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I don't see any reason for greenwashing, or fearmongering along the lines of "think of the children", or virtue signaling in general, to decline in effectivenes

by VLM 5y ago

I don't see any reason for greenwashing, or fearmongering along the lines of "think of the children", or virtue signaling in general, to decline in effectiveness, so they'll likely keep on using those strategies. Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. What I'm getting at is a societal wide trend where young people are more likely to own an e-bike but old people are more likely to be shade-tree-mechanics doing their own car brake jobs or whatever. Young people own and use iphones and streaming, old people own and use hammers and soldering irons.

Silhouette 5y ago
Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. Certainly today's younger generations haven't necessarily had the kind of curious exploration phase that those around GenX had and a lot of the modern technology is much more about lock-ins and walled gardens at the moment. That's a relatively recent disease, though, and breaking down some of the tech giants and their de facto monopolies might go some way towards curing it. At the same time, the digital native generations tend to have much more street smarts than their predecessors in that world. Today's teenagers are much less attached to individual personas online and change social media accounts frequently. They know not to give out their personal details or even their real name too readily. They're often more savvy about common online threats than their parents and staying safe online is routinely taught in schools now. And they are often much more willing to engage in campaigns about issues like equality and environmental concerns, which their whole generation recognises as an existential threat in the future and a sign of generational inequality, and quite knowledgable about these issues. It's not hard to imagine a near-future scenario where a big company tries on some sort of greenwashing to justify its obviously greedy strategy of forced obsolescence, it gets called out prominently by the next Greta or Malala, that message spreads virally throughout whichever social media platforms are popular with younger generations at the time, and that corporation's stock price crashes over the next few days as their PR team scramble to tell everyone that environmental protection is very important to them and their previously unannounced follow-up to the earlier announcement involves reversing it as quietly as possible.
- ghoward 5y ago
  Upvoted, because you have good points, but... >> Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. > That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. An article came out recently about that: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... .
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    The contrast in that article is very much what I mean. Kids are not using files and folders today, they don't understand what is going on under the hood the way many of the previous generation did because they have never had to. But when it comes to navigating Insta, grandpa had better take a seat and watch the experts. There has definitely been a loss of capability and effectiveness in one sense (and that is a very serious concern, just not the one I'm talking about here) but in another sense the kids are very naturally navigating things like social networks and phone apps in a way many of their elders find similarly unintuitive. I think Big Tech challenges the assumptions modern kids make about how their devices should work at its peril.

by VLM 5y ago

Silhouette 5y ago

Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. Certainly today's younger generations haven't necessarily had the kind of curious exploration phase that those around GenX had and a lot of the modern technology is much more about lock-ins and walled gardens at the moment. That's a relatively recent disease, though, and breaking down some of the tech giants and their de facto monopolies might go some way towards curing it. At the same time, the digital native generations tend to have much more street smarts than their predecessors in that world. Today's teenagers are much less attached to individual personas online and change social media accounts frequently. They know not to give out their personal details or even their real name too readily. They're often more savvy about common online threats than their parents and staying safe online is routinely taught in schools now. And they are often much more willing to engage in campaigns about issues like equality and environmental concerns, which their whole generation recognises as an existential threat in the future and a sign of generational inequality, and quite knowledgable about these issues. It's not hard to imagine a near-future scenario where a big company tries on some sort of greenwashing to justify its obviously greedy strategy of forced obsolescence, it gets called out prominently by the next Greta or Malala, that message spreads virally throughout whichever social media platforms are popular with younger generations at the time, and that corporation's stock price crashes over the next few days as their PR team scramble to tell everyone that environmental protection is very important to them and their previously unannounced follow-up to the earlier announcement involves reversing it as quietly as possible.

ghoward 5y ago
Upvoted, because you have good points, but... >> Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. > That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. An article came out recently about that: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... .
- Silhouette 5y ago
  The contrast in that article is very much what I mean. Kids are not using files and folders today, they don't understand what is going on under the hood the way many of the previous generation did because they have never had to. But when it comes to navigating Insta, grandpa had better take a seat and watch the experts. There has definitely been a loss of capability and effectiveness in one sense (and that is a very serious concern, just not the one I'm talking about here) but in another sense the kids are very naturally navigating things like social networks and phone apps in a way many of their elders find similarly unintuitive. I think Big Tech challenges the assumptions modern kids make about how their devices should work at its peril.