When I was young, society presented mostly people with intellectual achievements as role models which spurred a generation to strive. Hard work, humility, respect for others were actively inculcated into the growing generation. Children had few external influences other than their immediate circle of family, friends, neighbours and the school community.
Now we have reality TV stars parading their frankenstein bodies and the hype generated by social media as major influences for children growing up today.
Spelling a word correctly is harder than letting our apps auto-correct it for us. Playing a video game takes less physical effort than venturing out to a playground. Heating and eating a ready-meal takes less effort than cooking something.
I read somewhere that every augmentation is also an amputation. Progress in tech means we are constantly lobotomising a majority of the population. We in the tech community are partly responsible for this.
I don't know what the solution is - but I guess what the author suggests is a good start. Start caring.
Sure, and then, after we started getting more "external influences", we all realized that "hard work" isn't going to get us anywhere.
It's really easy to blame this on some kind of change in individual values - kids these days don't respect hard work, etc. It's harder to come to terms with the idea that maybe those values were a lie - or, perhaps a better way of putting it, a coping mechanism - in order to keep us placated with the status quo. Now we're really starting to wake up to the fact that employers do not reward things like hard work or loyalty. So why keep up the pretense?
Unfortunately this does indeed result in this issue - a lack of caring. But I don't think we're going to get people to care again by appealing to those older values.