[mandevil]

Not just that the establishment, but the entire educational complex, from the large research universities like JHU to the community colleges, were built around a 1950s-1970's American economy and the society that supported that. And now that that is gone, what happens to all of the universities? They've been just as corrupted and degraded as the rest of it. My wife and I were talking last night about how Disneyland lines are the perfect metaphor for what has happened to American society.

From the 1950's to the 1990's there was basically no way to avoid standing in the lines, everyone was in it together and you just had to stand in the lines. Then in the 1990s they added FastPass and you could, if you were clever and planned a bit, skip some lines but you were still going to be standing in lines with everyone else, and they were free and reasonably fair process. Then in the 2010's they started to do book ahead FastPass and if you were staying in a hotel on site you could book all the good times for all the rides, to try and encourage hotel stays. And now with Lightning Lane's they are incentivized to make the line process so onerous to get you to fork over $25/person/ride to skip them. And that's where we are today: an enshitified product that is designed to give a good experience to the very wealthy, while making it worse for everyone else.

And that's the same path we've gone in entertainment, in housing, in education, in healthcare, in so much of modern American society.

[Nicook]

The third worldization of the USA continues at pace. Expensive reasonable enclaves for the rich, nothing for the rest.

[scuff3d]

The community college I went to was doing this same crap. I remember going to the opening of a new arts building that provided less usable space then the building it replaced, and sitting around with all the donors and school administration paying themselves on the back. Meanwhile they didn't have enough room for most of the departments, and the tutoring programs were getting slashed.

[markus_zhang]

Yeah I can see this enshitification occurs everywhere, not just in Disney land. It is sad. But at the same time it gives me some reflection about my choice of entertainment -- like, do I really need those things? Do I really need Netflix/Youtube/etc. that badly? Should I sit down with my kid, before an offline computer and a paper manual, and program in QBASIC together, or run some typing games altogether, just for fun?

[mghackerlady]

please teach your child how computers work

-signed someone baffled a 16 year old stared at me like I had 3 heads when I asked them to open a folder

[markus_zhang]

I completely agree.

I was astonished to learn from my friends that they saw not one, not two, but a percentage of young people who went through colleges but still don't know how to do simple things like printing from a desktop or using a word processor.

My understanding is that they are so used to mobiles and pads, that their parents actually did not buy a computer for them (sometimes it is ignorance and sometimes it is poverty). The kids did take a couple of computer classes in colleges (you know they are everywhere, like basic MS Office or simple programming), but they were not interested enough to make any effort other than getting a D or C, and sometimes they just cheated it through.

I'm still struggling whether I should introduce DOS or Linux to my son. On one hand, DOS is a dead thing and Linux is the present and the future. On the other hand, I really don't agree with the philosophy of Linux cli, and I still think DOS and early Windows (up to XP) presents the best for that P in PC.

Of course, he is going to be 6 when I gift him the box, so I won't teach him programming. Instead, I prepare to go 100% offline with a Rpi 4B + DOSBian (https://cmaiolino.wordpress.com/), buy a used QBASIC manual, and program QBASIC completely offline, and invite him to watch. I'll program a typing game and ask his input into it so he might feel some "ownership".

I'm not sure how he will react, because there will not be instant sanctification. I want him to feel my frustration (fake a bit) and know how to handle it. But man, my son is not someone with patience, so I'm not sure...

[mghackerlady]

What don't you like about the linux cli? is it a UNIX thing or a GNU thing that you don't like? What makes CP/M like systems (CP/M, DOS, OS/2) better in that regard?. Personally I strongly recommend the Pi 400 for a first computer. Of course, that all depends on the child of course but the Pi 400 and 500 desktop kits are really great and the Pi 400 is cheap enough to not care that much about it breaking while still feeling more accessible than just a Pi in a case (or any desktop computer really, I feel like AIOs and Keyboard computers are the most accessible)

[markus_zhang]

Now that I think about it, actually I don’t have anything against Linux cli. After all it is my daily driver. I just want to jump into QBASIC and show him how I program simple stuffs. In fact, DOSbian is from Ubuntu AFAIK.

[mghackerlady]

I know raspbian comes with scratch which is how I first got into programming (and still mess with from time to time, made a bf interpreter once). For the basic concepts i feel its easier for a little kid to grasp since the sytax is graphical