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The monopoly in the minds
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2026
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I had a friend’s son come to me asking to learn to program so he could make video games. I started teaching him C#, and he thought it was too hard. He said he just wants to learn to make Roblox mods. It was very disappointing.
I used to teach programming to young kids (like 8-12) as a summer job and never had a single kid complain about the difficulty or fail to learn. This was about a decade ago.
I recently tried teaching my cousin (9) using the same curriculum and it was nearly impossible. He didn't know how to turn his computer on or off and he didn't know what a file was or what "text" means. I basically had to root his Chromebook to install a competent text editor on it. Then every time the "computer" booted it said something like "press G to revert" in huge text for like a minute straight and I told him never to press it. Took like 2 hours to put the computer in a state where you could code on it, and next session after that it was reset. I was like "what happened to the computer?" and he said "it said to press G so I did"
Kids are fucked bro. I blame Google, Apple, and Microsoft for intentionally designing their software to prevent you from learning how computers work or how to use them. They don't want you developing any transferrable skills whatsoever. You used to learn all about computers just by using them and it was impossible not to...
OK that "press G" prompt is horrible, though.
We know the younger generations are somewhat cooked, and that, wouldn't trust a boomer or GenXer with that either. Even for a millennial that's horrible UX.
It's designed to trick people. It displays the message for 30 seconds or a full minute (don't remember) every single time it boots. There is no indication that there is a timer running. If there's a way to skip it and/or disable it, it isn't not apparent.
Ok get this: Putting the computer into a state where it will so graciously allow you to install a text editor also requires completely wiping all data on it. Good thing my cousin didn't know that you could even save data to a computer in the first place! Pressing G to revert it also completely wipes it. Imagine working on something for a week before pushing it to some remote git repo and accidentally hitting that.
They are completely, intentionally fucking up the minds of children to make them dependent for life. We need a new round of Nuremberg trials for big tech.
I hate this problem so much.
This has been a thorn in my side at least as far back as Windows 8, and the LLM craze has only thrown jet fuel on the damn fire
EDIT: I don't have to deal with kids that much but I've noticed that it's wrapped around to affecting older adults and that's maybe worse since they're the same generation as the politicians making decisions for all of us involving technology
I mean, people have different paths of entry into programming, lots of them started by making mods for their favorite game. And Lua is a great lightning-fast language with minimal footprint, excellent for interactive use-cases, that folks keep dismissing for no good reason.
It was more that he just wanted something easy. He didn’t want to work for it. He thought that making Roblox mods would mean he didn’t need to learn to program.
I wonder if there's some kinda visual environment, maybe in the vein of Scratch, that would trick him into learning programming while not feeling that way. That's often the approach that one must take not only with children, but even in adulthood when the full-blown subject feels too much for one's bandwidth.
That's so sad. I feel like (perhaps pre-Microslop) Minecraft modding or Gmod scripting would teach people to code too, but Roblox is just so damn predatory.
It runs off the free labor of children hoping to make money. I feel like few people are going to learn to code and enjoy it with that kinda motive.
I noticed people would build skills so fast when it was about doing fun stuff to share with friends or a community because they thought it would be cool.
I started with https://scratch.mit.edu/ as a kid and moved onto C after that
There's a whole game studio here that just makes games and mods for Roblox. It really is kind of the example in the OP.