41–50 of 79 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also a story, and quite an enjoyable and well written one at that. My 8 year old son enjoyed being read it.
As I recall about half my class enjoyed it, and half hated it. I have nothing wrong with you being in the half that liked it. However I remain in the half that didn't like it.
Every generation worries that the behaviors of the next will be the downfall of humanity. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greeks and Romans felt the same. I grew up reading and still do it today. But my teen kid, who's a great student, hates reading books. He knows many things but gets all his information from Discord chats, AI and social media videos (and his parents, but he ignores that). It does sound terrifying. "…
It is pretty obvious that having "a screen which optimizes itself to keep you hooked for hours while you still have a developing brain, and no previous generation had anything similiar" is not very comparable to being able to throw away paper and have scratchpad because paper became cheap. And the claim that hippies are doing fine isn't well substantiated[0][1][2]. Maybe we shouldn't claim to have answers for what we…
I'm not saying everybody will be fine. I'm saying humanity will be fine because we will figure out how to create a functional world despite the underlying culture like we've always done. Part of my argument is that every generation is full of people saying "this time is different because of XYZ".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This book cannot prove anything, other than one person's opinion on history You've misunderstood the purpose. Fiction was not ever intended to achieve scientific goals, i.e. to discover the truth about our universe. It's intended to be thought-provoking, i.e. to inspire questions about our universe. You need the question before you can find the answer.
Problem is that book is based on so many things that we know are untrue about humans in general that it is hard to take any questions it provokes seriously. I can accept the impossible for the fun of it, but when something is impossible I don't take is serious. And it wasn't a good book in general.
Old Major is Marx/Lenin, Napoleon is Stalin Snowball is Trotsky, etc. Regardless of ones nationality or politics, the story of Russia in 1917 remains one of the most fascinating in our worlds history. For a lot of people, myself included, Animal Farm served as a nice way of being introduced to the tale without getting bogged down by the specifics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I recall about half my class enjoyed it, and half hated it. I have nothing wrong with you being in the half that liked it. However I remain in the half that didn't like it.
Is the purpose of school to make you do things that you'll enjoy?
Animal Farm tries to be the last, but the flaws in it mean I can't take it seriously and so it fails. Well maybe it soft of works because nearly everybody has read it, but again, the flaws are so bad I can't take anyone seriously who cites it and so I consider it a failure.
My parents and me are terrible readers, to the point where I thought I might have mild dyslexia. Once in a blue moon I find a book I can’t put down, but in the 80s I already had video games to fill my time.
Having a voracious reader at a reading level 10-years or more beyond his age is its own challenge. Most of the HN crowd thinks kids should have access to all books, but I assure you, there are many books inappropriate for various developmental levels, regardless of reading proficiency. There’s also little support from libraries or the industry (rating systems, content warnings, etc.) to make that easy for parents.
i'm sure generic 'screen time' is partly to blame, but i think the world is just moving fast and the education system (alongside everything else) is struggling to keep up. the constant stream of negative news, layoffs because of AI, etc. also aren't doing anything to motivate kids. many of my college students feel like they've already lost at life. between ai, the economy, job prospects, etc. i am sure high schoolers…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I recall about half my class enjoyed it, and half hated it. I have nothing wrong with you being in the half that liked it. However I remain in the half that didn't like it.
Is the purpose of school to make you do things that you'll enjoy?
ideally, yes, enjoyment should be one purpose of school. it's much easier to teach when students are enjoying learning.
learning to engage with something that you don't enjoy is also important, though, and why i think some of "the classics" should still be required reading.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh educational system probably lacking but parental support is the missing piece. So many parents just send their kids to school expecting them to auto learn - many reasons why parents dont have extra time --> also screen time addiction. Home environment is pretty big component to success.
i think lack of parental support has been around for ages though, which makes it hard to attribute the very recent and sudden drop in reading comprehension, math scores, etc. to it. ive had to make pretty significant changes to my courses in the past two years. many teachers aren't, or are making changes slowly, which is causing some difficulty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
a fine way to point to the real issue. a loss of critical thinking.
I was about to downvote you because I read your username as reply to OP’s comment. To add: at what point we stop dismissing the culture of our ancestors that we have lost as mere nostalgia? I hate how we cannot have a serious discussion about our modern culture without devolving to this cliché rebuttal. I guess I should keep praying for a coronal mass ejection to free us from our digital jails.
Everything that was considered fancy and high-culture when I was in my formative years is fancy and high-culture now and everything after that is slop and mind-rot.
But it makes no difference: the older generations die and the newer ones take over either way, and what's acceptable or even high culture changes.