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I don't think millennials all suddenly decided apropos nothing to avoid trades and take on useless degrees, they were encouraged to do so by their parents and teachers, and even then doing a useless degree is probably the rational choice since grad schemes have all replaced the equivalent schemes for high school leavers that existed 20+ years ago with no practical difference other than arbitrarily requiring a degree. Their "useless" degree might leave them with the same options their parents had with only a high school education, but it's still better than the options they have without one.

I heard this quote by John Maynard Keynes writing in 1919 about life before the First World War that reminded me of anyone claiming how lucky the current generation is to have smartphones provide modern marvels like Amazon next day delivery-

> The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep;

We might have supercomputers in our pockets, but people just use them to do a budget version of things everyone has been doing for 100 years because they can't afford the real thing anymore.

> We might have supercomputers in our pockets, but people just use them to do a budget version of things everyone has been doing for 100 years because they can't afford the real thing anymore.

Firstly, no, not "everyone", a tiny fraction of "everyone". And secondly, because at that time London was the capital of the global superpower whose empire encircled the whole planet. If millennials are comparing themselves to the richest people who lived in the capital of the richest empire of all time, then they're going to be disappointed.

> I don't think millennials all suddenly decided apropos nothing to avoid trades and take on useless degrees, they were encouraged to do so by their parents and teachers

No argument there. I think it was well meaning, no parent wants to think their kid isn't college material, but... yeah not every kid is college material.

> and even then doing a useless degree is probably the rational choice since grad schemes have all replaced the equivalent schemes for high school leavers that existed 20+ years ago with no practical difference other than arbitrarily requiring a degree

To me, this is an open question. I know various college dropouts that actually have really good careers. I think their first jobs were harder to get, but once you have a resume I don't think most employers care that much about college (I say as a college grad, so I don't know first hand). Plus, there's just also the matter that if you are going to go into debt for college, maybe get a useful degree? Even if you don't go into certain fields, I think some degrees look better than others. For instance, I know some coders that have a degree in architecture (like, buildings). Even though they aren't designing buildings, it's a somewhat impressive degree. On the other hand, I feel bad for people that got a degree in something like art history or gender studies or political science but didn't go into academia or grad school. I probably shouldn't pick on those, but, oof, those don't seem like a promising path unless you want to be a professor or go into law school or something.

- We have instant access to pretty much all of humanity's collective knowledge, practically for free

We have access to an overwhelming amount of knowledge, but the problem is that this by itself is not enough to use it. All that knowledge is in a format that is difficult to assimilate and largely lacks the social aspect needed to transfer it effectively.

Humans assimilate knowledge by participating in social groups, most of us acquire it largely by imitation; only some complex academic subjects benefit from isolated personal study, and even then you need a mentor to guide you through it.

The wealthy remain wealthy because they maintain exclusivist institutions, devoted entirely to transmitting such limited social knowledge to their families. It is practically a requirement in order to improve your social standing; people with access to unlimited knowledge but without having the tribe to guide them in its assimilation cannot harness it in a way that is more effective than the people they are competing against.

I'm not sure that's true, I think people learn by doing more than through social means. I mean, I went to college and got a bachelors, and I remember... practically none of it except the things I use day to day. I would honestly say that other than giving my a scientific viewpoint, most of the "general education" stuff was a complete waste of time. I really can tell you nothing about geology or biology and just the basics of chemistry, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Right now one of my hobbies is robotics/electronics/makerish stuff, and most of what I've learned has come from youtube/reference documentation/blog posts (I bought a few textbooks as well, although most of them are collecting dust). There's a bit of a social aspect in that I'll ask friends with actual EE degrees for advice sometimes, but even then I mostly get "ah I haven't used that in forever, I don't remember". Most of my learning is by setting a goal, and then more or less learning the skills along the way. I don't know if it's efficient or not, but it's not costing me anything other than time.

The other thing I've been teaching myself is art techniques, and you probably guessed it, I've learned those things in the same way and through practice developing my own style. Again, no institution needed.

Don't get me wrong, I think institutions and the social aspect of them can be tremendously useful, but if you want to learn a skill and you're interested there's practically nothing stopping you, you don't need them, it's just a bonus.

I didn't mean that you acquire knowledge by hanging around people (though that happens a lot as well, specially for all knowledge that is not deemed 'academic'). I meant that knowledge acquisition is mediated and guided by your social context; if you're on your own, resorting to YouTube tutorials and online forums will only get you that far, as you will not acquire competence on what are the most useful and practical ways to apply that knowledge.

You need feedback to know that you're orienting your learning in the right direction, to provide a practical overview of the field, and to correct you on the vices you may develop. None of that can be achieved without evaluation of your progress, and that requires belonging to a stable social group that can check your advances beyond isolated interactions.

Again, avance on more academic disciplines can be cheated by reading books, which compile some of that socially transferred content. But practical application of those learned skills requires talking to people who will guide you on what constitutes 'practicality' for other people. In your art example, you may develop your personal style on your own, but you can't know that it will be liked by others unless you exhibit it and listen commentary on how people perceive it.

> I'm not sure how you'd describe the best mindset here. Pessimistic stoicism?

This is the question I asked myself as well. In my own life I've settled on Stoicism as a philosophy of life (though I am far from the ideal sage). I don't think it needs prefixed with "pessimistic" though. I think that, by itself, it's already the middle ground between the two positions. It says that you should only focus on the things that are under your control, but to do so while working for the greater good as well. Fight the dragons, but also fight your own inner battles.

Yeah, stoicism by itself is probably enough. I also really love stoicism, although I feel like in popular culture it has sort of a weird stereotype of being a really grim way to live (which is not at all the case)

Yes, it's weird, because it can actually be joyful. We need to break apart lowercase stoicism from uppercase Stoicism.