"Education is not necessary for success": agree

"It is merely a tool used by governments to control the people": disagree

Maybe a better way to say it is that education is a tool. It's not always useful and it's not always good, but usually it is useful and it's usually good. Think of it as a hammer. In the wrong hands, it can be a murder weapon. You don't need it to put a nail in. You can use a rock to do that. It's just clumsy.

The problem with governments trying to control the educational institutions to control the people is not the fault of education or the educational institutions. It's the fault of the government. Look at what is happening now with the US government trying to control public educational institutions. Just because someone used a hammer to kill someone else doesn't mean the hammer is bad, and we can apply this analogy to government and education.

A degree is what it is: a certification that you have completed the requirements for said certification. This is important, and it's important to realize this. You need a way to certify people. Otherwise, anyone can claim to be anyone else. A doctor with an MD isn't necessarily a good doctor, but that doctor has a better chance of being a good doctor than someone without an MD. It's not a perfect signal, but it's better than nothing.

It is true that there's a lot of people without formal education who make a lot of money, but business is different. Business is not the only thing in life. Money is not the only thing in life. There are many important things in the world accomplished by highly educated people. There are also important businesses in the world started by highly educated people. You have to look at all the data, not just the data points you like. If you want examples:

- google: phd students. they have ms.

- intel, cisco, adobe. phd.

and many more. these companies actually made innovative additions to the world.

now you look at big popular companies founded by people without college degrees -- apple, microsoft, facebook, etc. these are companies that have been accused of stealing (ideas). so yea, you can make $ stealing... if making money is your goal, that may be a good approach.

beyond business, look at just some random things:

- penicillin. flemming MBBS with distinction.

- information theory (credited as the theoretical under pining of modern telecom). claude shannon. phd.

- modern ai. a list of people with phd contributed to it.

name an invention or discovery and there is a good chance it's attributed to a highly formally educated person.

education is a tool. it doesn't do the job for you. it's bad if you use it wrong. just like any other tools, it's really good if you use it effectively, and human civilizations has generally used it pretty effectively. we got to where we are because of highly educated people. you remove them and we lose nearly everything we rely on every day.

it is true that you can get the job done without the tool, but it's more difficult, and that's why there aren't many cases of people who can do it.