It is all about STEM education. It is a foundation to build a very smart person in any direction.
Realistically we are all being replaced by robots and we shout do arts and make you tube channels
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We have had this in the US since the 70’s with teletype terminals connected to PDP and other “mini” computers.
From: https://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520
"Next, Bill Gates saw a computer at 13. The school he went to bought one machine and a teletype. He paid for the time to use it. When money ran out, he hacked into the computer to use it for free. Then he got banned by the school. Then the school realized he had a rare skill so they asked him to use the computer and help them find bugs. "
Sure the Chinese are learning programming languages, American programing languages 
Allot of Jr High schools in the 70’s invested in computers and also planetariums. We had one kid who just had a nack for programing, this was in the days when COBAL and Fortran where “hot stuff”. By the time he was 16 he bought himself a brand new car.
Of course this was back when divorce was rare and church attendance was not
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There is no Mandarin in C.
In 2008, I nearly got expelled for loading Linux off a flash drive to get some C++ work done during lunch (yeah, I was/still am a nerd with no friends). Teacher thought I was hacking, gave me a referral, and I had to read the student handbook to them, which only states I can’t do anything illegal with computers. They subsequently amended it to disallow the installation of unauthorized software, showing that they had no idea what I had done and that they’re scared of things they don’t understand. They wanted to expel me, but they didn’t know what I’d done, especially, since by the time I got to the office, it was back to the Novell/XP login screen and NOTHING had changed.
This is where we’ve gone wrong. If they just had an open mind, they’d understand that I was extremely talented for my age, but instead, they decided to ban me from computers entirely.
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I wish that was a subject in school, it is one of the most important skills to have in life. It opens so many doors.
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Yep, instead, they teach people how to accept authority figures as the infallible truth. (like the catholic church did)
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So… in the IT classes I failed (for not using Microsoft terminology back in 1995) I too was banned from the computers for a while, why? Because I completed the mundane Word project and decided to try and build my own database. Even though this was part of the MS Office package installed they didn’t have a clue what it was. Mind you, I did have form; on the older BBC Micro’s we had prior to the 486’s my MO was to play tanks all lesson and then copy someone elses completed work off the ‘share’ change the name at the top, send it to the print queue and then set their priority in print queue to the bottom. Mine came off first and it looked like they had copied me. 1980/90’s tech, so easy to be naughty with 
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So how do we turn things around and compete?
On one hand you have kids in daycare learning social skills (wouldn’t know), and the other kids are learning about computers and supposedly AI? Is that ok with no underpinning skills and knowledge? I guess it is no different than learning about the world around us.
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China have the people, billions of them and no religion limiting them. You cant compete so stay friends.
We are all one planet and should have been all friends to start with. Thats too much to ask for.
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i had this happen to me when my first high school moved from computer labs to chromebooks for all students. They threatened to expel me after i showed them that you could reset the entire device and remove all of the school policys by holding a couple of buttons while pressing the power button.
Luckly the IT person got wind of that and convinced them to let me work as a intern for the IT staff.
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Yeah you hit on the point I didn’t want to mention. Some religions don’t encourage any sort of advancement of the human race, since life is just an exam to see if you quality for the afterlife, which has all the good stuff.
Education of everyone should help solve this problem. Perhaps that is what Facebook is going for, but providing their form of the internet to 3rd+ world countries. Then they can provide their curriculum to everyone, and only theirs. How would this play out I wonder?
My first thought is that we will enter a new age of script kiddies.
While IMO its an excellent practice for kids and their young minds, the fact that its china thats doing it makes it seem a bit unpleasant. I can’t imagine the government supporting this for just the betterment of the kids