[ale] Is this True?

[Ron]

lollipopman691 via Ale wrote on 2026-05-11 10:40:

> I am way more optimistic than this guy.

Me too. I started reading, didn't get far.

Too self-congratulatory, for one thing - acts as if poking at a system 
for 20 minutes and having a working mental model of it is a vanishing 
skill (that the author, of course, maintains), or that file system 
hierarchies have relevance for normal people.


Too much conspiracy addled "decades of deliberate... effort by ... tech 
companies ... to turn users into consumers"

Yeah, somewhat, maybe. Or decades of effort to turn consumers into 
users?  That sounds rather different phrased like that.

But also, 99% of drivers don't know how cars work. So what? More people 
have computers in their pockets than drivers licenses, they use them to 
get stuff done and for entertainment, not because technology needs to be 
understood at a deep level by the masses.



I stopped reading at this nonsense:

> Ask a twenty-two-year-old to connect to a remote server via SSH. Ask > them to explain what DNS is at a conceptual level. Ask them to tell 
 > you the difference between their router’s public IP and the local IP 
 > of their laptop.

His "Kids today know nothing" whiny rant can be flipped to "geezer out 
of touch with what the youth are doing" pretty easily.

His conflation of TCP/IP networking & sysadmin tasks with relevance to 
average people is just ridiculous.


My YouTube feed is full of kids in their ~20s doing incredible, 
unbelievable, sometimes "humanly impossible" stuff. They use all the 
tools available to pursue their interests and due to the internet have 
reached heights of mastery beyond what was possible for earlier generations.

The kids are alright (as much as they ever were, lots of our cohort were 
"sex & drugs & rock 'n' roll" types who went on to be home owners, etc.).

Although that home owning thing is pretty hopeless for kids today - not 
their fault. And we're handing them a ticking time bomb with climate 
change that they'll have to deal with. I don't envy them that impending 
disaster.


> From where I am sitting,we appear still very much alive.  And the > 3D printing + MakerSpace folks are continuing the fight. Right to > 
Repair is still very much in the news and being litigated both in > 
courts and in legislatures.

Indeed, I agree, it's basic human nature to want to understand how stuff 
works and geezers like the author has fallen for the oldest fallacy in 
the books, "kids today aren't like *we* were".


> Doesn't mean we can relax though.

Human nature won't change. Ability to self-repair miniaturized 
electronics won't get easier (but full support for Right to Repair!), 
but people will find outlets for their curiosity.


Can I introduce the list to HTX Studios for a great example of "kids 
today... that's amazing (engineering)!":

www.youtube.com

HTX Studio <#>

We are a DIY team from Hangzhou, China.Our goal is to create fun and 
engaging videos.We are NOT involved in any cryptocurrency trading—please 
verify accounts...

🔗 https://www.youtube.com/@HTXStudio <https://www.youtube.com/@HTXStudio>

Notable recommendations:

The assembly lines (plural), the one-handed keyboard, the visual musical 
instrument that took 3 years, the tests of charging phones at 120W vs 5W 
carried out over two years, the moving garbage cans that catch whatever 
is thrown their way and self-empty overnight,...

They have a "NO AI" on screen when showing some of their inventions 
because it looks like CGI or otherwise too incredible to be real.
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