alt Hacker News> the juniors who start today don't have that, they overrely on agentic coding and do not know what they don't know
Y'all need to stop worrying about the kids.
They're smarter than us and will run circles around us.
They're going to look at us like dinosaurs and they're going to solve problems of scale and scope 10x or more than what we ever did.
Hate to "old man yells at cloud" this, but so many people are falling into the trap because of personal biases.
While the fear that "smartphones might make kids less computer literate" is true, that's because PCs are not as necessary as they once were. The kids that turn into engineers are fine and are every bit as capable.
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Was not a IQ decline observed for the first time recently? Also, no one gets smarter by outsourcing thinking.
Not really.
For example preliterate people have absolutely insane memory. In comparison my memory sucks. Having to use notes, look things up etc sucks. Literacy is a tradeoff but at least it can be argued to be worth it.
Then there is smartphones. This is not the same. The tradeoffs compared to pre smartphones cannot be argued to be worth it imo and I was 20 years old when they were introduced. They make society and lives worse. It's not just about not being able to use PC but your attention and social skills sucking.
Then there is AI which is even worse than smartphones. The tradeoffs are so unthinkably bad I can't really even describe it.