The Future

Musk began, "Plato's Republic is brilliant insofar as it justifies our need for the leaders of a society to be philosophers - that is, academics, intellectuals, scholars. It is the year 2018, our world is more interconnected than ever, and our rulers are not individual people, but legal entities, multinational corporations - what Plato would call the 'merchant class' - hegemonically stifling our collective evolution. This is one problem that Plato did not entirely foresee. A solution, and opportunity, lies in technology."

"What are you envisioning?" I interrupted.

Musk paused and took another sip. "Educational technology. Socrates, would you agree?"

"I would," he replied.

"Plato, you were right to infer that education is the x-factor, if we will, in succeeding at society, you might say," Musk continued. "Technology may as well be the y-factor, so to speak. In the year 2018, we share images and sounds at the speed of light itself, and this bears massive, positive implications for education - yet we have not capitalized."

"What sort of educational technology do you have in mind?" Pythagoras asked.

"I envision a universal, global academy that effectively leverages information technology to maximize learning everywhere, all municipalities, all countries, all disciplines."

We all kept listening.