Disadvantaged in what sense? It’s likely those kids won’t even go for the same grind as „managed“ kids.

Less ability to compete in the job market with others who were managed in basically all skilled jobs

When was the last time a job interviewer asked what extracurriculars you did when you were 14?

There is an extremely small sliver of society where that one additional extracurricular makes the difference between getting into an excellent school vs a merely great school. For everyone else, the long term value is quite dubious.

As much as you might want it to be, your life right now is not a blank human plus qualifications. Who you are as a person is shaped by your life before this point. A person who has invested in those extra curricular skills will simply be more skilled now, from precise ways (the specific skills learnt) to more general ways (the required concentration and perseverance etc)

I’d argue those kids don’t learn much concentration and so on. Being forced by your parents to follow schedule they made is quite a mundane skill. Works great to become a mindless office worker though. Look down, carry out tasks you’re told to do… and don’t complain. But is it really a life to look forward to?

It takes concentration and effort to follow schedule

They should aim to become a so-called “mindless office worker” as it offers a very high quality of life, so yes that is a life worth looking forward to. It’s a life our ancestors would sell their daughters for

If your mom drives you around and makes sure you put in some extra time on top… I’m not sure it takes much effort. Especially when stopping those activities is not a choice. Zen monk and prisoner schedules may seem similar, but skills to follow both are very different.

I don’t agree that office drone life in rat race is worth looking to anymore. It’s a miserable mix of depression, obesity, long hours away from one’s family and likely loving a cramped life in a non-humanly-sized mega city.

Generative AI will probably take a lot of less soul sucking jobs on that front. While certain cultures embracing 996 will compete for others.

Depending on AI progress, I‘ll probably steer my kid towards vocational school. Tile layers, santechniks and electricians looks like very promising getaway from all this BS. Or whatever comes into picture in the next decade.

If you think that the average office worker is obese and depressed then that’s a wild projection. Do you know who is much more likely to be obese and depressed? A poor person.

The stuff about AI just makes you sound out of touch with reality. You clearly spend too much time online and it has detached you from real flesh and blood life. Re enter your life

Looking at statistics, average citizen in West world is at least overweight and on a brink of being depressed. I didn’t bump into either statistics based on occupation, but anecdata points to office workers being on frontlines of both.

Office workers can easily be poor. Just like other lines of work allow to make plenty of money.

Generative AI already does a damn good job at generating illustrations and writing crappy descriptions. Doesn’t it?

No they aren’t lol

That argument falls apart if children can learn when they are not being managed, which they obviously can and do quite well.

Kids that have more math lessons, in most cases, will be better at math than the ones that don't. There are limited amount of jobs, students per class in college etc so they compete with each other. If you are living in the same system as most people in this thread, which is capitalism, then to live a somewhat problem-free life with financial security, you need to be either very lucky or participate in the rat race.

I wouldn’t say rat race is problem-free life. All sorts of mental and physical health issues plague the modern rat race society.

The only realistic way to win is not to play.

You can not play if you want but you will be impoverished

This enlightened thinking is good for you ego but you do actually have a material body to feed, so you either play the game of life or you die

Game of life and rat race is two different things.

And yes, you may call it impoverished. But is it really worth to optimise for material stuff? Settling down with less may pay off a ton in other departments.

It is very much worth it to optimise for material stuff. Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve never had to starve but I think it would be quite horrible, as would be living in very poor accommodation. I would like to optimise this away

There’s a massive gap between covering the basics and being in rat race optimizing for material stuff.

Who cares if you drive a fancy car or a 10 y/o toyota? Both gets you from A to B in a relatively safe manner. If someone does care, that’s his problem. Same applies to pretty much any expenses line. Meanwhile having plenty of time to yourself may help to prevent many health issues and do things that make life wholesome.

Sounds like a sad way to live but you do you

Is it? Does having fancy stuff bring you happiness or actually using it?

That’s what I did in my 20ies. I’d freelance during winter with some cross country skiing tours in local woods thrown in. Then wrap up my projects in spring, spend the summer cycling and amateur racing and then start looking for new projects as season wrapped up. I didn’t have money for dance trips but I had a ton of great time on my bicycles and raced at relatively high amateur level.

Would I be happier working 3 months more and spending a couple weeks riding in fancy places with less stamina instead of riding a lot but locally all that time? I don’t think so.

There’s another legendary example in my circles. Dude bought a very nice car. Put on expensive wheels, installed engine tune and all that jazz. He was completely out of money, couldn’t go on any road trip for a while. His girlfriend wasn’t excited to adore the car sitting at the curb whole holiday.

Yup, I've seen the effects of this first hand.

I am one of the unmanaged kids and I am very much competing with all the managed ones. I’m 28 and still feeling the effect quite heavily. My wife was managed and she just has such a stronger work ethic and honestly better mental health than I. It’s a miracle I got to where I am frankly

The kids at the opposite far end of the spectrum are pretty disadvantaged too when they get a job that doesn't have everything planned out for them and where their parents (or their parents ability to pay tuition) have no sway.

Especially when their reactions to things not being structured to favor them at every step leads to them having a negative reputation...

Those who thrive in both good and bad circumstances can find intrinsic motivation even when things don't go their own way. A young adult who's never exposed to the need for that can flounder, just as much as a young adult who's never been held to any standards can.

these would be the ones whose parents show up at job interviews

That’s like pointing out how money corrupts or makes you not appreciate wealth truly. That may be true in some cases, but it’s still much better to be rich than poor

I think you are making a big and unjustified leap from "minimizing scheduled extracurriculars" in the post you're responding to to "won't be prepared at all."

And that's an especially dangerous assumption if you buy the original article here's claim that not doing that is a big problem for mental health.

I don’t see how I’m making that leap