Breaking News! Deschooling: Chapter 1 snippet

6PM update below.

I was going to read the whole thing before commenting but I had to blog this part in chapter 1:

Ivan Illich predicts the blog world:

In schools, including universities, most resources are spent to purchase the time and motivation of a limited number of people to take up predetermined problems in a ritually defined setting. The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern.

And gives the 1970's version of how to implement such network:

Each man, at any given moment and at a minimum price, could identify himself to a computer with his address and telephone number, indicating the book, article, film, or recording on which he seeks a partner for discussion. Within days he could receive by mail the list of others who recently had taken the same initiative. This list would enable him by telephone to arrange for a meeting with persons who initially would be known exclusively by the fact that they requested a dialogue about the same subject.

Including Voxologisti:

I could conceive of a system designed to encourage meetings of interested persons at which the author of the book chosen would be present or represented

For a non-computer scientist author, he seems like a hi-tech visionary to me.

UPDATE 3PM: Thanks to Athor Pel's comment, here's my thought: how about ebay for education? A community of people get together to discuss and expore interests be it history or politics or science? First thought for me is how can I make money (as I look to quit my current job)? I guess google ads or other web based ads would pay for much of the ongoing costs. More importantly how can this work? I'll post more on this as I ponder on my way home (I have a phone interview to get home to). ...Maybe at my dannytech blog...

UPDATE 6PM: Here's the link: "ebay for education."