Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

I don't know why you're dodging my question or concerns, here; they're critical to what you're saying now. I don't think anyone is in a good position to evaluate a "good" or "bad" use of time if they think they're merely caught in inescapable evolutionary loops.

Learning to fish (on YouTube) is obviously a good use of time if it puts needed food on the table. That’s a sound metric. Adults are more motivated to minimise regret; kids less so, but both can be hacked

What's a sound metric? Roughly what percentage of people who have regular access to youtube will ever fish because they won't be able to eat otherwise? If I don't learn to fish, what are the odds I will go hungry as the result?

More importantly, is there room for childhood at all in a world where the worthiness of any person's activities is evaluated on their potential to meet a plausible future need, however unlikely?

I understand your concern, but I think we can make judgements that still allow huge scope for freedom: that making a TikTok with friends is better than an hour of following recommended links on YouTube by yourself, for example

I can imagine plenty of cases where the latter is "worse" on my terms than the former, the former "worse" than the latter, and neither/both worth the time. Rather than go neurotic over it, I do what I want to do within semi-reasonable bounds for health, safety & sustainability.

Yes, you're right. The problem parents face is how to keep their kids within those bounds. To maintain that it will just happen comes with a burden of proof, I think. But it sounds like we're in rough agreement on that

Parents regularly fail to keep their children within those bounds while excluding nearly all of their options for pursuing enjoyment. Case in point: the sheer number who literally give their prepubescent children amphetamines because a school administrator said they ought to.