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.