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Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a

Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning (with much more options to do so)

kunai 13y ago
I do agree with you. I submitted this to portray the other side of the future -- what many people see as the negative side. For those unlike us on HN, who aren't versed too much into technology and innovation, the future can be scary, and this is usually how people feel about it.
- windexh8er 13y ago
  The real truth here was the topic of consumers (literal) thinking they, or their kids, are "smarter" today because they can use an iPad. The general populous has always leaned towards consumption over building - but the great thing is now is one of the best times to really be a maker, considering most anything is easily attainable in a short period of time. But, will there be more smarter people? No. The reality is that all my friends and I could program the blinking VCR clock when our parents were few and far between in the 80s. Today it's the middle schoolers who have Arduino, Raspberry Pi and are writing apps they're running on VPS and IaaS. The game has shifted, but the average consumer is no "smarter". I had a conversation with a neuro Dr. once and he told me to think of your brain like an iceberg, one that melts as you get older or mess with it via externalities. Your mental capacity is reflected in the number of penguins that fit on that iceberg, and when you consume and learn other penguins get pushed off. We're not "smarter" but we no longer require the penguins that help us hunt our food. This is why over consumption of data you don't want or need is counter productive to your "smarts".
coldtea 13y ago
>Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? Well, at the time they merely replaced those skills with learning how to drive a car. But, in a future where you won't have to replace previous skills with anything (e.g self driving cars, calculator vs having to know basic math in your head etc) it can be argued that it can lead into a general dumbness. Some people will say that it will "free resources for higher level learning" etc, but in all probabillity it will just infantilize most people, a la "Brave New World". We already have huge resources for higher level learning and most people just spend their time watching 3 hours TV and day and learning celebrity gossip on the internet. >If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning A few perhaps. For the majority it will be the same ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades.
- takluyver 13y ago
  > ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of course you can point to amazing discoveries or great literature from the past, but that only represents a tiny slice of the population. And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.
btilly 13y ago
...much better at focusing and multi-tasking... This one is wrong. According to current research, the more practice we have at multi-tasking, the better we think we are at at, and the worse our actual performance is on the task we're supposed to be doing. Therefore we're raising a generation that will do worse, but will be unaware of it.

kunai 13y ago

I do agree with you. I submitted this to portray the other side of the future -- what many people see as the negative side. For those unlike us on HN, who aren't versed too much into technology and innovation, the future can be scary, and this is usually how people feel about it.

windexh8er 13y ago
The real truth here was the topic of consumers (literal) thinking they, or their kids, are "smarter" today because they can use an iPad. The general populous has always leaned towards consumption over building - but the great thing is now is one of the best times to really be a maker, considering most anything is easily attainable in a short period of time. But, will there be more smarter people? No. The reality is that all my friends and I could program the blinking VCR clock when our parents were few and far between in the 80s. Today it's the middle schoolers who have Arduino, Raspberry Pi and are writing apps they're running on VPS and IaaS. The game has shifted, but the average consumer is no "smarter". I had a conversation with a neuro Dr. once and he told me to think of your brain like an iceberg, one that melts as you get older or mess with it via externalities. Your mental capacity is reflected in the number of penguins that fit on that iceberg, and when you consume and learn other penguins get pushed off. We're not "smarter" but we no longer require the penguins that help us hunt our food. This is why over consumption of data you don't want or need is counter productive to your "smarts".

coldtea 13y ago

>Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? Well, at the time they merely replaced those skills with learning how to drive a car. But, in a future where you won't have to replace previous skills with anything (e.g self driving cars, calculator vs having to know basic math in your head etc) it can be argued that it can lead into a general dumbness. Some people will say that it will "free resources for higher level learning" etc, but in all probabillity it will just infantilize most people, a la "Brave New World". We already have huge resources for higher level learning and most people just spend their time watching 3 hours TV and day and learning celebrity gossip on the internet. >If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning A few perhaps. For the majority it will be the same ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades.

takluyver 13y ago
> ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of course you can point to amazing discoveries or great literature from the past, but that only represents a tiny slice of the population. And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.

btilly 13y ago

...much better at focusing and multi-tasking... This one is wrong. According to current research, the more practice we have at multi-tasking, the better we think we are at at, and the worse our actual performance is on the task we're supposed to be doing. Therefore we're raising a generation that will do worse, but will be unaware of it.