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There's a relevant Paul graham essay about how teenagers are basically neurotic lapdogs because throughout much of history they would assist with everything and

There's a relevant Paul graham essay about how teenagers are basically neurotic lapdogs because throughout much of history they would assist with everything and would be an apprentice..etc, but now are locked away at school (similar to a prison or daycare where their parents drop them off so they can work). It's a great essay that I can't do justice if someone can find it.

PebblesRox 8y ago
I believe it’s this one: http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html Some relevant excerpts: “Bullying was only part of the problem. Another problem, and possibly an even worse one, was that we never had anything real to work on. Humans like to work; in most of the world, your work is your identity. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time.” “If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.”
- M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
  I think he's spot on here. The culture clash between a society where the young are to be incarcerated in some kind of padded safe space and a society where the young are junior members of adult society is all too apparent in Western Europe. Youngsters from my neck of the woods are lining up to enter the wealthy European countries and the politicians and anatomists have been whipped up in a panicked frenzy trying to determine from X-rays who is over and who is under the arbitrary age of 18, while any culturally sensitive person will plainly who are grown men of military and marrying age where they come from and who aren't. And what do the ones who qualify as "children" or successfully lie on their applications get? They may be grown men where they come from, but men who are too naive to realise what they are lining up for is to be castrated by the welfare state. They are asking to become incarcerated children, and when they realise where they have been lured, who can blame these strapping young fighters for embracing gang culture and shooting up their host neighbourhoods in endless retaliation between the various lord-pretenders of the flies?

PebblesRox 8y ago

I believe it’s this one: http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html Some relevant excerpts: “Bullying was only part of the problem. Another problem, and possibly an even worse one, was that we never had anything real to work on. Humans like to work; in most of the world, your work is your identity. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time.” “If life seems awful to kids, it's neither because hormones are turning you all into monsters (as your parents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as you believe). It's because the adults, who no longer have any economic use for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Any society of that type is awful to live in. You don't have to look any further to explain why teenage kids are unhappy.”

M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
I think he's spot on here. The culture clash between a society where the young are to be incarcerated in some kind of padded safe space and a society where the young are junior members of adult society is all too apparent in Western Europe. Youngsters from my neck of the woods are lining up to enter the wealthy European countries and the politicians and anatomists have been whipped up in a panicked frenzy trying to determine from X-rays who is over and who is under the arbitrary age of 18, while any culturally sensitive person will plainly who are grown men of military and marrying age where they come from and who aren't. And what do the ones who qualify as "children" or successfully lie on their applications get? They may be grown men where they come from, but men who are too naive to realise what they are lining up for is to be castrated by the welfare state. They are asking to become incarcerated children, and when they realise where they have been lured, who can blame these strapping young fighters for embracing gang culture and shooting up their host neighbourhoods in endless retaliation between the various lord-pretenders of the flies?