I found this brief documentary on Joe Rogan really fascinating, and thought I'd share here. I was aware of some of his past history, but seeing it all summarized and laid out from his beginnings in construction and martial arts to being "the most powerful podcast interviewer in the world" was really interesting to watch.

It sparks off a lot of ideas in my head about the power of technology in this digital age. Specifically, how the ability to transfer information online globally is such a new phenomenon that the traditional methods of sharing interesting information are quickly becoming dully outdated. This affords the opportunity to develop individual identity through online branding and content creation. Joe Rogan is really one of, if not the, pioneer of generating revenue through idea exchange online. 

I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on the implications of this for the modern academic space? My university is facing a $292 million budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, resulting in severe budget cuts, salary reductions, and more. And they claim that they're "not sure they implications that this has on students' decisions moving forward". What I'm seeing at the student level is a widespread unrest with the notion of paying the tuition required to fund the universities, when clearly the institutions themselves may not be an integral aspect to the process of education. Further, several courses deemed required may pose no actual utility to the student's desired goals, resulting in payment for unnescessary information and a painstaking, and potentially harmful, student experience. Does this catalyze a shift toward a world in which information exchange is distributed online, and the high cost of tuition to sustain universities as centralized locations for information exchange becomes unnecessary? Why not quantify learned information differently (e.g., online credits from multiple platforms, online certificates/degrees), and use that as a basis for evaluation of job readiness/fitness? I believe we are already seeing the beginnings of this shift, and I'm interested to see where this all leads us. It certainly has me seriously reconsidering the idea of investing tens of thousands of dollars of borrowed money into a formal graduate education, or relying on stipends and grant funding to barely scrape by in a MS/PhD program for 6 years...

I know several (most?) of you on this list have graduate degrees, and some of you are specialists in education, so I'd be quite interested to hear your thoughts on this.

My best,