LouieM

I picked up a digital device that was fixed at a nearby shop. I exchanged chatter with the tech, a pale 30-something guy with pimples and a pony tail—a common subspecies here in Silicon Valley. I expressed gratitude that he could fix digital crap and said I was more familiar with carburetors and engines. He related that his dad once tried to teach him how to change oil on an old Datsun, but that the “physicality” of dealing with a jack, jack stands, drain plug and wrench, and the “mysteries” (his word) of getting the filter off and on were just too much. I walked wordlessly back to my car as he retreated into his cave to enjoy the non-physicality of endless ones and zeros.

SDVette

As both a software nerd (I lost my ponytail and acne many years ago!) and a wrencher, I think it just takes the DESIRE to understand something. If you WANT to learn it, you can.. if not, you won't.

Mossy66

I can just imagine his dad shaking his head after trying to teach the kid something.


Gerry

hedgehead

His head will explode when he gets his first.

cv67

LouieM

Point well taken. We all have our strengths and tendencies. Trouble, is it turns out he didn't fix my printer after all. In addition to the necessary qualities of DESIRE and WILL there's SKILL; so I won't let him near my '67 or my printer.

whitoak

That is a new subspecies that has emerged here in the midwest. Those who grew up on family farms have some trouble adjusting to their presence to say the least.

Railroadman

Years ago we were selling a beater car, and a college psychology professor my wife knew came to look at it for his kid. Very intelligent, PhD, etc, etc. I said something about the carburetor, and he said "Oh, I don't know anything about the mechanical end of cars".

I explained "A car's engine needs air, fuel and spark to run, and the carburetor is the thing that mixes the fuel and air in the right ratio."

He waved his hand dismissively, and said "I really don't understand any of that stuff."

Frankie the Fink

My first thought was how proud this kid's Dad must be....
What's weird is that I find that most people who have technical skills can transfer them easily between a variety of tasks IF the desire is there. I know plenty of top drawer computer geeks that keep old cars running.

But as Dirty Harry once said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

SDVette

True.. but I would counter with: Skill is a result of DESIRE to learn coupled with DETERMINATION to accomplish things, add in some experience, and the result is Skill..

I'd say we all make great armchair psychologists!

RatDog

The ponytail kid sounds like my son except for the ponytail. When he got his first car, I tried to school him in the barebones basics of owning and maintaining a car. Not only was he not interested in how to change the oil, he wasn't interested in how to use the dipstick.

Steve

Easy Rhino

Heck, seems like many (most) of 'em don't even want to own or drive a car anymore.

I was renting a valve compressor at the FLAPS yesterday and a young man (euphemism) behind me waiting for somebody while idly courting his cell phone/digital device was fascinated enough by the configuration of the tool to ask what it was for.

When told, his eyes rolled back into his head - I thought he might be having a seizure (like I do when people talk the latest digital doo-wops).

He then asked, "are you really going to use that to take an engine apart and put it back together?

mjdart

I've got 2 Corvettes, a 1964 & a 2017, I do know one thing for sure, I'll always be able to get that 64' started up and ready to roll.

Duck916

Yeah, it's a digital world. I'm constantly amazed at how many men (not even particularly young men) have no idea how to change a tire and instead will wait an hour for a AAA truck to arrive to change it for them.

warrenmj

Things are no different today than they were 10, 25 and 50 years ago or even longer. You will always have the mechanically inclined as well as those that don't know anything and don't care. I'm sure every one of us can remember guys we went to high school with or served in the military with that were totally clueless about cars.

Robert61

Things are DRASTICLY different today than in the past. And not just about working on cars!

watson

In my working days, I had two careers. In the winter I was a university professor and in the summers I flew air tankers dropping fire retardant on forest fires. I have seen both sides of the population for sure. My university colleagues could not understand my interest in old cars and airplanes. My tanker friends had no idea what I did at the university and could care less. One guy did manage to bridge the gap a bit, and not in a good way. In the tanker industry, the pilots are almost all FAA licensed airframe and powerplant mechanics. One such guy was standing on the ramp one day as his captain tried to repair a hydraulic leak on their plane. When the captain asked the guy to had him a 9/16 inch open end wrench, the licensed mechanic co-pilot said, "what does it look like?" He had the desire to get the FAA license, but it did not stick. I always wonder what that guy is doing today when I sit down in an airliner.

Doc

ILBMF

I have a buddy who is a brain surgeon, worked on Ben Carson's team years ago and separated those German Siamese twins. What I really like about him is that I can discuss anything mechanical or electrical and he seems to understand and show interest in it all. Rare breed I guess.

LouieM

The divide between digital and analog is not simply the difference between working with your hands and working with your intellect. I paid for grad school at USC by working on offshore oil platforms in Alaska and West Africa for a year at a time, working alongside literal cutthroats, but spent my life as a research scientist publishing in journals as elevated as Science and Nature. Digital vs. analog is different. Everything in Nature is analog, from the smallest to the largest and the nearest dust mote to the farthest away galaxy. Digital is a facile simulation of the analog, to put it simply. My mind goes into instant snooze mode when anything digital rears is ugly (virtual) heard. I'm too attuned to natural processes to consider digital anything as more than an elaborate joke God is playing on man. In cruel irony, I live in the middle of Silicon Valley.

rtruman