Not sure what throwing coal in a furnace has to do with the mental exertion required to be a programmer, but maybe the point of being persistent makes sense.
It is very insulting to expect that the experience of working in a factory or mining environment will translate at all as skills necessary for programming.
It’s also very insulting to imply that all some group of people is likely doing all day is throwing heaps of coal into a furnace. Even most seemingly simple blue collar jobs are usually pretty detailed and complex in their own way.
Keep telling yourself that, and hire a mason to do some machining, or the machinist to do your hair, or the hair stylist to do your doctoring, or your doctor to do your roofing, or the roofer to do your stocking, or the stocker to do your books, or the bookkeeper to do your cooking, or the cook to do work on your car.
I assure you, human beings are not mere cogs. The sooner you divorce yourself from the notion, the better off you and any employees will be.
Thats the problem with todays workforce, everyone is a specialist now. Heck even Subway has "Sandwich Artists" now!
IMHO programming is even more specialized than most jobs, it requires constant learning to maintain a productive ability.
Eg. Before 2013 how many people were doing react native programming? How many people are writing Pascal code today?
BTW does anyone really believe Joe Biden is an athority on coding? He probably thinks a coder is a guy sending messages by tapping a CW Keyer!
I'm currently in the process of moving my family (including 6 kids) from a 1/3 acre lot in Utah (there really isn't much land here because it's a desert) to a 15-acre farm in Tennessee for these reasons exactly.
I went from a 1/4 lot in a city to a 12 acre lot in the country when I was around 8. My dad gave my brother and I a compass, taught us how to use it and encouraged us to roam the woods as a form of play/exploration. If we got lost, we ended up at the neighbors house a good 25 acres away and they would just call our parents to pick us up.
It was a bit of culture shock when I went to college and found out how restrictive other peers youth were.
So many things concerning about your comment. What is the difference between getting lost in a good movie, book, or game? There isn't much difference between having some friends over for settlers of catan vs a 40 minute game of Mario Party. I grew up with blue collar parents who did everything they could to steer me away from games and technology. It damaged my relationship with them and to be honest I still carry a degree of resentment.
Had my parents tried to harness my interest in games and technology and maybe looked into programs like these (https://www.lifewire.com/kids-programming-languages-4125938) then things might have been differently. Instead they did a great job of alienating me and forcing me to take interest in things that I had no interest in doing.
All things in moderation, a teaching which I would argue has much more value than trying fruitlessly to shelter your kid from things you have little to no understanding of. I can understand not letting your young kid play games with violence or shooting, or online games, but a household ban on video games isn't going to curb any interest your kids have in technology. My passion for games and technology is the sole reason for my success in life. Your son or daughter could take that interest in games into so many other fields. It could motivate them to master math, physics, or to pursue one of many STEM fields.
I don't have kids (yet) but I do understand the worry. Especially with more modern games-- they are designed to be addictive.
I'd have no problem letting my kid watch a movie they like because they'll probably watch it once, be done in 90 minutes, and move on. On the other hand, knowing how I can fall victim to 4 hours of YouTube without realizing makes me weary of letting my hypothetic future kids freely do so themselves too. These companies are optimizing for time spent and for fighting your self-control, which in a kid who is just developing his habits, I can only assume could potentially have negative consequences.
All things in moderation, I agree, but I can't blame parents for choosing to moderate certain things by simply disallowing them. CocaCola in moderation is not unhealthy, but I thank my parents for straight out forbidding it: it could've been a non issue, sure, but I also know plenty of people who crave a soda with every meal.
Correct, but to deny them an interest like that based on fear is a very narrow minded approach.
The fact that many parents are worried about their son or daughter playing video games but are fine with them playing contact sports speaks volumes about their priorities. As a society we need to focus on encouraging our kids to be comfortable with who they are and supporting their interests. Just because all you wanted to do was run outside and play from morning to sundown does not mean that's what your kid wants to do. I'm not saying giving your kid free reign to play xbox all day but plenty of games out there encourage problem solving and critical thinking (and teamwork) on a deeper level than a word problem about how many watermelons Janet can carry to her car ever will.
> plenty of games out there encourage problem solving and critical thinking (and teamwork) on a deeper level than a word problem about how many watermelons Janet can carry to her car ever will
This. My son has a particular interest in redstone circuits in Minecraft - elaborate sets of switches, pistons, trap doors, lighting, etc. It's quite remarkable to watch, especially when a friend gets involved to test it out and help tinker.
Man, we used to play outside from morning (dawn is really early in the summer) till lunch, then from after lunch till 9:30pm.
We lived in the country so we rode bikes, built tree forts, explored the woods.
We shot bows and arrows and ran around with pellet guns, took apart old lawnmowers that never got put back together, sorry... :-(
From thirteen on, I had little joe jobs pumping gas, washing cars watering plants at a nursery.
Later on I worked at a farm. I can still back up a forty foot trailer on a dime. I also learned to jury rig almost any mechanical thing, because equipment was always breaking down.
Replying to myself because I thought of more stuff.
Some kinds had mini bikes, when we were about eight, but my grandmother forbade me from riding one, but she did let me drive her car when I was about 12 to go visit my friends.
Also we'd go camping by this nice place near a waterfall with just two wool blankets. We'd take some cut hay from a nearby field to stuff under the first blanket and cover ourselves with the other.
I have a ten year old boy who plays Fortnite. I'm actually impressed with the quality of interactions he has with his friends when playing. They collaborate on strategies together and communicate effectively as a team, all while laughing uproariously and making memories together.
Yeah, Fortnite and Minecraft seem to lead to pretty positive interactions. Seeing 6-8 kids all in the same Minecraft world makes it pretty clear that there's just as much creativity and social stuff going on as, say, playing with Legos.
We don't permit passive stuff (YouTube) or the Skinner box games, but that's not because they're screens, it's because they're shit.
They even learn social competence for example when playing with random other people they talk about what characters there are, how you communicate with people effectively or give feedback/criticize effectively.
It may be hard and you may be viewed as "that weird restrictive parent that won't even let their kids play fortnite", but that doesn't make you wrong. Good stuff, glad parents like you are out there.
it doesn't necessarily make them right either; there's always a tradeoff. when I was a kid, I was allowed to spend as much time as I wanted on the computer (I dunno why lol), but I could only watch thirty minutes of TV/movies per day and my parents refused to get a console. my parents were always very conservative with what I was allowed to watch, so what little I could watch was 2-3 years behind what my median classmate was watching in maturity level. when I was 8/9, all my classmates were obsessed with james bond. I asked my dad when I could watch james bond too and he said "maybe when you're 14". I know my parents had good intentions, but it meant that I couldn't really participate in most of the conversations my classmates had at school. I essentially lived in a culture shifted back several years. it was extremely isolating. on the other hand, I did get real good with computers and make a good living from coding now.
Apparently it's more of a "place" than a "game", so your kids are going to be left out if all of their friends are bonding and hanging out in the game.
My parents never bought me a video game console, and I'm actually very grateful for that. I would play computer games occasionally but I was much more interested in learning QBASIC and making my own games, music, and animations. I also spent a lot of time outdoors with my friends and cousins, building treehouses and riding bikes, etc.
Video game consoles weren't connected to the internet, and I was an only child, so I would have just been playing single-player games by myself. That would have been boring and a bit lonely, so maybe that's why I don't really like games. But it was always fun to go to a friend's house and play Super Smash Bros, GoldenEye 007, Crash Bandicoot, etc.
I think you should reconsider the blanket ban on video games, because Minecraft and Fortnite can be very social activities. Maybe have a time limit of an hour per day.
Maybe you're just being sarcastic with the reinstitution of slavery remark?
If not, I'm interested in knowing how the idea of promoting racism and slavery could be connected to anything in this article.
I'm the author of this article on homeschooling, and I don't even recall having a thought about racism, slavery, etc. while writing the article.
If the idea is that anyone who respects and reveres the Founding Fathers must be racist, I don't see the connection, although I have seen enough revisionist historical writings that falsely paint them in a poor light (including making all of them racists because they allowed slavery) to discredit the system they set up.
For some examples of how modern historians have changed our view of the Founders, I'd recommend reading "The Jefferson Lies" by David Barton.
Yes, I was being sarcastic, which is sort of bending the HN rules but: 1. I thought I had enough substance in my post to balance it out and 2. I didn't think it was a claim that showed any depth and was therefore worth responding to seriously. Haha I mostly responded for fun and to get my own thoughts in order. I thought it was so far down the HN rankings that even the original poster wouldn't read the response to his/her comment. Thanks for a great read! The subjects of the article are a real inspiration.
Edit: Well I guess you're the subject of the article so congratulations and I wish you and your family continued success.
