I got this email about online classes at Yale, which raised an interesting question:

I imagine in the future all courses will eventually be taught this way. This got me thinking about the effects it might have on the universities. If people could choose any University from where they could learn from, everyone will choose the best colleges Harvard, Cambridge etc. this will have a massive effect on the low ranked Uni’s. Nobody will want to learn from the poor teaching on the low ranked sites when world class teaching is for free elsewhere. It makes me speculate that perhaps lower ranked universities will have become good at teaching a niche.

The discussion was pretty fruitful last time, so we might as well continue it. But first, as Tucker pointed out, I have a huge bias here, so my thoughts should be taken in that light. And I’m certainly not arguing that people are only going to be learning on computers or that classrooms will go away.

But as for the writer’s point, this is going to be a predicament we face continuously in the future. When some of the previous constraints of our physical reality disappear, what then? The system will have to change or it will die. It can longer use location, inertia or distribution to subsidize mediocrity. He is right, full-service education has existed primarily because it was the most efficient use of resources and the best way to get the most money from students for the least amount of value. Like the album though, this logic doesn’t withstand digitization. I could take a class from Harvard or Yale and from that standout professor a community college in Texas just like I could download 8 songs from 8 bands without buying 8 CDs. Or, even more likely, someone will come along and develop a reputation for education aggregation that unites individuals across the country.

You can disagree with me that university system isn’t in dire need of a radical overhauling today, but it will have to respond to the same pressure as all our traditional industries will: When the underlying economics are altered, the concepts founded upon them have to find new support or face collapse. 5 years ago it was music, today it is Hollywood, tomorrow…

I’m not sure, but I’m curious to hear thoughts.

The Pope’s Elephant—Silvio Bedini

This was my favorite book all year. It’s a historical account of a baby white elephant that the imperialistic king of Portugal sent to Pope Leo X–he also included a trained hunting leopard that could ride on the back of a horse. Leo fell in love with the elephant, who was trained to bow in his presence and trumpet as he walked into the pen which Leo had specially built behind the Vatican. Raphael sketched it and Da Vinci’s villa in Vatican City looked down on the papal menagerie. The book is hilarious and entertaining and at the same time a illustrative history of the Church. For instance, Leo sold indulgences partly to cover the expenses of Hanno, the cause which Luther later used to start the reformation. I also named my puppy after it.

Wikinomics—Don Tapscott

Great book. Probably should have read it earlier (when TheExec first recommended it). I haven’t decided if the premise of the book is undermined by the fact that the author’s came to it based on proprietary research that they refused to make public–the exact kind of thing they say companies should get away from doing–but whatever. It takes “Wisdom of Crowds” to a new level without being gushing or absurd or nerdy.

Gonzo Marketing—Christopher Locke

Old but awesome. It’s by one of the Cluetrain authors. The premise is strong–that marketing and creation online need to follow Hunter S Thompson’s style of actively being engaged with the story as it happens–but the book is overwritten. And I mean really overwritten–like 100x worse than I am. He makes a cool analogy with Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” and the way corporations look at internet communities.

The Greco-Persian War—Peter Green

Robert recommended this one to me. It is an incredibly clear and analytical history of the war that preceded the Peloponnesian war in Greece. It gives Themistocles his due and frames Thermopylae as the relatively minor part of the conflict that it was. If you read this you can probably fool people into thinking that you read Herodotus. For me, it was the best contemporary telling of Greek history that I have read.