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Teenagers are better behaved and less hedonistic (2018)

economist.com

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

#441

Post by harry8 »

_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…

Without agreeing with it or endorsing it's thesis, that is a beautifully written piece. Cheers.

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

#442

Post by akhilcacharya »

throwawayfang1 wrote: post #349
vmception wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when I looked "down" on tiers of schools, differently. It was like what I was qualified for was better, Ivy League was a pipe dream and unnecessary, and everything else was a joke. Around my sophomore year, I was interning in a Federal Work Study program, pushing pencils right next to someone studying a Princeton. When I realized this fate was still intertwined, I immediately transferred to a cheaper…

Right. People who go to the world's top universities are in the position where they don't HAVE to work for a big company. I went to one of the listed "second-tier universities" and work at FANG (and to be clear, not Amazon), and I don't think I have a single coworker from Harvard or Stanford. I have one coworker from Oxford who considers himself the "failure" of his graduating class because he only works at a big tec…

> I went to one of the listed "second-tier universities" and work at FANG (and to be clear, not Amazon),

And in what way exactly is Amazon different?

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

#443

Post by eli_gottlieb »

baryphonic wrote: post #418
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And if I may be so bold, I believe that many would be well-served by realizing that out there beyond the cosmos above us is something that deeply loves each of us. If I may be so bold, could I interest you in hearing the good word of dialectical materialism as interpreted through category-theory according to Robert Harper Thought?

How many times can Hegel, Marx & Co. be repackaged and cause immense destruction (such as we are seeing at this very moment) till otherwise intelligent people will finally let it go?

I would have thought the references to category theory and Robert Harper Thought (he's a homotopy type theory researcher) would have made the humor clear.

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

#444

Post by thirdsun »

bambataa wrote: post #278

I would be interested to know what teen film people consider most representative of their experience. I love “Dazed and Confused” because it seems like the archetypical US high school experience. I was shocked that the director intended it to convey the boredom of that lifestyle because it seemed approx 1000 times more exciting that my teenager lifestyle in the 00s. American Pie was popular at that time but faaar fro…

Good question.

I could imagine that "Eighth Grade" would come up a lot if kids at that age answered.

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

#445

Post by Vrondi »

heymijo wrote: post #345
alexhutcheson wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC, SF, Silicon Valley, Seattle, LA, etc. are all full of successful people who went to public universities that didn’t require crazy high school credentials to get into.

This is true! However, it ignores a few things. There is always an advantage to being ahead, even at state schools. Come in with more AP credits or college credit plus? - Get priority scheduling over your peers Get priority scheduling - More likely to be able to graduate in 4 years Come in with more credits, take less gen ed requirements and get into a major earlier - Build relationships with faculty in your major so…

...Or go to a small four-year college and get into your major right away, with a PhD advisor in your field, as a freshman.

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

#446

Post by Vrondi »

ptero wrote: post #239
matwood wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Based on what I heard from other folks (I am an immigrant and have no first hand experience) your experience seems pretty typical in early 90s. There were of course different setups, but I do not think it is primarily based on class or income. They were schools that pushed kids, but they were statistically rare. In 1990, being up until 2AM several times a week doing school projects would be considered insane. Now, wh…

In the 1990s, being up at 2AM to do a school project would have gotten most kids punished, because they weren't allowed to be up that late on school nights, and doing so for a project meant you hadn't been keeping up with your homework and were cramming it in at the last minute, because you'd been slacking.

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

#447

Post by nabla9 »

411111111111111 wrote: post #266
nabla9 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intelligence researchers don't use IQ, they use raw data from testing. As you pointed out, IQ is not usable for research across time or across countries or cultures. You can only compare individuals in the same time and same population.

Its further biased by how many iq tests the testee has done before. Honestly, iq tests are pointless unless you're selecting for people that are willing to invest time into worthless knowledge in order to win in a contest. Which is a valid criteria, considering that these are the most motivated people... Its just not "intelligence", though that itself is just as pointless to measure.

>Its further biased by how many iq tests the testee has done before.

For a population studies this does not matter at all.

For individuals, practicing for IQ test might help a little but there seems to be a clear limit IQ limit that individuals can't overcome with practice.

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

#448

Post by jandrese »

Chris2048 wrote: post #438
jandrese wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland has a history of needing to fight off a much larger expansionist neighbor. One who has recently (a few years ago) annexed more territory while the rest of the world sat around and did nothing. Or are you asking why they don't extend the mandatory service to women? The reasons for that are somewhat historic and very _biotruth_. A country that fights a devastating war that wipes out 90% of the men but keeps the…

What kind of situation wipes out the army, then leaves the country alone to recover?

The kind where you are conquered but the population survives as a vassal state.

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

#449

Post by jandrese »

allannienhuis wrote: post #210
magicsmoke wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scenario A: 100 women, 100 men. 100 men go off to war, 10 men return. But with polygamy, 100 women have 100 children for the next generation. Scenario B: 100 women, 100 men. 50 women and 50 men go off to war, 5 men and 5 women return. You have 55 women left in the population and 55 children for the next generation. The limiting factor in human population growth is the number of women that can have children. The cold…

by adding polygamy into the mix, you're moving the goalposts of what is really just an intellectual exercise here. The reality is that these sorts of laws are put in place based on what the lawmakers feel is culturally acceptable (tradition). Pretty confident the people arguing for male-only conscription aren't putting much weight on polygamy in their thinking. What they're really thinking is that they need male sold…

It's not even official polygamy, it's just people being people and life finding a way. Lots of single mother households raising a bunch of kids. The balance is mostly restored in the next generation.

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

#450

Post by restalis »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #437
eldavido wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the bigger picture it's hard to imagine this wouldn't be the case. Not trying to start a generational food fight but realistically the world has changed since the boomers grew up. The US is facing major great power rivalry from China, we're much more internationalized (I read in the economist that only ~5% of US citizens had passports around 1990), and probably something almost nobody is talking about,…

> The decline of manufacturing EMPLOYMENT (not value created) is also a big part of this. I read a paper that said value created down everywhere except computer equipment. And even then that's probably an accounting fiction. The US is employing less people in manufacturing and we're making less stuff across the board. The US makes me think of a description by a GI of a German Army surrendering at the end of WWII. Fir…

"If you occupy the right position in US society you can believe everything is fine. If your a smart kid from a formerly working class family in Ohio, you know by the age of 12 that you need to escape."

But that's... common sense for ambitious people to dream then (at least attempt to) "escape" to a greener pasture. That's how things rolled since the dawn of humanity. What's really different here/now?

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