"kids these days" (now longer and trollier!)
Oh my God am I ever sick of self-satisfied techies propagating their own brand of mythology about the lumpenproletariat* -- (you know, the class of people who they don't identify as techies) -- getting dumber in every generation. None of it is ever backed up with as much as anecdata let alone fact. It's as false today as it was for Hesiod. It's as false as the right-wing mythology of moral decay.
Let's recap this instance of the myth.
1. Long ago, you found yourself intrigued by a some Things, and learned all you could about the practice of Thingology, even beyond what is generally necessary and useful to learn.
2. You came to appreciate the beauty of Thingology, and even found it useful in your life. Some of what you learned even helped you in future specialist careers.
3. Later on, technology came to do some of what may have required some esoteric training in Thingology to so. (or, you know, people not versed in Thingology just muddled through anyway...)
4. People at both the ignorant and hypercompetent extremes of Thingology came to appreciate its partial automation. And among all the other things you had your attention on, you took on this automation, and so found yourself getting rusty on the inner aspects of Things.
5. ?????
6. THINGOLOGY WILL DIE!
So far as I can tell the only piece that fits into ??? and makes the myth have any kind of logical coherence is, "other people are lazy like me, but other people are not motivated to learn like me. I am the representative of all possible Interest in Things."
PRIVILEGE CHECK MOTHERFUCKERS. Yeah, I know, you define yourselves as a tiny minority that is the only kind of people who are ever motivated to learn a thing, and this is essential to your identities as "geeks." Bleah.
*oh jesus christ that word is a direct quote.
come to think of it this is a lot of the reason why I don't enjoy Neal Stephenson any more.
Let's recap this instance of the myth.
1. Long ago, you found yourself intrigued by a some Things, and learned all you could about the practice of Thingology, even beyond what is generally necessary and useful to learn.
2. You came to appreciate the beauty of Thingology, and even found it useful in your life. Some of what you learned even helped you in future specialist careers.
3. Later on, technology came to do some of what may have required some esoteric training in Thingology to so. (or, you know, people not versed in Thingology just muddled through anyway...)
4. People at both the ignorant and hypercompetent extremes of Thingology came to appreciate its partial automation. And among all the other things you had your attention on, you took on this automation, and so found yourself getting rusty on the inner aspects of Things.
5. ?????
6. THINGOLOGY WILL DIE!
So far as I can tell the only piece that fits into ??? and makes the myth have any kind of logical coherence is, "other people are lazy like me, but other people are not motivated to learn like me. I am the representative of all possible Interest in Things."
PRIVILEGE CHECK MOTHERFUCKERS. Yeah, I know, you define yourselves as a tiny minority that is the only kind of people who are ever motivated to learn a thing, and this is essential to your identities as "geeks." Bleah.
*oh jesus christ that word is a direct quote.
come to think of it this is a lot of the reason why I don't enjoy Neal Stephenson any more.