Ask Lemmy

Yes, at some point there will likely be a change you don’t follow. Then you’re stuck

My grandfather was an electrical engineer. Very comfortable with technology. Built TVs and ham radios for fun, fixed people’s appliances on the side. He helped build the first TV station in Baltimore. After he retired, he built one of the first TV stations in San Salvador. His thing was power electronics and I could never keep up with all the facts, the formulas and math, the circuit architecture that just poured out of him at will. A very impressive guy.

Then as a summer project, he helped my brother build an amplifier so we had great music …… and realized his thing was transistors. So much technical skill, knowledge, interest, that didn’t make the jump from vacuum tubes to transistors.

We’re all thinking computers, since that’s what we do, but technology is so much more. Think of car guys. Huge, impressive, emotional technology that changed the world. But a lot of them got left behind with ignition electronics, more efficient engine design, exotic alloys. Think how many will be left behind as we transition to EVs. We’re no different

To all you guys bragging about which Linux you use, let me tell you about my lord and savior: cloud computing. Will that be the jump you can’t make?

Probably not but social media trends have got me fucked.

Some probably will be, but others might be geniuses.

It's actually the same today there are older people who are tech geniuses (ever heard of the GNU foundation) and there are also others who might not even know how to use a pay terminal.

It all has to do with their exposure to the technology, what they use it for, and how much they use it. The thing is though just because of technology is around while somebody is growing up in that generation doesn't mean that they have experience with it, a person could have grown up during the technological boom of the late 90s and not know anything about computers because they never had one.

So some people who grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are going to be very good with computers because they will have had a lot of experience with them and the problem solving needed to operate systems back then. Though other people who may have grown up in the same time probably don't have those skills because they never had experience with computers due to the circumstances they grew up.

So it's not necessarily a yes or no question it's really based on whether or not they have experience and interest to learn. Though also it will depend on how many of them are willing to change with the times. Though with the direction that technology is going towards more mobile simplified interfaces it might not necessarily be not understanding it might be more not wanting to adopt that style. Which I can totally get behind in my opinion.

Some new tech thing will come along for us to not understand.

I already am.