Out of Pod Experience

I read this and the first thing that popped into my head was how risk averse EVE players generally are. I wonder if the trend in this article is one of the core reasons. Armchair sociology :)

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/09/children-who-never-play

These people need order and direction.

A world where everyone is a winner,
because everyone knows what to do,
when to do it and how to do it.

And they will love this, because it makes them feel safe.

So, now, with these people ...
... all it needs is an eveent that shatters their world ...
... and they will scream for a Big Brother ...
... to provide them with protection, supervision and direction.

The perfect citizens for a policed state.

hm my first thought reading the title was all those children without an access to a PC...

An interesting read, thanks OP. Long ago, American students used to do naive, impractical things such as majoring in history, literature, rhetoric, linguistics, psychology, sociology, archaeology, anthropology, entomology, ethology, egyptology, or library science. Apparently, our society did not value the knowledge they gained all that much. The invisible hand that guides economic distributions according to their comparative utility... well, it didn't guide much their way. Those egyptologists and ethologists were guided into more economically productive areas of effort, such as primary school teaching, legal services, Internal Revenue Service records administration, and local bank industry customer service management.

Similarly, more mathematically-oriented students majoring in such things as pure mathematics, game theory, or astrophysics were guided into a more economically productive and efficient area of endeavor. Namely, IT.

An any event, I'd guess that most of those former students have by now learned a little about the economic market forces that permeate our current society. Likewise, their children have learned about which of their classmates got a PS4 on the first month, which still don't have one, and yet, and what their respective parents' positions in the U.S. economic system. Which, naturally, makes a child wonder about comparative strategies and preparations.

In that situation, only an outlier kid would not be risk averse. The strategy as an organism only points toward doing what is needed to maximize RL ISK. Anything else only produces a disadvantage, compared to all of your peers. Taking risks is only for outliers, such as spacey hippies and punks destined to be in forever trouble and poor. Unless they can get above it and become our poets-- the superstar musicians, models, athletes and actors.

Anyway, thought it was a good essay for provoking some thoughts. Is our culture so tight and darwinistic that a kid doesn't feel free enough to take a personal risk?

There's 2 main reasons for this;

1) our educational system doesn't at all reward or adhere to critical thinking, all it does is reward people who are capable of being assimilated into the system


2) for decades now "everyone" is special and "everyone" should get a degree in business or stuff like that. "basic" stuff like engineering, production, construction and similar things (you know, the people who actually create and contribute to society) are looked down upon. Because of that kids who aren't really good at all this business stuff but are really good at actually making things happen (and there's nothing wrong with that, at all, not even slightly) are funnelled into the wrong studies, where they don't belong.