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by dyauspitr 42 days ago
I don’t think it’s the arrogance of youth. It’s just that this generation and honestly a big cohort of millennials are not used to gleaning information from people. A stunning number of people have been raised/educated solely by the internet. That’s the source for knowledge, not other people.
3 comments

> A stunning number of people have been raised/educated solely by the internet. That’s the source for knowledge, not other people.

On the internet you can learn from and sometimes interact with the best of the best, so the barrier of entry for what constitutes an "expert" is rised much higher.

To be quite honest I learned exactly this way myself, however nowhere near recently by any stretch of imagination; I learned through Usenet, bulletin board systems, IRC, and a heavy dose of (bordering on obsession) reading any and all technical manuals I could get my hands on from the local used book store.

I still vividly remember reading a z80 instruction set manual on a rainy day during summer vacation by a lake as a kid (maybe 14?)--writing my own assembly by hand in the margins for fun. TBH I probably still have that exact manual in storage somewhere. Had a green stripe down the front edge/binding iirc.

Back then I easily met folks like myself out there on the net, including many kids younger and smarter than me. It was awesome.

I do hope that some form of that 'net lives on in spirit somehow, given that the Internet I knew has largely fallen to corporate interests.

Now that I have my own kids, it's been painful to watch them have such an utterly different experience than I did.

Their Internet is based entirely on consumption and dark patterns designed to capture their attention, while providing nothing (to them) in return besides a dopamine addiction and body dismorphia.

There have been many epochs of "The Internet" throughout the years. Living through the internet of my youth (the beginnings) was a VERY different experience than what it is today with my kids.
I hope you're kidding. I've seen lots of 'Net people claim to be experts, and I wouldn't trust most of them to feed my cat.
Yes, and this isn't necessarily a moral failing.

It is a problem as old as human civilization that the old overlook that society itself changes and instead lament the willfulness of the young in abandoning the old ways.

It isn't like young people grew up surrounded by examples of mentorship and arrogantly chose otherwise. In the internet age 1-on-1 face-to-face instruction is rare. I feel really fortunate that I caught the tail end of it.

Its simply true that the average person you talk to is going to be ...average. Or you could listen to John Carmack on a 5 hour podcast. This warps your perception of what the people around you can offer you.

I think younger people have maybe thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and you need some discernment on whose advice you can value and trust. But ive just been in many situations in my life where ive asked for advice and its just been total shit.

"Wisdom of the elders" is overrated when society changes so rapidly, and not all the adults you know are the insightful village shaman.

I recall asking my grandfather what is was like to live through the JFK assassination and just recieving something to the effect of "oh yeah that was crazy and bad, i remember seeing it on the news." follow up questions produced no further insight. So you come to the conclusion, why bother with that when you can just read a book about the topic.