Bookstore Experience

Bookstore Experience

Yesterday I went book shopping. Got the book "The Psychology of Persuasion" by Kevin Hogan and "Speed Dating" by the original creator of speed dating. At the Kino.. bookstore, probably the biggest bookstore in South East Asia, I was overwhelmed. For every subject, there are shelves after shelves of books, probably from hundreds to thousands.

What's new under the sun? Is there anything that has not been written yet? Is there any thing that is original?

The Education Conspiracy
Hawking came out with the Black Hole theory 30 years and now he said this theory was wrong. Yes, maybe we need to unlearn what we had learnt in the past. For example, that a paper qualification is NOT the ONLY measure of competence, that academic ability is only ONE of the measure of a person's intelligence, that beauty is not measured by the size of your waist, nor the color of your hair.

You don't need an MBA to be an entrepreneur. You don't need a BSC in English to be a writer. Unfortunately, the rule of the game is that if you want to work in their turf, you got to play by their rule. And the rule is that Paper rules.

Consider this. A degree costs $13,000. For that money, you can either read 16 textbooks and get a paper certificate, or you can buy 162 books from the experts in the subject domain. Which would you learn more?