Hard Times Net Evolution’s Greatest Gains

My dad (pictured at left) is my hero. Always has been.

He grew up during the great depression, and as a teen he yearned to fight for his country in World War II.

His work ethic is unparalleled. He grew up on a Midwest farm watching his father tend to the family farm in darkness before and after every long shift driving for Sinclair. He knew what hard work was.

He worked hard and built an advertising agency from scratch. I like to think that I inherited and learned his work ethic. When it’s time to grind, I can grind with the best of them.

But as much as I love my generation, Gen X cannot compare with my father’s generation. It was the “greatest generation,” after all.

I’m neither historian nor sociologist, but I would argue that the greatness was born of pain and suffering. It was forged in blood and sweat. My uncle Vic went to war without seeing his wife for year. Mothers cared for their families, played the role of both parents, and Rosie and her rivets helped win the war, too.

These kids today

Which brings us to today. The Millennial generation. Gen Y. Echo boomers.

And although I don’t feel like an old man, I shake my head at them.

I love young people. It’s a big part of the reason that I am a professor. One-on-one, these kids are great.

But they are frustrating.

I see so little hunger. So little drive. Every generation has asked “is this going to be on the test?” But this generation has perfected it.

They just won’t work for me the way that kids did even eight years ago.

They just seem to want to punch the clock.

And I’ve tried to inspire them. And I am bad at a lot of things, but inspiration is kind of my thing.

They do have their talents. And they do have different priorities. And I respect that.

Evolution in the mean world

Allow me to shift gears for a moment.

In perhaps the greatest college course I ever took (Q530), Indiana’s Mike Gasser taught us computer programming methods as they related to cognitive science.

It was life changing. In one of the programs, we were in charge of a simple simulated world. There were creatures, plants, rocks, and predators.

The creatures could not learn. They had a simple genetic code. The world was simple: it punished creatures for bumping into rocks, it rewarded them for eating plants, and they died if eaten by a predator.

Their genes told them what to do when a rock, predator, or plant were nearby.

Smart creatures went left when a predator or rock were to their right, and they went right when a plant was to their right.

The “world” was governed by a genetic algorithm. Dumb critters were killed by predators or forgot to eat. Smart critters mated reproduced.

It was truly evolution of the fittest.

There was a curious lesson in this critter world. As the programmer, we could vary the “pain” inflicted by rocks and the nutrient value of the food.

When the world was new, if you made rock bumping too painful or food too nonnutritious, then all the creatures died, none mated, and the species was extinct.

If you left the world just as it was, nothing changed. There was almost no evolution. You were stuck with the same random gene pool with which you started.

However, if you gradually make rocks hurt more and food slightly less wholesome, the inferior critters’ weaknesses were eventually exposed.

With each successive generation, you could make the world harder. Evolution became more powerful.

Within 10 generations, you could make the world so hostile that any new species would quickly go extinct. But the evolved critters thrived. They were born of a mean world.

Eventually, a rock bump could prove nearly fatal, and a critter could need to eat dozens of plants a day to survive.

This was an amazing hostile world.

Critters were now plant hunting, predator and rock hating machines.

The key lesson was: evolution only works when the world gets hard.

A new millennium

I wish we were continuing the economic expansion started during the Clinton administration. I would never wish a recession on anyone.

People are suffering. My friends are suffering. It’s bad.

But given that we’re here, I’m looking for the silver lining.

And if there is to be a silver lining, I think that this recession will work on Gen Y like a mean world worked on those critters.

Today’s freshmen were born in 1991. They have never experienced anything like the Great Depression.

The world was always good, the stock market was always expanding, and there were always more jobs than job seekers.

That changes now.

I hope they will see that the world can be mean. And they have to compete.

If I were a freshman now, I’d be terrified.

And I think that’s a good thing.

I think this will awaken the competitive nature inside of them. There is greatness there.

To me, the thing that makes America amazing is that we can rise to a challenge. We always rise to the challenge.

And this generation has too much tech savvy to be so pedestrian in the classroom.

And I really hope this is the spark that makes them the next greatest generation.

Tagged as: evolution, millennials, recession