You're from Ireland afaik thus you probably went through the Leaving Cert. I'm wondering did you experience the same sort motivation killing effects of mandatory but unnecessary and uninteresting subjects just so you could get into a third level course with no relation to the afore mentioned subjects?
Yes, though at least for the Leaving Cert there was some degree of choice, so a decent percentage of the time was spent on interesting subjects; it was a big improvement on the Inter Cert (Junior Cert nowadays) where most of the time was spent on uninteresting ones.
http://thielfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&Itemid=19
Thoughts?
A lot of Thiel's beliefs are in line with those of a significant portion of the LessWrong community, so I trust his judgment more than I trust that of most.