I'm a professor and an academic, so I'm a friendly critic of academia. I've been working on some of these ideas for a while now. If you or Mr. Eisenberg are interested in a longer conversation you can find me through my Substack (https://osiris.substack.com), or email (editor@osiriscodex.org). In brief:
Most people interact with Academia as students, but--while students are important--academia is performs far more functions in a society that mere pedagogy. In order to cultivate a real "alt-ac" those capabilities must be replicated. First, academia performs new research, forwarding human knowledge, and sharing that knowledge freely. Second, academic institutions aggregate and distribute capital and other resources to support research and education when market incentives alone are insufficient to fund that education and research. Finally, academic structures create and assign status and validation to ideas and individuals which serves as signals of legitimacy to people outside the institution, and which partially compensate researchers for sharing their ideas freely rather than taking those ideas to market.
The internet (my actual area of study) is changing many of the dynamics of the information economy of which academia is a part, creating a market opportunity for 'alt-ac.' Substack and podcasts (for example) aggregate wealth from around the world to support production of research and educational materials. Many such topics were previously too uncommon in smaller social units to support research through the market, requiring university funding. Now it is possible for a few thousand people distributed globally to fully fund research and education in fairly esoteric topics. While the market is already adapting to some requirements, there are others where purposeful planning will be necessary to create the institutions that will compete in the market.
Glenn,
I'm a professor and an academic, so I'm a friendly critic of academia. I've been working on some of these ideas for a while now. If you or Mr. Eisenberg are interested in a longer conversation you can find me through my Substack (https://osiris.substack.com), or email (editor@osiriscodex.org). In brief:
Most people interact with Academia as students, but--while students are important--academia is performs far more functions in a society that mere pedagogy. In order to cultivate a real "alt-ac" those capabilities must be replicated. First, academia performs new research, forwarding human knowledge, and sharing that knowledge freely. Second, academic institutions aggregate and distribute capital and other resources to support research and education when market incentives alone are insufficient to fund that education and research. Finally, academic structures create and assign status and validation to ideas and individuals which serves as signals of legitimacy to people outside the institution, and which partially compensate researchers for sharing their ideas freely rather than taking those ideas to market.
The internet (my actual area of study) is changing many of the dynamics of the information economy of which academia is a part, creating a market opportunity for 'alt-ac.' Substack and podcasts (for example) aggregate wealth from around the world to support production of research and educational materials. Many such topics were previously too uncommon in smaller social units to support research through the market, requiring university funding. Now it is possible for a few thousand people distributed globally to fully fund research and education in fairly esoteric topics. While the market is already adapting to some requirements, there are others where purposeful planning will be necessary to create the institutions that will compete in the market.