A Generation With More Than Hand-Eye Coordination | Hacker News Reader

A Generation With More Than Hand-Eye Coordination

nytimes.com

7 pointsrobg9 comments

Terrible article, if you ask me. The author strings some seemingly arbitrary quotes together - but it's unclear where the article is going or if the author is even trying to make a point.

The opening paragraph is great though, and the the description of the millennials ("shamelessly narcissistic, apathetic and lacking in social skills") is spot on. But how can the author say in one sentence we millennials are apathetic, and the in the next that we "care strongly about justice and the problems faced by [our] society"? Doesn't that just jump out of the text when proofreading it? Or is there a meaningful difference between apathetic caring and active not caring?

My knee-jerk (and naturally completely unfounded) opinion is that the author likes the book because it makes a bunch of statements the author wishes to be true (for obvious reasons). The author seems to be absolutely uncritical about the contents of the book. How can he not cover the quality of the research/argumentation and still recommend it without hesitation? And if the author doesn't have the background to review the book on a more fundamental level - should he really be the one to label it an educational must-read?

"Someday that party picture is going to bite them when they seek a senior corporate job or public office."

Things change. At that time all their peers will also have "party pics" on net, most of society will believe it's normal. In a generation their seniors will have grown up with public private lives and if you don't have "party pics" you'll be weird, out of touch, and too secretive to be trusted in a senior position.

"or they think the idea of owning music is over."

Things change. When this generation becomes the legislature the laws will match reality. Well at least get closer.

"they prize freedom" -> http://www.bugmenot.com/ only bitches require login.

"Noting that raw I.Q. scores have been climbing by three points a decade since World War II across racial, income and regional boundaries"

I hope he has the decency to cite James R. Flynn's book What Is Intelligence

http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/...

which is by far the best scholarly discussion of that phenomenon.

In most of these sorts of social trends, there are usually trade-offs. If I were hiring an editor of books or magazine articles, I might look for candidates from a different generation from the candidates I'd look for if hiring a video game designer.

"Mr. Tapscott is not uncritical of Net Geners."

Words like those make me wary...reminding me of Orwellian Newspeak for some reason.

"Don't Mistake Ambition for Entitlement" - http://mattmaroon.com/?p=573

Great review, this seems like it's worthy of anyone's reading eyes regardless of generation.

So does anyone feel like explaining why my opinion that this was a good write up was worth voting out?

My main guess: people feel that commenting "this is good" is redundant to an upvote. Why use 14 words -- including puffery like "worthy of anyone's reading eyes regardless of generation" -- when you've already expressed your recommendation through a one-click upvote?

Or possibly: Since there's no article downvote, the easiest way to express a strong opinion that the article is awful is to downvote comments praising it as 'great'.

Thank you.

In lieu of sparking up conversation about an article I think is good, because it may be regarded as "redundant", I'll just vote up and keep any opinions quiet.

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