It's not clear to me that reading about the problems with education is a good use of your time in high school. It might be interesting, but it's not really useful unless you plan to go into education-related politics.
I don't think graduating with minimum debt is good advice for college students. The ROI for engineering degrees is ridiculously high. The important thing is to not waste money (i.e. don't go to a tiny private school or get a Music Theory degree). Also, work while you're in school since work experience + school experience >> just school experience.
Yeah I agree, I think you can get pretty far with educating yourself while having read maaaybe 1 or 2 of the 4+ books listed in the post, unless you find that that is something that really interests you. Of course reading nonfiction is a gr8 way to educate yourself (though you have to be careful, because a lot of published nonfiction has lower epistemic standards than would be ideal), but again, that nonfiction doesn't have to be about the flaws of the education system unless you really care about learning about the flaws of the education system.
sincerely, someone who reads a lot about the flaws in the education system
Yeah, I definitely recommend reading the given list of books if you're interested in the education system, but I would frame it that way. If you don't really care about the education system, you shouldn't feel like you need to read them.
High School (and even more so College) is a good time to try lots of different things. Don't pursue one thing obsessively, sample different kinds of activities.
Coding, writing, drawing, exercise, conversation, dating, "going steady," playing video games, playing irl games, playing sport, build things with your hands, clean every room in your house, cook, pontificate, take standardized tests (PSAT), visit other places - that could be other countries or just a different neighborhood depending on your parents finances, go camping overnight, watch live performances, perform live, eat new things, babysit various ages of kid, have a variety of part-time jobs.
As you build up a wide range of experiences, you will be able to get a sense of what you actually like to do, and can make a life plan from that.
Specifics:
Is there a reason you recommend Hy instead of Clojure? I would suggest Clojure to most people interested in Lisp these days, due to the overwhelmingly larger community, ecosystem, & existence of Clojurescript.
I recommend Hy because it's what I personally use and I can therefore vouch for it. I have heard nothing but good things about Clojure. I even attend a Clojure user group. The Clojure programmers I meet tend to be smart which is a good sign.
To any high schoolers reading this: If I could send just one of the items from the above list back to myself in high school, it would be "lift weights." Starting Strength is a good intro.
The recommendation to lift weights applies to boys and girls. If you are a woman, lifting weights won't make you bulky. It will make you hot.
Fascinating question as what advice I would give my high school self if I could. "Dont be such a prat" would be good start. Listen much more than talk, figure out how people work without trying to change them. Try lots of things (safely) and have fun. Be an agent for good things. Read everything (not advice I needed). Dont wait till uni before trying to change the world. Dont be afraid to fail, just learn from it. Master calculus as fast as you can and then learn the science properly instead of way curriculum prescribes. Master some form of coding. Find some physical activity that you really like (with the old dictum of "if you cant do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly").
I should add that my high school self failed badly at the "listen", "figure out how people work" and especially "dont be a prat". Didn't lose fear of failing till University.
C.S. Lewis said "“I could never have gone far in any science because on the path of every science the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you.” I would say the lion was mostly calculus (though algebra skills are more or less assumed by calculus. At my high school and my son's high school, algebra and calculus were taught in same course). Even in stats, you can't move into the proofs for many theorems without calculus and I strongly recommend study of proofs so you know the real background to any theorem you might be applying (this is university level for most part).
I work in earth science and too many of my colleagues take fright at sight of an integral or partial derivative sign in a paper. Lack of calculus becomes a limiting factor so master it if you can. If you can't, make good friends with colleagues who can.
I use Vim, but I'm a bit surprised to see (lisp + vim) recommended over (lisp + emacs), since aiui emacs is much more common/better supported in the Lisp ecosystem. (I learned Vim while using C-family languages, then later learned Lisp.)
Also, I'd recommend Racket and How to Design Programs for learning Lisp and programming. (This is based on me having taken the intro CS course taught by the book's author; I can't say for certain that the book on its own is as good as the course, but I expect it to be pretty good.) Main downside is that the only vim bindings plugin I've found for DrRacket isn't very good. (I believe it has some emacs features built-in, though.)
Apparently OP is recommending the vim keybindings system, not so much the application. They mention writing this post in Spacemacs.
I am also a convert to this philosophy: vim is the best language for editing, emacs is the best environment for editing.
Weight lifting improves health, which has all kinds of physical and mental benefits. It makes you look stronger and more attractive, which via halo effect makes you look better at everything (smarter, more competent...). Being stronger is useful instrumentally (sometimes you need to move heavy things) and makes you more intimidating, giving you an advantage at social interactions (people are more polite), and increasing your chance to avoid physical conflicts or win the ones you can't avoid.
That's pretty impressive in my opinion for something that requires like 1 hour a day at home to get into the top 5-10% of population.
To me, those points are good ones if you're arguing that it is worth doing, but to argue that it is in that top tier of things with absurdly high payoffs (or even second, or third tier), the points need to be much stronger.
I accept that it successfully builds muscle. What I'm asking is why having muscle is something you see as really valuable.
Why would Vim be important ? I mean, everybody uses VS Code nowadays, and it's much more easy and versatile and no need to read a book to understand it...
Probably if you are a programmer you will be spending thousands of hours SSHed into this or that over your life, so you had better be able to view and edit files there.
Vim keybindings (whether you're using Vim, emacs, whatever) are faster than standard keybindings. If a lot of your time is spent editing code or writing then even a small pays off a lot over the decades. That alone is sufficient reason to learn Vim.
Perhaps more importantly, faster edits gives me a faster iteration time. I suspect this increases my effective working memory since there is less time between edits for me to forget things. There is evidence working memory and -factor are closely related, perhaps even the same thing. General intelligence is extremely important to writing advanced software. Anything which can give you a similar edge ought to be extremely valuable.
Visual Studio Code lets you perform most tasks directly from the keyboard. You can even use a Vim emulator if you like.
But more importantly, "faster edits gives me a faster iteration time" : when developing complex stuff, your writing speed is clearly not the limiting factor. Using proper file structure visualization and navigation tools is way more important.
Dear [redacted],
I am happy to hear you do not always agree with me. Sometimes I am wrong. You should not agree with people when they are wrong.
Vim
My favorite book on Vim is Practical Vim by Drew Neil but the free books here are probably fine. My post on Vim is enough to get you started. The most important thing is that you write everything in Vim. I wrote this blog post in Spacemacs with Vim keybindings before cut & pasting it into the Less Wrong Markdown editor.
Lisp
The utility of a programming language comes from its syntax and its libraries. Lisp has the best syntax. Good libraries come from popularity. Lisp has never been popular. The best Lisp dialects appropriate libraries from other languages. Hy (which integrates with Python libraries) is the one I use but I have heard good things about the others.
There are no good books on Lisp. The Lisp books I know of all use obsolete dialects. I learned by reading a few chapters of Practical Common Lisp and On Lisp and then working out the rest on my own. There is no well-trodden path.
I recommend you just use Hy in place of Python and then try to write short code. The rest may take care of itself.
Blogging
My favorite book on creative pursuits is Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. Like Vim, the important thing about blogging is that you just get started. Create a free Wordpress, GitLab or Less Wrong account and write stuff. Use a pseudonym that doesn't commit you to a single topic. At first your posts will be bad. Period. This isn't my first blog. I deleted my first blog. It was awful. Yours will be too. Don't let it discourage you.
It will never be the right time to start a blog.
High School Advice
High school is fake. The English classes don't teach you how to write. The foreign language classes don't teach you how to communicate. The art classes don't teach you how to draw. The history classes are pure propaganda. The physical education involves no physical conditioning. The math classes are designed for students of average intelligence. Putting a smart teenager in a high school math class is like putting an average teenager in an insane asylum. The science classes are like the math classes.
Adults lie to kids. Here are some books, articles and lectures to start getting the styrofoam out of your head.
Even if high school did teach you something important it wouldn't have economic value because economic value is driven by supply and demand. Everyone goes high school. Therefore the market value is low.
My dad practiced Chinese in army school. His American commanding officers thought he was taking notes but actually he was reciting poetry. Randall Munroe printed books in a tiny font so he could read them during class. I wish I had read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards so I could practice drawing. All I achieved was really good cursive handwriting. You might want to try using your time to write blog posts. I give you permission to use a pencil instead of Vim while in class if that's what it takes.
It is worth paying attention in class because a tiny bit of knowledge is better than none at all. Also your grades matter for getting into college. After you graduate high school, nothing matters except what college you got into and the things you learned—most of which you taught yourself. Everything that merely embarassed you ceases to matter. Gamble things you can afford to lose. What really matters in the long run is what you teach yourself.
College Advice
Technical and economic leverage increases every year. The marginal value of teaching yourself has never been higher. Going to college used to be a no-brainer. Now it's complicated. It depends on who you are and I don't know who you are.
If you go to college then most important thing is to graduate with minimum debt. Indentured servitude counts as debt.
Cheat Codes for Life
Everything in the following list has an absurdly huge payoff compared to the investment required.
Lastly, check out Dresden Codak. It's really cool.
Yours sincerely,
Lsusr
The dialogue continues here.