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> Looking ahead, I believe children will thrive if we teach them the life skills that set them apart from machines. I do not buy the argument that kids need to

> Looking ahead, I believe children will thrive if we teach them the life skills that set them apart from machines. I do not buy the argument that kids need to be exposed to tech from a young age in order to be professionally successful. The technology they use is designed to be intuitive (we all learned to use it later in life), and it won’t be the same in a decade. What matters more is teaching them how to be human—how to have conversations, make eye contact, be attentive and alert, be thoughtful and considerate, feel their emotions keenly, be insatiably curious about the real world. Training for that takes years and starts from birth. There is no time to lose. Okay but this doesn’t mean anything. It’s fine and meaningful if it just means interacting with each other instead of everyone staring at their own tablets or the same TV. But sometimes people get this idea that if they just remove something civilizational, they’ll get back to being human. But that’s never how it works. Either the mere exposure to it has tainted you forever or it was never that simple to begin with. The problem with moving to another country in order to get away from your problems (or whatever) is the constant of you. To simplify a lot: your own habitual thoughts. There’s no modern veneer which is obfuscating the real you. The real you is already there. And that takes more than a vipassana retreat/keto diet/tech diet to unravel.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Yes, but there are tons of cases that go either way, and sometime it is neither the thing or the individual, but the combination of the two which lead to undesired outcomes. In this case, I think it is reasonable to believe that training certain skills in the absence of distractions and impediments makes sense.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Provided these skills really stick, will the kid be able to activate them when they'll be in an environment full of distractions and impediments ? How well will they deal with SNS, work notifications, scams, dark patterns and addictive stuff thrown at them at every corner ? This reminds me of Mean Girls, where a kid raised with lions is thrown into the college environment. Except we now have so many other layers of complications to also deal with.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I would think it is easier to learn self control with a more fully developed brain than the other way around. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it is similar to we don't give unlimited junk food to children either, as it can be easier to learn moderation starting with healthy habits than the other way around.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      I fully agree with you, in that moderation is important. More precisely, teaching how to approach the "junk" stuff is IMO necessary, and better done when parental advice is well received, instead of waiting for the latest possible time. We teach kids to not moderate junk food intake at the earlier age, they get to taste it but also learn about it in a friendly environment. Forbidding it until they're on their own and discover it the wildest way is a recipe for disaster, the same way discovering alcohol for the first time in college during wild parties is one of the worst experience we can imagine.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

Yes, but there are tons of cases that go either way, and sometime it is neither the thing or the individual, but the combination of the two which lead to undesired outcomes. In this case, I think it is reasonable to believe that training certain skills in the absence of distractions and impediments makes sense.

makeitdouble 2y ago
Provided these skills really stick, will the kid be able to activate them when they'll be in an environment full of distractions and impediments ? How well will they deal with SNS, work notifications, scams, dark patterns and addictive stuff thrown at them at every corner ? This reminds me of Mean Girls, where a kid raised with lions is thrown into the college environment. Except we now have so many other layers of complications to also deal with.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I would think it is easier to learn self control with a more fully developed brain than the other way around. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it is similar to we don't give unlimited junk food to children either, as it can be easier to learn moderation starting with healthy habits than the other way around.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    I fully agree with you, in that moderation is important. More precisely, teaching how to approach the "junk" stuff is IMO necessary, and better done when parental advice is well received, instead of waiting for the latest possible time. We teach kids to not moderate junk food intake at the earlier age, they get to taste it but also learn about it in a friendly environment. Forbidding it until they're on their own and discover it the wildest way is a recipe for disaster, the same way discovering alcohol for the first time in college during wild parties is one of the worst experience we can imagine.