I prefer the full quote by Douglas Adams.
I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Folks! This is a quip from a novelist! Take it with a grain of salt. It has to be punchy, not accurate.
This comment helped to kick my "but but but!" instinct to the curb, haha. Thanks :)
I don't know about number 3. As a 53 year old Gen X'er, I still haven't come across things that see against the natural order. The main things I don't understand are things like the Humane AI pin, which didn't seem against the natural order, I just didn't see the appeal or usefulness of it. Maybe it just doesn't seem like there is much new being invented.
When I was a child in the 80s, 2026 was in the FUTURE. The expectations I had are not yet met. I have not seen anything that is not just an evolution of what we already had. The only exception may be how the internet usage has changed the economy and the world in general. Maybe we are only allowed one or two major changes in our lifetimes? (maybe AI will be the last change)
Don't get me wrong. The world has generally become a better place, and I would not want to go back in time. But we are so far from where we could have been. I am actually more afraid that we will revert because the rule based world order that we has created stability (at least in the west) seem to be at risk.
I think that if the pattern exists, it is strongly muted for GenX because everything we are seeing (and more) was virtually promised to be here “any day now” during the hay day of science fiction media. If anything, 2026 in the real world isn’t futuristic enough compared to what was “supposed” to have happened by now.
>hay day of science fiction media
I played Shadowrun. I am both disappointed but mostly glad it is not happening according to that game universe history! I do want cool cybereyes though...
> I still haven't come across things that see against the natural order.
So many people these days spend hours watching short-form videos spray endlessly from a screen while they stare dumbly at it. They aren't even picking which videos to watch, just letting the algorithm do it.
Every time I see someone doing that, I just absolutely cannot relate to what's going on in their head at all. I'm certainly not above watching some YouTube, but the complete mindlessness of it, they watch it goes on forever, and the utter stupidity of the videos. I feel like I'm watching zombies in an opium den.
But billions of people are doing that shit every day, so what do I know?
I don't want to defend short-form video feeds too much, but "They aren't even picking which videos to watch" is overstating it. Essentially nobody behaves like: watch 100% of a video, swipe, watch 100%, swipe. The expected behavior is that you swipe away if you're not interested, which is often done within a fraction of a second. Accordingly, Tiktok's content selection algorithm heavily weighs watch time as a signal of interest in related content. That actually can create a bit of a perverse incentive; if you linger on a video long enough to report it (as in for a TOS violation) or to click the "show less like this", it can lead to being shown more videos like that.
In many ways, TikTok is kinda like channel surfing. Watch a few seconds, next channel, watch a few seconds, next channel, oh this is interesting, sure I'll watch a "How It's Made" marathon.
> In many ways, TikTok is kinda like channel surfing.
I've been making the same comparison as well. As someone not watching the videos yet still hear the videos being played, the constant switching is very noticeable much like being the one in the room that didn't have the clicker in their hand. You're not in control of the constant switching which I think makes it even that much more annoying.
Rather than just parking on the marathon, choosing to turn it off and do something else entirely is still my preferred "old man yells at clouds" option.
> So many people these days spend hours watching short-form videos spray endlessly from a screen while they stare dumbly at it. They aren't even picking which videos to watch, just letting the algorithm do it.
This is how TV broadcasts also work, though. You could even argue there's an algorithm behind TV broadcasts too - it's just a kinda poor human-run algorithm trying to maximize viewer numbers.
Unlike many people, I still often watch TV broadcasts to relax for exactly this reason - there's no decision fatigue since I don't need to choose what to watch. Usually there's only one channel with something that's even remotely interesting and it's kind of an obvious choice.
With the (somehow sadly) added value that the TV broadcast algorithm is kinda known by everyone (morning programs, prime time etc), and that if there wasn't nothing interesting to watch, we would just do something else.
yeah shared “did you this weeks X” is lame, but it was social glue for a long time.
>They aren't even picking which videos to watch, just letting the algorithm do it.
As a teenager, I used to torrent content I liked and scoff at my parents generation for letting tv feed then slop :)
It's hard to understand why TikTok is addictive from the outside, precisely because if you look at the app over someone's shoulder you'll see their tailored content, not yours.
Give the algorithm a couple weeks and it WILL find the weird thing that gets you to check. Maybe you find someone restoring books relaxing, or like toy commercials from where you were a kid, or are attentive on news of potential pandemics out of fear. It will learn.
I am GenX and also an avowed fan of Douglas Adams and that quote.
I have to say that recently I’ve been coming to the opinion that making it pointless to perfect the craft of producing music and art is against the natural order of things.
I know I’m just old and the kids will figure out a way to bend and warp the new tools but I don’t think it’s for me any more.
A lot of boomers thinks windmills are against the natural order and will end the world.
Also solar parks are just the most ugly thing in the world. They must be banned.
A lot of younger people think that building of solar power and wind power in the past years caused decrease of global CO2 emissions. In reality, global CO2 emissions have been increasing each year.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
A lot of younger people think that building of solar power and wind power in the past years caused decrease of global CO2 emissions
No they dont think that.
They do think that building solar and wind power will lead to fewer emissions than there would have been otherwise though.
A lot of people think closing the blinds will keep their houses cooler in the summer. In reality, their houses get warmer in the summer.
To be fair, a lot of younger people also think that human extinction by climate change is a significant threat (it is not), while a lot of older people believe that a nuclear war could eradicate our species (also no).
The per region and per capita graphs do tell something you might want to consider.
Per region CO2 emissions don't matter, CO2 is a largely non-reactive gas, which is rapidly mixed throughout the entire troposphere in less than a year.
https://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FAQ6_2.pd...
It's the total CO2 amount in atmosphere that determines radiative forcing.
The IPCC summarized the current scientific consensus about radiative forcing changes as follows: "Human-caused radiative forcing of 2.72 W/m2 in 2019 relative to 1750 has warmed the climate system. This warming is mainly due to increased GHG concentrations, partly reduced by cooling due to increased aerosol concentrations"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
Regional emissions do matter for the conclusions you draw.
All high-income countries already trend down in emissions.
Global emissions are rising because poorer countries that were basically almost "no emission"/capita in the past are still catching up (but that catch-up is less steep than in the past because green energy is available from the get-go).
Conclusions would be: Emission reductions in rich countries need to be aaccelerated, and helping poor countries peak at a lower level would probably be prudent (but good luck selling such policies to alt-right voters).
"Renewable are not helping" is not a sensible conclusion.
Imagine how much more they would have increased if it weren’t for all the solar and wind capacity.
Windmills were invented more than a thousand years ago though
My experience is that some people (of all generations) react really strongly against anything that involves birth and family.
IVF, gamete donation, surrogacy, gay families, various experiments with human embryos or artificial wombs, much or all of this is banned in many countries of the world mostly due to the "ick" factor. The smarter opponents tend to decorate their objections in the "we must be very, very careful" cloak, but if you dig deeper, you will find that it is indeed just a cloak in many cases and that the underlying root cause is "ick, this is against nature", and "really careful" means "erect impossibly high barriers by law".
This even isn't subject to polarization and seems to be shared across the political board.
Could it be all the conservative propaganda that gets people prejudiced against things they're ignorant about and aren't impacted by?
IDK, but I have read a lot of objections from feminists as well.
Where I live, the religious population is under 10 per cent, but complete atheists will argue like this as well.
I suspect the "ick" factor is simply inherent here. Kids provoke instinctive protective/emotional reactions in a way that other phenomena don't.
For example, it is quite obvious that Trump faces a lot more popular backlash due to his suspected connections with Epstein than over his actual threats to Denmark/Greenland and war with Iran.
Feel the third so much with LLM's. But I get the sense younger generations aren't a fan of where it's moving the world either.
I disagree with
> 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
> 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
> 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
My experience is rather that early in your life you get "imprinted" with specific values, and then you judge technology by how it fits these values:
For example, I was "imprinted" against surveillance since I was born in West Germany, and people were telling me what evil surveillance stuff the Stasi does in "the other Germany (GDR)". Also I deeply detested authorities (I was likely born this way), and thus got attracted to hacking.
Thus, for example:
I already heard about the internet early in my life (from magazines) - say, when I was 8 years old - but I actually saw how people organized stuff "offline" against what I would consider "how the world naturally works" (believe it or not).
Smartphones were invented when I was between 15 and 35, but I immediately saw them as surveillance bugs. The same holds for the advent of social networks.
On the other hand, 3D printing got mainstreamed later than when I was 35, but I immediately got in love with it, and couldn't wait the day until 3D printing got more reliable and I earned enough money to get a 3D printer, since 3D printers fit my values very well.
So, in my experience it is typically not about the year when something was invented, but rather about whether the invention is a good or bad fit for the values that you were shaped with in your early life.
This feels apt in more than just science/technology. It matches my experience with culture as well, e.g. music and movies.
It's way more apt with culture than with science or technology.
The lack of patience from adults for learning the byzantine interfaces companies were making in the last quarter of the 20th century got generalized to a ridiculous degree.
I knew I was officially old when I had to start trying to decipher what a teen was saying to me. All of the words were spoken in the language I speak, all of the words were heard by me, but their use of those words were not a use I was familiar.
It's even worse when you live in a small country with high amount of immigration. Half of the new words are borrowed from other languages or internet memes and there's no way to decipher their meaning without looking it up.
I feel like many younger people still listen to music from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s etc, as an exception (?)
That's in the rule - for them it's "just a natural part of the way the world works".
Ah I misunderstood; my mistake!
I feel this more and more as I age. Especially after having children.
I used to be a "tech guy" (like most people here probably) and was excited about new technology. Now my main feeling when something disruptive (like AI currently) comes up is: "why the hell do people need to rock the boat".
The thing is, I'm perfectly happy living my life as I have been living so far, concentrating on doing stuff with my children and having fun. When the world changes, stuff I need to worry about it: is this going to affect my job in the future? What is the long term effect of exposing my children to this? Is the stuff I teach my children going to be relevant in the future after this disruption has happened?
I don't want to be forced to learn new stuff. I mean, I can learn new stuff occasionally for fun, but it's not fun if my life and salary depends on it. Fuck the tech bros trying to change everything up.
I'm not sure this is true?
3. is more like this: You've been through 2. so many times now that it is hard to get excited about new things anymore.
Enough time has passed that some of the things you've been excited for have failed or had negative consequences. You'll stick to the things that worked in 2. and are skeptical of things that have yet to prove themselves.
In your 3., things from 2. are accepted unconditionally despite failures, making 3. inherently irrational.
Or to be clichéd and quote 2Pac:
> You don't see no loud mouth thirty-year old motherfuckers
“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.“
— Lieutenant Charles L. Wright
As for 3, I think by the time you're in that age bracket, you've seen enough to not be fooled as much by the marketing so that a sale from a brochure alone is much less likely. Take the crypto fad as an example. To me, it was obvious that the "good" use would be limited and by far exceeded by the "bad" use. Current AI hype train is leading me in the same direction as nothing has quite lived up to what's printed on the tin. It just has that same icky pump&dump feel. At least AI has a some products that have a wider range of use than crypto
It’s pretty damn accurate in my case.