It’s easier and faster than ever to become competent in a new skill. Want to learn a new, valuable skill to add to your toolbox? It’s never been easier: The quality of knowledge in every domain is improving. Researchers and practitioners are systematically improving and testing every field of knowledge to make it more robust. Cumulatively, old fallacious ideas are being discredited and new ideas are being added. The technology field is smarter than it was 20 years ago, for example. So are the fields of physics and biology. Second, there is an abundance of free or affordable content from the world’s top experts in every medium you can think of. Need a community and expert coaching? There are now hundreds of thousands of online courses and billions of online videos. This is the golden era for people who value learning, are willing to invest in themselves, and who are disciplined enough to take action on their own. link to story: click Text within the Pic below for some reason, medium.com/accelerated-intelligence/modern-polymath-81f882ce52db
Back in the day, there were a lot of experts who knew a lot about specific things, and a few non-experts who claimed to know a lot about lots of things. Nowadays, there are fewer experts who know a lot about specific things, but a LOT MORE non-experts who claim to know a lot about lots of things. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
The answer is "False" for most if not all cases. The amount of knowledge required for any given profession has grown exponentially. Today, it's easier to acquire a foundation because the knowledge is more accessible, but it takes much longer to reach competency.
Learning efficiency has improved via online media, learning techniques, access to information more focused learning. Although I think it depends on how you define a skill If you ever saw with your own eyes La Pieta by Michelangelo it will blow you away. Simply phenomenal. No power tools and 3D computer programs back then. Now we have modern art, place a pile of junk on the ground and call it a masterpiece Ceiling of the sistine chapel , Michelangelo painted it lying on his back, how do you even get the scale right with all the wooden scaffolding in the way . Now we have Banksy as a great artist (someone graffiti has become art) If you play piano and hear Pachelbel's canon, Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven (noting that how he was near completely deaf when he composed it), pieces from Vivaldi, Chopin and compare it to Billy Joel's iconic piano man , there is no comparison in terms of skill level Intricately detailed Antique furniture has been replaced with L-shaped sofas from Ikea etc In my view the problem is the we set the bar far too low. Everyone's an expert now. In school if a kid makes any sort of half assed attempt and gets a gold star.
I'd say false. Humans haven't gotten that much smarter in the last hundreds of years (open to see arguments otherwise). Our information toolbox has definitely gotten bigger and the access to that information has never been easier however. On the other hand, I think our lack of focus has gotten exponentially worse and it's easier to waste the time that would take to develop a skill just dicking around not doing anything (ie. arguing on online forums).
True. Before the internet, once upon a time, I wanted to understand if stock price movements were random, so took a day off work, drove to UCLA Library, thumped through the book catalog, thumped through the publications, asked the librarian and still could not find anything worthwhile to read. I called the business/finance professors and tried to make an appointment, they were all too busy. Today I can google and up pops lots of articles, publications on such a topic. I can go online to Couresra, scroll through and find courses in finance, trading, economics, programming... I can sign up instantly, and they are all free. I took Coursera classes from Stanford, Michigan, Colorado, Irvine, even INSEAD, learned how to program in VBA excel, learned MATLAB without paying someone to program for me. I can download historical data of most stocks, use my VBA codes to write BSM equation, to analyze.... I can research fundamentals of companies, drug filings, clinical trials.... all online. The internet democratizes knowledge. With a connection, anyone, anywhere in the world, who is willing to learn can acquire knowledge in almost any field. I am so thankful.
It's true that we have easy access to information now. However, many now are having trouble with attention span. Social media has shaped our minds to be easily distracted and to have short attention span and focus.