201–210 of 230 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hopefully “don’t take pictures/videos of your peers/friends without their (implied) permission” becomes a more widely distributed social more for the next generation. Can’t believe it isn’t already.
Why would any teenager pass up the opportunity to post a video that will garner lots of attention?
If you take a train or a bus, or are in any other public space, you may notice that a bunch of people (young and old) spend their time staring into their phones. And most of the time, if you glance at their phone, you'll see they're on Instagram. They're staring into this machine fantasizing about some image of how great life is, meanwhile their real life is passing them by. And they wonder why they're not getting al…
Although it would suck if they did the same thing at home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Highly successful businesses like Apple, which are closely related to Foxconn and the horrors of labor there. That we know many elements that go into our technology may be sourced from dubious environments, unsafe working conditions, potentially human rights violations and war. That’s what he meant when I asked him. By consuming anything in the system one is contributing to the systems oppression internationally, and…
Foxconn and the horrors of labor there Would you prefer that they starve to death because they have no work? I assure you, that's worse than working at Foxconn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a tough problem. I'm a parent, and the "do I meddle in this?" issue is probably what I think about most. With most tricky parenting issues, the answer is probably that you're on the right track if you're even thinking about it and asking the question
I'm a parent too. We get a lot of contradictory messages thrown at us. We're repeatedly told that we shouldn't over-parent, but is that just a middle class myth? Rich parents meddle extensively , not just in school, but in their kids' personal lives and careers, well into adulthood. We can't afford to follow middle class myths any more, because the middle class is vanishing.
bad: johnny complains that he got a 'C' on his freshman writing seminar term paper, so you go to the professor to argue his case for him. johnny is stressed out because he is finding it hard to concentrate on school and find an apartment for next semester at the same time, so you take over the apartment hunt for him.
good: johnny needs to find a job, so you capitalize on your extensive network of successful friends and colleagues to put him in contact with people who might give him an interview. once he gets the interview, it's on him to prove his worth. or, johnny just transferred to a new school and his transfer credits are not immediately accepted so he cant register for any useful classes that semester. the counseling people tell him it will take a few weeks to evaluate his transcript and registration will be closed by then, so he may as well give up and start planning for next semester. luckily you happen to know the dean, and the process is expedited so johnny can actually make some progress that semester.
the key is to distinguish between important challenges that the kid can figure out themselves (with some work) and structural obstacles that are simply insurmountable without the application parent's resources/experience. helping excessively with the first will result in you raising a manchild. helping with the second can actually give your kid a time advantage over their peers that doesn't hamstring their development.
If you take a train or a bus, or are in any other public space, you may notice that a bunch of people (young and old) spend their time staring into their phones. And most of the time, if you glance at their phone, you'll see they're on Instagram. They're staring into this machine fantasizing about some image of how great life is, meanwhile their real life is passing them by. And they wonder why they're not getting al…
I mean if you're using your phone during a dinner with loved ones or friends, that's something else. But commutes are pretty universally despised.
Having directed this to my teenaged younger sibling (he is intelligent and expressive) he explained in his view, teenagers have a poor prognosis for their career prospects and are aware of this. Technology allows them to be aware that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and debt they will need to accrue is ever-increa…
>their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While there are indeed predatory business models where this is true - casinos etc. - most highly successful people and businesses become successful by creating value, not siphoning it from others.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While there are indeed predatory business models where this is true - casinos etc. - most highly successful people and businesses become successful by creating value, not siphoning it from others.
Almost wanted to downvote you for the pedantic tone, decided to comment instead. What you are saying is not at all self-evident or settled. It's true that business models that create value without being predatory are possible, and surely even exist in great numbers, but to say that this is the case most of the time... That's a defensible but very much controversial statement, don't pretend otherwise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, perhaps they are being inspired. Planning their own art or adventure. If you're sitting on a train, why not? (Is reading a book equally objectionable, or is going to a museum?) It's rather offensive to judge people about whom you know nothing. (As is quoting President Trump as if he is an authority on anything.)
At the risk of generalizing from anecdotal evidence - Instagram seems to be the worst by far for this kind of thing. All images, little content and no good way to really communicate. The heavy users I’ve known just endlessly scroll through images of attractive ‘influencers’, dogs, makeup ads, or just photos posted by friends (mostly using it to show off as mentioned in the article). While Facebook will have discussio…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a parent too. We get a lot of contradictory messages thrown at us. We're repeatedly told that we shouldn't over-parent, but is that just a middle class myth? Rich parents meddle extensively , not just in school, but in their kids' personal lives and careers, well into adulthood. We can't afford to follow middle class myths any more, because the middle class is vanishing.
i think it depends on what you mean by "meddle". you can find helicopter parents in all walks of life (although near the bottom end you may find that some parents simply dont have the time to be this overbearing), but there are good and bad ways to be involved. bad: johnny complains that he got a 'C' on his freshman writing seminar term paper, so you go to the professor to argue his case for him. johnny is stressed o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost wanted to downvote you for the pedantic tone, decided to comment instead. What you are saying is not at all self-evident or settled. It's true that business models that create value without being predatory are possible, and surely even exist in great numbers, but to say that this is the case most of the time... That's a defensible but very much controversial statement, don't pretend otherwise.
I was not trying to be pedantic. In free market societies, most businesses grow by delivering value to their customers. Otherwise, nobody would frequent them and they would die off quickly. Again, there are exceptions to this, such as industries that depend on addiction - alcohol/tobacco/gambling businesses, for example, create value only for their owners at the expense of both their customers and society at large. B…
> that their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result, if not in their own community then in the international stage.
by saying that if the teenager in question properly understood economics they would understand that "most... businesses become successful by creating value, not siphoning it from others" and therefore not hold the opinion in that quote.
Your reading of the teenager's statement is, it seems, willfully narrow. It's true that if most businesses simply screwed their customers, they wouldn't survive long, with the exceptions that you mention. But I'm sure that's not what the kid in question meant, teenagers these days are smart cookies. They know that you can treat your customers well while screwing them sneakily (productize their data), screwing their community (use market dominance to force suppliers to lower prices, thereby accelerating offshoring and killing jobs), screwing some other community (locking in cheap resource contracts by bribing weak governments and thus fanning corruption), and the list goes on and on like that.