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The Rise Of The 15-Year-Olds
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.
The real question isn't "How can these 15 year olds usurp the power from the traditionally powerful" but is instead: "Why are our cultural institutions so fragile -- and so mysteriously sacrosanct -- that radical shifts in power (such as Lebed's stock trading) cause such widespread fear and paranoia?"
What is it that the "powerful" are protecting? My guess is that they're protecting the hegemony of their institutions so that they, the traditionally powerful, can remain in power. And until recently, these protected institutions have been immune to all but those in "power".
What all this shows, I think, is just how fragile things are -- cultural instititions -- and how the powerful will stop at nothing to maintain their hold on the institutions that legitimize their power. Adobe, for example, is proof of this. Microsoft, too.
But why? Why is everything so fragile? And why do guys like Lebed so honestly and completely expose the fragility?
If you saw Lebed on a recent 60 Minutes, you can see that he's obviously a smart, savvy guy. He's no nut, no raving lunatic. He's simply done his homework. And he understands how things work. Then, cut to the chair of the SEC: an old white guy, your typical CEO: big suit, big white hair, sun tan. Lots of years on the golf course, right?
He's "old school" all the way. Probably from the same school as our good buddy Jack Valenti. Probably shot a few holes with ol' Jack. (Can't you imagine the conversation these two guys would have? "All this internet stuff, Jack. It scares the hell out of me. Where's the honor? The tradition?" And Jack, nodding and nodding -- any more nodding and his head would pop off and birdie into the hole -- couldn't agree more: "The internet. It's the ruination of our culture. Bandwidth means piracy. There is no honor anymore, no tradition. Why I remember golfing with Jack Kennedy. There was a stand up guy. A guy who knew how things worked. Blah blah blah.)
Anyway, this SEC guy, he goes on and on about Lebed. How Lebed's crime is just about the worst sort of crime he could imagine. He defrauded the masses. He took advantage of the system. And, you better believe it, friend: Lebed oughta be thrown into the pokey and the key thrown away.
These old guys -- the CEOs still sitting around table chit chatting about golf and driving their Lexus' and worrying about their platinum parachutes -- these guys oughta be fired on the spot. Told to either get with the program or get the hell out. They still think the best business is the business you conduct between holes seven and eight. Driving around with their little ladies golf gloves in loud little golf carts, pretending to care about whether or not you got a Big Bertha driver or that latest titanium driver.
It's all a bunch of crap. Lebed and others -- they're the ones exposing the institutions for what they are. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. But more power to 'em.
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.
Developers: We can use your help.
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!
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.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I can confirm this by the number of times I've been kicked/banned from Tribes servers by 15-year old admins on a power trip. Oooh.. you have admin on a game server.. big man!
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.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
And the same Americans who won't go in a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance device, unless it's called an MRI. (Go to a physics department and ask what the non-accelerator device with the huge magnet is called. It's NMR.)
And the same Americans who are violently against cloning humans, but are **flabbergasted** to hear that identical twins are as identical as clones. (This one from a roommate of mine. He was *not* a science major.)
They're a bunch of useless bloody morons . Especially with regards to science, technology and anything more complicated than watching television.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
For every genious 15-year old manipulating stock prices, there are 100,000 fanbois cheating in Quake or Diablo 2 or some other waste of time.
Technology doesn't lead to a egalitarianism: it leads to a meritocracy.
Which, in the end, is what most of us want anyways.
As for children having too much power: can they smoke? Drink? Vote? Serve in any job more then 4 hours a day? Aren't they legally obligated to attend school for 8 hours a day? Do they have any choice what school they attend? Do children play a role in any legislation or decision making involving educational funding, year-round school, homeschooling? Can they collect welfare? Is it illegal to spank your children? Are parents required to do _anything_ to prepare their children for lives as adults, except provide public school?
no, you're not a nerd until you hit 23 hours.
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.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
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, or Eagle Talon's, or case modding, or religious persecution, 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.
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.
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.
The Internet is generally stupid
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
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
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.
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.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
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
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.
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):)
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.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
"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
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, 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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.