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you're selling the 16 year old angle on HN, where 20 years old and younger represents about 2% of the demographic. You're getting an unusually high level of negative responses in comments as well, so I am curious, did you buy 'upvotes' for your post to boost it? I can't imagine such a disconnect between upvotes and comments arising from controversy, since the project isn't controversial, just unremarkable and somewhat amateur. --- To answer your question: Personally? I don't think so. When I was 16 I was aware of how little I knew, and knew that by virtue of units life lived vs units experience possible to have gained, there was likely little to nothing I knew sufficiently enough about to be relied on over most adults, with the exception of, at the time, tech. Then, this was only true given how niche it was, so niche most folks did not yet even have a computer or even internet access. If it was common place for folks to access, even that would not have been true. So for that reason, I saw no reason, it shouldn't also be true for my peers. For that reason I would give low weighting to whatever peers offered. For example, that one friend who claimed to have all the answers when it came to girls/women, why would you treat them as anything other than full of shit? Or that friend who might claim to know more on a topic than our teacher. While plausible in some domains, it is extremely unlikely in general like the know-it-all would have claimed and required a higher burden of proof than they could provide. That being said, this humility came from having constant reinforcement that my assumptions were overly simplistic, or outright wrong. This reinforcement tempered an otherwise self-indulgent world view and sense of self. I have to wonder how things like sycophantic AI influence this aspect of natural human development. Terrible ideas reinforced as world changing and awesome, ideas lacking in depth or nuance left not only unchallenged but outright reinforced and celebrated. So, do I think kids would trust another kid to develop a worthwhile tool? Not in my generation, but perhaps kids in your cohort have a different attitude. They are inheriting a world on the brink of collapse due to mismanagement and are largely guided by sycophantic AI, and I have no illusion that this would breed a level of resentment and disregard for what older generations have to say / offer. You'd know better what kids your age would like and how they'd respond than I do by virtue of lived experience and my lack of insight on that demographic's wants/needs/perception of things, but if what was true for my cohort is true for yours, it would not help you sell your product. |