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Comment by copperx | Hacker News Reader

I agree. There are still some posts on Usenet archives that I wrote when I was 14, and there are no telltale signs that they were written by a 14 year old, except for not understanding certain programming conventions.

I wasn't particularly bright. I think we underestimate the capabilities of children.

I see no reason a 14 year old shouldn't be able to program and say, do multivariate calculus. If anything, they are more intellectually capable than someone going through the pains of late adolescence.

Crystallized intelligence at that age might be low, but fluid intelligence is at or near its peak.

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I'd have to say free time is also a huge factor! I have exams coming up, but for now in free to hack stuff in my spare time. I was also looking into newer echo models, according to hackaday they have a hidden debug port but still use mediatek processors, maybe I'll buy one on ebay in the future and have a look...

I was given a 3rd gen dot at a conference and haven’t even set it up. It’s yours if you want it.

A smart 14 year old can often out-think adults in my experience, because adults are weighed down by 'adult' content like power relationship between the speakers, social appropriateness, real or imagined legal obligations, yesterday's news, thirst for alcohol and triple-X sex, you know "everyday stuff" whereas the 14 year old is relatively unburdened by all that baggage. What a 14 year old lacks is 14 years of reading on a subject, of course, or previous training. YMMV

Well said.

I agree with everything you said except the thirst for sex. That one is melting your brain as a teenager.

I miss the clarity of mind I had when I was younger than that, perhaps 10 or 12.

> I think we underestimate the capabilities of children.

Probably to a large degree because we lock them up in a room all day where they spend their time listening to information targeted at the bottom decile of the room.

I suspect you are smarter than you give yourself credit for. Many 14 year olds could not have written that well. That's totally okay and they can still learn how to later in life.

Most 14 year olds simply don't spend most of their free time learning how to hack things. Only some do.

When I think about it, I could have done algebra by the 5th grade, calculus by the sixth, etc. But what is not being considered is what’s going on with those neurons, at this time, instead. It is not obvious that maximizing purely academic results is optimal.

True. It's not a good idea to swamp kids with topics they might not care about.

However, I do think they should be encouraged and tutored to go REALLY deep into anything they might be interested in.

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