RE: Clear the pipes - Decentralized education to change the world
Education can become more efficient and effective, if the power of the current socioeconomic factions, or guild, of "educators" can be broken. Decentralized education apparatus can be equally, or more, effective in training the next set of bureaucrats and functionaries. How will a decentralized education platform determine certification and qualification regarding certain technical skills? Centralized training programs have minimal standard that must be met, before someone can become certified or qualified to become part of a technical group. If there is a centrally determined certification standards, then only the mode of information delivery is decentralized. The control continues remain within the hands of guilds.
If there is not to be certifying and qualifying central standard, then how will humans determine whom to hire when needing certain highly technical services? Furthermore, no human is equal in skill and talent, which includes information dissemination and training. How will the educators be assigned on a hierarchy, if there exists no centralized standard? The "do-it-yourself" model can only provide so much, and certain situations require professional intervention. Trust in professionals derives from trust in centralized standards, establishes by central authority, and more importantly, ruthlessly enforced by technical guilds with the assistance from the crown. How will humans in this decentralized scenario trust anyone?
It has been changes in technology that has led small tribes to centralization, it can be changes of technology that lead away from it. Not being able to answer questions today doesn't mean they are unanswerable. There is no universal code that I know of that says this is the best we can ever do as a species.
Humans organize in hierarchies and segregate according to class/caste because of the inherent reality of human nature and reality of inequality. There are certain aspects of sociopolitical organization that can be improved, but some other aspects of sociopolitical organization can not be changed. Someone will be in charge, and human political factionalism will continue, as long as men organize themselves into communities/societies. Unless "decentralization" denotes separated, fragmented, individual humans eeking out subsistence apart from other humans, centralized power structure alway remains. "Reform" is essentially discontented factions attempting to arrogate more power unto themselves at the expense of others. Nothing really changes in human sociopolitical drama.