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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what that's supposed to tell us. How many schoolchildren in 1969 wanted to be astronauts, or movie stars?

I think you answered your own question about what this is supposed to tell us.

I’d love my child to long being an astronaut, and all the studying and life choices it will impose on them. Can’t say the same about becoming a TikToker.

I'm not going to argue that really wanting to be an astronaut won't have better life outcomes. My point is that asking young people what they "plan to become" is very different from what they really want (much less intend to achieve).

If the two were the same, we'd have a lot of firefighters and astronauts.

It shows who they consider role models, at the very least. I would rather my child idolize an astronaut or a firefighter than a social media star.

We all want the things we consider good for our children. I want my hypothetical ones to read Buddenbrooks, but I know they're probably going to watch YouTube instead.

Social media stars are an extension of fame, a basic human desire. It's not surprising (or even particularly civically harmful) that fame is now associated with TikTok influencers rather than movie stars. Your child is about as likely to become either.

Jonny Kim (Navy Seal, MD from Harvard, Astronaut) is also famous, he'd be a better role model. Accomplishing 1/3 of what he's done is impressive in its own right.

Who in this thread is claiming that astronauts are not impressive? Of course they are, especially to me as an adult.

As a 16 year old, I wouldn't give a damn that Jonny Kim has an MD from Harvard. I did, however, find myself impressed by the fact that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier while lying about his broken ribs[1]. I have no idea which (if any) college he went to.

[1]: https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/when-chuck-yeager-broke-th...

How is it different than making videogames? Is James Hoffmann a YouTuber or a batista or an entrepreneur? I don't watch social medias to know a "better" example or not too contrived .

The path to becoming an astronaut is to be a productive member of society. I'm for everyone wanting to become astronauts.

But your movie star comparison is pretty spot on.

Movie stars are productive members of our society too?

Entertainment is valuable.

Movie stars are quasi leaders these days, sadly.

Entertainment is valuable, but there are many forms of entertainment beyond television. Read a book, play a video game, invite friends over and do some fun stuff, etc. I am not a fan of TV(or streaming) because its the most passive form of entertainment around. Its valuable, but it also feels overvalued these days.

While I think they are productive at the moment in that they really push the economy by proxy through big budget movies and surrounding merch, I also feel that if the movie and TV industry disappeared that role would be easily filled by other things.

You gotta think about the 99% of people who don't make it.

What's the use of having a million washed up D-list actors?

Whereas if you fail on the journey to becoming an astronaut, you've at least got an engineering degree of something. Maybe you'll contribute by designing a machine to manufacture bearings for desks at a hospital or something.

The survey was people between 16 and 25. These people aren't schoolchildren.

I still wanted to be an Astronaut at that age.

It would be interesting to see the internal distribution within the survey. I'm 25 and I've been in a full-time career for 4 years, so I probably wouldn't have even answered this survey.

Young people are capable of being ill-informed or even outright stupid due to a variety of factors. Upbringing, adults in their lives, etc.

They don't magically become logical/rational brains upon turning 16.

Here's NASA's prerequisites for becoming an astronaut:

1. Be a U.S. citizen

2. Possess a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics, from an accredited institution.

3. Have at least two years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion or at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time on jet aircraft.

4. Be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical.

Effort towards those goals is not wasted even if one does not become an astronaut.

Of course it isn't. But this assumes that anybody who wants to become an astronaut attempts any of those prerequisites.

"Planning to become" something when you're 16 years old has very little connection in reality with what you actually end up doing. When I was 16, I wanted to be a biologist (definitely a step down from my original plan to be a dinosaur). I ended up being a computer programmer with a completely unrelated degree.

I’d rather my kids want to be astronauts.

Sure, that makes sense. But it's completely irrelevant: the point is that kids identity with cultural moments, and that we shouldn't mistake that for what they're actually going to do when they grow up.

For the record, I wanted to be a dinosaur.

It does affect what they focus on though, and what interests them later in life. The Apollo effect is very real. There’s a lot of boomers and Gen X folks who went into technology and science because of the Moon landings. we should be doing things and making cultural choices that inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

The Apollo effect is real, and so is the Scully Effect[1]. Entertainment stars with no particular relation or expertise in the roles they play can have an outsized effect on children and young adults' professional goals.

There is no economical scheme in which 25% of all Gen-Z-ers actually become social media influencers, so I'm not going to spend my time actually worrying about that. For the ones who do, the content they produce matters much more to me than their mere job description.

[1]: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Scully_Effect

I’m not worried about them becoming social media influencers. I understand that there’s a limited pool of positions here.

It’s just that the kid who wants to be an astronaut or involved in the space program in the late 60s early 70s grows up to be a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the 80’s and 90’s. We got that generation to thank for this website and websites in general.

I don’t know what the profound effect of Gen Z or Gen A will be, but I suspect a future in which they are inspired by a revived Moon and Mars exploration program will be better than one where they mostly aspire to be “influencers.”

Here's what I'll point out: the generation that grew up to be astronauts didn't have astronauts to look up to. They looked up to silent movie stars, army generals, and Depression-era daredevils. Neil Armstrong was born in 1930 and flew in a "Tin Goose" as a child; he probably admired barnstormers a lot more than the rocket scientists who eventually paved the road for his flight to the Moon.

It's of course good to have good role models. But I don't think those role models need to be technical experts or "heroic" in some socially beneficial way to be good. They can also be good public speakers, or educators, or just plain entertaining.

It's sad that more children want to be influencers than astronauts today.

Why is that sad? Influencers are today's actors and movie stars (especially as the latter noticeably age and are not replaced[1]). I don't think we should idolize actors either, but if you have an intuition for why we do then extending it to their equivalent on social media should not be difficult.

[1]: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/6/27/23181232/old-acto...

Unfortunately I think this is just a reflection of the fact that human-driven space exploration has not only stalled, but declined. If you graph “Maximum distance from Earth achieved by a living person” over time, it’s currently trending downward as the original pilots of the Apollo missions die off.

I’m sure if we sent someone to Mars and back, a lot more children (and adults!) would want to be astronauts.

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