My first employer out of college told me explicitly they hired me because I was willing to stick with a 4 year program, and though I didn’t have experience they were confident I’d stick around enough to be trained. I got an art degree and it was a computer science job 🤔
This is a weirdly reductionist take. Implying that anyone can be “trained to code” seems to imply that coding is a rote skill that can be easily trained into anyone, completely dismissing the fact that some brains will just inherently do better at it than others. Also the generalization you make about companies that are willing to to train their potential hires is not true everywhere.
As someone who isn’t a coder, I was able to pick up enough Visual Basic back in the day to figure out how to make some basic apps for myself. It only involved learning a few concepts and commands. That should be enough for anyone with a college degree to do. Simple coding at a low level, learning enough to maintain a website that’s already been designed for example, as long as nothing catastrophic happens, can definitely be done by anyone.
The problem now is that it can also be done by AI.
Right, but different generations have experienced different levels of economic and cultural turmoil that have shaped their political and ethical ideologies.
People who embraced Reaganomics and the general back slide of civility have destroyed their ability to empathize with anyone outside of their small community.
Younger generations still display this type of learned behavior, but it’s a small minority when compared to the majority of boomers. I’m probably in the same generation as you, but I don’t really share your confusion about the schism.
I feel like GenX were the last gen to believe that everything would be fine if you just get a degree and do your time. We’re the last generation that had the privilege of not having to pay attention to politics.
War, recessions and having a hard time happens to every generation.
Yes, but how society responds to those challenges is really what matters, and that’s not consistent.
Getting old does make you lose empathy
I’ve always been told that, but I don’t really believe it. The older I’ve gotten the more empathetic I’ve become, and this seems to run true with all of my aging friends.
my grandparents, it’s because they don’t think anyone’s listening or respects them so they go all in.
Eh, that may be true for your grandparents. But most of my geriatric patients tend to be highly influenced by conservative fear mongering.
The billionaires, corporations and lack of power for the common people are the issues to be addressed, not the elderly. Only a small percentage of people make all of the decisions that are making all of the generations have a fucking hard time right now.
I think that is a highly reductive way to describe it… The older generation has consistently voted away their rights, electing the people making “all the decisions”. The older generations have held more influence for longer than any other generation in American history.
Who do you think empowered the rich and the political class? Who do you think voted for and continues to vote for the people making all our lives miserable? How about you go and ask the average Medicare patient who made their lives so hard, I bet they won’t agree with your theory…
The difference is that they had the opportunity to elect people to make their own lives worse, and everyone after has had that choice made for them by people who should have retired decades ago.
If you’re going to go by all of your generalizations, then you have to understand that the young don’t vote, that’s why the old make such a difference
Ahh if only it was someone’s responsibility to educate younger generations on the importance of voting…
corporations and lack of power for the common people (union busting, price-fixing wages, taking away rights, etc.) are what’s killing all generations.
Right, but you’re pretending that all this occurred in a vacuum? Did the corporations vote to elect the people who led the attacks on unions? Did corporations vote to elect the politicians who allowed taking away our rights?
These didn’t all happen at once, that generation decided these were ideas that would benefit themselves. And it did, they lived through the most economically prosperous times in America and got to retire before all their greed came crashing down around them.
Seriously, you’re sticking up for the corporations and ultra rich who use extreme propaganda to influence everyone?
And who owns and operates those corporations?
You are operating under a false dichotomy, it’s not an either or situation. Yes corporations are negatively impacting our society, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the lion’s share of the profit created by those companies are going directly into a boomers pocket.
We are arguing about the cultural and ethical beliefs of generations. Bringing up corporations doesn’t inherently mean anything without context, and with context it doesn’t really improve your argument.
The elderly inherently share more blame for the status quo because they’ve had the most time to influence the status quo.
Hank is also mostly a product of his environment, yet a caring father that accepts his family for who they are. If all boomers were like Hank Hill, we’d all be happy.
It mostly comes from a point of not understanding Bobby. That boy might not be right in his eyes but he loves and supports him. Even if he should know more about propane and propane accessories.
King of the Hill started in 1997, Hank is 41, that means he would have been born in 1956 of the series is taking place at the same time it started (there’s a millennium episode so that pretty much confirms it), it’s just an issue of characters not aging in animated series.
The funny thing is, that many boomers dislike exactly that fact about generations younger than them. They think because esp. Millenials and Genz learned to name and voice their feelings, they are weak.
It is incredible mental gymnastics, however a lot of boomers tend to blame this “weakness” for economical struggle of younger generations.
US constitution is not a moral or criminal or other type of code for all cases of light. It does not forbid, for example shoplifting or driving on red light.
You could have worded this better, and I’m not a legal expert, but I think you mean: the U.S. constitution doesn’t make claims about morality. It gives penalties for doing certain actions.
The only crime listed out in the constitution is treason.
The rest of it is explaining the roles and duties of the various branches of government, and the supremacy clause says that the Constitution, the federal legal code and any treaties are the Supreme laws of the land.
The amendments aren’t like laws, there’s no punishments written in them however they’re directives to what the government can and can’t do. For example the 13th amendment restricts the use of slavery in US jurisdictions with the exception of punishment of crime.
Like I said the only crime listed in the Constitution is treason, everything else is about how the government is supposed to run and what limitations it has.
Private citizens enslaving people is illegal because it is forbidden in the constitution. Only the government is allowed to enslave people now, as punishment for crime. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
I usually will call out loudly to someone throwing trash on the floor and let them know they dropped something. With the exception of one dude, everyone immediately picks it up out of embarrassment and throws it away. The one dude, in reference, looked at it and said, “That’s not mine”, to which I said I saw him throw it and pointed to the nearest trash can and said he needed to pick it up and throw it there, he eventually did and we both moved on with our lives, otherwise I would have been forced to use the “Your mommy isn’t here to clean up after you” card.
I think someday we will look back and consider if taking everything digital was ever the right choice. Friend always uses the term, “high tech downgrade.” The more I interact with the internet the more I learn how it pushes the limits of our society in not so great directions.
because Reductio ad absurdum is easier than confronting hard truths they don’t want to accept and possibly risk firing off a dreadful thing called a “thought” in that inert mass of jello they call a brain.
Thing is, the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network. That’s it. All the effects of the Internet are direct consequences of that fundamental property, and time.
The technological architecture that supports the complexity of modern civilization? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time. QAnon? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good
That part. “People should…” is an impotent sentiment. How do you incentivize, or force, a regression to “sufficient” technology? How do you do so without affecting beneficial network technology?
Is your point limiting technological advancement always results in hindering the opportunity for good?
If so, no, I haven’t. Unless you define good as anything that someone could find value in.
Maybe what you’re missing is an example.
Tim and Susie live right next to each other and have windows facing each other. Tim and Susie are 6. They talk everyday over a tin can and string. Susie had the idea from seeing it in a comic book and Tim went home and made the tin can string telephone. The best part of their day is meeting up at the window and yelling to each other as each talk into a tin can. One day Tim’s absentee father stops by for a visit and sees Tim and Susie preform their ritual. Tim’s dad runs to the store and gets them a pair of walky talkies.
“Much better” Tim’s dad exclaims while throwing Tim’s tin cans in the trash. Tim and Susie think the walky talkies are neat and they run around for a day hiding behind bushes and seeing if they can find each other. Without the tin cans though they don’t have a reason to meet at the window everyday so they quickly forget why they ever had the ritual in the first place. Eventually ones batteries dies and it doesn’t even matter because they have long forgot their fun game.
Tell me. How did the tin cans cripple the chance for good?
Who does Tim’s father represent? What does him throwing the tin cans in the trash represent? How does this analogy represent the topic we’re discussing?
If the tin cans are old but sufficient technology, then the proper analogy would see Tim and Susie discarding the tin cans themselves voluntarily because the walkie talkies do what they do but better. Maybe there are drawbacks too, but Tim and Susie made their choice. Maybe Jack and Jill down the street like the intimacy of tin cans better and decide not to get walkie talkies, that is also their choice.
Maybe the window ritual is socially beneficial, but who enforces that, and how? Does Jack’s mom get walkie talkies banned? Now what about all the emergency responders who used walkie talkies to save lives? Just banned for children? Who decides who qualifies as a child, and what about the children in the country who’s houses are too far apart for tin cans?
I’m not saying there are no benefits to simpler options, and obviously every person has the freedom to use the simplest technologies they wish, but we’re having a conversation about society not individual choice . I’m saying that there’s no practical way to incentivize or force them at a societal scale. Unless you can think of one which isn’t just Big Brother censoring the Internet, in which case I’m all ears.
Just answer the question. Did Tim’s tin can stop the world from spinning? Did it have purpose? Was its replacement adequate?
Tim’s dad represents Tim’s dad. Not everything is an analogy. Of course we can extrapolate it but I’m trying in the most simplest terms possible to make you see my point.
If it’s not an analogy then… yes, the world continues spinning if kids talk with tin cans? I don’t see what any of this has to do with the topic of the societal effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms. restraint with regards to the Internet?
Edit: got this conversation confused with a similar one. My bad
… right, because that is what I was talking about in the first place. Societital effects of widespread use of algorithm-driven social media platforms. Pretty impossible w/ you.
To spell it out again, not everything has to be done on the internet. Many people go on thinking ‘out with the old in with the new’ without ever considering scope and practicality. If you suddenly became manager of an office building with a complete pneumatic tube system your first instinct might be to gut the pneumatic tubes and do everything over email. That’s an OK thought but should that really be your first instinct? Most people wouldn’t even understand how pneumatic tubes work in the first place. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to to understand what the tubes are there for. Why they’ve lasted 60+ years. If the building is already wired with ethernet and has internet connection what should it matter if you use both keeping the tubes in place to continue their purpose?
Okay, sure? That was always allowed. Again, “People should behave differently than they do” without any proposed method of bringing about whatever “differently” is, is just impotent platitude. That’s why I keep reiterating “incentivize or force”. Without one of those two pressures, people will continue to make individual decisions about their behavior, including which things they choose to do on the Internet, like they have been doing the whole time. Some will choose to do things on the Internet which can be done sufficiently other ways, others will choose to use simpler technologies.
When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you’re just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.
When you start talking about how restraint would be advantageous, without any concept of how to incentivize or force said restraint, you’re just becoming old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg.
I would challenge that. Say tomorrow I invented the eat-o-matic 5000 a top of the line eating utensil. Built in wifi, self cleaning, tracks how much food your eat, easy to manufacture, biodegradable, comes with a native streaming service that allows you to stream your eating experience to friends and family, affordable, etc.
Do you think in everyone would throw away their forks and knifes immediately and start using the eat-o-matic 5000? How about 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?
Maybe the eat-o-matic is that good. I tend to believe forks and knives wouldn’t go anywhere though. I also kniw forks and knives are already not the only technology that exists and the fact that one utensil isn’t ubiquitous proves that incentives and force are not the only factors at play.
Yes, obviously, people are allowed to make their own choices. Not using the flashiest new toys and services is allowed. Acknowledging that fact is not useful. You telling people what they should and shouldn’t do is not going to have a societal effect.
If you would like to propose some regulatory or incentive policy to nudge people toward simpler technologies, then that is a useful conversation. But just stating your opinion? Old man yells at cloud.
I’m not saying that your opinion shouldn’t exist, but some restraint would be advantageous.
Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking
Some opinions provide valuable hypotheses which can promote thoughtful discussion regardless of their validity, like “A value-added tax would benefit the working class”. Some opinions are hollow and useless, and serve only to make the commenter feel smugly clever for stating the obvious, like “Israelis and Palestinians should just get along”.
Endless promotion of the latter is probably one of the most unnecessary uses of the Internet, muttering to oneself alone at home is a sufficient technology for that purpose.
Sounds like an opinion to me. Of course your opinion is more valid because you said it. Since you would never be a hypocrit incapable of self reflection. Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.
Let me know if you need me to explain it because I know how hard it is for you to comprehend simple ideas.
Certainly, at the very least, would be able to detect sarcasm. If by chance you came across it.
The irony.
Unless you think that statement is overly reductive, simplifying a nuanced subject to a flippant, self-indulgent remark that accomplishes nothing but ego-stroking
Or a new normal… paved roads and cars in the US was once pretty extreme, until it became normal. Did you be it’s grownup and tell it to go to bed on time, did you make a futile effort to stunt its growth or did you roll over. Story of the frog in boiling water.
I think the problem was that technological advances were faster than social ones. We ended with new ways to control people, and new forms of inequality.
Many of our problems with technology are rooted in a company abusing from their power. Even the troubled ways we communcate online today are a product of how bigh tech manipulated social networks.
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