I prefer the full quote by Douglas Adams.

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

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slillibri an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know about number 3. As a 53 year old Gen X'er, I still haven't come across things that see against the natural order. The main things I don't understand are things like the Humane AI pin, which didn't seem against the natural order, I just didn't see the appeal or usefulness of it. Maybe it just doesn't seem like there is much new being invented.

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cgriswald 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I think that if the pattern exists, it is strongly muted for GenX because everything we are seeing (and more) was virtually promised to be here “any day now” during the hay day of science fiction media. If anything, 2026 in the real world isn’t futuristic enough compared to what was “supposed” to have happened by now.

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munificent an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> I still haven't come across things that see against the natural order.

So many people these days spend hours watching short-form videos spray endlessly from a screen while they stare dumbly at it. They aren't even picking which videos to watch, just letting the algorithm do it.

Every time I see someone doing that, I just absolutely cannot relate to what's going on in their head at all. I'm certainly not above watching some YouTube, but the complete mindlessness of it, they watch it goes on forever, and the utter stupidity of the videos. I feel like I'm watching zombies in an opium den.

But billions of people are doing that shit every day, so what do I know?

	▲	delecti 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I don't want to defend short-form video feeds too much, but "They aren't even picking which videos to watch" is overstating it. Essentially nobody behaves like: watch 100% of a video, swipe, watch 100%, swipe. The expected behavior is that you swipe away if you're not interested, which is often done within a fraction of a second. Accordingly, Tiktok's content selection algorithm heavily weighs watch time as a signal of interest in related content. That actually can create a bit of a perverse incentive; if you linger on a video long enough to report it (as in for a TOS violation) or to click the "show less like this", it can lead to being shown more videos like that. In many ways, TikTok is kinda like channel surfing. Watch a few seconds, next channel, watch a few seconds, next channel, oh this is interesting, sure I'll watch a "How It's Made" marathon.

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zoogeny 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This feels apt in more than just science/technology. It matches my experience with culture as well, e.g. music and movies.

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marcosdumay an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's way more apt with culture than with science or technology.

The lack of patience from adults for learning the byzantine interfaces companies were making in the last quarter of the 20th century got generalized to a ridiculous degree.

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the__alchemist an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I feel like many younger people still listen to music from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s etc, as an exception (?)

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degamad an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That's in the rule - for them it's "just a natural part of the way the world works".

	▲	the__alchemist 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Ah I misunderstood; my mistake!

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an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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somewhatgoated 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s pretty damn accurate in my case.