sometimes people remark at how extensive ancient civilations became with such simple technology, yet here we are. billions of people being served by things like BGP and SS7.
as i get older, i become more and more concerned with humanity's lack of fault tolerance.
brett weinstein clued me into this as an evolutionary phenomena. if a gene activates a short-term solution and long-term problem, that gene is likely to be favored.
how do we transcend this problem that seems to be inherent with existing? a first-principal problem?
If anything, these kind of issues we see popping up here and there are proof of the high availability of the Internet and specifically how protocols such as BGP helped on making it what it is today.
It is not that we have built the Internet despite BGP. We have built it thanks to BGP. If we didn't have BGP we would have to invent it :)
I taught myself to program in 1984, two years before finishing high school. That and being on the chess team pretty much killed my social life and any chance at carnal activities until I turned 21 (high school was followed by compulsory consription for 2 years). I struggled with that.
Today I note that impressing friends and strangers has become very big business. Influencers. Looked at one this morning on Instagram. This dude had muscles, gave thed impression of owning a Bently, a curvy girlfriend and a house in Majorca. No clue as to how he eant a living or obtained that wealth. Assuming those material posessions are his.
These things are the antithesis of what I went through, even though today I have the means to aquire everything from the Bently to the large-breatsed blonde in a house on the Costa Del Sol.
And yet that prospect fills me with dread because it's vacuous. There's no meaning or value behind it. Same goes for teaching someone something for the purpose of becoming popular or impressing others. Seriously please don't take this as criticism. ANY time spent with kids is time well spent.
I guess where I'm going with all of this is that I hope to teach my 8y/o boy to seek out meaningful, rewarding relationships and experiences that build him up. Without a need for others' approval. And I have vague ideas how I might do that but in a practical sense I'm at a loss and that scares me. And I would LOVE to teach him how to program but so far I've made no progress.
Part of being a dad I guess. Happily I've discovered that if I want a thing enough I find a way. Patience...
The fact that you don't like Bentleys, big houses in Majorca or a specific lady does not make them vacuous or meaningless; not to mention it would be 100% rewarding if those were your dreams and you've accomplished them.
That guy may or may not like those, but appeals to people that would love -or they think they would- those. The same goes for any other dreams we have.