&gt; We have the internet now... I prefer to pull what I want to know when I need to know it.<p>This meme needs to be put to rest; preferably with a stake thru the hearth, the head chopped off and the mouth full of garlic.<p>Information is just an encoded sequence of symbols, but knowledge inside a living mind is structured. Beyond a certain point[1], you cannot just pull whatever you want to know - Matrix style, please - because in order to decode the information you need to have built an scafold of prerequisite knowledge over the last few years. And your past self did not have any way to predict with both precision and accuracy what you would want to learn today.<p>And <i>that</i> is the reason why, every kid must be forced to learn a basic set of common facts and skills at an early age. The purpose is to create the foundations of an scafold that is good enough for most people purposes, and to develop the skills to keep growing it as needs arise.<p>One could argue that the US so-called-education system has strayed away from that noble goal to such a degree that it is almost impossible to recognize it&#x27;s original intent. And yes, that is a shame. But it is simply false that you can &quot;pull whatever I need to know, on demand, from Google&quot;... and for every person for whom this is still more or less true, there is one of us here at Hacker News waiting for the chance to automate their job away and split their wage with their boss.<p>Damned, it is hard enough even to google what you think you need to know if you don&#x27;t know what&#x27;s the name of the thing you are looking for!!!<p>[1] There&#x27;s a triving industry of Infotainment that makes their money by puting together mildly interesting facts, packaging those in an engaging presentation and selling it to customers that like to think of themselves as &quot;well learned&quot;. The difference with true knowledge is that the consumers of such products lack the context to put that information to good, practical, use. In the same way that looking at a lot of martial arts movies does not make you a good fighter, looking a lot of documentaries do not make you a scientist.