general practitioner, the average doctor in the front line, because you would have a much better doctor on your smartphone. And this is likely to happen in more and more fields. So creativity will be preserved, but it will be the monopoly of a very small elite.

GLENN: How do ... Go ahead. Go ahead.

YUVAL: The big problem is what will happen to the masses. Now, in the 20th century, even in the most brutal dictatorships, the elite still cared about the masses because it needed them. Even if you look at Nazi Germany. So Hitler and the Nazis, they cared a lot about the education and health and welfare of the average German worker because they knew, they will not have a strong army and they will not have a strong economy unless they have millions of poor Germans who serve as soldiers and as factory workers. But in 50 years, you won't need that because you will have all the robots and AI and so forth to fuel your factories and armies.

GLENN: So then how does one avoid the George Bernard Shaws of the world that say, "Sir or madam, line up in front of us. Justify your existence because we can't afford to take care of you anymore?" How does the person -- how does the worthless class have access to any kind of real health care, when they're not needed by anyone?

YUVAL: Well, some people say the answer will come from universal basic income, that the government will just provide them with a basic income to cover health services and basic education and food and so forth, even though they don't work. And they're not needed by the economy.

GLENN: That's crazy.

YUVAL: This may work in a place like, I don't know, Sweden or Denmark, or Switzerland. But in most of the world -- especially if I think about developing countries, like Nigeria or India or Brazil or Mexico, it won't work there. And, frankly, we have no idea how to solve this problem. And I think neither on the left nor on the right, there is today any real political vision of where humankind will be in 30 years.

GLENN: Zero. Zero.

YUVAL: You know, what will -- where will humankind will be in 2050? I don't hear a vision about that from anybody.

GLENN: I will tell you, I've talked to people in Silicon Valley, I've talked to people on Capitol Hill, and then I've talked to people in the middle of the country. Silicon Valley is -- is in a world of its own. It is so far ahead. And the rest of the world is -- the rest of the country from the political leaders to the -- the baker on Main Street, they're all talking about things like the firing of Comey. Well, that might be important today, in today's news cycle. But in ten years, that's nothing. We have to be preparing for what is coming and have this real conversation. And talk to the media elites, their eyes glaze over. They don't have any concept of what you're talking about in your book.

YUVAL: Yeah. I agree. The only place you hear people talking seriously about the future of humankind is Silicon Valley and places like that. And that's very dangerous. Because, yeah, they're very creative and intelligent. And most of them are also, you know, good people, good-hearted. But they don't represent anybody. And it's very dangerous to entrust the future of the entire human species in the hands of a few -- of you a small technological elite. And, you know, it's not a problem we can think about in 20 or 30 years. If you look, for example, at education, then this is a problem we need to think about today because the question is, if I have a son or daughter who begins school today and they are six years old, what should I teach them today so they will have a job in 30 years?

GLENN: So let me --

YUVAL: And nobody knows the answer.

GLENN: Let me give you a break. And come back. And see if you can come up with at least somewhat of an answer: What do we do with our kids? We'll do this here in a second.

[break]

GLENN: We're talking to Yuval Harari. Homo Deus. A book that I think every single person in this audience should read. A Brief History of Tomorrow. It will explain what's coming. It is not a science fiction book. But, boy, I'll tell you, you will read it and begin to understand why I have been talking about technology, technology, technology. Everything's about to change. And change in ways that you don't even begin to understand. It's why, even though I disagree with the -- with the minimum income, it's why we've talked about it on this show and have said, "We have to consider it." Until you understand what's coming, you won't know why we have to look at things and start to turn every stone over before our politicians -- looking to blame a loss of jobs on somebody -- say, "You know, it's this group, that group, or it's those evil people in Silicon Valley." Because they will look evil at some point.

Yuval, what do we do with our kids right now? Can you give any hint as, you know, college, no college, debt, what they should study, what -- what should we be doing?

YUVAL: Well, I guess most of what kids learn today in school will be irrelevant by the time they are 40 and won't help them much in the job market. The one thing they will definitely need -- I mean, nobody knows what the job market will be like. And precisely because of that, the one thing they will need is the ability to keep learning and to keep reinventing themselves throughout their life.

I mean, previously, life was divided into two main parts: The young person, you mostly learned. And then as an older person, you mostly made use of what you learned as a teenager or something.

GLENN: Right.

YUVAL: But in the future, you won't have this division. If you want to stay in the game, you have to keep learning and changing throughout your life. And for that -- for that, I think the most important thing will be emotional intelligence and mental balance. It will be much more important than anything you can learn in a history lesson or mathematics lesson or chemistry lesson.

GLENN: So, Yuval, I'm really gravely concerned about this move of safe spaces and everything else. Because our universities are now beginning to teach the exact opposite. They're beginning to teach conformity. Conformity of thought. And it's the worst thing you could be teaching to this generation right now. Agree or disagree?

YUVAL: I completely agree. Because, again, it -- they will need to change more than any previous generation in history. And to adapt to change. And generally, people don't like that. Beyond a certain age -- when you're 15, you like change. But when you're 40, you don't like it. And in the future, you won't have much of a choice about it. And if people don't learn how to stay flexible -- and stay flexible, not just in the body, above all, in their minds, they're going to be in a very, very difficult situation. And, again, talking about the job market, we don't know what new jobs will appear, but they will most likely require creativity. Anything which is routine, a computer will be able to do better than humans.

GLENN: Yuval, I would love to -- if you're ever in the United States, I would love to have you come here personally. I'd love to spend some real time with you. And we'd love to have you back and delve some more into this. Your two books, Homo Sapiens and this one, Homo Deus, are remarkable, remarkable books. And I thank you for what you're doing. Thank you so much, Yuval.

YUVAL: Thank you for having me here. And if when I'm in the states, I'll be happy to -- to meet.

GLENN: Great. Thank you. Yuval Harari. The name of the book is Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

Media cover-up: Why Clinton deported six times more than Trump

Genaro Molina / Contributor | Getty Images

MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Can Trump stop the blackouts that threaten America's future?

Allan Tannenbaum / Contributor | Getty Images

If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / Stringer | Getty Images

Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.

POLL: Is K2-18b proof of alien LIFE in the cosmos?

Print Collector / Contributor | Getty Images

Are we alone in the universe?

It's no secret that Glenn keeps one eye on the cosmos, searching for any signs of ET. Late last week, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge made an exciting discovery that could change how we view the universe. The astronomers were monitoring a distant planet, K2-18b, when the James Webb Space Telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, two atmospheric gases believed only to be generated by living organisms. The planet, which is just over two and a half times larger than Earth, orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star, meaning the presence of liquid water on its surface is possible, further supporting the possibility that life exists on this distant world.

Unfortunately, humans won't be able to visit K2-18b to see for ourselves anytime soon, as the planet is about 124 light-years from Earth. This means that even if we had rockets that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 124 years to reach the potentially verdant planet. Even if humans made the long trek to K2-18b, they would be faced with an even more intense challenge upon arrival: Gravity. Assuming K2-18b has a similar density to Earth, its increased size would also mean it would have increased gravity, two and a half times as much gravity, to be exact. This would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for humans to live or explore the surface without serious technological support. But who knows, give Elon Musk and SpaceX a few years, and we might be ready to seek out new life (and maybe even new civilizations).

But Glenn wants to know what you think. Could K2-18b harbor life on its distant surface? Could alien astronomers be peering back at us from across the cosmos? Would you be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before? Let us know in the poll below:

Could there be life on K2-18b?

Could there be an alien civilization thriving on K2-18b?

Will humans develop the technology to one day explore distant worlds?

Would you sign up for a trip to an alien world?

Is K2-18b just another cold rock in space?

Big Pharma’s role in rising neurological disorders: Will RFK Jr. uncover the truth?

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Our children are sick, and Big Pharma claims to be the cure, but is RFK Jr. closer to proving they are the disease?

For years, neurological disorders in our children have been on the rise. One in nine children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with ADHD, and between 2016 and 2022, more than one million kids were told they suffer from the disorder. Similarly, autism diagnoses have increased by 175 percent over the past decade. RFK Jr. pledged to investigate the rising rates of neurological disorders as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and this week, he announced a major initiative.

Earlier this week, RFK Jr. announced that the HHS has embarked on a massive testing and research effort to uncover the root causes of autism and the sharp spike in recent diagnoses. The HHS Secretary vowed that the results will be available by September of this year, leaving many skeptical about the study's rigor. Conversely, some speculate that the HHS may have unpublished studies revealing critical insights into these disorders, just waiting to see the light of day.

Glenn brought up a recent article by the Daily Wire referencing a New York Times piece in which experts questioned the legitimacy of ADHD diagnoses. Glenn agreed and suggested that people are just wired differently; they learn, work, and study differently, and the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all school system simply fails to accommodate everyone.

New York Times' ADHD Admission

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that made a shocking admission: there are no concrete biological markers for ADHD. The clinical definition of ADHD is no longer supported by the evidence, and there are no physical, genetic, or chemical identifiers for the disorder, nor is there any real way to test for it. The paper also admitted that people diagnosed with ADHD would suddenly find that they no longer had any symptoms after a change of environment, profession, or field of study. This suggests that "ADHD" might simply be a matter of interests and skills, not a chronic brain sickness.

The most horrifying implication of this admission is that millions of people, including children, have been prescribed heavy mind-altering drugs for years for a disorder that lacks real evidence of its very existence. These drugs are serious business and include products such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Desoxyn. All of these drugs are considered "Schedule II," which is a drug classification that puts them on the same level as cocaine, PCP, and fentanyl. Notably, Desoxyn is chemically identical to methamphetamine, differing only in its production in regulated laboratories rather than illegal settings.

Worse yet, studies show that these medications, like Desoxyn, often provide no long-term benefits. Testing demonstrated that in the short term, there were some positive effects, but after 36 months, there was no discernible difference in symptoms between people who were medicated and those who were not. For decades, we have been giving our children hardcore drugs with no evidence of them working or even that the disorder exists.

RFK Jr's Autism Study

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

Autism rates are on the rise, and RFK Jr. is going to get to the bottom of it. In the year 2000, approximately one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism, but only 20 years later, the rate had increased to one in 36. While some claim that this is simply due to more accurate testing, RFK Jr. doesn't buy it and is determined to discover what is the underlying cause. He is an outspoken critic of vaccines, asserting that the true scope of their side effects has been buried by greed and corruption to sell more vaccines.

RFK Jr. doesn't plan on stopping at vaccines. Similar to ADHD, RFK Jr. suspects other environmental factors could increase of autism or exacerbate symptoms. Factors like diet, water quality, air pollution, and parenting approaches are all under investigation. It's time to bring clarity to the neurological disorders that plague our nation, cut through the corruption, and reveal the healing truth.

Neurological Intervention

WIN MCNAMEE / Contributor | Getty Images

Big Pharma has been all too happy to sit back and watch as the rate of neurological disorders climbs, adding to the ever-growing list of permanent patients who are led to believe that their only choice is to shell out endless money for treatments, prescriptions, and doctor visits. Rather than encouraging lifestyle changes to improve our well-being, they push ongoing medication and costly treatments.

All RFK Jr. is doing is asking questions, and yet the backlash from the "experts" is so immense that one can't help but wonder what they could be hiding. Both Glenn and RFK Jr. have their suspicions of Big Pharma, and the upcoming HHS study might be one of the most important steps to making America healthy again.

Glenn's Show Prep