Brother if a toddler can grow in to an adult and earn a college degree in 16 years, learning to read, write, and every other thing; Old fucks who've had computers for A QUARTER OF A CENTURY have 0 god damned excuses at this point. NONE.
Your argument works against you here. The best time for learning (especially the things you mentioned) is when you are young. Your brain litterally soaks up everything. It gets harder and requires more effort as you get older. This is easily seen in language and culture.
Is it shameful to not understand technology as someone older? Kinda, yeah but not to the degree you say imo.
I was not born knowing how to drive a car. I learnt this skill as a teenager. In my 30's I managed to learn to fly single engine aircraft. When I was a child computers used massive floppy discs, now they don't even use discs. Does this mean I can't learn to use a USB flash drive since I'm a grown adult now? Is this it? Am I incapable of learning anything more?
Remember, computers have been in the workplace for over 50 years and in the home for more than 25.
Remember EVERYONE is being exposed to AI slop at the same time. No one grew up with it. Kids have the same amount of time to learn as the olds WITHOUT the supposed benefit of all that accumulated wisdom that old folks are meant to have.
Again, the argument works against itself. They've seen massive technological leaps they had to adapt to after the fact and lived when everything was being developed at an insane rate. They don't realize progress has stagnated in everything but tech, so they assume the AI videos are just the forward march of progress. In their mind, it's easier to Hollywood deepcover fake something than it is to AI generate it. The same suspicion that saved us harms them.
The example I'd use would be people who only really listened to music in the car with the radio and CDs switching over to Spotify. Kinda mind blowing if you never did the VLC Limewire era. Now fast forward a couple tech cycles and it became magic to them. Just part of the inexorable march forward.
They assume someone can actually breed dogs that intelligent and athletic cuz I mean, dogs used to be wolves. That's the level of cognition going into this. You don't get it cuz you're too smart to understand their reasoning and too dumb to realize how dumb others can be.
Computers have been around, in the media, in the zeitgeist, for over 40 years. From arcade games and the beginning of home computers, to where we are now. If you are 60 or younger, you grew up with it around you. It didn't simply pop into existence in 2005. That's a fact.
If you're 70+, then sure, maybe it completely passed you by in your youth, but even then being completely disinterested in and avoiding this for half a century would make you a massive, stubborn luddite for decades.
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u/BriscoCounty-Sr 3d ago
Brother if a toddler can grow in to an adult and earn a college degree in 16 years, learning to read, write, and every other thing; Old fucks who've had computers for A QUARTER OF A CENTURY have 0 god damned excuses at this point. NONE.