Comment by georgemcbay

Yeah, if I were 10 now I'm not sure where I'd end up in terms of life/career, but it wouldn't look anything like my actual path, even adjusting for the obvious technological differences.

I'm fairly certain that computers to a 10 year old me in 2026 would be far less interesting than they were to actual 10 year old me in 1983.

The relative mystery they had around them then (assuming you weren't the kid of a turing award winner or some such, my parents were just normie folks) and seeking out the rare bits of written documentation held in a tiny dark corner at libraries, in tattered old used books, etc was like learning ancient, arcane magic knowledge and that was a lot of the allure for me.

Having instant access to most of the world's knowledge to answer any question you might have is objectively powerful, but just not nearly as fun as half-blindly intuiting your way through the dark weeds until deep understanding eventually just falls into place.