Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#211

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #208

jasoneckert wrote: post #148

When I was growing up, my parents adhered to Douglas Adams' rules of technology (and I think many still do today): 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after…

Downvote for trashing your parents.

Observing that someone's behavior matches a pattern is not "trashing" them.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#212

Post by aaomidi » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

ponker wrote: post #207

aaomidi wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah honestly you're wrong about this and seeing kids as stupid little humans that constantly need protection isn't helpful. You're not always going to be there to keep them safe. Give them the tools and the training to understand dangers on their own.

There's a Pacific Ocean between "they're stupid little humans" and "they can have free roam of the Internet and make their own decisions about content." Look how effectively antivaxxers, flat-earthers, and QAnon have infected the minds of adults, and now imagine the effects on a mind 5x as blank-slate/open to suggestion.

Have you thought that maybe if those people were given the tools to distinguish right from wrong they wouldn't have ended up believing that crap?

You have really no proof about the relationship of parenting style to conspiracy theory believers.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#213

Post by narag » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #197

narag wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, this very same approach worked nicely for my kid, that just turned 18.

Good that it has worked well so far, but I think it's a bit too early to tell. A lot of choices parents make for their kids echo in the 20s of the kid as well. After that it tends to be more about their choices as they've had enough time without parental influence. After all, one of the arguments for giving your kids more freedom as they're growing up is that it will better prepare them for when they're on their own.…

That's too true. So far he seems much more responsible than I was, let's see what happens in college.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#214

Post by bradlys » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #128

imesh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disagreement from me. Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm currently watching what looked like my nephews Roblox/Minecraft addiction turn into some real amazing content creation utilizing youtube as a very real learning source.

Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list. It's a preference for quality over quantity.

> Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list.

Yes - because every kid wants to program purely for the fun of it. There's never an end goal in mind - they just learn functional programming for the fun of it! They all enjoy finding ways to chain esoteric commands together in a terminal.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#215

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #211

ARandomerDude wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote for trashing your parents.

Observing that someone's behavior matches a pattern is not "trashing" them.

[deleted]

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#216

Post by grugagag » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

3131s wrote: post #194

tjr225 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t seriously compare the internet of even 10 years ago to the internet of today. You can go to reddit right now and find a video of some right wing whacko shooting someone to death on the front page. That content was available then, sure. It wasn’t blasted right at you though.

Rotten.com? Ogrish? I was around ten when I saw these and the first thing I encountered was a video of a man's head exploding on contact with a helicopter blade, and then I scrolled down and saw a prostitute that had been chopped up and placed in a suitcase. The world is a remarkably vile place and the internet is just a reflection of it.

Even now I remember something I saw on ogrish a long long time ago and only when I think about it I feel the trauma comeing back. I wish I never had the curiosity in the first place.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#217

Post by seventhtiger » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

endgame wrote: post #105

cowmix wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know all about this PC Master Race stuff. Basically, I wanted my kids to have to maintain, build a system to play games. When my kids were young Minecraft JUST came out. They both learned A LOT about modding early. If they were stuck on consoles they probably would have missed out on all that.

Consoles are consumption devices. PCs are creation devices.

Nintendo games with 4+ player multiplayer is actually a great time with family and friends. In general I think Nintendo makes social games that are intended for the living room, which is harder to find on the other consoles, and almost impossible on PC. I say this as someone who mainly plays on PC and has LAN parties at home.

Consoles can be social devices. PCs can be isolating devices.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#218

Post by monocasa » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:44 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #117

monocasa wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - anything else that is legally obligated to be backdoored by the ministry of state security (wechat, alipay, tiktok, etc) Does that include everything by PRISM participants, or just foreign states?

From a purely pragmatic perspective as a citizen and resident of a five eyes country, I consider it a much lower threat to myself and my career, political life and financial life to have my data in the possession of the NSA than the MSS. I've also previously held a security clearance and worked for a large defense contractor in a network engineering role, so I have some inside perspective on how the sausage is made.…

> From a purely pragmatic perspective as a citizen and resident of a five eyes country, I consider it a much lower threat to myself and my career, political life and financial life to have my data in the possession of the NSA than the MSS.

Why is your information being in the hands of an agency of the government that has to break the constitution to have said information somehow a lower threat than a foreign government that has zero impact on your life?

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#219

Post by tempestn » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #179

jasoneckert wrote: post #148

When I was growing up, my parents adhered to Douglas Adams' rules of technology (and I think many still do today): 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after…

I think that's a clever bit by Douglas Adams, and there's some truth to it in some contexts, but I hate to see it voted to the top on HN specifically. The reason is that our industry right now doesn't make a secret about widespread, accepted ageism. And a common talking-point defense of it is "not learning new technologies".

I think it's clever because we all (at least those of us over 35) recognize this tendency in our own thinking, at least to some extent. It certainly doesn't mean we reject or are incapable of learning new technologies. It's more about introspection—realizing for instance that the fact I have little use for TikTok is more about me than it is about TikTok. Personally I don't feel it needs to have any ageist connotation.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#220

Post by trabant00 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #31

I'm with the dad. Not necessarily for the specific choices but for making a choice. Author should have waited another 10 years because this is a shallow and still-immature perspective that underappreciates her dad's principle and integrity. Why should a company that demonstrably sucks for you, continue to get your money? (So your teenage daughter can be like the cool kids?) It's called voting with your wallet, and a…

100 % with you. I mean why would you give money to companies that treat you like a dummy, won't allow you to tinker with your computer, ask for double the money compared to build it yourself, etc.

It might be just me getting old but I don't understand the current consumers who don't really demand anything for their money. Is nothing important to you? Do you just buy what they tell you to in marketing and PR?