In Defense of Old Grumpy Guy: Get Off My Lawn

Citation?

It wasn't unusual for a (home-schooled) pre-teen in the 1700s to know Greek and Latin.

Bullshit. Pre-teen or not pre-teen, in the mid-1700s, the majority of Europe didn't know how to read and write.

I don't think it's reasonable to make sweeping remarks like this without real statistics to back them up. I don't have many friends who sit on their ass playing WoW all day and night, and I doubt you do either. Just because these people exist doesn't mean that the whole world is going to shit at record rates.

The irony to me is that so many incredibly talented "senior" engineers and business people have awesome lessons to impart but they never acquired the gift of communications. They don't present themselves as the sage elder that deftly imparts wisdom, they feel a sense of entitlement from their age and it shows as soon as they open their mouths.

That said, I really enjoyed reading your blog post Daniel.

That's bad?

Also

"Over the past couple of millennia, the amount of work required simply to live has decreased dramatically, at least in the western world. It used to be almost your entire life was taken up simply in an effort to survive; now most of us work 40 hours per week and it takes care of all of our needs."

That's not really true. I suggest reading "A Farewell to Alms" (http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/d...)

A more accurate description would be something like "After several thousands of years where civilization has made life more difficult for the vast majority of people, over the last 200 years, in a few countries that have experienced the industrial revolution, the effort required to survive has returned to roughly the same level as required by paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Though with significantly longer life spans almost entirely due to a large reduction in infant and child mortality."

Has anybody told Mr. Markham that the US has had an all-volunteer military since the 1970s, or that the biggest national emergency of all was largely met with draftees? (Also, to keep an eye out of double entendres...)

Old grumpy guy to me is someone who is unquestioning in his own views. Does not care if he's wrong and does not give the least shit about what you think or how the world is changing. "Get off my property!" while holding a shotgun sums up this guy nicely.

The old grumpy guy you talk about in the article is someone different. Nobody's going to groan about scalability unless the message is delivered in an antagonizing way. In this case it _is_ the fault of the messenger.

When we were younger, all of us ran into a grumpy old guy (or gal) and told ourselves, "No way I'll be like that." Then we get a little older and many of us realize that we're turning into that same guy. At that point we all have a choice:

1. Figure out what's important (here's a hint, it's not pre-teens learning Latin) and learn to communicate it in a manner that will actually move people to action regardless of their age.

2. Become a cranky old guy and wonder why no one appreciates your wisdom and brilliance.

I'd love to see some actual evidence for this. A solid command of either language would require on the rough order of 1000 hours of work (or perhaps only 350 if you had a lot of raw talent and studied effectively). This is entirely reasonable for a member of the educated classes in any era. But were ancient Latin and Greek ever common skills among your stereotypical pre-industrial dirt farmers?

...as well as the whims and fancies of the super-rich. If income disparity wasn't so high, I believe most of us would get by working significantly fewer hours per week (which could likely exacerbate some of the problems he mentions). The complexities in government that he mentions act as proverbial rocks in the stream, diverting wealth disproportionately to executives, lawyers, and bankers and keeping those "kids" busy.