Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 466 posts

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#391

Post by Izkata »

qqssccfftt wrote: post #126
dataduck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For almost the entirety of human history, 12 was old enough to get a job and look after a family. It's modernity that's the aberration here. Our obsession with keeping children immature has nothing to do with their well-being, and everything to do with adults deriving a sick emotional satisfaction from it. I think history will judge our obsession with keeping children from growing up in the same way we judge foot bin…

> For almost the entirety of human history, 12 was old enough to get a job and look after a family. Pretty sure the point of progress in society is to avoid repeating historical ills just because we did them in the past > The anomie that teenagers experience is a result of them having nothing meaningful to do. This is only true when you define "meaningful" as "wage slavery".

It's more that puberty is when kids biologically become adults. We'd adapted to getting at least some additional responsibility around that age, and are now going against what our own bodies tell us is correct.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#392

Post by Nasrudith »

matwood wrote: post #110
_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Wow, how things have change from when I was a teen in HS in the early 90s. I was a 'responsible' one because I had a job. Few people thought about 'getting in' (IIRC the valedictorian went to the AF academy), but otherwise we all just wanted to graduate and go to one of the 2 big state schools or the local college. I was smart enough, i.e. paid attention in class, that I never had to study (that caught up with me in…

Teen in the 00s here. It happened befor the documentation - really I think to a degree it was the related intersection of "juvennile delinquient" moral panics, crackdowns, zero tolerance, and general frankly batshit paranoia where the definition of being a "good guardian" amounts to operating a panopticon which ignores life traumatizing bullying and blames the victim yet freaks out at anything which goes against their precious norms even if perfectly legal. Granted the latter bullshit has a long legacy in American culture.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#393

Post by tayo42 »

kradroy wrote: post #189
_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Dear trend-following worrier, For all the effort you're making know this: you'll eventually be evaluated by a Gen-X or Millennial hiring manager. We largely don't care where you went to college. We've learned that name recognition means very little. It'll get you a job, but if you're one of those kids who "does nothing" on an extracurricular team, it'll show through on the job. You won't get promoted. We fucking hate…

> you'll eventually be evaluated by a Gen-X or Millennial hiring manager

This is actually a really amusing thought. Yeah I could be a manager in 5-10 years hiring current high school kids when they're older. I barely made it through school(failed out at my first shot at engineering) I could realistically be hiring at one of the companies New grads stress out about getting into. I couldn't tell you about ivy league schools without looking it up lol

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#394

Post by WalterBright »

7thaccount wrote: post #357
WalterBright wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they went into something like physics, they already had credit for psychology, history, English, calculus, chemistry...etc. Calculus and chemistry are very relevant to physics!

Hey Walter, I should've phrased that differently. With less time used taking classes like Psych 101 (which is generally a waste of time for engineering and science majors) you have more time to study and complete assignments in your core classes. The university says it wants you to take these classes to be "well rounded", but honestly, they just want more money from students. Regarding Calculus and Chemistry (all imp…

AP stem classes are great for easing the transition to college level work, but they are no substitute for college stem classes. If you're a physics major, for example, you need to be taking honors calculus as a freshman, not the weeder classes, and AP calculus is just a warmup.

In my experience, every STEM class in college is just paint over a math class. The stronger your math skills are, the more you can concentrate on the paint rather than struggling with the math.

I agree it's a good plan, however, to take AP courses outside of your major so in college you can take more stem classes. My college offered so many exciting stem classes I was a bit frustrated to have to take some non-stem classes to satisfy the degree requirements. No, I don't think that requirement was to make more money, it was genuinely believed that those were needed for a well-rounded education. That idea isn't entirely without merit.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#395

Post by stale2002 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #66
_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Ah yes, the second tier of Carnegie Mellon and Cornell. Lol.

Speaking as someone who went to CMU myself, this joke is even funnier.

A common "feeling" among many of my classmates at the time, was that most of us went to CMU because we couldn't get into MIT.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#396

Post by golemiprague »

101404 wrote: post #111
nabla9 wrote: post #104

Finland has mandatory military service for males. So every year you most of the young men (mostly age 18 to 20) into a controlled environment and go through standardized testing and observation. - Physical fitness has gone down, overweight goes up. - Intelligence peaked among those who were born in 70's and has been in slight decline last 18 years. Similar results can be seen in other developed countries. - Anxiety d…

> Finland has mandatory military service for males. How is that kind of institutionalized sexism still legal?

When you actually need to defend your country you bring in people who can do the job, it is not a diversity program. Even startups mostly have men, it is not without reason, men are just better at certain things.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#397

Post by AndrewKemendo »

franze wrote: post #14

I became a young father with 19, after way too much party starting from 15. So naturally I was concerned that my son would behave like me at that age. Or even just 50%. So I was kinda dissapaointed how well behaved he is now with 22. Mostly interested in E-Sports, Tinder and his CRM job. Said that, becoming a father at 19 was a great career move. Got a job making websites in the dot-com area as I needed money and was…

The older I get the more I'm convinced that having kids young is the right decision.

I had my first daughter when I was 24 and now that I'm entering my prime earning years I don't have to worry about child care or being around 24/7 the same way I did when my kids were babies. I also have less "free time" now than when I was in college and I had way less than most college kids.

It sounds counterintutive in this day and age but I think having kids at the tail end of high school or early college might be the best way to do it.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#398

Post by sharadov »

_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

Social media has made it all about narcissism, display your talents 24/7, failing which you are assumed to have a total lack of talent or interest. You are following your instincts and running counter to the herd, which in itself makes you a free-thinker. Trust me, you don't want to wake up one day, and not feel like you did not "live" your life.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#399

Post by Nasrudith »

deagle50 wrote: post #142
baryphonic wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was something I could impart to this generation, it would be this. I deeply admire your commitment to entrepreneurialism and to taking a bit of ownership over what you can learn in terms of "return on investment." However, I would caution you to remember still what is the most rewarding in life. Too often I see a never-ending status tournament for those in the elite schools (all of those mentioned), and it c…

To expand on your point - I am starting to believe that the political correctness oozing out of teens and those in the early 20s today is actually compensation for a new form of selfishness that comes from being measured in real time on a global scale, and drives the non-stop status games you described.

There are always poseur idiots in any movement (see the "Blockchain!" zombies and "Raw Water") but the political correctness is a result of actual moral standards based upon harm and could be called a successor or an usurper backlash to the hypocritical "morality" that was utterly obsesses with sexual norms while ignoring every other aspect of it. It isn't spoken of in such terms usually but what "political correctness" generally is referred to as detractors is essentially "new morals".

They were judged unfairly by a broken, hypocrital and insane system and now they flip the table and judge it back harshly. The failure of the previous generation's systems of morality is literally a meme "Ok boomer" - and it certainly wasn't the first to judge back.

There is still plenty of status shit in various forms going on top which matters to varying degrees subculturally if they give a shit or not but there is still a recognized objective moral "line in the sand" roughly where excuses aren't tolerated. "Everyone was doing it" as an excuse only further indites a complete lack of morals. A standard which evidently terrifies many who were alivr during the judged segment part of the everyone given the jump to embracing moral relativism.

Re: Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

#400

Post by sharadov »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #182
_5yps wrote: post #27

16-year-old here. My experience is probably markedly different from most teenagers in the US (I'm an immigrant who goes to a competitive school full of other immigrants) but I find that, for the most part, this article hits the nail on the head. High School is nothing like the usual media portrayal - I've never heard anyone even talk about a party, nobody's doing anything stronger than weed, nobody's fucking or even…

I wish adults understood the realities of being young in 2020. Even when I graduated HS in 2007 I could tell my experience and the academic expectations I needed to live up to were much higher than it was for my mom. After I graduated I saw younger friends take more AP classes than I did and do more leadership activities than I did. Expectations are always ramping up. It is no party. Our laws and bureaucracies haven’…

Every generation has told the generation younger than them that they are not pulling their weight. I am Gen X, and I genuinely feel the Millenials and Gen Z, are getting the short end of the stick. Fuck the boomers,they shat on everything.
Post reply on HN