Opportunities then and now ...
 

Yesterday was my dads 82nd birthday. Usually I just give him a shout and we talk on the phone for a bit. Small talk stuff.

I called my granddaughter (14, freshman this year) and asked if she would like to go up to great granddads with me and take him out to dinner for his birthday ... Sure!

So we drove up and went out to dinner with my dad. We were talking about her starting HS and of course it went back to ... When I was in school, we didn't have this or that, snow, uphill both ways, library, blah blah blah. Im sure she loved that haha! And we talked about the opportunities out there for school kids (or anyone for that matter) that you could access via computer or heck even your smart phone.

Everything and anything A to Z, any subject, unlimited, and darn near all of it for free. Want a HS diploma? Online and free. College degree, online, maybe not free, but accessible to anyone. It really is mind blowing.

My wife and I were talking about it this morning. What if ( I love what if's ) we were starting freshman year, 1973 and the first day of class our teachers said, Today everything changes, and poof the internet was there exactly like it is today ... Would we jump on the chance to use it to learn and get degrees and skills to help us conquer our world going forward? Or would we get sucked into the social media abyss of today?

As an adult today I think, what's wrong with kids? They have everything at their fingertips to get a huge jumpstart on their adult lives and they are just goofing around with Selfies and likes ... Easy to say as an adult, but I wonder what we would have done with the above 1973 scenario.

Re: Opportunities then and now ...
 

They are given everything so they dont have worry. Why go out and hustle?

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Im not really looking to say anything bad about this generation. Im just wondering if having an amazing opportunity thrust at us out of the blue back in 1974 would we have jumped on the opportunity to get ahead, or are kids just kids and no matter what (generally speaking) would we have went more with the social side of the internet?

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About 2 years ago I got my step son a job at one of the carpet and furniture stores I subcontract out of. He worked in the warehouse and helped with deliveries while doing school. In the two years he worked there he saved almost every paycheck. He has gone to car shows with his “papa” since he was old enough to walk. Last car show they went to he came home with a 1979 Thunderbird. He paid the guy cash. He graduated this year. A couple of months a ago he moved to New Mexico (staying with relatives)working in a warehouse driving a fork lift. I pretty sure he is saving his money. I don’t think he will be there for very long. He talked to a few military recruiters before he left. We are still getting mail for him in regards to that. He’s not one to be on the computer too much and he doesn’t care about cell phones. He is a very bright young man and I think whatever he does he will be alright.

As for me... I’d still end up being a crusty old carpet layer... I’m just too dumb for anything else.

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I think we would have taken advantage of the things today back then and done very well . I work on a small private University Campus and most of the kids are very bright and do take advantage of the internet but they do also love the phones as they stare at them as they walk up the middle of the road instead of the sidewalks , have not figured out the road walking versus sidewalk thing though .

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I can't imagne what I would of done back in the early 60ies with all this computer stuff they have now.. Shoot ,,,I remember having to share typewriters with others as there were not enough to go around .. I have stated though ,,,when talking to old friends that I probably would of tried weed back then as I did smoke.. How did I get off on that?


I sort of got a feel for the new tech stuff when I leared how to fix a VR tape when they got tangled in the tape box.. So,, when I think of it ,,we came from a different time and our folks came from a hard time ,,It may be our fault for pampering them ..

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I agree we came from a different time. Not so sure we would have taken advantage of it. It would have been so foreign to us if in fact it changed over night. We likely wouldn’t have known how.

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I don't know about everyone else, but I probably would have rejected computers. They were just starting to allow students to use calculators when I was in HS. I rejected them and got really good with doing math in my head. I felt I would not learn as well if I allowed a device to do my figuring and I still think I was right. I never use a calculator and have run my own business for 37 years, estimating, material take-offs, billing, designing. I often come up with answers faster than someone can get their answer on the calculator.

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I feel that cell phones, computers etc, have led to a dumbing down of society. Seems that no one is interested in learning & retaining anymore since "all i have to do is look at my phone for the answer" There seems to be a severe lack of common sense anymore.

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Current high school math teacher for 23 years here.....fully agreeing with your statement!

Lots of kids do work hard, but most are fully preoccupied with their phones, social media, and gaming......at all hours of the day and night. They're not overly concerned about their upcoming algebra or trig test.

My school has banned phones and earbuds during school hours from 7:45-3:15. Before school or afterwards on bus trips or breaks during practices, they're OK.

Technology is good if used correctly. Occasionally, I'll show a YouTube video that goes along with my lesson and I attach the link to an email to both students and parents so they can access it at home if they want to.

A teacher friend of mine says "a Corvette without brakes is a danger to everyone on the highway." I suspect he is right.

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Isn't it funny (or sadly true) that all three of us independently have come up with the exact same deductions on the dumbing down related to the retainage vs look it up thing. I also feel all this lends to a look ahead for what's next mentality vs appreciating right now, looking back, and at whole world to their right and left. They need to smell the flowers

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I would tend to agree with both of these statements. One problem I have come to see though is that even though a lot of people (not just kids) work hard, they don't work to learn. I can tell someone what to do and as long as I am out there with them they will bust tail all day long. Ask them to do the same thing a week later and it is like they have never done it before.

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I have a son and 2 daughters , My son doesn't use the internet , He can't keep up with the work load he already has . My daughters both have their own online businesses and each have 501c3 Non profit charities online that provide their respective causes with the needed donations to fund their mission. That would be impossible without the internet and current mindset of today . I've tried to explain having a business back in the day to them without world wide internet access to no avail, One comment was " Who would waste their time sitting in a store waiting for customers to come in ?" . Would I have used it if it was available to me ... Hell Yes ! it's so easy to even have a very small internet store that can provide an extra $ 1-2,000.00 a month :chevy:

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Opportunity has never been as great for a young person as it is right now.

Forget College, go to work with an experienced tradesman, and learn to do the job well. Actually it wouldn't be a bad idea to take some bookkeeping, and composition courses. The biggest battle I had was the bookkeeping.

In a few years the people that know how to do something with their hands will rule the world.

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I could not agree more

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It's the AI that's getting my attention. A quote from Forbes "A lot of people don’t realize this, but a lot of the news stories you read now are increasingly written by artificial intelligence." All the sharp kids I know are working on AI projects. The first wholly written AI screen play has been written. AI poetry cannot be distinguished from prose of a human. AI developers can setup an account on this forum and have it interact with us, answer questions on trouble shooting, engage in current events, tell jokes and generally blend into the community unnoticed. Soon you will watch movies on Netflix that are AI derived stories and plots with all AI graphics with little or no human impedance. But don't worry, the graphics are getting so good they can resurrect John Wayne and Cary Grant.

Where does this leave us? What about this AI media? Does AI have a built in bias(if so who embeds it), or does it learn bias, will it be unbiased now and forever? Will it manipulate based on machine motive? After all, it's unconscious. Soon, the only thing that will distinguish us from machines will be 1) they are smarter. 2) we are conscious and have a soul.

online this - online that - it's already dinosaur tech. It's what drives it that is important now. Distributed data and AI. Basically, instant everything!

Do whatever in life makes you happy. But never ever turn your back on technology. It creeps in quick and you need to learn to dance with it! :chevy:


j

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:lol:

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:smoke:

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No no no. You can't just stick arms, and a sideways drum for a head, on your whiskey still and call it AI. That's just a robot. Not impressed, send me some hooch! It's seems you're trying to drink it all! :smoke:


j

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Carbon based unit....I'm going to my room now!

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Will chilled butterscotch work ? :lol:

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Shipping info sent via PM.:lol::lol:

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Oh man, that looks good! :chevy:

j

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This has to be the most disturbing thing I have ever read, "... without human impedance"??? Impedance????? F THAT!! Who's world is this? Time for me to go homestead in Alaska like my dad always wanted to do. He was quite a visionary

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Hmm, Now Im starting to wonder about Tim ... If that's his real name! No one can come close to his post count.

I think first we were infiltrated by Andy, another impossible post count. I think Andy's AI's handlers saw that the human members were getting suspicious so they phased him out with some sort of silly human-ish story and ramped up special-K

Very interesting ....