The One Where Da-da Gets You to Wear His Education Hat (the One With the Big "EDU" on it)

Gumby Da-da has an idea.

Da-da is the Education Da-da. He believes in education. Then MORE education. You got time to lean, YOU GOT TIME FOR EDUCATION. So, since the days of nonstop "enemies" requiring huge money be spent on bombs and rockets and borders and shiny Blackworld project drones and UFOs are over -- read it again, they are over; no one needs expensive ways to kill and corral and control humans, anymore -- what we need is education... and maybe a nice monte christo sandwich and a cup of coffee to stop this run-on sentence... all of which will cost several orders of magnitude less (read A HUNDRED THOUSANDTH LESS) than all those defense contractor SNAFUs we've been slogging through for the past 100 years. Yes, 100 years. And how many smiles and monte christo sandwiches and nice cups of coffee has that industry of death yielded? Not many.

Here's one Da-da made earlier.

Now, imagine the next 100 years. Imagine, if you will, that all the countries of the earth stopped spending money on weapons and suddenly had a large chunk of cash, and wondered what it could do. Besides giving a third of it back to the people, and a third over to monte christo sandwich technology research, enlightened and civilized government X could use that final third to create a new national -- or international -- university system. Suddenly, in every state of said country, and perhaps in every participating satellite country, fresh new universities could be built, all linked with the latest big-pipe internet technology, all campuses connected together in ways universities around the world aren't, all new universities boasting state-of-the-art libraries -- some with real books -- and of course, tons of jobs for new and used college professors.

New teachers mean new teaching techniques.

These new, omni-linked supercampuses would allow unprecedented advancements in... well, in everything: science, medicine, the arts, humanities, etc., with every linked campus representing a single connected node in a planetary neural net bristling with sensors, communicating in ways this little planet has never seen before. Best of all, they would not only make high-quality, low-cost education accessible to all across the board, such a system would work to abolish pesky, "Us vs. Them" thinking, because... They are Us. We are Them. With such a system, we're all on the same team, wearing the same sweatshirts, the same helmets with the same spinning propellers. We always were, but you never noticed.

Now, nomenclature: what do we call it? You could call this new global school system, "University Terra," or "Terra University," if you wanted. Da-da's inner geek is whispering, "STARFLEET ACADEMY," but this probably wouldn't work, as it smacks of the military hangover we're trying to overcome, and well... it hits the GEEK BUTTON perhaps a little too hard for some. Whatever you call it, just try thinking about it.

Wut?

Put the phone down Sister Wendy.

Yes. YOU. SISTER WENDY. Put your phone down. YOU. Monk-guy...

Stop texting Sister Wendy and pay attention.

...unplug and pay attention. Step out of your virtual monk cube and THINK ABOUT THIS. Purge that silly apocalyptic doom-and-gloom mindset and THINK about the future as something to look forward to. A future free of dangling participles. Seriously, try it. No one thinks anymore. It's fun. Your head gets warm. Ideas pop in there. Your life gets better. You're suddenly $EXY. Wow.

Best of all: THOUGHT TAKES FORM IN ACTION, which means that, if we all think it, it stands a pretty good chance of coming true... which brings up all kinds of questions about reality, but Da-da will save the answers for another post. To use existential/car commercial parlance: DREAM. Dream in the dream, perchance to THINK. About ninjas? Ok, think about ninjas.

100 news ways to grade outside the box.

Note that U. Terra (Terra U.?) is probably not gonna be a popular idea with other universities (or ninjas) around the world, which should tell you that you're on the right track. They think a whole new university system represents moolah competition. It doesn't. You'd think that this single, simple act would cause university and college fees to drop dramatically, but they'd probably go up, short-term, as said existing universities would poo poo the new system and say it was Education Cheeseburgers for the Masses, but those fees would gradually slip. What you'd invariably see is more opportunity for all those fresh undergrads and overgrads -- from both old and new institutions -- opportunity for teaching positions, research positions, cross-polination, Mr. Literary Potato Head Parties... you name it. All told, the above is a win-win for everyone involved in education.

100 new schools built all over the world also means 100 new University towns. Da-da LOVES university towns. They are the best places to live. And what the earth desperately needs are new best places to live. And work. And grow. With zillions of bicycles everywhere. New transportation paradigms.

Bike manufacturers would win big.

And YES, you'd also have 100 opportunities for multiple sports teams, and of course scholarships. Jeez, Da-da can only imagine the massive round-robin ESPN sports cavalcade that would ensue seasonally, not to mention the Terra U. Olympics. But so what? Such a system could be had with money governments already have and should yield endless educational opps and... well, FUN opps, too. This could be the first step into turning the earth into THE FUN PLANET, bursting with educated people doing all kinds of fun things in all kinds of fun, future-y ways. Peaceful ways. Full of peace. So, start thinking it and make it happen.

YE-ES, this also means 100 new monster truck school buses.[sigh]

(And yes, Da-da kinda already wrote about this, but it needs to be thought about again. And again. And now Da-da needs a monte christo and a cup of coffee.)