I've seen AI replacing a lot of jobs already in regulatory/consultancy business making billions. A lot of people producing paperwork for regulative etc purposes have been replaced by language models. My question – should this business really exist at all?
As someone old (60+) who was a teacher in school and thinking a lot about it:
- It's mostly a cultural shift in the western world – we don't value personal responsibility any more. When I was in school in seventies, it was my responsibility to study no matter what since grade 1. It didn't matter whether I liked a teacher, topic or whatever. It's not the case any more.
- Since nineties there has been a shift in educational sciences and practices from "old school" memorizing as "rote learning" and explicit instruction toward "critical thinking skills". Sounds nice for many, but in practice it doesn't work. Barb Oakley has a wonderful paper about it "The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI"[1].
- Smartphones, social media etc certainly contribute and the rise of LLMs will make it even worse.
I've related this story here before. I was a first year in physics grad school, and my professor told me he heard rumours of students telling each other memorising formulae was a waste of time, and that as a physicist one should just be good at deriving results. The professor scoffed at that and sardonically surmised that may be the person who said that was intentionally trying to stiffle their competition in the class. Memorisation while limited in some ways is a part of the whole in addition to creative and critical thinking. Without facts and ideas in your mind, you have nothing to think criticall about.
I grew up being told by my peers in school that memorising things was a waste of time and critical thinking was all that mattered. Now I use Anki to literally memorize programming language syntax and ideas and facts that are relevant to my job (like data structures and algorithms). I wish I'd valued memorization when I was in school, because it's such a foundational thing to have knowledge upon which to build everything else.
- memorising names and birthdates of relevant people - private life and work life
- anything I’m looking up more than ~5 times can go in Anki
- spelling of words I often misspell (eg bureaucracy)
- when reading anything technical I need for my work or study I have Anki open and type in what I learn in QnA format, and I will never forget it but have it easy within reach for an investment of only a few minutes per QnA over its (and my) life time
- just for fun, the cantons of Switzerland, landskap of Sweden, provinces of Canada, and states and capitals of the USA
- NATO phonetic alphabet which comes in useful more often that you’d think
Life-changingly useful program for every aspect of my life, when I can finish it every day
My top tips:
- put all decks in a master “daily” deck using the :: syntax in the deck names. Otherwise you feel “done” when having finished one deck, and feel like not starting the next. Have only one goal - finishing today’s Anki
- for that master deck (and every other deck) go Study Options > Display Order > New/review order > Show after reviews. Otherwise it’s hard to ever catch up when slipping behind. With this setting, the system becomes somewhat self correcting
My only regret is not being able to pay more than $25 to the developers
The way of getting those facts and ideas into your head can be very different, though.
You can either mechanically memorize them, which is a boring and mindless activity, or you can be challenged, participate in discussions, projects, and activities that engage the parts of your brain involved with critical thinking.
Both will technically get you to pass a test, but the latter will be better for retaining information, while developing skills and neural pathways that make future learning easier.
The problem is that most academia is based on the memorization approach. Here are a bunch of ideas and facts we think are important; get them into your head, and regurgitate them back at us later. This is not a system that creates knowledgeable people. It doesn't inspire or reward curiosity, creativity, or critical thinking. It's an on-rails pipeline that can get you a piece of paper that says you've been through it, which is enough to make you a tax-paying citizen employed by companies who expect the bare minimum as well.
I get that the alternative approach is more difficult to scale, and requires a more nuanced, qualitative, and personal process. But that's how learning works. It's unique for everyone, and can't be specified as a fixed set of steps.
After all, what is the point of teaching people to be idea and fact storing machines, if machines can do a far better job at that than us? Everyone today can tell you a random fact about the world in an instant by looking it up in a computer. That's great, but we should be training and rewarding people for things computers can't do.
Exactly. I'm not able to memorize multiplication tables or even listen to math lectures - I can't hold more than one or two numbers in my head before they start disappearing. However, I am capable of learning and using math to an advanced level, at least temporarily.
How? The way I think of numbers is actually quite similar to what is currently known as "new math". It's not taught well because almost no teacher was raised with it (and thus lack the ability to think in new math "natively"), but it is based on something real.
And creativity is often putting seemingly unrelated things together. If you don't have the required things floating around in your mind at the same time, it is not possible.
Personal responsibility, or lack thereof always seemed to me like one of these memes that are used to explain phenomena in a handwavy fashion.
Does anyone have any data points that could help me update my world model here?
I certainly feel personally responsible for things and so do many people that I know.
Additionally, it feels like people like to blame systemic issues on lack of personal responsibility in the general public, while ideally, elected officials should take personal responsibility for fixing the system.
No jard data, but from talking to teachers there was a shift sometime in the last few decades were parents got really aggressive towards teachers when they should have been aggressive towards their children. This idea that their kids were no longer accountable and that poor performance or discipline had to be the fault of the teachers.
Your first point is a favorite of a lot of people, but doesn’t make a lot of sense to me: how is your generation with the ostensibly correct culture producing a generation with the wrong culture?
Parents are apparently raising their children wrong en masse, so was the parents’ generation rotten too? Which raises questions about the character of the generation that raised the parents…
I think social norms in child rearing have changed drastically, though I think, at least in my neighborhood, they are swinging back.
Growing up in the 80s, I remember having a lot of free time and autonomy. I had soccer or baseballaybe twice a week and guitar lessons once a week, but the other days, I was doing what I wanted, I was expected to get my homework done, but once that was done,I was free to roam the neighborhood or my backyard.
This parenting mindset changed, by the late 80s early 90s and kids started getting more and more scheduled activities and less free time.
Even personally, 6 years ago my wife was very apprehensive about letting our oldest who was then 8, walk to his friend's house who was a 1/4 mile away in the neighborhood. Our youngest, who is 7, walks or bikes to his friend's house the same distance away. And we have other neighborhood kids that also go between people houses. That is the childhood I remember.
I don't think HW I got in elementary school necessarily helped me learn more, but the act of being given work with expectation that I would complete it on my own was a growth activity for me, and that is something that is starting to come back in elementary school, homework for the sake of learning how to do homework.
I think this just kinda sounds like a retroactive rationalization if I’m honest. Imagine if the order was reversed: if you had filled your childhood with mandatory activities and todays kids were mostly left to do what they want.
Wouldn’t you just say “When I was young we were forced to adhere to a tight schedule which taught us to be dependable. Todays kids are allowed to do what they want, which means they never learn any responsibility.”
Unfortunately, I don't think we can every really go back.
It wasn't just that kids had autonomy, it's that they also needed to take the initiative to fight boredom and go do something.
Let's say that you give kids today all that autonomy to wander around their neighborhood and explore like they did back in the day -- would they wander and explore, or would they stare at their phones?
And to be clear -- this isn't the kids fault. We've let social media companies peddle their addictive slop and they've eradicated boredom, but it came at the expense of short attention spans, no motivation, no sense of fulfillment.
If parents could perfectly pass their culture down to their children, no religious country would ever turn secular. Gay marriage would never have been legalized. Black people would have no right to cast vote today.
All these things are not true in the real world, so the conclusion is that a generation doesn't copy the previous generation's culture like a spit image.
I don’t think you need to be able to clone yourself to raise a child with broadly similar values to yourself. My point is that I don’t think you can simultaneously argue that the older generations were raised in a way that was succesful at making them responsible individuals (in ways kids these days aren’t) and that that same generation is systematically failing at passing on responsibility to their children.
Which leads me to believe these generational differences in responsibility don’t really exist
I don’t think you need to be able to clone yourself to raise a child with broadly similar values to yourself. My point is that I don’t think you can simultaneously argue that the older generations were raised in a way that was succesful at making them religious individuals (in ways kids these days aren’t) and that that same generation is systematically failing at passing on religion to their children. Which leads me to believe these generational differences in religion don’t really exist
I think this also applies in the case of religion yeah, in the sense that many people who "fail" to pass on religion to their children were mostly just not actually that religious in the first place. So you've helped me reaffirm how consistent, smart and true my beliefs are.
Every cultural/policy/etc change in society has huge delays. Especially in education - changes you implement have an impact 10+ years later. Culture, even if it's dying, dies slowly. Here in Estonia where I live at the moment educational systems is falling completely apart – overworked and bullied teachers escape from schools in unprecedented rate, there is 20% less teachers than there is a need etc. But Estonia is still in top of the PISA. Why? Because this culture of personal responsibility and valuing education is still alive in the generation of todays parents. But it's certainly dying here as well.
When you were younger a much larger portion of the student body dropped out to work construction or drive truck, that's less of an option now.
We still rely on rote memorization to a greater degree than Finland which is consistently far more successful in their education.
I think the biggest problem with current education is that too many people like you are looking back with rose colored glasses and resisting the kinds of changes we actually need.
We have a crappy mix of outdated 1970s style education with a bunch of enshittified technology layered on top. Google classroom, we also spend too much time and money on sports. Schools shouldn't even be in the football business. CTE is bad for kids.
Similarly there's a bunch of talk of "source criticism" in Swedish schools, but when you look closer at what is actually taught it sounds more like conspiracy theory or dogma and never anything actually useful.
Imo source criticism is only a thing if you have a well grounded model of the universe. And if you DO have that, then source criticism just falls out naturally and you don't need to discuss that at all anyway.
Gotta say it: School was easier back then, the US was less populated. There was way more opportunity. Kids these days are treated like slaves stuck in child-jail.
I don't need to go into the traditional whining, I'm sure you are aware of the changes of the structure of America.
It's not about personal responsibility. There is a reason rich kids do better than poor kids.
The thing nobody wants to say out loud: America's demographics are changing, they are aging. We are producing less wealth. Our country has less potential.
The wealthy members of the past generation have failed to invest in the American project so we are left with a weak, crumbling economy that doesn't have any industry or useful skills to export.
It's not that bad in theory, but it's true that modern "no homework!", "no boring practice!" etc directions have done a lot of damage during last decades. But it answers quite well to common complaints why we are still learn to solve quadratic function in school although almost nobody uses it later in their lives? It's because quadratic function is a simplest way to lay a foundation to understand a tons of broad theoretical concepts about functions – turning points, zeros, decreasing, increasing, symmetry etc.
I'd generalize this even further. Math, especially higher level math, often turns into a sort of puzzle. And solving quadratic equations is the first step going from learning how to execute basic arithmetic to using it in the process of solving a puzzle.
The fact that these puzzles can then be used to do cool things is almost just a fortunate coincidence.
They absolutely can live in the constant congitive dissonance state. I did 30 years of my life. Many of us did. I know it's hard to believe for people living all their life in the free world, but constant congitive dissonance was just part of the reality for us.
As a teacher – excellent description, thank you. Just to add my experience to it – I was in school in seventies and had "40 years since graduating" meeting some years ago with my classmates. Vast majority were doing well and while we talked about old times in school, two things stood out. At first while we were in the same class, our experience was very different. We remembered very different things, different teachers were important to us up to the point where some of them were most loved ones to some, but most hated ones to others etc. But we all agreed that our homes were even more important for our education than school – from our homes (parents and grandparents) came the attitude that education is important and no matter what, it's our responsibility to study.
Thanks. I agree with your last statement. I don't have a college degree but work in a very advanced field- a result of many years of self study and practice. I credit this to my families culture and not something I picked up attending public schools- which I almost flunked out of.
They are over-represented everywhere. We live in society where being martyr is highly valued, others are not allowed to ignore it and set their boundaries. If you do, you are an asshole and have no empathy.
As a teacher I have become more skeptical about whole maker movement. Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate what has become possible. I couldn't even dream about most of it when I grew up in seventies in Soviet Union. I use a lot of open source hardware and the results maker movement myself as a hobbyist and as a teacher.
But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't translate to engineering careers. Kids don't want to become engineers as result, they want to become content creators, tinkerers etc. Even rather good students with a lot of potential see all this engineering stuff more as a media career or a fun hobby.
PS. I don't say the engineering hobby isn't cool and fun. I don't say that maker movement doesn't produce incredibly cool and deep stuff. I'm not even saying that it's the only reason why there is a shortage of engineers. But it's certainly contributing because I see it.
I'm a member of local engineering community and I see a lot of stuff like the quality of civil engineering sinking and we're all paying for mistakes in it. I see a lot of local production closing only because all R&D engineers are 60+ and planning to retire.
Is having more tinkerers or Bill Nye's really a bad thing?
From what I’ve seen at maker and science fairs, these events often attract students who feel overlooked in schools that heavily prioritize sports. How many schools have pristine football fields, while the physics teacher is spending money out of their own pocket to build hands-on experiment kits, just to show students that physics is more than what’s in a textbook? (That was the case for my dad)
These fairs open kids eyes to a broader world. One that celebrates creativity, problem-solving, and scientific curiosity.
Not every student needs to become an engineer. What matters is that they feel hopeful about the future and engaged in something positive, instead of turning to drugs or escapism.
This is depressingly common, and sadly the casualties usually don’t stop at STEM classes but include most other subjects too. I’m not going to say that sports aren’t important in their own right, but it really bums me out that other classes are so often getting neglected (and in some cases shuttered) in their favor.
In my hometown the football team never got lavish treatment (but I am aware of that problem in the midwest/south particularly), but what upset me so much was seeing the salaries paid to the school superintendents. In a modest CoL area, a school superintendent does not need to be making $600k+. There should be a salary cap on jobs like that because the extra money does not add value.
> In a modest CoL area, a school superintendent does not need to be making $600k+. There should be a salary cap on jobs like that because the extra money does not add value.
It's especially disgusting when you realize just how little teachers are paid. Where I live the superintendent makes ~$300k. Average teacher salary? $49k-$65k. This is a HCoL area too, you can't live on that.
As someone with family who used to be a teacher, yes their low compensation is infuriating, especially when speaking about those who deeply care about their work and its impact on kids. Their workload is high to start out with and only becomes that much greater when they go out of their way to make sure their classes are well attended to and prospering.
A couple of years ago I relized that games have become a religion for many young people. I have made legitimate critical comments about gaming that are resposponded to witb a viritol I only see matched by political flame wars. Its nearly a "taboo" subject for them to be critical of the game or industry.
Exactly, well said. Events like this -- and teachers like your dad! -- influence kids in ways that are even more important than career orientation. Not every student is going to become a scientist or engineer, but almost all of them will become taxpayers and voters.
Bill Nye was an aerospace mechanical engineer before he got into SciComm.
I think it's important that there be a path from tinkering into engineering, if the individual desires it, perhaps in addition to "just go to college."
It’s the end result of building a system of engagement over meaningful interaction. The more time spent watching ads disguised as content, the greater the profits.
The idea that a kid can't play without some tangible end goal of employment is what's gross. Not the activity, or the underlying discipline (engineering, in this case).
And after being exposed, deciding they enjoy it, but would rather make a living elsewhere -- does that mean the hobby was a failure?
There's nothing wrong with turning something into a career, but turning every action into career chasing is saddening. It's pretty gross to leave kids thinking they can't just enjoy something without juicing it for cash.
> And after being exposed, deciding they enjoy it, but would rather make a living elsewhere -- does that mean the hobby was a failure?
If they try a hobby for a while and give up on it because they don't enjoy it enough, then yes. That seems like a reasonable definition for "failure."
Nothing wrong with failing - in your career, hobbies, relationships, or whatever else. Sometimes EQ means recognizing that you should stop beating a dead horse.
Yes, and us adults also struggle with this. Look at hustle culture where every hobby is turned into some money making side gig. You like painting? Why isn’t your art on Etsy? Like working out? Become a personal trainer. Make an app for yourself / friends? How you going to monetize or add ads? It’s okay to enjoy hobbies without a profit seeking motive.
You missed the point, it has nothing to do with careers specifically. It’s that it doesn’t encourage engineering at all, which is why it doesn’t result in engineering careers.
I suppose you're right. And in a similar vein, the problem with toasting s'mores around a campfire is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't necessarily translate to park ranger careers.
We should really reform camping to optimize the career funnel.
Not op but I interpreted the gross part to be the idea engineering is the end all be all of careers and more importantly can't simply just be a creative outlet for some folks.
they are saying the idea that any get-together should be a working formula mostly for preparing kids for work instead of being who they want to be, is gross. I mostly agree.
If everything on show at open sauce were those stupid 3D printed dragons I'd agree with you. But the maker movement is massive and interesting and goes very very deep.
You can self-learn as much about engineering as you'd learn at university. Most kids eventually pivot from wanting to be astronauts/influencers to something more realistic.
IMO tinkering is an amazing hobby which will benefit you in whatever direction your career ends up going in.
> But the problem is that while kids like it a lot, it doesn't translate to engineering careers.
I think there has always been that though. When having a guitar was cool and people thought they'd be famous doing it. Of course 0.00001% actually managed it, but some craft out a career in music or related areas such as being studio engineers etc. (I did)
And for some it shows that it is possible, that people like them can be enabled and make their own stuff.
It might be that they're are organisations needed to bridge this new gap and get people into more formal engineering, but they'll also hopefully realise that people like them might work one day at top tier engineering companies.
I don't think the fact that you can make fairly serious mechatronic devices with pocket money can conceivably be a bad thing for engineering as a discipline. However this does mean there are a lot of people that own a 3d printer that will never be good engineers.
I think 98% of 3D printers go towards printing trinkets for organization and figurines.
But I'm glad to be able to get into a 3D printer for an affordable price to do the other things. Probably wouldn't have happened without the mass(ish) market adoption.
Oh absolutely, I flatter myself to think I use them for "serious engineering", and I am well aware of my debt to Warhammer players who don't want to pay Games Workshop prices.
Parents don't usually send kids to those things with some grand career plan for them in mind, but to occupy the offspring with something that isn't cartoons. Finding what they want to do in life via such activities is just a bonus.
Meanwhile the shortage of engineers is actually a shortage of everyone, as demographics shifted towards there being fewer children overall.
Regarding solutions all eyes should now be on Japan, as they're a harbinger state - crises they have tend to repeat elsewhere - and they have had this problem for decades now.
The maker world I’m familiar with is basically split into two divisions:
There are the people who like building things, and the people who like making content.
Some people check both boxes, but in practice the people who like building things the most aren’t spending time grinding the YouTube game with clickbait thumbnails and constant self promotion.
So like many domains, the part you see on YouTube isn’t representative of the movement as a whole. It captures the people who like entertaining and making videos the most.
That's why I loved just walking around at Open Sauce. I talked to a guy who reverse engineered the Pi Zero 2 PCB and then put its SoC onto a Pico-compatible board. He probably won't have a YouTube channel ever, but this event brings that all together.
Kids don't have to like the things you want them to like. They lead their own lives, so long as it's mostly fulfilling and happy, what's the problem? Don't be the figurative parent who tells their kids what job they should get.
If they really like building stuff like this they can get a career that does it, like Embedded Engineer or Firmware Engineer type roles. And if it's just a hobby that's great too.
I'm not sure about the media part, is it because of Youtubers? If so that sounds like wanting to become the modern version of a movie star. In that situation maybe encourage them to do a multimedia class at school and see if they like it.
I've had a different experience. It probably has to do with my emotional makeup.
I really like engineering; especially the delivery part. That's where I give the results of my work to others, and they use it. It's been that way, since I was a kid.
The delivery part means there's a fairly significant amount of "not fun" stuff, like Quality Assurance, Documentation, and Support.
I don't especially like that part, but the end goal has always made it worth it.
It's been my experience that companies like to pay for the delivery part. For some reason, delivery is important to them.
I'm also "on the spectrum," so process and repetition have always been something I can dig. I find comfort in structure and Discipline, which, in my opinion, are required elements of "engineering," as opposed to "coding."
the intertwining of entertainment or fun with learning is a problem because it teaches kids that if something isn't fun it isn't for them, the "infotainment science" genre that's very common these days I suspect is detrimental to people pursuing STEM the moment they encounter what those disciplines are like.
Neil Postman used to make this point about TV politics and children's TV. Because TV as a medium must be show business, people were taught that if it isn't show business it isn't politics. When kids got spelling lessons on Sesame Street they weren't taught to learn languages but learning how to watch TV.
If teaching kids how build things doesn't encourage them to become engineers, what does?
If you're taking about attention grabbing Youtuber-engineers, I think that is very different than the makerspace movement that gives people access to CNC machines/3D printers/welders without a person needing to personally own a CNC machine/3D printer/welder.
All of the greatest engineers I know spent their childhood playing with legos, hot glue, solding irons, and hobby rocket kits.
Is there stats to back this up? I imagine not every kid who watches these creators becomes an engineer, but do more become engineers than non watchers? Or less? I’d be willing to bet more do, even if it’s still not a huge majority. I mean anecdotally I know a lot of engineer friends of mine who like these creators too. I’m a professional software engineer now after watching some of these people when I was younger and being involved in my high schools robotics team. I went to open sauce and saw a bunch of local robotics teams there too. Again maybe they won’t all be engineers but I’m sure more will than the average
Or may be education should be more dynamic, engaging, and interactive, instead of having lowest paid teacher jobs, with overcrowded classes, heavenly focused on boring memorization (without clear purpose), and boring tests.
I don't think getting more kids to want an engineering career is going to improve civil engineering. Lots of people joined the software workforce and the result wasn't better software.
I never payed attention to maker youtubers as a young adult.
What changed everything for me was visiting a hackerspace and getting my own hands dirty making things. I got so distracted making things in the 15 years since that I have never have time to make content to share what I learned. Always more things to build or fix.
Totally the opposite problem to what you describe!
Maybe we should focus more on exposing people to making things in workshops, and communities, rather than content.
I would argue that it does turn more people onto engineering paths and will result in more engineers. But it could just be a cool hobby! Does every person who is interested in cooking become a chef? Every person who is into sports become an athlete? Music a musician?
With tech becoming more prevalent, people making more things and people repairing more things, I think it's an overall good thing. Also if they become content creators, then so what?
Yeah, another side effect is management types are now allergic to things which look like maker projects, even if done with a level of professional engineering seriousness - they are unable to distinguish between the two, so now they dismiss both.
This has been a factor in the slowdown of commercial IoT, as it is often dismissed as science fair stuff.
> Kids don't want to become engineers as result, they want to become content creators, tinkerers etc. Even rather good students with a lot of potential see all this engineering stuff more as a media career or a fun hobby.
Well, let's see, would you rather make your money slaving away in some corporation for absurdly low pay, or pointing a cellphone camera at yourself and attracting an audience of worshippers that could make you squillions with the right sponsorships?
The problem isn't the maker movement; it's the broader problem that "influencer" is the new "rapper". Everybody thinks they can do it, and the younger generations are so much disproportionately sicker with main-character syndrome that they think they deserve the fame and riches of the best and luckiest, even though the Cool Career Pigeonhole Principle says they probably won't get it.
I mean, ultimately, you gotta love the work itself, otherwise why bother. I love game development, but I know I'm never gonna be John Carmack, or even John Romero. I keep doing it for the satisfaction I get from doing the work. Maybe the maker community needs to emphasize that aspect more to counteract influenceritis. Or maybe we need to instill more of a sense of duty and responsibility in our young people, so that the smarter ones will step up and take on engineering jobs out of a sense of service to our civilization.
With narcissism being the defining characteristic of society in the USA, going into the highest reaches of power here, I don't know that that will be possible for a while yet.
1. Not true in the slightest; you even contradict yourself. Engineering interests absolutely do grow from it like you said, and you will never get someone doing good work in an engineering career without a prior interest.
2. Life is not a career. Even just fostering an interest in something creative is invaluable on its own. Perceiving something as harmful because it isn't corporate enough for your tastes makes me extremely sad for you.
I encourage people to learn to program especially if they aren't pursuing a software engineering career. Someone that knows a specific domain that can see it through the lens of an expert at another will understand their domain in a way many others cannot. They will be able to break down problems into a collection of manageable chunks. They will learn valuable lessons that show up when you begin to intimately think your way through specific problems.
People may start out with the idea that they can be content creators. They'll have to go through several steps from planning, iteration, implementation, analyzing success or failure, etc.
I wanted to make video games as a kid. Then it was being a pro gamer. And then it was physics. And then it was linguistics. And now I'm rounding out the end of a software engineering career. I didn't know how to program, and I wasn't particularly mathematically inclined. This led me down several paths all around the idea of generally being a better user of technology.
One of the most seemingly random and yet greatest contributions to my path in life was playing EvE Online. I learned logistics, collaboration, tactics, strategy, spycraft, improvisation, mental fortitude, and even how to administrate LDAP servers. In no way was this a pursuit toward an engineering career.
I'm also a lifelong musician, but there was a significant pause through my twenties due to lack of means. Now that I'm a programmer, I've been able to intuitively command my knowledge of music theory because it's systematic and documented thoroughly.
Learning to play Counter Strike taught me how technique and approach is just as important as mechanical skill. I can specifically recall a tutorial regarding instantly headshotting someone as you round a corner without the need to flick your mouse. You simply anchor your crosshairs to the corner your pivoting around, place it at head height, and click when you see a head. This is an extremely valuable lesson in abstract.
Learning to play Street Fighter competitively was informed by my experience with learning instruments and specifically key components of Jazz. Improvisation, syncopation, consistency, timing, and training the other person to expect one thing and immediately subvert that expectation all translated well.
I am a champion-ranked Rocket League player. To me, my car is an instrument. I practice it like I practice any mechanical skill that I want to make second nature. Repetition, technique refinement and acquisition, control, and composition of all skills simultaneously are shared between these two things. Because of Street Fighter, I also approach it as a fighting game. Attacking your opponent's mental stack is key to high level success in the same way.
David Sirlin's "Play to Win" taught me the value of removing artificial constraints. I seek to explore the bounds of any problem space to their fullest extent and use that knowledge to exploit opportunities without changing the space I'm in. This is a book about applying Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to Street Fighter and not directly abstract in the least.
Factorio is a common programmer obsession. Because of this game, I have an intuitive mental model of algorithms and data structures, separation of concerns, fault tolerance, and how different parts of any system interact. It's not abstract math in my head- it's Factorio.
My father started his career as a draftsman for oil companies, and his command over his hands has always inspired me. Reading "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" showed me that I could engage abstract thought at will. This would come up later when I read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I was able to draw connections between artistic pseudo science and an intellectual understanding of different modes of thought.
I am a veteran. My job was being a Crypto Linguist. My experience in the military taught me the value of motivation, rigor, and discipline. I failed basic Spanish multiple times in high school and yet could dream in Korean with the right environment supporting me. These skills and lessons are key to becoming an expert at anything.
I dismantle opponents in Rocket League by applying mental stack management from Street Fighter, tactical prowess from EvE, discipline and motivation from the military, acquisition of mechanical skill from learning instruments, and exploitation of existing mechanics from "Play to Win". Nearly everything I've learned has created a rich tapestry of thought that I pull from.
I am now a successful, specialized software engineer with a long career. I stumbled into this, and I've never been able to succeed with formal higher education. I attended several high schools, often switching mid-semester. This destroyed my ability to get the ball rolling in mathematics. I could write a compiler before I truly understood what math was. Everything from my childhood acted as the foundation for where I am today- even if it was "pointlessly" meandering my way through trying to make a video game, a better MySpace page, process diagrams, drawing, setting up Linux, audio engineering, etc.
People don't take a direct path to their dreams. They evolve and their former experiences inform their future goals, choices, and opportunities.
This is a great post and you made a compelling argument. But I think it's important to remember that for every case like yours, there's another person who became a directionless failure who spends his days lazing about and mooching off those around him. I think that parents are reasonable for being afraid that their kids will go down the failure path rather than your success path, because there's no way to know up front which branch they will take.
In seventies when I was in school (yes, I'm old) I had a classmate who wasn't able to recognize faces. We all knew that it's a thing, accepted, that he can make errors recognizing us and didn't think much more about it. I certainly remember reading about it as well.
