[bkjelden]

I think we're afraid of being wrong.

We live in a society where access to information is greater than it ever has been in history, and everything we may take an interest in doing has been done before, and someone has already pointed out all of the flaws and how it's wrong. We see that first and focus in on it, and we let it destroy something that a previous generation would've seen as imperfect yet beautiful.

[IkmoIkmo]

Can definitely relate to that. I'd rather think that there's something temporarily wrong with my brain chemistry, something that'll get sorted out after a few years pass and new habits and a new rhythm, a new balance of social, work, rest, exercise etc become part of my life.

On the other hand I'm afraid that it's a generational thing. A child of the financial recession (nearing 25yo, economy's not quite booming in Europe), of digital work (I'm able to pay the bills programming from home in my own little company without having to leave the house much), of an age with unprecedented access to information (everything you mentioned, knowing exactly how great the world is and how insignificant anything you do is). As if my particular blend of person in this particular age in this particular economy is just begging to become a shut-in.

I didn't quite ride a wave of easy employment that led to company life playing a big social, professional and personal (confidence etc) role in my life, having graduated during a recession. Wasn't forced outside and into the lives of others due to the digital age allowing me to make a living from home.

Anyway it's all a bit depressing, I try not to spend too much time explaining why. It feels like giving up, or finding an excuse.

One thing a friend told me a while ago stuck with me though... on how the notion that life is malleable (this sort of variation on the American dream. That if you just work and try hard enough, you can become anything and do anything), meant as an uplifting and motivating cultural idea, not to mention an idea that homogenizes everyone: everyone is capable, everyone is unique and special and important and powerful... I think perhaps is the reason of so much depression and anxiety and uncertainty in young people today. Because it's simply not true that anyone can become the next Steve Jobs, yet because of this notion that life is completely malleable, if you're not awesome then there must be some unique character flaw you're suffering from, it's your fault.

Anyway again I don't like to get caught up on this frame of mind too much as it just gets me absolutely nowhere, but it's definitely interesting to discuss every now and then.

[chipsy]

Re: malleability of life. I like stoicism because it captures the view that feels more realistic to me: That which you can control, you control to your utmost. That which you cannot control, you let go. Sorting it out and finding the balance between fatalism and optimism involves knowing and understanding your own limits.

After all, there are a lot of things your body is capable of doing, yet you aren't ever driven to do them. That's really at the heart of the shut-in symptoms.

[Terr_]

Information overload can be worse than none at all. I recall someone did a study of employee 401K participation, and above a certain point, the more choices they were given the fewer people ever signed up.

Our limited capacity for "decision-making" is at least as real a limitation as time or money.

[IkmoIkmo]

Absolutely, abundant choice can paralyze.

For me it has to do with opportunity costs. Take a strawberry milkshake instead of banana, no biggie if it tastes bad. Take a career path and end up regretting it, and it's a really big deal, usually. And even if your career path wasn't a bad choice per se, again, opportunity cost, perhaps the alternative had been much better. At the end of the day you just have to choose, try it, and if it appears nice enough you double-down, and that choice can be really difficult.

One of the most frustrating things for me had been having to decide on the bulk of my professional education before ever having worked in the field. I think programming is to some extent an exception in that many programmers get a decent experience on what programming is like as a kid, as a hobby. Being an engineer in an office is a whole different matter of course, but the notion of programming for hours on a daily basis is something you can grasp by age 15 or 18 when you decide on a focus in high school and a major in college.

But for so many professions, you have people age 17 having to decide if they like being a dentist or a lawyer, or a sales person or a government worker, while having near-zero experience, and fleeting ideas on what it is from movies and magazines.

Not sure what it's like in the US but in the Netherlands at age 11 you get tested and go to a certain level of secondary school. The lowest gets you entrance to community college at age 16. The middle to vocational school (e.g. university of applied sciences). The highest to university ('research uni'). There's some opportunities to switch after age 11, but it's very tricky for multiple reasons and generally rare. And then at age 13 or so you decide on a focus which gets you different subjects. e.g. Physics & Science, or Culture and Society or Economics & Society. And those give entrance to your tertiary education. So if you chose at age 13 or so that you liked Culture, you'd have gotten things like art history and French, and you couldn't go on at age 17 to pick Computer Science. You'd have to do an extra program, again difficult for various reasons and rare.

Now at 24 looking back this structure was really frustrating. I liked economics as a subject, chose that path, always did Computer Science as a hobby (which wasn't a subject in any of the paths), but couldn't do CS unless I did Physics (which was a subject I had for years regardless as everyone gets it, but not to the full extent supposedly required).

[tomp]

> Not sure what it's like in the US but in the Netherlands at age 11 you get tested and go to a certain level of secondary school.

Wow, that sounds really f*-ed up! I always thought most places were like Slovenia (or UK is similar, if I understand correctly), where the main decision point is only at 18-19, when you're choosing your university! (The earlier is at 14-15, between a "gymnasium" - general-purpose school - and a vocational school (e.g. for a hairdresser, cook, ...), but most reasonably intelligent people go to a gymnasium).

[cronin101]

I'm originally from the UK and, while you are correct that university at ~18 is usually the point-of-no-return, "high prestige" universities often have significant expectations on performance within a predefined set of subjects (at least within engineering) during the admissions process.

It would be very challenging for someone lacking the above-average levels of interest/talent in relevant fields at the age of 16 (spurring them to take related college-level courses) to get into a prestigious STEM course - outwith extraordinary circumstance.

[IkmoIkmo]

Yup so we have that system like Slovenia too only it's a little bit earlier. You go to a level of secondary school at age 12, based on a test at age 11.

I personally got a maximum score of 550/550 on this test which gets you into 'gymnasium'. If you get below 545 you go to a middle-level education (will let you go to university of applied sciences, to become e.g. a marketing manager, teacher, physical therapist etc). Below 530 you do to the lower-level education (for lack of a better word), to train to become e.g. hairdresser or cook.

Anyway I got 550 but still went to middle-level as per a teachers' recommendation. (typical minimal effort maximum score kid). Later ended up still going to uni but it's a path with various hurdles and detours.

Frustrating in hindsight that this decision happens so early in life when you don't quite grasp the implications of educational & class differences, and at an age where the notion of becoming someone who volunteers in an animal shelter is way more interesting than to become a data scientist. As you grow up you realize the social stratification brought about by educational differences.

And then on top, indeed, you choose a certain flavor of high school. You get 2 years of general purpose stuff. Everyone gets both Physics and Math, as well as French and Art History, etc. But then the 3-4 years after, you choose one or the other. That's at age 14ish. And so even if you do gymnasium and everyone can go to uni, you're not going to be able to apply for medicine for example if you didn't do 6 years of physics in secondary school.

There's a lot of talk to change it. In fact I think Finland just removed the concept of 'subjects' altogether. Which is a radical thing to do, and takes a lot of effort and rethinking and reshaping of education. But it could be brilliant. Here they're talking about making secondary school a bit more general purpose, as the huge push for 'career planning' sessions for 12 and 16 year olds isn't enough to let them make informed decisions about what they'll be studying at age 20, and working in at age 30 or 40. Beyond that all of education is shifting away from skills, and towards competencies. So that if you teach 'self-learning', someone who spent 5 years in marketing can shift to become a programmer, if the economy changes. At least that's the general idea. It's a lot harder but competencies are definitely more valuable and important than skills (which become redundant as tech changes, e.g. being a skilled typewriter) in the long-term.

[mtbcoder]

Regarding information overload, it seems that this is on track to get much worse before it gets better (if it ever does get better). Subsequently, I think we are building up to a large scale consumer backlash or implosion against "hyper connected-ness" as no one will be able to physically parse, consume and manage the deluge of bits and choices thrown at them. I think we'll get to a point of peak information and at which point it will be more hip to be offline...at least that's the hypothesis that's been ever so slowly nagging me in the back of my mind.

[bigdealjim]

Sounds like "The Paradox of Choice"

[zo1]

I'm not familiar with that term/book/topic/idea/concept. Care to elaborate on it, or shall we rather resort to the All Knowing Google ?

[bkjelden]

This is a good video on the topic: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

[xux]

You might be interested in reading this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo...