This is not a behaviour that is justifiably emulated. These people can afford to ignore all technology for the foreseeable future and are shielded by their fortunes. It is stupid to think that disconnecting kids from technology in their formative years is good because Gates does.
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No, they aren't. They are inculcating them in an isolationist elitist culture and implying that the technology that often *governs* the lives of normal people—but not them—is a danger during the kids' formative years.
Most "tech", especially social media, is a danger during formative years. It teaches radically low time preference, prevents children from learning how to plan ahead & think through things. I wasn't raised that way. Nobody successful has ever been raised that way, AFAIK.
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I know you are stating that "tech" is not "social media"—and that is exactly my point. The article states those kids are strictly limited from technology and "electronic devices." Poor people simply don't have the option to be luddites. Every advantage must be seized.
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Letting social or mass media babysit your kids is very far from giving them an advantage, however much it may well make the parents' lives much easier.
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I think maybe demanding a poor family's resources and capacity for time and attention be stretched so far is unrealistic. My only point is that what is appropriate for a billionaire family is inappropriate for a poor one—and will certainly not lead kids to being billionaires.
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Farmers living in the Midwest in the late 19th century had tons of kids and got along with no electricity whatsoever, much less electronic gizmos and the internet. A few of those kids became e.g. Henry Ford.
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It’s still not a good idea to lionize what paranoid billionaires who refuse to treat their own cancers and neglect their children do. Those kids who can breathe technology like air and drink it like water, as Dijkstra implied, will be prepared. Hackers don’t appear in a vacuum.
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My mom was an accountant who brought home for us her work accounting machine, an Apple II with BASIC programming right when boot up. If you get that for your kids rather than an internet-and-mass-media box I couldn't recommend it more. But that's not what they sell these days.
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My dad used to bring home his BBC election in the mid 80's. This is where first learned to write BASIC.
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@jimmysong has been talking about cutting things out of your life to increase your time for self improvement. I cut out television in 1999 and the benefits in my life have been all but immeasurable. Most people I know who still watch television have debt &/or no savings.
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Annoyingly proofreading your MOST EXCELLENT point, I think you mean “radically high time preference”
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I have children too and I agree with you and Nick on this. My children are happiest being read to, wrestling and at the park. Sadly the park is all but completely devoid of other children most days. Distraction is increasingly a sign of the times in the age of information.
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My generation was the last to start childhood without “tech”. So very happy for those summer days lost in sierras.
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It would be nice to have better tools for filtering out attention-grabbing content, and scheduling useful educational material. The internet is full of incredibly useful information, but it's easy to be distracted by simply consuming and not using it with a goal in mind.
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