The best and brightest are winnowed out and rewarded for avoiding risk. Our high-IQ people lose power, and the mischief propagates both up and down. Without a developed ability to visualize, and to move in space, math and science suffer in turn. And, in the halls of industry, risk-aversion becomes a central theme. Quarterly balance sheets are more important than long-term development.
Real influence flows to people who leave the beaten paths and whose hands touch the material world.
In every age, one field or another looks like a sure thing. But that never lasts more than a generation because success is the mother of failure. Today we're oversupplied with doctors, lawyers, and MBAs in a world crying for computer-smart people. By the time every bright kid has signed up to study computers, we'll need more biologists. And I'm sure we shall, eventually, find ourselves facing a shortage of lawyers.