sleeperkid
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Jul 21, 2025 5:36 PM
sleeperkid
26304
594
22
ToenailClippingsJar
Hah.. I’m from the golden age of going to the library to obtain the information needed to write papers and essays. As in physically go outside and interact with hoomans. I’m that old.
SpanWolf
50 page state report in the third grade... *curls into fetal position*
Bojovnik84
*Some. There are just some lazy shits and others that aren't.
silentjay01
I once had a class where all the papers and writing assignments were due at the end of the semester. I started doing the work 10 days before the final/due date. Got an A.
TheBappin
On my second day of college I had 3 different papers that I needed to turn in, I didn't do any of them. That was my last day of college
Axelxdisepic
And now I get mildly accused of using AI to write because I have ADHD and my writing heavily reflects that.
PUNKem733
Get ready fro dumber and dumber generation of future kids/people. AI will do all the heavy lifting in any educational setting, while their brains gets fried out on internet vids. We all know you don't use it, you lose it.
AnAcuteCaseofLonliness
Was chatgpt even out in the 2010's? I thought it was a 2020's thing
FishDimension
Isn't that why it says "without ChatGPT"?
AnAcuteCaseofLonliness
Oh, I must have misunderstood it. I thought it was saying that kids in the 2010's were so reliant on chatgpt that writing an essay without it was a big challenge
cuprohastes
[stares in fountain pen]
TheRidg
being left handed, fountain pens were horrible; you have to hold you hand away from the paper to prevent it from smudging
worm61
They have no idea how good we were at shitting out 10 pages at 1am the night before it was due.
GlenL
"Teenager's in the 2010's having to think"
suffyr
I remember having to do a 15 page paper in Mexican American history with no quotations. Paraphrase only, but cited. It's the only way I wrote papers from that moment on. Unless I really couldn't get around using a direct quote.
GrosseChung
Direct quotes are fantastic when the source you’re referencing actually has good writing. Often times though, the writer is a genius but can’t write for shit
triplenuts
You'd think a whole bunch of commenters shitting on someone for being lazy or stupid would spend at least a couple more minutes pondering the implications of the alleged trend before jumping to extremely black and white conclusions about generations and shit. Makes me sad and a little worried
toogoodtomiss
What doesn't kill you makes you...
Chereazi
Essays are dumb af anyway.
Test for actual understanding of topics, which can be done in 15-30min tests during class, not for writing a certain amount of words at home.
Never did that kind of BS homework... Basically never did any homework unless they threatened me to fail me otherwise, still was in the top of the class in anything that actually mattered xD
PassiveCommenter
I once wrote a 5 page essay for an exam, towards the end my pen ran out of ink so I just sorta carved it into the page. Thankfully the teacher took it because it was worth a lot of my grade at the time.
Commander5AM
Essays are stupid easy, I used to write them for fun
BobsBurgerslurker
Is anything done nowadays without AI?
Infinias
How could it not? It is involved in any product, easy to use cheap or outright free of charge and can produce "correct" looking results. On the surface. The level of knowledge in any field to determine the result is marginally wrong or outright dangerous at worst is way beyond the average intelligence level.
Monkeynutsjoe
I went to the bathroom without AI
ghostofdragon
I run my therapy sessions with zero AI. Even when I’m desperate for session ideas with kiddos, I just go to my repository and when I have time I’ll even make my own. Learned skills but I’ve witnessed it be a time saver. If only it could be appropriately created and sourced and learn from the info you have directly given it instead of reading god knows what making up sources it pulls from it’s own ass, if it had one
irrationaldesign
Your mom.
BishlamekGurpgork
No. I wrote an AI that does that, too
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
fuck ai
whywritemythesiswhenihaveinternet
I have never used it beyond whatever spellcheck is
billstranger
Everything i do is, where i can help it. It's disabled or ignored on every app i have where it's possible, obviously i can't control what's done on the backend, but i actively avoid AI. There are definitely some uses for it, but until it stops being EVERYWHERE, I'm not doing it.
HistoricalContext
It wasn't on a typewriter, but I had to write two 5-page summaries and a 10-page comparison/contrast for the assigned reading in 8 hours.
OnyxTurret
Have them write essays in class on paper.
cptcr
this is how they make you stupid
QuitLookinAtMineAim
Yes
CheetoDustedMalcontent
What's that? You need our AI to do your job? Sounds like you'll be giving us a HEALTHY CUT of that paycheck
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
well, it's been going on for quite some times. ai is just the newest way
SleazyBijou
So we’re shitting on middle schoolers who don’t want to write a paper? Nobody wants to write a gd paper on some uninteresting horseshit. That’s the problem. Fuck Walt Whitman…
worm61
Those papers are how you learn to *think*, which is more important than ever now that the world has been taken over by people who can’t.
INeverReadTheTOS
I have no problem with kids that don’t want to write an essay; it’s the ones that admit that they literally CAN’T without GPT that worry me.
Clockworkdancerobot
Used to be teachers had to deal with students using 3rd party essay services to write their stuff for them. Now? ugh.
lordnequam
Don't worry, the teachers are asking ChatGPT to grade the essays, too.
BeragondGreatstride
Some may be. But the good teachers are up late putting in the work.
lordnequam
And good students are writing their own reports; sweeping generalizations are prone to such inaccuracies.
evilcoffeechick
I did that for a little bit, to save up for an N64. Only the one class, though, because I didn't see a problem with it if the teacher was a terrible person giving us weekly essays as busywork and not teaching anything.
INeverReadTheTOS
How did doing that help you save for an N64?
MaleekTheFreak
They were the third party service. They presumably charged their classmates for it to save for a 64.
INeverReadTheTOS
Ooh, ok got it.
evilcoffeechick
Yup. I'm sure I should feel bad about it, but that teacher was...irritating. His idea of English was handing out I Know What You Did Last Summer, one xeroxed chapter at a time. Read it, write a summary. And I got stuck with him again for Economics. Here's a news article. Read it, write a summary.
This is useless.
xlr82xs
Got stuck with the same lazy teacher for English and Econ. All he does is hand out crappy photocopies and make us summarize them. Total waste of time.
DadThoughts
A typewriter.... That's nuts
hyptosis
My family couldn't afford a fucking type writer. All my reports were hand written with whiteout and stuff.
sleeperkid
We couldn't afford a word processor. :(
PiercedViking
We had a Coleco Adam when I was in elementary school. I wrote so many papers on that thing. All saved to cassette tapes.
zerneus
I loved typewriters they made you feel so official the click clacking and the ding of the return carriage https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1c2VubW02dDJxZXlkbDRtZnVqMnJiZnFubjgzc3Btdjg0aGR4c3ZjdSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/RdJWxAtxbm6TBbCGZx/200w.webp
CreigerRykov
My favorite one we had had some type of early memory to it. You could slam away at the keys but it would still only type at a certain rate. That way you could steamroll through words, and it wouldn't jam itself.
INeverReadTheTOS
Man, kids are weirdly proud of being dumb as fuck these days huh.
RayneOfSalt
Congrats, you've graduated to adult. Complaining about "kids these days" is the final step in your transformation to elderly curmudgeon.
SmeesNotVeryGoodTwin
School is structured to be boring as fuck while giving credit for ineffectual outcomes, so gaming the system to get the highest grades for the least effort counts as a win, just as much as someone collecting good wages for barely doing work. If we don't like it, we have to rebuild our education system, if not our society as a whole.
Jarjarthejedi
Sneeje
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1OWt3dXo3b3d0MmZ1ejl0ZTM3ZGJjcGhjMzM2dWw0eXhqemRzMDFrNyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/l2JdU7e38RqzdlakU/200w.webp
williamvanauger
I work in a school. You have no idea how deep that rabbit hole goes.
Hevach
I'll be honest: if I had been aware I was the midpoint in a sequence of generations all the way back to the Silents wherein every successive cohort was better educated and more productive yet poorer than the one before? I would have just done a fuckload of drugs and fried my brain like an egg in that commercial. Dumb is better than the cold realization the last three generations are living with.
VaultGirl69
Not really. People in general are dumb as fuck. Age has nothing to do with it. I do believe AI should be used as a supplementary tool when it comes to education instead of doing all the work. If kids are especially dumb, my first concern would be the dumb motherfuckers raising them.
frozenlake247
Fair but my luck I’d have ended up homeless and physically wrecked without having lost even a little bit of my awareness and understanding of how fucked everything is.
VaultGirl69
It's less luck and more what you are born into and how much you need to sacrifice to get ahead. I put up with physical abuse and lack of care for a now life threatening condition just to get my degree. People shouldn't need to sacrifice that hard. Like kids shouldn't need to sacrifice their childhoods so idiots can easily get guns.
Rhythmaster
I haven't written an essay or paper since I was in school, I'm sure if I tried now, it would be shite. Maybe writing essays and papers isn't the end-all be-all measure of intelligence. Maybe everyone isn't cut out to be an academic writing 20 papers every year, maybe they can be smart in other ways. To be honest my worst school instructors were the ones that made me write papers all the goddamn time. It was useless busywork and maybe the students are smart enough to understand that, and that's
Rhythmaster
Why they decided to make a robot do it. Because it doesn't add value to their life or their education. Has it really been that long since you were in school? Don't you remember all the bullshit make-work assignments? But sure, go off about how "kids these days" are dumb and lazy. I'm not saying ChatGPT is good, but I understand why students don't want to jump through all the hoops, just to get their piece of paper that says they can go work an office job and begin paying off their debt...
Luxwbmr
Adults are also weirdly proud of being stupid as fuck. It's not a generational thing... We just fried our brains with social media and 24hrs news.
cuprohastes
Wark smarder, nop hodor
Mohareb
Always has been. People bragging about not doing homework and how much they hate school and learning etc etc. They did it in the 80ies too. I'm sure as fuck they've done it for a very long time and there's nothing new under the sun here
theskepticinme
That mentality definitely negatively affected my motivation to pursue academic excellence
HairyChairstepper
Eightyies
INeverReadTheTOS
Yeah, but there’s a difference between saying “I hate doing homework” and “I am literally incapable of writing a 200 word essay without GPT”
jrntn
Except the post doesn't say "I'm incapable of writing essays", it just dunks on the previous generation for writing essays. The message here is CLEARLY "I hate doing homework and people were chumps for having to do it before", you're just inserting your own meaning into it
HairyChairstepper
In this essay, I will not inflate the word count by repeating things over and over or be reiterating the same idea again and again. I will not restate these same things in a slightly different manner and I will not use unnecessary, excessive, or extra words to pad the word count.
IncognitoEnthusiast
No, they aren't, Im so tired of this generation bullshit. Imagine flaming a generation that grew up under completely different technology than you did, and the gap only widening the further it goes back.
INeverReadTheTOS
This isn’t a “kids these days” thing. Teens are literally posting on social media that they can’t write a 200 word essay without Chat GPT.
ruferto
there's lots of satire about it, and i think one (1) kid wrote a post about that specific talking point you just made
CaptainScarfish
Socrates condemned "kids these days" for learning to read instead of just memorizing everything. Take a breath. Touch grass. The world isn't going to end just because it's different from when you were a kid.
IncognitoEnthusiast
Then the generation before them failed to teach them, you're still pushing that same tired narrative.
walnutbreath
We have way more educational resources available to today's kids than any prior generation. The best teacher in the world can't help a student who doesn't want to learn and refuses to take an active role in their education.
The problem is we've removed consequences from the classroom and the homes. We used to hold kids back if they didn't learn the material. Now, they advance to the next grade irrespective of their mastery of the material. We used to discipline disruptive students, including
IncognitoEnthusiast
lmao, same tired boomer story and I doubt you're even a boomer. Once again, if a WHOLE generation has wound up like this, then it's the fault of the ones before them. The kids will be fine as soon as people like you get off their ass.
walnutbreath
expelling them. We've made accommodations for things that should never be accommodated (i.e., violence against others). We've handcuffed administrators with the threat of frivolous litigation and one-sided press coverage because administrators are legally unable to dispute lying shithead parents to the media. Students who fail or are disciplined by school officiLs often don't face any consequences from their sociopathic parents.
We've spared the metaphorical rod and spoiled the children.
cptcr
people are self diagnosing as adhd or autistic. i think it helps them rationalize feeling stupid. they may or may not be either of those things, but they certainly weren't taught how to work through or with them. this will be downvoted, because they know how to downvote and defend their acceptance of mediocrity.
CaptSchmidtGaming
Stupidity and Mediocrity are not the same thing. Stupidity is a failing to live up to the moral standards that are obvious to your unique life and its circumstances.
Mediocrity is exactly what we think it is and I'm not gonna redefine it. I think your statement is correct when considering mediocrity, however only partially correct when including stupidity in the mix. 100% of these assholes are justifying their mediocrity while only a portion of them are justifying their mediocrity and stupidity
frozenlake247
While it’s possible in some RARE cases it seems like maybe someone that appears to struggle with basic capitalization might need to consider that folks making any real effort to research & understand significant medical/developmental conditions aren’t often doing it to “rationalize feeling stupid”.
Unfortunately, self-diagnosis is often a critical step with reasonably solid research/professional backing in part because a lot of parents treat early signs as stupidity etc resulting in masking.
IrrationalNumber
Exactly, kids with AuDHD, should just be disciplined harder, and repeatedly told that they're not doing their best. That they are wasting their potential. That will solve their problems.
CanadianLadyMoose
Pushing a false dichotomy between abuse or neglect just demonstrates your inability to care for children. Try, you know, parenting?
funtimes72
Things like that and seemingly every person on the internet with a social media account talking about being "depressed" makes me think the internet making information so easily accessible was ultimately a mistake. Mental problems damn near start to lose their meaning when everyone with the ability to type in to a website or app says they have it.
triplenuts
Okay, I feel like that needs the add-on of onlookers also accepting that they're not qualified to diagnose and therefore shouldn't be quick to judge. There's a middle ground where those that need it get help and those that don't get a reality check. In my opinion getting there is not by unqualified people telling others "You don't have ADHD". Normalizing working on personal mental health and making quality mental health care generally available. Not opposing your comment just trying to expand.
TruckerKunIsekaiGod
While I agree... I feel like I must be on the spectrum because of many reasons, not one of which is stupidity.
I can't make eye contact easily, I fidget fingers/toes when uncomfortable, I have a hard time talking in person where I can't think out my thoughts, I misread a topic or conversation so bad sometimes, that it'd have been better if I actually put my foot in my mouth.
I come off as cold and uncaring just because I don't know how to respond...
Vysard
That's just working through social settings in general and being uncomfortable about it. And you're self-conscious about it, due to past mistakes, which makes the anxiety increase.
Everyone misreads topics or conversations. I also struggle in conversations because my mind is racing so fast on so many different types of responses I COULD say in the moment, but trying to parse through which one is actually most useful.
You gotta practice these things to get good at 'em. It'll be okay.
frozenlake247
This is like telling someone that drives a car with a manual transmission and is struggling to understand how/when/why to shift gears that “everyone’s car sometimes doesn’t shift right (ignoring automatics)”.
Or telling someone with major bone/nerve/muscular issues in their legs that “everyone sprains their ankles”.
It’s probably technically true from a certain perspective but it VASTLY misrepresents the differences and challenges presented by various neurodiverse conditions in many cases.
Vysard
Okay. Let me break down every single social interaction and emotion in detail for this person via spreadsheet based on every person in the world, their personality, and how different personality types and emotional states mesh.
Then I'll get right into societal standards and age gap differences in cultural etiquette and communication types.
You see how I won't be able to do that? So yeah, a summation is all I can give.
Sodee
A lot of what you describe is what my fiance deals with, and she had been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. It basically stems from a feeling that everyone is judging her negatively, and being unable to handle social interactions.
It’s so bad that most of the times I have to go into appointments with her to communicate things or convey feelings because she can’t. She’ll sit there stoic because she’s frozen and doesn’t know how to respond.
frozenlake247
Unfortunately a lot of mental health professionals are devastatingly untrained and inexperienced in identifying and treating neurodivergent conditions (in part because the field has been advancing rapidly in the last few decades and a LOT of the old info was incomplete, contaminated, or actively junk from the start).
I know a few people who spent most of their lives with an ever changing list of “simple” mental health issues that turned out to just be a list of untreated neurodivergence issues.
frozenlake247
Imagine going back to a period when cancer was barely recognized and generally understood as a large group of loosely related illnesses with a few common features. Imagine with current knowledge how frustrating it would be to see doctors treating the symptoms with minimal effort or willingness to even consider deeper issues let alone attempt to diagnose or treat the actual underlying cancer.
cptcr
that's all perfectly plausible and i'm not say all who claim autism do so to side step their intellectual struggles, but many do. For you, I would suggest paying the money to get diagnosed. You may have other reasons why you do that, but i'll let you in on a secret, we all do those things. That happens to a lot of people who aren't on the spectrum. We all get nervous and fidget and get uncomfortable, it's part of life.
frozenlake247
Do you understand that almost as many ADHD and/or autistic folks test significantly HIGHER on intelligence tests than the neurotypical/“normal” population?
In fact “giftedness” is a common comorbidity that can mask ASD/ADHD & obstruct or delay diagnosis because both conditions present similar social etc issues.
A part of the increase in diagnosis is specifically relates to the (slowly decreasing) tendency for doctors to misdiagnose if symptoms of any of the other conditions are present.
Enoan
A guy I know actually does have a formal diagnosis, and clings to it to excuse every single shortcoming or failure rather than ever make any attempt to improve.
ghostofdragon
Ah yes, the excuser from learned helplessness. He should do some therapy about it if it were accessible.
Enoan
He has talked to therapists and gets mad at them for "not getting it" while also teling me my therapist is bad because they wouldn't help me get over my "trauma" of not wanting to put up with his bullshit
ghostofdragon
HA sounds like he’s completed the ouroboros that is his mouth to his own booty hole. From a fellow autistic. Sorry you’re dealing with their extremely rigid thinking to the point admitting they’re wrong would be too much of a change for them handle. Disabilities are, well, disabling. Not many therapists are *truly* well versed in working with ASD, which makes sense as to why none could get him to see what learned helplessness is so far. *Even* ones who specialize in it
Trisar
Sounds like my roommate.
ComoSeIguana
I've tried to explain this to people at work, and they misconstrue it to me being a prick because I'm not tip toeing around their feelings when they make a mistake and then I try nicely to correct them.
cptcr
it's hard, i can't do it, i give up, i'm autistic. like somehow that's an excuse to get out of doing something hard? hard stuff is hard for everybody.
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
hard stuff are important. they force you to improve
Luxwbmr
That's like telling an amputee to not be pussy and climb the mountain you just did, because "it's hard for everybody"...
Of course there are a lot of people faking mental illness, but your take is just plain ignorant as fuck
cptcr
you sound like a pussy
frozenlake247
Funny part is a lot of the “hardest shit (as far as actual work goes)” is relatively easy or not problematic for a lot of ASD folks. It’s the accessory bullshit like sucking up to Bosses & making coworkers like them enough to not be the perpetual fall guy that’s a nightmare.
Likewise with ADHD folks and the physical/mentally strenuous aspects of jobs while the makework & formalities that are often there primarily to pad out the hours and show work is happening (even when it’s not) are killer.
ruferto
what makes you think that they're dumb as fuck? every generation and new use of technology brings its own set of haters i guess.
BeragondGreatstride
If you use AI to write your essay, then you didn’t do the work. You probably don’t even know the material.
ruferto
you did the work and while ownership of the material is iffy, what you've learned is WHERE to get the material. here's a really interesting paper my friends wrote on the topic: https://www.brainonllm.com/
BeragondGreatstride
I read the linked report. The data they present sure does indicate that LLM users not only didn’t know what was in their essays, but that they also weren’t even thinking about them very much while “writing”. Further, it showed evidence that the LLM users were less able to write a normal essay without use of LLM due to having leaned on that crutch previously.
LLMs literally make you dumber. The fact you thought that link supported your argument is all the proof I’ll ever need for that point.
ruferto
the conclusion was that it changes the way you learn and write - especially if that's all you were used to writing. it also showed that if you grew up with differnt learning strategies, the way you use it may be different from a new user. but if all you got out of it is that it makes you "dumber" then i think we're done discussing this
xlr82xs
Having said that, I can't remember the topics let alone the specific content of most essays/papers I wrote for my first degree, let alone things from highschool. I guess I wrote something about anatomy for my human anatomy class ? Bones maybe ?
scrumby
Um, the point of writing essays isn't really to retain the information in them. It's exercising your critical thinking, logic, and formal argument skills. You wrote essays then so you can read articles now, understand what they're saying, and recognize if/when they fail to make their case. Using chat GPT for that is like skipping practice and still expecting to score because you've watched a lot of videos of other people kicking balls into nets.
ruferto
And Plato (through Socrates) argued that writing would lead to intellectual complacency and diminish the practice of memory, as people would rely on written texts rather than internalizing knowledge. With all advances in technology come the usual arguments about how it's "bad" for us. It's correct to have concern. But dont let fear hold you back.
BeragondGreatstride
LLMs are not comparable to writing. They’re more analogous to making someone else write the paper for you. The point of writing an essay is to teach you how to research, how to write, and about the topic of the paper. Using an LLM ignores all three of these goals in favor of generating an answer of dubious provenance.
ruferto
you're assuming that someone is just generating the output and not looking at it? sure, maybe some ppl do use LLMs like that - but do you? what makes you assume that others do the same?