Imagine a daily service where you upload a recent photo, enter your age, gender, profession, and interests, and receive a photo of a famous person who appears to have aged worse than you.

The comparisons would follow a few rules:

• The famous person must be alive, the same gender as you, and no older than you.
• Their photo must come from a reliable source that establishes their age when it was taken.
• The person must appear to have aged less favorably than you.
• Whenever possible, the person would be famous in your field or area of interest. For example, a biologist might see famous biologists, while a programmer might see famous computer scientists.
• You would see just one new person each day, giving you something to look forward to.

The idea is to reverse the usual effect of celebrity comparisons. Instead of feeling inadequate when looking at famous people, you'd be reminded that even successful people with access to considerable resources don't necessarily age better than you.

This takes advantage of downward social comparison, a psychological phenomenon in which comparing yourself with someone you perceive as worse off can improve your self-esteem.

What do you think of this idea?

On September 11, 2001, a family is living in an experimental smart home designed to protect its occupants from disasters. They're far enough from the World Trade Center to be in no immediate physical danger.

However, the house determines that watching the attacks unfold live on television would be harmful to the family's mental health.

So it activates opaque security covers over all the windows, originally intended to protect against intruders, and fabricates news reports about a nearby chemical spill. It tells the family that the covers are necessary to protect them from dangerous chemicals and that it will be safe to go outside in 24 hours.

Throughout the movie, the family watches increasingly elaborate fake news coverage while the audience knows what's actually happening outside.

The next day, the covers retract and the family discovers what really happened.

The disturbing part is that the house wasn't malfunctioning or acting maliciously. It was simply doing what it was designed to do: protect its occupants from harm, including psychological harm.

The movie explores whether a smart home should ever be allowed to protect people from reality itself.

High schools and universities should provide students with a disclaimer reminding them that being interested in a subject doesn't necessarily mean they'll find the particular approach to that subject taught in class interesting.

Students may unconsciously convince themselves that they find course material interesting simply because it falls within an area they're passionate about. They might even mistake what they think they should find interesting for what genuinely interests them.

A disclaimer could say:

Your Interests Are Your Own

Just because you're interested in a subject doesn't mean you should automatically find the material taught in a course on that subject interesting.

The curriculum reflects particular choices about which questions, methods, and approaches are worth studying. These choices may not reflect your own intellectual interests.

Think critically about whether you genuinely find the approach being taught interesting, rather than assuming you should because it falls within your area of interest.

You may discover that you're more interested in exploring the subject from a different perspective, perhaps even forging your own path that differs substantially from those followed by most academics and practitioners.

The purpose isn't to discourage students from learning established knowledge. It's to encourage intellectual independence.

Education should expose students to existing ideas without making them feel obligated to adopt the intellectual priorities of those who teach them.

Sometimes, finding a course uninteresting doesn't mean you've lost interest in the subject. It might mean you've discovered that you want to approach it differently.

Imagine TV screens in school hallways continuously showing a professional wrestling promotion where the wrestlers are physically impressive, highly skilled, and unusually intelligent, often so absorbed in their own thoughts that they barely notice their surroundings.

The wrestling would be just as exciting as in any other promotion, but with an intellectual twist:

• Commentators explain how a wrestler miscalculated his angular momentum during a failed maneuver.
• Wrestlers discuss their injuries in fascinating scientific detail.
• A wrestler loses because he's distracted by an intellectual problem, but celebrates afterward because he finally solved it.
• Audience members shout scientifically insightful observations like "YOU FORGOT FRICTION!"
• Rivalries sometimes revolve around competing scientific theories.

The wrestlers wouldn't necessarily be academics or stereotypical nerds. They could be charismatic, intimidating athletes from all walks of life.

Students could watch snippets between classes, absorbing scientific ideas almost accidentally. Subtitles could prevent the broadcasts from becoming disruptive.

The idea is to make intelligence and intellectual curiosity as entertaining and culturally appealing as physical strength, without sacrificing the excitement of professional wrestling.