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Comment by asylteltine | Hacker News Reader

Seems to be an unpopular opinion to see this as child abuse and brainwashing. Sad. He’s going to have quite a rough life as he grows older.

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Pretty big jump to make from the article. There have always been people around who embrace anachronism, and teens who find unusual ways to differentiate themselves.

I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, but we have nowhere near enough information to make such a judgment.

I took it as a speculation, if that comment is true, then ...

> I took it as a speculation,

Ok but it's pretty groundless speculation then.

> There have always been people around who embrace anachronism,

TBH I love tech from the 1990s and before: CGI, terminals, sixels etc and I refuse to carry a cellphone (though it's ok to have one at home, plugged 24/7)

I didn't realize it before, but I now I can see how I embrace being anachronistic :)

That’s just good taste, technology peaked in the 90’s, before dark patterns infected everything. The 40’s were a while ago.

I'm not fully retro (I use Wayland for hyprland) but I'm sure there must have been some great stuff in the 1940s.

It's just that I don't know it. Maybe if I did, I would love it like he does?

https://gwern.net/improvement has a good counter to that particular argument.

I posted it on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38689459#38689872 along with a summary of this discussion to provide context

Discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22441865

Also, both could be true. It doesn't have to be this binary situation where he either was or wasn't "parentified." Isn't everyone a product of their experiences? Seems another reasonable is that of course he was influenced by his upbringing. AND he had fpund something with which he identifies and takes joy. May it cause him grief over time? Maybe, bit the same thing could be said for lots of things adolescents do.

It gets worse, it seems even his great grandfather was participating in the abuse from beyond the grave. From the article: "When I was younger, I looked at my great grandad's prisoner-of-war diaries and I just love everything about the period."

Even his teachers were getting in on the sickening brainwashing operation: ""Callum went away on a school trip when he was about 12 and came back with an old-fashioned hat on," she says. "I thought it was funny, and I just asked him, 'Where did you find this?'. "He said 'that's the way I want to dress, that's going to be me'. "Ever since then, that's just been Callum," his mum says."

Minimizing it like this is a great way to neglect kids.

I don't think it is, but you havent really given me anything to present a counter argument against... i just dont think there is any abuse for me to minimize, if it wasnt clear from the sarcasm oozing off my previous comment

Well, I went through this and didn't even see it as abuse/neglect until I was 35 and trying to figure out why I couldn't form relationships with others.

I wasn't raised by my grand parents, only visited them 5 to 6 weekend a year, but I was fascinated by their art deco furniture, bakelite door knobs, their old fridge from the mid 1940's and the old faucets in the bathroom and I loved seeing pics of their outfits back in the days.

I also contemplated the idea to buy an old car of the era. My grandfather's old cars would have been out of reach of my pocket[1] so I can relate.

I would have however totally incorporated tech into old design, making old radios work with my flac collection and connectable with bluetooth for example, or converting an old peugeot 402 to EV.

Our societies have progressed a lot in a century in many ways. However as far as design and elegance goes, I think even the richest person of the planet tend to look like crap nowadays with the modern outfits.

[1] some selling for literally millions of dollars nowadays at auctions.

Ironically, he’s going to grow in the new 40ies

I think the real unpopular opinion here is that our current brand of technological progress may be a net negative to society.

Humans, without substantial biological modification, do not seem ready for a technology driven quasi-utopia. Keep the biotechnology and pharmacology, keep the industrial robots and keep the private space programs but remove the inexpensive personal computation, omnipresent high-bitrate packet radio networks and with them all of the anti-societal behavior they support.

TL;DR This kid is closer to hyper-sane than brainwashed.

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