The Rise Of The 15-Year-Olds

Adolescents thundered onto the Net over a decade ago, and the place has never been the same, for better or worse (both, really). Are brilliant 15-year-old computer geeks running the world, upending existing institutions? Does it matter that childhood sometimes ends when computers arrive? Some have argued that geeks and nerds are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders, as clueless, hostile and incompetent. Author Michael Lewis thinks so, and he think it's great. (First in a series.)

Lewis' latest book, Next: The Future Just Happened, is getting some enthusiastic applause from the popular media, whose binary view of the Net holds that it's either destroying the world or changing everything in it. In a similiar vein, Time asks in its cover this week "Do Kids Have Too Much Power?" The magazine, along with many so-called experts, seems to think so, and cyberspace is a big reason why. There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here.

Lewis argues that the Net has spawned a great status revolution, one that especially affects the technologically skilled young. The insiders are now out, and the outsiders in; high school sophomores and juniors are in charge and the people who have always run things are doomed and irrelevant. Lewis sees one powerful institution after another, from Wall Street to the music industry to the legal profession, being transmongrified by kids who, thanks to the Net, can do for free what many professionals have been charging tons of money for.

Kids, with sophisticated technology skills and more time on their hands than almost any other segment of the population, are fighting to get hold of traditionally proprietary (thus valuable) information. It's giving lawyers and corporations fits. Companies wonder how they can possibly survive as new media technologies -- open source among them -- make information cheaper and more available.

Is this a revolution, and is it really upon us?

To make his case, Lewis visits a series of casually-dressed, informally-educated teenagers in the U.S. and England, including the celebrated Jonathan Lebed of Cedar Grove, N.J., who rocked Wall Street and the SEC by turning himself into a master online stock manipulator in a few short months, though that's supposed to take years of high-intensity experience and training. Lewis also profiles Marcus Arnold of Perris, Calif., who joined the knowledge-sharing Web site AskMe and shortly become its most popular legal expert, dispensing wisdom he gleaned from many hours of Court TV watching, humiliating attorneys everywhere.

These kids, says Lewis, are destroying the "old priesthoods" of lawyers, investment gurus, academics and CEO's. Technology has "put afterburners on the egalitarian notion that anyone-can-do-anything, by enabling pretty much anyone to try anything -- especially in fields in which 'expertise' had always been a dubious proposition. Amateur book critics published their reviews on Amazon; amateur filmmakers posted their works directly onto the Internet; amateur journalists scooped the world's most powerful newspaper."

In my opinion, Lewis stumbles badly here. It's true that amateurs have gained access to fields once closed. But how many best-selling books are propelled by Amazon reviews? And who did Jonathan Lebed's parents call when he got into trouble -- Marcus Arnold or a criminal attorney who'd passed the bar exam?

The idea that anybody can become an instant expert at any age in any context is pretty creepy. It doesn't even apply to programming or Web design, let alone law or finance. Besides, expertise isn't power. Publishing houses, bar associations and medical groups still wield enormous influence, not only over their respective fields but with with regulatory agencies and, viat hordes of lobbyists, with lawmakers. Entrenched insiders have great win-loss stats.

Lewis believes such insiders are as irrelevant as the czars. What they know isn't so important, and it's obviously been over-priced.

But like much of the media, he focuses on the exceptions more than the rule. Most 15-year-olds on the Net are not making millions or dispensing legal advice; they're gaming, coding, downloading music, talking to their friends, surfing. You will never hear most of their names on the news. It's true that younger people now have access to once-restricted enclaves like the stock market, and they are forcing institutions to change. But that isn't the same as overthrowing them.

It's the nature of media to focus on aberrations, which makes for good stories but poor social reality. When a plane crashes, the wreckage is on TV screens 'round the clock for days. But planes rarely crash.

Mr. Katz, here's what I'd like to see ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a follow up, perhaps a brief article about the geeks in your book? What's going on with Jesse? How is his friend Eric? Perhaps I missed it somewhere, but what better place to ask than here, eh?

It's a book I purchased and read with enthusiasm, and was impressed with. I was inspired to plan my own move and future in my education and career.
It's in the works, so to speak, but if all goes well, I'll get a higher paying job, and be moving next year after I get my degree.

It's kids who grasp technology and run with it to the future, right? So where has it taken the geeks, other than out of Idaho? What do these kids have to look forward to?

bah!

[room101]

Katz is correct. Who cares that a few teenagers post crap on the internet? I never buy a book based on some anonymous review on amazon.com. Anyone who asks legal advise on something like AskMe (or /. for that matter) is just asking for trouble.

So much of that crap on the web is useless.

So many times, these teenagers don't have the attention span long enough to see anything through, that is why we rely on adults (with something to lose/gain) to give us info or services that we bet the farm on. You get the best advice/service/product when someone has only their reputation to recommend them. Reputations take lifetimes to build, and a very short time to destory. Teenagers have no such reputation to endager. So you get what you pay for.

Just look at how many projects on freshmeat or sourceforge are abandoned before they even reach 1.0.0. Yes, these teens aren't fully to blame (and big deal, right, we aren't paying for it?) but my experience tells me that this is a big part of it.

This isn't to say that these teens have to redeeming social value, or that they can't contribute to society. But when you learn to ride a bike, you start with training wheels, not the Tour de France. World domination can't come before you learn the rules of how to play the game.

Two words: Dress Code

[ackthpt]

Heard on the radio that Ties are making a comeback...

Could be because:

Men now want to ditch their Tshirts and put their most professional image forward.

Power has swung back to the old east-coasters who don't believe a man is properly motivated without a rope around his neck.

Either way, them "15 year olds" who can still wear tees and Nikes to work, enjoy.

Ties making a comeback?

[Grendel Drago]

Not so. We have casual Fridays here.

And I *feel* like a professional while wearing a tie. I've even mostly gotten used to it over the summer. I look like me, not like a kid stuffed into a monkey suit.

And I get mistaken for a manager in the grocery store if I stop for munchies on the way home. Sigh.

-grendel drago

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Lebed wasn't a genius

[paulwomack]

Lebed didn't try and pick stocks (I'll leave comments on the skills/lack of required for that for another thread c.f. dot-bomb)

He bought stocks, and then (this is the tricky bit) posted favourable lies about to them to as many forums as he could find. Pump and Dump [cnn.com]. Not difficult. Of course, it is illegal, despite Lebed's squealings to the contrary. A smart person would have known this.

BugBear

Why the "versus" mentality?

[Badgerman]

Odd idea here - let's stop imagining kids versus adults and focus on (and call my a wild radical here) raising our kids, supporting them, learning when we can and teaching when we can. You know, that community-type thingy that humans have experimented with for, oh, say . . . a few hundred thousand years.

It may make great press to imagine armies of techno-teens versus the irrelevant old geezers, but real life should take precidence over masturbatory culture-clash fantasies.

Most techno-teens spent the day pretty much like everyone else - getting along in life, having fun, making mistakes, learning. Same things us techno-oldsters did in our day, just with more bandwidth and pop-up adds.

Grrr....Katz

[spliff]

Is Katz a sensationalist or just another troll? He kinda blurs the boundries. And what's this preoccupation with children? Kinda creepy, in that Willy Wonka way.

A book I'd like to read...

[acroyear]

NeXT: The Future Never Happened

Geeks

[KingAdrock]

I'm a bit of a geek myself, but wouldn't it be better if the children of the world were a little bit more well rounded. I don't want to see any meat heads run the world, but at the same time I don't want someone that only knows Quake and sendmail to be on top of the chain either.

I think it would benefit the world if children were well rounded! Technical skills, People Skills, along with things like a social life are all important!

Well rounded

[truthsearch]

The flip side to that is that many kids are becoming well rounded because of the net. Kids that are introverted and used to spending time mostly alone and indoors can now spend that time on a computer and internet. It's an outlet to interact with others (to a limited extent) while still being introverted. It's better that the shy kids are on the internet, learning to use computers, maybe learning to program, rather than doing nothing.

But what's the overall picture? I think most kids who are active and outgoing remain active and outgoing; I doubt most of them trade in sports for the internet. And I would imagine most kids who are introverted, but have a computer at home, use the computer and become more well-rounded.

And what is power?

[Badgerman]

First of all, as noted, we hear the exceptions, not the rule. Most fifteen-year-olds I run into on the net certainly aren't stupid, but I doubt they're running things. My 20 to 30 something friends do a lot on the net because we also have the money and the access to make our own servers, buy domains, etc.

Secondly, let's be honest about "kids running things" - the adults have the government, and the military, the police, and the money In short, brute and economic force. Until the kids have that, they aren't running things - and by the time they do, they'll be adults.

And, ironically, probably wonering if THEIR kids are running things.

It's the perception of expertise or power...

[hillct]

Jon makes the following observation:

Besides, expertise isn't power. Publishing houses, bar associations and medical groups still wield enormous influence, not only over their respective fields but with with regulatory agencies and, viat hordes of lobbyists, with lawmakers. Entrenched insiders have great win-loss stats.

Here, Jon is correct (just here ;-). I'm a big fan of Michael Lewis' writing and a I haven't read his newest book yet although I did read an article he wrote - an excerpt from his book - that was discussed here a month or so ago (I looked for the link but couldn't find it, sorry). Having qualified what I'm about to say, it seems to me that Michael Lewis must have states that it's the ability of the net to allow for the perception of a child as a lawyer, or a stock analyst. The net does not facilitate true the acumulation of years of expertise in a matter of minutes, nor does it confer true expertise on those who make use of it. It does, however facilitate the perception of expertise by confering anonymity upon those who make use of it, and it's not true anonymity by any streach of the imagination. Anyone who wished to discover the true identity of anyone on the net (with a few exceptions) would be able to do so relitively easily.

It seems, however, that people have no interest in the realities of the situation though, since they make no effort to confirm the expertise of these children (the lawyer or the stock analyst). They are satisfied to be getting free advice where previously they were paying exhorbinant fees.

Interestingly, after Marcus Arnold revealed to his online patrons that he was in fact a teenager - after a backlash by the professional lawyers on the site - he became even more popular than he was before he revealed his true identity. This suggests that people to not put additional value in formal training, but rather, that they are satisfied with the perceprion of expertise that the shroud of the net provides. It's an interesting comentary on the state of American culture that even after the shroud of anonymity is lifted, people still prefer the teenage pseudo-expert, to the formally trained real thing... For this phenomenon, I have no explanation.

--CTH

Re:And what is power?

[BluedemonX]

Ooooh, I disagree somewhat. What they have, is strength in numbers.

I was born in the very early 70s, when carob was all the rage and parents were going to teach what few children there were to resist advertising, think for themselves, etc. We were told that we'd have our PICK of jobs, cause there'd be less of us than there would be jobs, and salaries would be higher.

Well, what happened as a result was, advertisers got REALLY annoyed, cause you can't have "trends" or whatever for a really diverse group. The next wave of kids, the Millennials (those getting 15-20 right about now) were raised for the same groupthink the Baby Boomers were. What is N'Sync but the Beatles? You can bet your bottom dollar that market is not only huge but almost completely homogenous. And unlike the 13thGen that preceded it (sometimes mistakenly called GenX) they don't insist on quality.

They're used to getting their own way - custom web feeds, custom foods, can-we-bend-over-backwards-for-you. It stands to reason that there should be some degree of selfishness and bratiness that comes with it.

Most 15 year olds I've seen couldn't outthink a wet paper bag - but they're worth hella cash, so the power's based on money, nothing else.

Re:And what is power?

[BluedemonX]

I'm sure the Hare Krsnas are trying to get them to convert, too....

Re:And what is power?

[BluedemonX]

RE: Eh? I'm the same age group as you, and there definitely WERE trends in the 80s (let's see - Pac-Man, Rubik's Cube, leg-warmers, Atari,

Pac-Man was a Japanese game that became popular. That is NOT the same thing as a committee brain trust sitting at some corporate think tank coming up with something to sell to the vapid hordes. I'm not talking about fads, I'm talking about manufactured, homogenized culture.

RE: radio. I guess I haven't seen much of different subcultures that were so prevalent in the 80's

That was because the 80s kids were __MORE__ individualistic. This was not acceptable by corporate standards, hence everyone being shoved into the baggy-pants, pierced lip Hot-Topic skate/rap/metal/Tom Green blender (boys) or the Britney blender (girls).

RE: I guess I could sum up my comments by saying that you are sounding like an old man (which I esp. don't like because you are same age as me) casting aspersions on the next generation.

It's a valid critique. And one I am entitled to make. When I was a kid (Christ I do sound like an old man) when we wanted to be punks, we got the airplane paint out, did the jackets up OURSELVES, mailed the bands via their tiny labels, offered them whatever cash we could scrounge up, arranged a venue, sold tickets, and put on shows (ended up with the Circle Jerks, Accused, UK Subs etc... in a small Canadian city). We didn't swan down to Hot Topic, buy a "spear Britney" T-shirt and Manic Panic hair dye, then spend the day in front of the Simon brand mall, spitting on the sidewalk waiting for American Pie 3 to come out.

RE: They are really that much different from us AT ALL, in my eyes.

My wife tried to carry on the tradition after we went to college (I didn't know her then - she's about 8 years younger) - all the kids did was stand around - noone offered to do anything - they just whined that things weren't perfect. So it all collapsed. Far cry from the can-do attitude we had.

re: Marilyn rehashed NIN and Skinny Puppy for them.

Don't you DARE put Marilyn and Skinny Puppy in the same sentence. Skinny Puppy was a ground-breaking industrial band, Marilyn Manson is a designed-by-committee, corporate-label, cookie cutter death metal band (who owes more to Alice Cooper, Kiss, Celtic Frost, etc. than he'll admit - but then again he's a WHORE, and knows it). As for NIN, that guy has some balls insulting Bill Leeb. Bill Leeb has practically helped build industrial music - NIN has had two hits. TWO.

RE: We had that stupid mullet, they have the close cut hair with the love patch.

The mullet is why I burned ALL of my early 80s pics. *shudders*

Re:And what is power?

[Hard_Code]

Kids have a whole shitload more economic power than before, these days. It's probably partly the reason that pop culture has turned to such drivel these days, although it's just a vicious cycle that the culture producers deserve anyway. Yeah, I guess I'm one of these "kids" (somewhere between gen X and "Y"), but it still sucks.

Re:And what is power?

[dsplat]

Years ago, Theodore Sturgeon was asked why 90% of science fiction was crap. He replied with something that has become known as Sturgeon's Law. He said (I am paraphrasing), "Of course, 90% of science fiction is crap. 90% of everything is crap."

Part of what makes nostagia work for us is the unreliability of human memory. We remember things that made a strong impression on us. Things that we take the time to enjoy, possibly over and over again, are going to make a stronger impression. We will remember them. Culturally, there is an analogous situation. It is the shows that were most popular that live on in reruns. It is the bestselling books that are reprinted.

I don't believe that popular culture is going to hell in a handbasket. It is possible that we are reaching such a flood stage that there is too much material out there for us to filter. But I think the ratio of good to bad has probably shifted little.

Re:TV vs goatse.cx

[BluedemonX]

RE: Blame wealthy and overindulgent parents?

Ain't that simple. Sure, there are parents that feel guilty for picking the kids up from the sitter at 7, getting home at 8, and working every other Saturday, and try and replace time with the kids with presents for the kids.

But these kids, rather than finding their own way, are being MARKETED TO very hard. It starts with the Channel 5 news hysteria "There's a pervert behind the shed! If you leave your kids to their own devices they'll end up as crack whores! Studies show that kids involved in activities do better and don't fall to DRUGS and SEX yadda yadda yadda". So, the time-honored "screwing around doin' nothin'" kids used to do now gets replaced with part-time-job, band practice, tennis lessons, Chinese lessons, math tutoring, soccer practice, etc. Easy for mom, she just ferries the kids in the SUV and pays for it. The kids in essence get catered to. Given that we now have free-choice in almost anything (I didn't grow up with 300 channels, the Internet, and on-demand everything) these kids have never known anything other than everything being done to suit them and their nearly every whim.

That's a whole other issue

[Badgerman]

That's a completely different issue - and a sad one. Young talented folks getting undervalued and underpaid.

There's a generational conflict that needs exploring a lot more.

Re:And what is power?

[Psmylie]

Go read the Ender's Game series and focus on Peter and Valentine

Or, if you don't have time for that fictional example, just go watch "Spy Kids". Those little buggers saved the world and stuff.

Let's not forget that most (almost all) kids who have net access, servers, etc. have those items paid for by adults. Adults who could either stop paying for these things, or just take them away.

Kids have no power of their own until they have both a job (income) and their own place to live. Until then, any "power" they have is leased from adults.

Actually...

[11thangel]

I'm 17 and I run my own corporation. We officially incorporated Q2 this year and my responsibilities include financial and legal issues. I got into this kind of stuff very young, possibly because I was labeled a "nerd" and didnt' have many friends til high school. Most people wonder how I can handle this kind of stuff at my age, but it's just everyday life for me.

Re:Actually...

[Moonshadow]

I'm 18, and I'm a half owner of my corporation, and CTO. I handle all the tech stuff, and my 18 year old partner handles the legal, financial, and PR aspects.

Being young doesn't make you a "punk" or ingorant - you just have to work to make something of that knowledge you've amassed. I've figured that out.

Kida aren't as stupid as you think. There are plently of 15-18 year olds that have the capacity to offer great things to the world, but unfortunately, they're shut up behind the label of "nerd" or "loser". Granted there are those "nerds" and "losers" who are the fulfillment of their stereotype, but there are also those who are going places.

Kids aren't as stupid, ignorant, or self-absorbed as you may think they are. At least not all of us. Before you decide to go bashing person X cause he's under 20, maybe try to understand him first.

Re:Actually...

[Moonshadow]

Agreed - if there's one thing I have learned, it's that I don't know everything I need to know, and older people with more experience do have lots to offer. I was simply noting that not all kids are as stupid or lazy as we're made out to be. By no means do I consider myself to know all I need to, but I have a willingness to learn, and the drive to work as hard as is necessary to make good with what I can do.

It's an age old battle - age vs. beauty, so to speak - and it doesn't look like it will let up soon. Scary enough, I find myself looking in disdain at those younger than myself, and find that I try to justify those feelings, when in reality, from an objective standpoint, they have every bit of potential that me and my peers do. I see myself becoming one of the people who laugh at me, and somehow, it seems different. But it's really not.

my experience with `business'

[Grendel Drago]

When I was fifteen, myself and my (then-)best friend started a corporation.

He sucked at technical stuff; I sucked at sales. (I can't stand ripping people off, I empathize too much.) He said I wasn't pulling my weight, I said he was a pompous ass (not in those words), he told me he wanted me out, I went to the bank and withdrew everything but $0.25 from the checking account (about eight hundred dollars) and went home.

He took me to small claims court, where the judge spent five minutes on the case before throwing it out because we weren't a legal partnership---neither of us was old enough; he'd just known some people in the town hall.

I bought my first computer with that money (first that I owned; I'd been using my father's), and we never spoke to each other again.

He glared a lot, though.

Anyhoo, we set up a small NT network while we were in business. Charged a shitload of money. I don't think I'd even *heard* of Linux. Had played with SCO Unix, but just the /usr/games directory. Ah, fickle youth...

Point is, we were both immature assholes with technical expertise. Well, *I* had technical expertise. He had... salesmanship.

-grendel drago

Re:my experience with `business'

[unitron]

"Well, *I* had technical expertise. He had... salesmanship."

Woz? Is that you man?

*THESE* were Lewis' experts ?

[tmark]

The teenage stock-manipulator and the AskMe would-be lawyer were hardly expert in their 'fields', so if these were indeed the kinds of experts the author uses to bolster his argument, then his must be a pretty weak argument indeed. The kid who was manipulating stocks was not an expert stock-picker, he was just pretty good at manipulating over-greedy speculators who themselves knew nothing about the thinly traded issues he was pumping. As for the kid who played AskMe legal expert, his rating as a legal guru largely comes from ratings from people soliciting free legal advice...in other words, a selected-for group likely to know very little about the law thmselves. So who are they to rate someone a guru ? These two exemplars only go to show that today, one need not be very smart to fool a bunch of fools, just as was the case yesterday and yesteryear. The only thing that has changed is that the Net has now made it infinitely easier to con people, and infinitely easier to mask one's credentials or lack of same.

Not that many adolescents on the Net 10 years ago

[MoNickels]

Adolescents thundered onto the Net over a decade ago...

Maybe my memory is faulty, but in 1991 there were not that many adolescents on the Net. Not that many people at all, really. Lots of university students who might perhaps qualify under loose definitions of adolescent, but 15-year-olds? Not enough to write about, or talk about, or even worth mentioning. BBSing was still big back then, so maybe if you loosely include that and FIDO hookups...

In fact, being on the Internet in 1991 would mean that today you have been on the Internet longer than 97 percent of all current Internet users. That's stilly a tiny number of people.

Broken Rule!

[mjh]

I agree that a 15 year old breaking into a world once exclusively held by someone much older, who pursued much more education, is an exception, rather than the rule. But doesn't the fact that this is possible indicate a significant change?

Think about 20 years ago. No one, and I mean no one, would have based their business on the college project of some computer programmer in Finland. But today, Linux is a hopeful toppler of a monopoly!

The point, I think, is that the Internet by promoting anonimity, and encouraging communication, allows anyone who has a good idea, or a persuasive idea, or a popular idea to rise to the top, regardless of their financial backing, geographical location, age, or whatever. The quality of their ideas is what brings them success, not any of these other superficial issues.

While I think that much of the 15 year old stock trader stuff is overblown, the fact that it exists at all can't be reduced to nothing. It is a significant change in the way the world works.

Not a new thing...

[malkavian]

Back when I was younger, I remember when computers first hit the home market.. A fair section of the games were produced by the teenage age group (back in teh very early 80's, when I was Just hitting teenage myself.. :) ).
This was supposed to shift the balance of the market to youth.. And I guess this was supposed to happen with the child prodigies that also produced a lot of classical music back in earlier centuries.
The simple matter is that this is temporary. Most of the info in the net is generated by adults, so what the teenagers find, and absorb, is frequently the ideals of the adults that placed it, with a fresh slant (as the younger mind is usually more creative than the adult).
As for this imbuing the teenager with the power to look down on the adults, and lead the way... Well, they need a roof over their heads, and a cred card to buy most services, and various other things that are still currently restricted to adults..
Every generation has it's new toys that allow the next generation to supercede the previous. Every dog has it's day.
It's called evolution. That hasn't changed one bit, except, it may have speeded up an awful lot.

Malk

Not Kids Only

[Ezubaric]

While it is true that children can gain access to information at an earlier age, the tilt of this story seems to ignore that anyone at any age can do the same. If we are to bemoan the fact that 15 year old punks can find out how to throw up a crappy webpage to rave about the latest NSync single, we should also remember that the same resources allow a dissident living in Nigeria to let the world know about the grave injustices being done.

The Internet is about equalizing opportunity, and if children take advantage of that, so much the better. But it also alows those outside of traditional conduits of society and education to level the playing field. A reactionary discussion of tots using the Internet to learn about finance, programming, and web design is ultimately myopic.

---------------

Injustice

[BlenderHead-2001]

I agree the Internet is an equalizer but I don't believe that many dissident's in Nigeria have access to a computer, much less an Internet connection. Both are pretty hard to get when you make less than $1/day on a good day. Here in North America at least there are places like public library's where people can get online and express their opinions. I'm lucky enough to own my own computer but I do know that my public library doesn't charge anything for the Internet access they provide. Kudo's to them.

What's with the kids? wake up and smell the future

[Technodummy]

Some have argued that geeks and nerds are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders, as clueless, hostile and incompetent.

When parents and teachers display their lack of knowledge about new technology to young kids, it ruins the image they set up for themselves that they are the teachers, that they know what is good for the kids. When kids know more about a subject than the teacher teaching it, they lose respect in the eyes of the children, based on what their parents and most school systems teach. If you felt you were being controlled by an idiot, wouldn't you rebel?

It's easy to blame the kids for thinking their elders are "clueless, hostile and incompetent", but lots of adults DO get hostile when shown up as clueless and incompetent in front of children.

Lots of kids get put down for knowing more than teachers (and their parents)... but if kids weren't taught that the knowledge is what breeds the respect, maybe they wouldn't behave like that...

and also if they got the respect they deserve for hard work learning things their parents don't understand...

Teach your kids the difference between life experience, life knowledge and education. And maybe have some discussions about respect, where it comes from, who they do respect and why... and maybe why they don't respect some things... they may have good reasons, maybe they don't, but I doubt they've been asked...

TV Series

[swisener]

There's also a 4 part Next: The Future Just Happened series running on A & E this week. It started yesterday and continues tonight. Check your local listings.

--Steve

Re:TV Series

[Dr_Cheeks]

For those in the U.K. - this series is already running on Channel 4 (I think, but you may want to check this) on Sunday nights (around 8-9pm) - 2 programmes down, but another 2 to go.

Re:TV Series

[unitron]

Wonder how Jon "I used to be a producer for CBS TV" Katz managed to miss that?

I can attest...

[I_redwolf]

When I first started using computers it was far before the age of 15 however it's not so much of age as it is maturity of some 15 yr olds. As well as mindset. I'm 21.. I'm young but people who normally talk to me wouldn't assume that I'm 21. Infact very few people believe me when I say I'm 21 and then they don't believe that because I'm "African-American" (or whatever you wanna call me to fit into your cateogrized mindset) I do what it is I say I do.I have large resposnsibilities and am in charge of some corps infrastructure. Which isn't that big of a deal (to me at least).

Then again around the age of 15 I got myself into trouble at a famed 2600 meeting and ended up in Military Intel a couple of months before my 17th birthday all thanks to our friends at AT&T security (and a snitch). In any event, it's more of the mindset for exmaple if you take a young 15 y/o coder to a musuem he/she is quite possibly going to be more interested in whats there (ie: questions will be asked, whats that, etc, etc). You do the same with a non "computer lit" 15 y/o and they'll be complaining in 5 minutes. As information becomes more freely available people are finding new hobbies, new likes and dislikes, more things to protest against, learning new things and generally broadeing their horizons. Because of this every new generation gets smarter and smarter and smarter. That is the way it should be and what I would like to call the "true" singularity is beginning.

It's better to look at mindset than it is to look at age. The quicker we start learning to respect 15 yr olds as people will genuinely good ideas (moral character etc put aside in this discussion) and stop catergorizing them as being damn confused teenagers, the quicker big business will learn how to adapt.

For big business it really is a simple task, just ask them for some of their ideas, let them see some of their ideas working. It really is a fair trade off.

As for 15 yr olds being experts in anything the only way you can become an expert is to have experience. Being 15, you have little experience as life itself is an experience. So I don't care what loop hole they used, what legal advice they give as it is all based upon others peoples work and past experiences.

Life is too dynamic for any of that to hold water. To be an expert you have to be able to handle all situations regardless of their dynamics and at the age of 15 yrs old you haven't even really begun to see what you can and can't do. That prima donna shit is for the birds. But a 15 yr old who knows they don't know it all and are constantly learning.. Those are the ones you have to look out for because those will become experts.

A story as old as mankind itself

[Salamander]

Are brilliant 15-year-old computer geeks running the world, upending existing institutions?

In a word, no.

Some have argued that geeks and nerds are committing a form of social parricide, turning on their parents and almost all other elders, as clueless, hostile and incompetent.

When did kids *not* regard their elders as "clueless, hostile, and incompetent" - and when did their elders not feel likewise about them? Never. It's basically a flavor of egocentrism: everyone thinks that they're devoting their energies to the most important things that are happening in the world. If they care about the relative "merit" of Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera, how could you *not* care? You must be an out-of-it doofus if you don't. If IMing and its shorthand are second nature to them, how could it be so difficult for you to get the knack? You must be a total boob. Striking closer to home, how could anyone in their right mind not know that Linux is better than Windows, or not care about the erosion of our liberties represented by the DMCA, or not be up-to-the-minute current on the latest crypto/infosec technology? Such people must be "clueless" indeed, right?

There is, however, one thing that's different about the current situation: on the net, nobody knows you're a dog. Anyone can pass themselves off as an expert, if they know just a tiny bit more than the people around them. There are millions of pseudo-experts out there on the net, and even more millions of totally ignorant people feeding the pseudo-experts' egos. As long as the pseudo-experts stay just one tiny step ahead of the people seeking their advice, the shallowness of their knowledge might not become apparent. That's particularly easy to do in the computer field, still more so in open source, when a reasonably intelligent person can dig in and find the answer to a specific question, and then lay claim to total mastery of that whole area of knowledge - with almost no danger of their ruse being discovered. Consultants have been doing this to corporations for decades. Now anyone can do it. The real barrier that has been broken is not the barrier to expertise itself, but to all-but-unassailable claims of expertise.

Re:A story as old as mankind itself

[rho]

When did kids *not* regard their elders as "clueless, hostile, and incompetent" - and when did their elders not feel likewise about them? Never.

Wrong. Not too many years ago (late 1800s), children grew up under the tutelage of their parents, and for the most part did not think their elders were "clueless".

The concept of "clueless" elders is a thouroghly modern idea, propogated by an edutainment industry devoted to selling Mars bars to kids. Watch Saturday morning cartoons and the commercials in between. Adults are regularly presented as boobs, idiots, and morons, while the kids are all beautiful people doing exciting things.

Most cultures all over the world have a tradition of respecting their elders. It is only a modern America that automatically thinks they are clueless.

If you're lucky enough to have a grandparent alive, do yourself a favor and spend a day with them. You'll be amazed at how much they DO know.

Re:A story as old as mankind itself

[Salamander]

The concept of "clueless" elders is a thouroghly modern idea, propogated by an edutainment industry devoted to selling Mars bars to kids.

Nice little conspiracy theory you've got there. Unfortunately, it has little to do with reality. Even if we accept your claim that lack of respect for one's elders is a purely modern phenomenon, placing all of the blame on the entertainment industry is ridiculous. Advertisers didn't create the sentiment; they merely play to it.

If you're lucky enough to have a grandparent alive, do yourself a favor and spend a day with them. You'll be amazed at how much they DO know.

Did I ever say I agreed with the attitude that older people are clueless? No, I did not. If you were to look on my website you'd even see some essays - written quite a while ago - about the advantages that older people have over younger ones in the workplace, and similar topics. I'm quite well aware that older people are not in fact clueless, thankyouverymuch.

What are the 15 year olds REALLY doing on the net?

[ChadAmberg]

Survey says!:

30% Downloading pr0n before Mom gets home from the market.
30% Chatting on AIM to all the 15 year old chicks.
30% Chatting on AIM pretending to be a 15 year old chick.
9% Reading /.
1% Hacking/Cracking/Manipulating stock markets, and other halfway intelligent endeavors.

Re:What are the 15 year olds REALLY doing on the n

[Alan]

If I remember my 15th year properly, it was more like

89% downloading pr0n
10% searching for more pr0n
1% chat rooms (BBSs)

Course, this was with a 386 and a 2400 baud modem, so the downloading took more time because it took *forever*. Now I remember the *real* reason I got my 14.4.... ;)

Hopefully this isn't redundant...

[cavemanf16]

Children do not 'run things.' The real issues that we're seeing is that no longer are children limited to the books their local library carries, the TV shows that are on, or the things their teachers and parents know. The internet provides a wealth, and probably an overabundance, of information, free for the taking. It's just that kids are the only ones with the time to engross themselves in their own particular field of interest, be it stock market manipulation, computer gaming, hacking, cracking, politics (probably not many kids, but some no doubt), etc. 'Adults' simply have more "freedoms" (driving a car, owning a business, being married) that inherently contain more responsibilities, and therefore more time commitments. I think this is the point Katz was trying to get at, but it wasn't blatantly clear to some of you Katz haters.

We should all encourage, and monitor, our children's internet useage. For that matter, kids should be encouraged to learn regardless, but the Internet is what makes learning beyond traditional means possible. I know my library has very few books on Linux [mandrake.org], or Eagle Talon's [dsm.org], or case modding [virtual-hideout.com], or religious persecution [telegraph.co.uk], but thanks to the Internet, that info is easy to find. Make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't, but encourage learning, and a self-motivated desire to learn. It will aid them greatly in their lives to 'love to learn.' It's helped me, and I didn't even have the Internet until I went to college. Just think what I could have learned in grade school if I had.

I suppose it goes without saying....

[mblase]

...that JonKatz himself proves that anybody with a few months' experience in reading technology books and surfing the Internet can become a paid, featured columnist on Slashdot every week.

And....

[truthsearch]

... if you didn't read his columns, he wouldn't be a paid, featured columnist.

Re:And....

[mblase]

... if you didn't read his columns, he wouldn't be a paid, featured columnist.

I don't sign his checks. Heck, I don't even click on the ad banners. I'm pleased you think me so influential; it makes my ultimate plans to take over the world that much easier to achieve. But I'm afraid Katz had secured this job long before I ever heard of Slashdot.

Not a revolution

[Junks Jerzey]

Go to any chat room and you will immediately and desperately hope that there's more to the net than 15 year old geeks. Collecting warez, MP3s, and whining that everything should be free--because you have no income--is not any kind of revolution.

Just a little TOO puffed up!

[CrazyLegs]

C'mon... this smug, technocratic view of the impact of the Net on the World is beyond reality and should be left in the domain of a Wired magazine article (you know, the People magazine of the technology world).

Granted, the Net has had a disintermediary effect and 15 year-olds (or anyone) can participate equally, but I think The Book overestimates the impact. Provocative premises sell books and maybe encourage dialogue, but that's about it.

Think about why info you find on the Web is less trustworthy than info you might find in the Old Media world. In Old Media, you have publishers and editors with established credentials, shareholders, legal frameworks, and bricks-and-mortar presence somewhere. In all, you have an Entity that gets some amount of your trust (think CNN as a Brand). A medical book produced by Old Media is inherently more trustworthy than an posting on a newgroup (at least it outta be).

The Net experts you find these days (i.e. the 15 year-olds with expertise in CourtTV procedings) are really just the Pamphleteers of old - standing on their street corners with homemade tracts and hoping someone might pay attention. The Net has simply provided lots more street corners.

So please.... enough of how the Net will/is/has changed the world by making all information accessible and free. I still need the mechanisms of Name, Editor, Brand, and Recognized Authority for a lot of the info I need - and I suspect you do too. I'd still like to hear what the 15 year-olds have to say, but it's just more info to score and syntesize into my own Big Picture.

Re:Just a little TOO puffed up!

[Unknown Lamer]

I'm 15. I'm not an expert. But, I do know more than I would if the internet didn't exist. If the net didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to use GNU/Linux. The internet merely enables everyone to gain knowledge, and therefore increases the general populations knowledge as a whole. The information is free, not 40 bucks, so people who don't have the 40 bucks for a book can now get to the same information that would have cost 40 bucks 10 years ago.

The entire population should have an increase in knowledge, but that isn't happening. It seems that the older a person is, the harder it is for them to get used to the new technology. So, the younger you are, the easier it is to get used to the new technology. If you are around 15 (like I am), then you were born into an era of technology. I've been surrounded by computer my entire life. In my years of concious memory, I have slowly learned to live with and use technology. Coding comes to me as naturally as writing a report for school. Writing email is more natural to me than writing a letter. IRC is the same as the phone.

I wonder what people who were in their 30s and 40s did when the phone was invented. I bet they would have been slower to pick up how to use it than their children who were born when the phone was invented. If you live around something for your entire life, you are bound to know how to use it better than someone who hasn't been around it for their entire life. The younger you are when new technology comes about, the better chance you have of understanding it.

Re:Just a little TOO puffed up!

[CrazyLegs]

I like the points you make. Any reference I make to '15 year-old experts' is metaphorial only! I agree that growing up with tech is a totally different life experience. I'm in my late 30's and, to me, landing on the Moon was something I witnessed at a tender age and a fact of life. My father, however, still marvels at this. Same event, different life experience.

The only beef I have with the original posting is this notion that somehow folks your age are pulling the levers and us older folks aren't catching onto this fact. I think this is a horrible Hollywood cliche that does a disservice to us all. We all experience and use the Net in our own way - much like many blind people will describe the same elephant in a different way. To say that one population of users is somehow running the show is simplistic.

Youth brings an enthusiastic perspective on weaving technology into the fabric of everyday life. Older folks work much harder at that, but bring a perspective of how we might apply new tech to old problems. Even this is simplistic, of course. ;)

Ah, the myth of the genius...

[gonerill]

... geeks love it so much. And it's usually crap.

> U.S. and England, including the celebrated
> Jonathan Lebed of Cedar Grove, N.J., who rocked
> Wall Street and the SEC by turning himself into
> a master online stock manipulator in a few short
> months, though that's supposed to take years of
> high-intensity experience and training.

First, this kid "pumped and dumped" stocks. If you don't know what that means, you're more likely to think he was a genius. Second, Wall Street and London stock exchange companies have been recruiting "informally educated" kids (almost always men) to do trading-floor work for years. In London they're called "Barrow Boys" --- guys puffed up on testosterone and able to do math in their heads, because they have a background in bargaining in other kinds of street market. Third, Katz's sentence would be a lot truer if "a master stock manipulator in a few short months" read "a master stock manipulator FOR a few short months". It's always possible to beat the experts in the short-run (remember those little old ladies from Iowa or wherever?).

Note that "the myth of the genius" != "there's no such thing as genius". The former is a sociological phenomenon, a cultural archetype that people like Katz (and many geeks) like to latch on to. Of course there are plenty of smart 15-yr-olds. But they're not running the world.

access to information

[Tiro]

The idea that anybody can become an instant expert at any age in any context is pretty creepy. It doesn't even apply to programming or Web design, let alone law or finance.

Let me point out the epiphany moment in the NY Times Magazine article about the kid lawyer. It was incredible. The man says "where do you get your information, what are your sources" and the kid says "I just know it" and goes on to cite Law and Order and CourtTV as his primary sources.

The arrogance of saying "I just know it" for a kid who presumes to know everything you need to know about a professional field people spend years in graduate school for rather efficiently reveals that this kid's attitude probably won't take him far in serious academic study.

If I had to hire a programmer, and I ask a potential employee "where did you learn to program" and he said "well, I just know it" then I'd tell him to get the hell out. I'm not saying you have to go to university to become skilled in a field, but for knowledge based professions, you must at least have a base of book knowledge, and the kid in question apparently never thought to go to the library and read an intro to Jurisprudence.

If the kid spent his weekends looking up answers to questions in the local univeristy legal library, then I'd think he was a industrious worker with a promising future. But this kid is quite full of BS, and his answer on askme.com are engineered into piles of BS, so its mildly rediculous that he's getting all this positive attention.

Re:access to information

[gmhowell]

I'd have more respect for a jailhouse lawyer. At least they've got access to a law library.

Re:access to information

[blang]

The arrogance of saying "I just know it" for a kid who presumes to know everything you need to know about a professional field people spend years in graduate school for rather efficiently reveals that this kid's attitude probably won't take him far in serious academic study.

If memory serves me right, he was rated among the top experts on the site, competing against real lawyers. You may be overrating the value of university study. If you add up the hours, way too much time is spent smoking pot, taking non-essentials classes, sports, drinking beer, wasting time taking useless notes at a boring lecture, and on and on.

If you have an area of interest, it being stamp collection, beanie babies, astronomy, medicine, law, programming, politics, history, math, finance, journalism, there have always been shitloads of sources out there. If you dedicate some time and focus on a field, at some point there are only minor details that makes you different from a certified expert. You don't even have to be a genious to be a know-it-all, or a good performer in your field.

You are the one serving up bullshit. Just because someone didn't follow a curricilum from a to Z does not mean they're not experts. I've run into many amateurs, some very young, who can run circles around professionals in their field. The professionals tend to have a complacent attitide to their field of expertise. Amateurs make up for that with focus and dedication.

I read the story about the legal whiz kid, and was a bit annoyed by his "I just know" answer myself. But my conclusion is different from yours. He may be a wiz at law, but less educated about society at large, and how to deal with're journalists. And probably some bad lawyer attitude has rubbed off on him. Lawyers don't like to admit that the advice they're giving came easy. I bet 80% of legal advice given could be compressed into a fairly small F.A.Q. Lawyers need to make money, even off the FAQ's which is why they frown upon somebody giving it away for free.

Wiz kids who appear to be experts don't amaze me, though. These kids have always existed. There's not more wizardry now than before. It's just that the internet have given them a much larger audience. So, instead of being the neighborhood's annoying besserwissers, with maybe one or two likeminded souls in the each town, these kids now may have thousands of readers.

If the kid spent his weekends looking up answers to questions in the local univeristy legal library, then I'd think he was a industrious worker with a promising future. But this kid is quite full of BS, and his answer on askme.com are engineered into piles of BS, so its mildly rediculous that he's getting all this positive attention.

So, you're saying paper and ink are more valuable sources of information than television, bits and bytes?

Re:access to information

[malkavian]

As I seem to remember it, even after being exposed, a lot of people still asked his advice..
This indicates that in, at least an area where Lawyers were practicinf, and perchance gaining a lot of money, the actual basis was common sense. As they say, even a child could understand it.
Now, the idea of being in a profession is to know things that others really don't, thus providing a great use.
It says something when you have to sell something that everyone knows really, but they've been conditioned to ask a particular person, so they can have an arbitrary rubber stamp.
This creates an artificial surplus of this profession that is really counterproductive.
The more like this kid that think for themselves, and answer stuff for themselves that they can, the better.. It's what free thinking society is about.
And incidentally, I seem to remember that the kid in question actually only answered the questions that made sense to him.. Not the really detailed ones that actually required a lawyer...
I can remember, as a kid, understanding a lot more than most adults gave me credit for.. At least until they looked back years later, and said "You really DID understand all that, didn't you.."..
This kid seems to do that too.. It really is just called "thinking for yourself". It's been happening since the first thoughts. It'll (hopefully) be happening until the last.
I don't condone him claiming professional qualifications like he did for a time, but.. He makes people happy, and apparently gives good advice... As long as people accept that's what it is... I say go for it...
Now, if a programmer came to me, and wanted work, I'd see what he was capable of doing.. If it was very little, but kept a fair part of a customer base happy, then, there's no problem with hiring someone like this, at a fair price for the work, doing work for the ones that are happy with it.
After all, it'd let me get on with doing the real code for the people who pay far more and expect far more.
I really DO have far more of the real magic to do than worry about the stuff that an untrained teenager (not, of course, the hardcore teenagers, many these days who could prolly run rings round me in some areas) could deal with.
If the yunder generation can do something, and they offer their skills, then, fair renumeration for fair skills.. It's what a meritocracy is all about.. And I'm all for meritocracy..
Malk

Re:access to information

[Sycraft-fu]

actual basis was common sense. As they say, even a child could understand it. Here's the real problem: The kid didn't know for sure. When someone asked his advice, he gave the answer that seemed right to him. Fine, but just because he thought it was right, doesn't mean it was right. This can be dangerous. When I get legal advice, I'm doing it to make SURE of what the legal position. I've done a fair bit of amature study so I usually have a good idea what the law is, but I don't know, unless I check (or pay a lawyer to check for me). The problem is these people were putting their faith in him as a professional, and he wasn't, he wasn't even trying. Law is tricky bussiness and there are lots of non common sense "gotchas" in there, ones that don't make it on to TV shows. Take concealed carry law, which vaires wildly from state to state. Well someone like this kid might know that you can get a permit to carry concealed in Arizona and might know the basics of where you can't carry, bars, schools, etc. However he's not likely to know that one of the listed places is a polling place on election day. That could get someone in trouble if they thought it was alright (since many people carry with them all the time).

Point is this kid did the wrong thing because he tried to convince people that he was a legal expert, and wasn't. Not only that, but he didn't even TRY to be a real legal expert. If when the reporter had gone and seen him there had been stacks of law books and he had talked about how he looked everything up either there or on the internet, then perhaps it would be different. While he still wouldn't be a professional in the true sense of the word, at least then he's doing the job properly, checking his facts and making sure he's giving the right advice. Instead he thinks all he needs to know can be gotten from TV.

Basically what this kid had was a gift with words. He could put things in a way people liked to hear them. Fine, that's a good skill for lots of people like bussinessmen and politicians but no matter how nice the advice sounds, it's still bad advice if it's wrong. The problem is the people he was giving the advice to didn't know how to tell the good from the bad.

It's only news if you 15

[topham]

It's only news if your 15. If your 30 years old and dispensing legal advise and not a lawyer you can find yourself in jail, or fined. But it isn't news.

If you start your own company, make a million dollars in the first 2 years and your 30 it makes a small story in a local paper. Maybe a bit more if it is publicly-popular.

It's only really news if your 15.

To use Napster as an example, myself, and others, would have produced something similar a long time ago, but the thought of going to jail was not pleasant.

Ending up in court getting sued over copyright infringment wasn't exactly my idea of having a good business model.

Maybe my problem is I thought the situation through too far. I should have just produced an application and worried about the consequences later. Oh wait, I'm not 15...

(Anybody who has actually read the protocol specs on Napster would be aware that Napster is a piece of shit from a technical standpoint, it truly is amazing it works at all...)

Just because they can

[interstellar_donkey]

Just because anyone can become an expert and enter any field regardless of age or education, does'nt mean they will be listened to.

The only real revolution here is that experts will no longer be identified by education or experience, but instead their ability to market themselves; to find a way for people to look at what they have to say.

Marcus Arnold's askme.com profile

[tokengeekgrrl]

Just because anyone can become an expert and enter any field regardless of age or education, does'nt mean they will be listened to.

In the case of Marcus Arnold, he is very much listened to even after it was revealed that he was only a teenager with no formal law school or even law office experience, although his askme.com profile indicates otherwise. Of course, I'm sure he has some legally viable explanation for being able to say he's "recognized by the American Bar Association" but I can't help but think that his "credentials" are a stretch at best. [askme.com]

I read an in-depth article about him online, can't find the link to save my life but I will post it once I do, and it was a bit disturbing. His mom thinks he is some sort of genius prodigy and encourages him. Marcus believes he is a legal expert and gives out the home phone number to anyone and spends hours giving people his form of legal advice and monitoring his score on askme.com. It seemed to me that he almost sees it as a kind of game. His father is quite suspect of these people who are asking his 15-year old son for legal advice, especially when most of his son's "clients" always seem to be calling from payphones.

- tokengeekgrrl

Re:Marcus Arnold's askme.com profile

[general_re]

Of course, I'm sure he has some legally viable explanation for being able to say he's "recognized by the American Bar Association" but I can't help but think that his "credentials" are a stretch at best.

No doubt, he's gotten some certificate from his local Bar Association - "Junior Attorney-in-Waiting" for the month of April, given to some enterprising youngster who's displayed the proper taste for blood.

Or maybe he's "recognized" in the same sense that Greenpeace "recognizes" me when they ask me to send money - they're able to identify me and communicate with me. Hmmm, "recognized by Greenpeace as a defender of the earth" - got a nice ring to it.

Well, I'm off to update my profile now...

Jonkatz: on target?

[skyknytnowhere]

Jon, you hit dead on this time. Actually, again. I'd be quick to point out that Amazon's "reviews" are the best reason society has for professional critics.

But the stock market... well, people are just as well off getting advice from 15 year olds as they are MBAs because the entire system is a big ponzi scheme/slot machine already. It takes little effort to reccomend a stock you think will do well, and whether or not it is doing well is fairly subjective. Remember that during the dotcom crash only 2% of real advisors said "Sell!" 2%!

And as far as "legal advice" goes, you can't use legal advice you get on the web anyways. It would be like taking a Dear Abby to court as your evidence.

So, thanks Jon, for giving us a good review of a poorly thought out book.

skye

A couple of things

[VFVTHUNTER]

First off, the 'Net is not destroying the world.

Second, yes, kids do have too much power today. Think of how full of piss and vinegar you were when you were 17, and then think about all the experience in life you've gained since then.

Remember that old saying, "Knowledge is power"? Well, that's true, but that's only half the story. The corollary to that saying is "But it is only powerful if you have the wisdom to use it."

As an example for us nerds reading this, consider something as simple as the C language. You can sit down in an afternoon and read Kernighan and Ritchie's C Programming. Officially, you now "know" C. But can you do anything useful with it? NO. You don't really "know" C until you have implemented a complex system with it.

The 'Net empowers all people. But some kids lack that maturity and experience in life to be able to use this empowerment wisely. As an obvious example, consider all of the script kiddies running around, downloading tools off of the net, clogging up the web and defacing websites. These kids actually think being "leet" is worthwhile.

Damn it, Katz!

[Grendel Drago]

I can't believe Katz is actually comparing

a) Napster
b) Linux

as two facets of the Revolution to Gloriously Bring Down Big Corporations.

*Using* Napster and *writing* Linux are quite different. Yes, Jon Johansen is a young'un. But he's hardly typical. Most people that age care about

a) Britney Spears
b) Anna Kournikova
c) Dave Matthews
d) Counter Strike

There's no revolution, at least not the way Katz posits it. If anything, geniuses can be heard *before* they go to college.

But the common kid doesn't, never has, never should, never will change the world. And certainly not by using Napster!

-grendel drago

Not so fast

[AdamInParadise]

I used to be one of theses. I used to think that I new all I needed about Unix. Then I stepped out of my bedroom and discovered the real world. Where things are not so simple. Where downloading a little something from whatever warez site when I needed it is not an option. Where going root to fix something is usually not the good way to do it. In a word, real-world enterprise-style computing.

And this my friend, isn't something a 15-year old can grok (usually there is exceptions I guess, but I'm still looking for one. I just remembered theses two "sysadmins" college kids that didn't knew what colocation was.)

Re:Not so fast

[pi_3]

I can understand what you are saying, although it isn't necessarily true. I too once though I knew everything there was to know about certain aspects of computing. But when I was 16, I got hired by a small corporation. And you're right in the fact that most 15 year olds don't know how computing works in the real world, it is a lot more complex. I do feel I have gained many skills by working in a corporate environment. And (now 18), I understand that a lot more organization is needed if you are working on a large scale. So I guess I am your exception. I have seen 2 college graduates (with 4 year degrees in networking & telecommunications) come and go because they didn't have the skills needed. They had the knowledge; believe me, but not the same passion for computing, like the old school hackers and the new school hackers have. They were in it for the money. This is truly a new generation. We see where computing has been, where it's at, and where we WANT it to go. Maybe some of our goals are unrealistic, but that is what drives us.... We go for the impossible. On a side note, I have a friend that is a financial advisor (just turned 18), and even in these days of horrible stock market outlooks, he still manages to make about $4000 a week day-trading. He's been doing it since he was 15, with no internship or the like, just an understanding of how the system works, and a passion to defeat it. Peace, Pi

Thppt!

[Grendel Drago]

Ha! Colocation is what the ASSTR moved to after being kicked off the university at which they were previously eating bandwidth!

See? You *can* learn everything from pr0n.

Anyhoo, I'm halfway through undergraduate school; currently administering a network of fifty or so computers, eighty or so employees. My `boss' makes charts. They're important (for some reason), but I do the actual administering.

And you know what? Most of it is reading documentation and, failing that, asking questions of admins senior to me. All I needed, really, was basic familiarity with networking and the willingness to read and learn a lot.

Eh, that's my experience. I'm older than fifteen, though. And I don't pretend to be a senior admin of some kind. But I am a professional.

-grendel drago

Re:Not so fast

[autocracy]

16, and doing that. I know what colocation is, and I know how to run a computer. What makes me qualified is that I know more than that - I know business. I ran a highly profitable one at 12, bottle redemption. Not picking up cans and turning them in, but rather being that company that gets them and deals with bigger companies directly - like Pepsi, Coke, Central, and Federal distributors. I know that a computer, a T1 and just wanting it aren't enought to profit. And I know that I don't know it all.

The sad thing about it is that the chance isn't there for me. I'm 16, and that's enough of a reason to say no for almost anyone. And I take the heat for what others do - very indirectly, but damn, it sure sucks. I can sit down and show you enterprise computing - not firewalls, but cost proposals, user policies, and eek - administrative policies. But I'm 16. I've had phone interviews where I'm the absolute ideal candidate - "and oh yeah, I'm 16" "sorry!".

Fact is that while I will one day be hosting the show, I won't now. Society isn't ready to realize that some people are set and willing to be responsible and thorough enough for stuff like this - at 16 (or 15!). And for that, they won't hire now. C'est la vie.

Re:Not so fast

[rogermoquin]

Experience will always be good, even if its i a field of absolutly no clear relevance, simply because when you deal with someone who's been around for a while, they no how to go about finding the solution to whatever problem they will encounter. Maybe they wont have a clue of how it could actually be done, but they'll know how it should be analysed. But hey dont go around thinking i'm some 45 year old who misses the "good old day", heck i'm only 19!! But i know that every week, when i have supper with my mom and she asks me how my computer is going (or, as she has learned to phrase, what's wrong with windows this week ;) ) even if she doesnt know squat about computers, she always views the problem i submit to her from an angle that i would've never thought of. Experience is and always will be valuable I know only one and that's that i dont know anything

Not where I live

[NTSwerver]

Are brilliant 15-year-old computer geeks running the world, upending existing institutions?

Where I live, the average 15 year old's past-times would include:

1. * Bunking off school.
2. 
   * Smoking skunk (strong marajuana).
   * Stealing/petrol-bombing cars.
   * Etching their names into bus windows using glass-cutters.
   * Hanging around outside McDonalds.
   * Mugging old ladies.
   

It's a beautiful place.

suppose it's true, then what?

[Wansu]

When these 15 year olds become 20-25 they will be supplanted by fresh, new 15 year olds? So the reject pile grows? That has some interesting social implications. If it's so, that is.

Like many other posters, I think the media has sensationalized the exceptional ones whose talents are amplified by the internet. Most are too busy being kids. And that is as it should be.

No Barrier To Entry

[Enonu]

I remember when I was young, the only thing that held me back from a lot of activities was my age. "You're too young to do that." The Internet removes this problem by making everybody an IP address and all locations equadistant. This unlimited freedom allows kids to reach their full potential by allowing them to get any piece of information almost instantaneously. Right here and now I can go and learn the rules of Wall Street, read a couple academic journals, and chat with some friends in Taiwan. Imagine if you could do that 20 years ago, and how it could affect your life today.

Sure they're competent, but what about moral?

[pjbass]

My experience with the upcoming generation of kids these days is sure, they are very competent and pick up knowledge much quicker. I was a sys/network admin at my alma mater, and I took on the task of training students (mostly freshman) in the fine art of sys admin of UNIX machines.

To my joy, these kids took very well to the tasks. They learned Linux very quickly, as well as the shots of Solaris and AIX I threw at them. I was very impressed. However, to my continuing amazement, I watched as they would use what they learned to stomp on people. I know the whole "I have power and I'm going to use it" human nature thing always comes into play when people get root, but not like this.

I really couldn't believe the total lack of respect and ethical disregard these kids had for sys administration. I know that people need time to adjust to the responsibilities, but these kids didn't seem to. They just thought it was "cool" to keep flood pinging other servers, nmap'ing people, etc. I don't know what these kids aren't learning, but I don't see the evolution of sys admins as being a bright future if this attitude continues.

Re:Sure they're competent, but what about moral?

[pjbass]

I should have pointed out the legal issues in my post. This was something that was stressed to them. However, you can stress legal all you want to certain people. But (this is from my observance and experience, which is in no way the way things are) kids who have the idea planted in their heads that they ARE superior and are better in technology than everyone else will use that, and then develop the mentality that they are untouchable, and that just bumps the legal issues under the moral umbrella. I agree with your comment, but there is a certain point that these kids just don't give a damn about it.

The 4 most dreaded words on a Katz story...

[rkent]

(First in a series.)

Tortise vs Hare

[Cro Magnon]

Company X & Company Y are each implmenting a web-based ordering system. X hires a 15 year old with acne. Y uses their 40 year old with receding hair and expanding gut. Day 1 X: "Kewl, this looks easy" Y: has nose in a book titled "Java for Dummies" Day 3 X finishs coding Day 5 Y starts coding. Day 7 X goes online Day 10 Y starts testing. X has been online 3 days. Day 15 Y finally goes online. X has been raking in the dough for over a week. Day 18 X programmer is running around like the proverbial chicken "I dont know what happened! The whole system crashed and wiped out our database" Boss asks if programmer can restore from backups. "Backups?" Day 30 Y: "Yes, sir, we had a slight glitch because of those extra customers we got when X went out of business. I had to take it offline for an hour, but we're back now.

Oh Yea?

[toupsie]

If these 15 year-olds are so powerful, why do they have to bug me at the 7-11 to buy beer for them?

The FIRST IN A SERIES!!!???!?!?

[Sebastopol]

A series on this tripe!?!?!?!

Please God, NO!!!!!!!!

You need to spend more time in the "real" world

[Malc]

Youngsters might make up a big relative proportion of the online world, but really, the online world is still a minority, even in "advanced" countries like the US. Stop being so self-obsessive and take a walk down the street (yes, that means getting out of the car!), or talking to your extended family (aunts, uncles, etc)... the online world and its influences will seem pretty distant (perhaps this is different in places like San Jose??)

hello this is gladys malone

[gladysmalone]

sean is the young man who helps at the retirement center he helps me send e-mails and other things and he told me to look at this article. this man is right all these young people that think they know the world.

last week i went to the rite-aid to get my lanoxin prescription and a young man was in front of me in line he had earrings and long hair and it looked like he missed a spot when he was shaving because there was a little bit of hair under his lip. he didn't even offer to let me go ahead in line even though i had heart medication and he was just getting cigarettes. norman used to smoke but he died of respiratory failure in his car and i didn't know where he was because he would always tell me, gladys i am the man of this house and i don't need to tell you where i'm going. so i waited at home for him and he never came and he never came and finally i called the police and they found him out by the lake. he used to like feeding the birds there.

sean says i have to stop using the computer now other people want to use it please send me e-mail i don't know the address because sean gave it to me and didn't tell me what it is. good bye your friend gladys malone

15 year olds brilliant?

[Jasonv]

I don't think these '15 year-olds' are really THAT brilliant. I was one of those 'computer wizz-kids' when I was younger, and I wouldn't say I'm of above-average intelligence. It's just that computer science was so easy to pick up. It's all pretty new, compared to other sciences. I could see something cool in computers and learn it pretty quickly. Like watching those cool ASM demos? You can teach yourself to do them in probably a 5-6 weeks. The bleeding-edge information is avaiable via the internet (or BBS's back then), and not horribly complex. The tools you needed were readily available at Radio Shack... The older generation didn't understand it (having their own hobbies - my dad was into Ham Radios and electonics.. ) so they didn't leap into it as easily.

Compare it to, say, physics. 100-200 years ago a lot of young people were doing that bleeding edge work, in their basements. Today you would have to be a brilliant 20-year old in order to learn all of present day knowledge about physics to start discovering something new. You'd also need access to multi-million dollar equipment.

As computer science matures it's going to get out of the grasp of the 'average' person. It will begin to take years to learn enough to specialize in one area of computers, and you'll need access to expensive technologies to try them out.

Re:15 year olds brilliant?

[gowen]

The obvious counter-example is the Irish cryptographer Sarah Flannery.

Reality check [ireland.com]: Flannery's algorithm was nowhere never as quick or as revolutionary is it was hyped [wired.com] to be (although the media, rather than Sarah is to blame for that) and was later found to not work at all.

She's undeniably smart and talented, but not the prodigy she was made out to be.

Re:15 year olds brilliant?

[mBluesman]

She's undeniably smart and talented, but not the prodigy she was made out to be.

Society has an undeniable fascination with prodigies, to the point that every kid who shows some interest and talent can potentially be hyped up into a genius in some field or other.

There are 15 year olds out there hyped as blues guitar greats, math whizzes, hacking masters, and most of them, while talented, can't possibly live up to the label of prodigy. But we love prodigies so much, we keep looking for them, and if necessary, manufacturing them.

It seems (from the links you provided) that Sarah Flannery managed to keep things in perspective, but I have to wonder how many kids don't. The pressure we put on these kids to be the "real deal" can be huge (what if Sarah's algorithm had really been the huge improvement it promised, and it turned out to be her biggest accomplishment, at the age of 15 or 16?). It's also not fair to the adults who spend years mastering their crafts to spread the fiction that a kid can do the same thing, with just a gift.

I wonder if we emphasize the prodigies so much because we as a society really hope that it's possible to be "born great," without ever having to work hard at it. Is it just laziness that fuels our obsession with prodigies?

The overwhelming majority 15 year-olds on the 'Net aren't doing anything that tough, as has been pointed out. It's only the fact that many adults are too intellectually lazy to investigate a bit further that makes those teens seem like such whizzes, and so the myth of the brilliant teen hacker lives on. Not that these teens aren't bright; but they haven't done much besides read manuals and spend some time digging around.

What about Rupert Tollefsen at 9?

[mgoyer]

Microsoft's New Brain Project [seattleweekly.com]: A prodigy's Redmond isolation lab faces 'outing' over life secrets

The most classified program at Microsoft isn't an operating system. It isn't a Web browser. It's a 9-year-old boy named Rupert.

Matt

Here's One Example - But Does He Know His Stuff?

[cybrpnk]

The most amazing 15 year old I've run across isn't even American. MacMillan India Ltd. is publishing a book he wrote as a 14 year old. From the jacket blurb: "...The author, Ankit Fadia, 16 years old is a tenth class student, studying in Delhi Public School R.K. Puram. Ankit Fadia, who at the tender age of 14 wrote this book, is the youngest author for Macmillan in their 110 years of history. He started his website, Hacking Truths for a small circle of friends to whom Ankit would send out periodic manuals, but very soon it evolved into a worldwide community of thousands of like mined people who subscribed to receive information that really mattered. The basic motive behind Hacking Truths is to spread the message of ethical hacking which would revolutionize the global security scene. He believes ethical hacking is like vaccination - you fight eveil for positive gains..." So go ahead, Slashdot Effect Ankit's website Hacking Truths [hackingtruths.box.sk]...it's pretty cool.

Re:Here's One Example - But Does He Know His Stuff

[cybrpnk]

Actually, I DON'T think the most clever people are Americans - we only have the advantage of having the most freedom and resources. Lots of studies show that American school kids lag behind those of other nations in a variety of subjects, particulary science and math. I DO think, however, that most Americans think (incorrectly) that we have some kind of monopoly on computer technology - we invented the PC, Bill Gates is American, we have more people on the internet than anybody else, etc. My comment was intended to "shake up" those who subconsciously believe that stuff means something. I personally believe that Russian hackers and Indian coders and all those other nationalities will start eating our lunch in the IT arena if we don't watch out. About the only non-Americans I'm willing to believe that are not as clever as Americans are those jokers in Afghanistan [slashdot.org]...

Not the whole picture

[BlackAcidDevil]

A few years ago I read an article in Time suggesting that kids were growing up too fast. The author threw around examples along the lines of "...his dot com going public and retiring a multi millionare by 17". I stopped laughing after the second paragraph and wondered upon what this author based his research.

This topic is always brought up when some adult that people will consider listening to is amazed by something that a minor does whether it be dispensing legal advice over the internet(2001) or programming a VCR(1984).

The whole picture it takes only 1 adult with a pen who doesn't understand technology and a child (usually fairly inteligent) with a good amount of knowledge that performs some "breath taking" task without the blink of an eye.

The thought of child geniuses poses a double edged sword to buisnesses and people in general. Fisrt of all, people feel that all their professtional training/talent will be in vain by some child who performed some aspect of their profession. People also see a glipmse of hope in that they feel that they can take advantage of a child genius and pay him or her a fraction of what they would have to pay a professional.

To those people I will say this: Would you pay a child who frequents webmd.com a fraction of what you pay a heart surgon to install your pace maker.
(I know its corny):)

Net hides discrimination clues

[throatmonster]

What the net does is strips away many of the things people use to discriminate. Years ago my sister noted that her email address gave no clues as to her gender - and she found that people who knew her only by her email address and content were more respectful of her than those that knew her gender. There's still the $$$ aspect of getting internet access, but computers and people on the other end of an email have no idea what color you are, what sex you are, how big you are, or what age you are. Why do you think our government reps are so dismissive of email-based correspondence? It strips away too many of the clues used to discriminate who is important, and who isn't.

The only thing the person on the other end of the net knows about you comes from your writing skills. Lots of kids have terrible "riting skilz", but those that can write well pass right through the age discrimination barrier unnoticed.

Writing skills and apparent knowledge are about the only clues we have about the person on the other end of the net. That kids, women, people with un-white skin and others who are often discriminated against can become accepted as if they were adult while males tells more about the discrimination these people othewise face in everyday life than it does about 'empowerment' on the net. And you sure can't blame any kids for going to the net, where if they've got the writing skills they can effectively hide their age.

I just can't resist...

[sphealey]

"There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here."

For those of us who were using computers before there were PC's, much less an Internet, the irony in this statement is just too rich to pass up...

sPh

Re:I just can't resist...

[delcielo]

The irony extends farther than just those of us who go back as far as you mention. Katz was right, who better to discuss the self-appointed 15 year-old experts of the world, than the world headquarters for self-appointed experts?

But the "irony" is the point...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here."

For those of us who were using computers before there were PC's, much less an Internet, the irony in this statement is just too rich to pass up...

And yet, that one line captures so much of the point it's incredible.

Sure, you could get in touch with people on the old bulletin boards, but the average Joe, and certainly the average kid, didn't have the means or the knowledge to do it. The internet, and in particular the WWW, is the first time that anyone could say anything to a wide audience (more-or-less). Just look at the amount of information on /. -- you count the numbers of posts on a single thread in the 100s. Never before the 'net had things been done on this scale, either in terms of contributors or in terms of audience, and that's the key difference.

An inevitable result of that, combined with the anonymity the 'net currently provides, is shattered illusions. Those who have charged big amounts of money for services with little real value are in for a rude awakening. Perhaps just as importantly, kids who have genuine talent can get on the ladder based on merit, and not some title and suit. I am rather older than teens these days, but still young enough to feel undervalued. Modesty aside, I know, and management at the office privately acknowledge, that I can do as much as many of the more senior guys. I'm sure many here can empathise with that claim.

However, the other natural effect of this proliferation of "average" work is that truly good work now stands out. While I'm all for kids knowing their stuff, and getting credit for it, let's not pretend that a 15 year old with a couple of years playing with coding can do the same as a good 25 year old with an extra ten years. I'm not going to catch the good senior guys at the office for a while yet. (That's "good" as in, "that same enthusiastic and talented person, but ten years later".)

And this is the key point that's being missed by many replies here on this thread. Take some of the common examples. Amazon book reviews were mentioned. Let's see, suppose I want to buy a book on C++. Shall I go visit the ACCU [accu.org], where they have a comprehensive range of reviews written by experienced pros? Or shall I visit Amazon, and read reviews of beginners books by beginners who, by definition, aren't qualified to review them on technical merits?

There are numerous other examples. Look at programming. Many people here write the most amazing advocacies of new buzzwordisms in the programming threads. And yet, it's clear to the pro's that most of them have never programmed a serious, large scale, professional system in their lives, because they overlook the basic (to a pro) issues that they've never encountered.

Look at web pages for another example that's close to home. The ease with which a keen 15 year old can produce a decent homepage really shows up the con artists. However, no 15 year old has the knowledge of all the deeper issues, from graphic design through usability to effectively managing a site with literally 100,000s of pages on it. These things are the difference between a page good enough for a keen amateur (created by the 15 year old) and a page good enough for a business to bet its existence on (created by the experienced professional web design outfit).

And that, really, is the crux of it. In any activity, keen amateurs can get pretty good if they put enough into it. Those amateurs can be 15 or 50, and often, it doesn't much matter. Eitehr way, it's right and proper to give credit where it's due. But they'll never catch the pros, and no 15 year old has all of the knowledge, experience, maturity and ability to do a job in the same league. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many dot-bomb stories we've seen lately, and then count how many of the failures were wholly run by inexperienced management who assumed they could do it, and learned the hard way that they were wrong.

Nothing ever changes

[Veteran]

15 year olds have always thought that their elders were hostile, incompetent, and clueless - adding computers to the mix really hasn't changed much in that regard.

My 15 year old thinks I'm incompetant

[Cro Magnon]

He's on vacation this week and told me not to go online cause he thinks I'll get in trouble. Heck, I've been online for 2 days, and haven't gotten into trouble. In fact, Monday, I got an e-mail from a total stranger offering to help me manage my money. I e-mailed him my bank account numbers, SSN, Mom's maiden name, my PIN numbers and all my credit card numbers. Soon after I did that I got some e-mail from the credit card companies saying I was over my limit and did I want to increase it, but my new friend told me it was a glitch and to just click OK. Today, he showed me how to direct deposit my paycheck. Those numbers he gave me aren't what's on my bank statement, but he says thats fine. Tomorrow he's going to show me how to transfer my house title online. Thursday, he'll show me a non-revokable power of attorney. When my son comes back Friday, he'll see that I'm not incompetant!

Mod parent down

[xercist]

Very interesting. I'm not familiar with adequacy.org, so I don't know if this is intended to be a joke or troll, but I guess I'll bite.

The "15 year olds" were quite right in this case. The instructions on that page are in most cases unintelligent, and in a few just plain wrong. Go build yourself a system using those components, and you'll find yourself having a bit of trouble trying to fit your Pentium 4 into your AMD motherboard. So, you go buy a *real* p4 motherboard, and find the ram this page told you to buy (pc133) doesn't work with it. Furthermore, the power supply (they tell you to get the cheapest generic brand for $15 including the case) will almost certainly not have the 12V plug needed for a p4 system.

Enough with the wrong, lets get back to the unintelligent....the site recommends
*A WinModem
*In almost every case, the chepest components you can find (claims all motherboards are identical)
*Windows ME (and they *intist* you purchase your own copy...hmmmm)

What kind of crack are you on? Where can I get some?

Re:Gee, back when FORTRAN was just THREETRAN...

[Jucius Maximus]

"Confounding "adults" was the game. Sound familiar ??"

When I was in my second last year of high school, I wrote a program that 'mimicked' the Netware logon screen exactly, and when someone tried to log in, it would look like they somehow tripped a batch file, and a format c: was in the works...

On April 01, I set up the program on one of the computers in the a lab near my first class, just before classes started for the day at 9 AM. Shortly after that, at about 9:20, I could hear the SysAdmin just HOLLERING in the hallway by the lab. I was just waiting for him to enter my class and look with evilness at me.

But it never happenned. I think that that was the best one I ever came up with.

And yes, I've matured now. I don't do that anymore. Except maybe to my family members :P

Re:15 Year Olds and Pac-Man circa 1980

[BluedemonX]

Actually it was Pac-Man that got me interested in assembly language graphics routines, because my attempts at doing a Pac-Man clone in BASIC were far too slow. I figured this one out after maxing BASIC's capabilities. At 14.

I also learned, before then, from seeing a buffer overflow (high score overrunning the max limit) on a Pac-Man machine, some interesting things about what you can and cannot encode in eight bits.

I learned to use a soldering iron building "50 second backup" (I think it was called that) for the C-64, and some tricksy things about how the hardware works, as well.

I have excellent hand-eye coordination thanks to various video games, even though I only see in 2-D (vision defect).

I would gather that these kids are learning how to FIND and EXPLOIT information, which has ALWAYS been the number one skill mankind has ever had to have.

Lebed

[pprboy]

The problem with Lebed (at least what I got from the first part of the show) is he committed a CRIME.
He did nothing productive. He bought stock, hyped it to raise the price, and dumped it. Adults go to jail for that. He (and his parents) tried to make it sound like he found undervalued companies and just shared his views.
Problem 1:
If he was so sure they were good why sell after a quick run up? Surely it would climb much more if he had really found a diamond in the rough.
Problem 2:
After he quit hyping the stocks they tanked. His hot air was all that was keeping the balloon up. That is fraud, not investing.
I am surprised all they did was make him give some of the money back. An adult would be in prison

Re:My life was changed with a modem purchase

[aoeuid]

Wow, your story sounds exactly the same as mine, except I discovered IRC and Slashdot.

Re:I'd just like to point out that

[blair1q]

No. I mean continuously. 142537 hours and counting. I've only taken breaks to upgrade my fluids and network equipment. And I've got 39 lines of C code to pr0ve it!

--Blair
"How can anything be offtopic when the entire website is two characters of punctuation?"

Re:Rule #3

[Glytch]

No, Rule #3 states that rampant lesbianism needs no excuses. [fanfic.org]

Re:The question becomes...

[Grendel Drago]

On the other hand, the president is regularly called a fidiot by the press. Not so before the sixties.

It's okay for women to be single. Not so before the sixties.

Hot man sex is a wholesome family thing. Not so before the sixties.

In general, we don't trust our government. Not quite so before the sixties.

Men don't have to wear ties on the weekends. You won't get beat up for long hair (as often.) *Definitely* not so before the sixties.

And even though music *from* the sixties mostly sucked, much good stuff is descended from it. (Well, not punk. That came from England. And not blues or jazz or funk or hip-hop, that came from Harlem and, later, the ghetto. Which leaves... Britney. Never mind.)

And Joni Mitchell drives an SUV. Laugh and point.

-grendel drago