[jstx1]

Does anyone else feel like their brain is broken when thinking about questions like this one? I lean way too much on the pessimistic side about any tool or technology, present or future, to the point that I don't trust my own judgement to predict these things at all.

[muzani]

I think it means you hang around too many old people. Younger people have a good feel for what's changing and the optimism.

[Graffur]

Younger people can't predict the future either and optimism doesn't predict the future either.

The future might be terrible.

[muzani]

Young people are frequently wrong too. Reddit communities are a good sample. They don't understand paradigms from 1998 or so.

You need a counter balanced perspective, young with experienced, optimistic with pessimistic.

But one advantage they have is that many are fresh from university and have more exposure to latest research. A new grad might have a better feel for the tech level of, say, optical routers or quantum computing.

[Graffur]

Have you ever worked with a grad before though? Most of them are pretty useless - there will be exceptions though.

[muzani]

They've done better than seniors (including me) in some situations, but I wouldn't expect them to carry a project. The variance is huge - you'll have really dumb ones who shouldn't have a job, and geniuses who will probably run their own company later.

You don't have to work with them though. Most of my interactions are tech memes and hanging around with the people who make game-related bots on Discord.