Taleb notes in Skin in the Game that “Education is a luxury good.”
Organized education in a society is a result of wealth and success, not the other way around. The school of hard knocks is a much better educator toward actual success, and the modern University system is more of a parasite than an engine. It is a massive wealth transfer from the middle class to bureaucrats and real estate developers.
Organized education is not the root from which springs progress and civilization, but rather one of the branches. And probably a branch that needs to be trimmed back.
Nothing is more annoying than a branch that thinks it’s the whole tree.