SteadyConscious

Why We Don’t Yet Have A POTUS From DIY-U

In 1986 when those old enough to make a serious run for president today were in their late teens and early 20’s — the typical “college years” — there was no World Wide Web, no Wikipedia, no Skillshare, no Kindle, no Meetup, Eventbrite, or iPhone.

We didn’t know what we were missing with no MIT OpenCourseWare, no free Standford classes online, no Khan Academy — hell, we didn’t even have video streaming to the home other than pale also-rans for a late night HBO fix (although Brain Games at 3am was nothing to scoff at). We had none of GroupMe, we had no AirBNB, and we sure didn’t have anything even close to Facebook (well, maybe in print). We had no Instagram and photography was something only a tiny warrior monk elite did at great expense and care. Google was just a misspelling of an impossibly large number. Coworking a dream you never imagined while slaving away in your cubicle farm. There was no NWC, no IndyHall, no WeWork, Dogpatch, or General Assembly. No community of 15,000, 16,000, 18000 building the next high frequency trading system to get their hands on just one ticket good for sitting in a cramped auditorium with 800 supergeeks who don’t only think their cool (and unlike our ancestors even know what the word means).

In 1986, there was no DIY alternative to Ivy League credentialism or for the millions of student clones sniffing at some promised glory rubbing off on them from less-than-Ivy degrees. The DIY choice was to turn on, tune in, drop out.

Today, the DIY experience is stronger on all fronts — including social intangibles and those connections “that last a lifetime” — than even the posh-i-est of the posh diploma mills of the upper and lower professional elite. It offers more and prepares you for a better life than any competitor at a fraction of the cost (and none of the debt).

It will take time to saturate, but this simple growing fact will continue to disrupt, displace, and demolish everything we’ve come to believe was guaranteed in the old system. The biggest question today is just how much better off we will be as we learn together, in looseknit groups and on our own, in custom mediums with carry everywhere tools, from a greater abundance of knowledge and skill than the world has ever known.