Yours (inferred) is "Too Much : Zero".

Given that those are terminal values it would challenging for literally-any-other-view not to diverge from yours, on this.

Therefore there is no greater variable in nominal differences between youth peers. How could there possibly be?? It is near all-encompassing, and sustains for the first quarter of a persons life.

This concept is true going back through the ages, with the main difference being less social and economic mobility in the past. That does not = 100% social or economic mobility now, by any means.

But to (very slightly!) paraphase you, you think it's important to focus on drones/defense and other nationalist areas where the future is canted toward you, and while that is not an area I'd enjoy working in myself (no personal judgement on you, but I'd rather spend my life doing things other than conflict and war), that is clearly what you know to be your first-rank business chance.

FYI it was a reference to fictional character Michael Scott from television production The Office (US). The characters main trait was unintended verbal faux pas, where he meant well but actually caused awkwardness and offense.

Often by stereotyping the traits of specific minorities.

The value you have created is actually more in the App than in the hardware.

As a maker of small devices (mostly open source) including MIDI - and putting aside commercial aspects like injection molding - I could recreate the hardware side of this project without much issue. The necessary components are likely already in this room with me. (I won't - I'm not in the business of copying things that people don't want copied)

But I'm not a software engineer, and therefore could not produce software of the scope and quality that you have, which is where the unique functionality of your device sits high above the relatively simple "receive MIDI data from MIDI devices" principle of the hardware by itself.

When statistics are so biased, quality of objective argument is swamped by simple numbers.

Highlighting how the human experience is an intrinsic part of the benefit seen, but not the only part.

(and I totally agree with you, alcohol is one of the strongest and also one of the less pleasant - both in withdrawal and in long term health impact, not to mention social harm - recreational things that I or people-that-I-know-well have ever tried)

"I can say wth certainty that I became a very different person at some point in those early to mid twenties" - not to discount that, but I do suspect many developing adults (LSD or not) might make similar claims about distinct periods of mental change as they work their way into early adulthood.

It doesn't change the overarching sentiment that guns are a subject that attracts considerably larger attention in the USA than in any other 'developed' nation.

Pick any number of metrics - frequency of incidents, size and power of advocacy groups, political debate, ownership levels, media coverage, constitutional significance - and that pattern is clear.

So my [here refined] point remains : there is no (developed nation) where guns are a greater part of public discourse than the USA. Therefore, when we find ourselves questioning "why are some USA citizens quite passionate about the debate?" (especially where their children are concerned), I don't think we need to look too far for the answer.

That is true for both sides of the debate.

I think that's because parent-child is the strongest bond known to humanity, so anything symbolic of (or against) child safety evokes the strongest emotional responses we can ever have.

Guns, when loaded, are one of the extremely few consumer objects capable of being held in a child's hand and, with a physical ease similar to changing TV channel with a remote, destroy or end a life. (and, of course, one of the first rules of guns is "always assume it's loaded")

And so - especially in a country like the USA where guns are a prominent part of culture, and thus talked and thought about a lot - the conflation of the above means that for a significant cohort of parents, guns are one iconic symbol of their ultimate nightmare : losing their child somehow.

The fact that the USA needs separate Wikipedia pages per decade in order to make the summary list of school shootings manageable is illustrative of why some have developed such phobias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_school_shootings_in_t...

That is, it's probably easier for the development professional to code a pretend version of chopping wood, than it is for the professional axeman to chop out a pretend version of a computer.

However I do eagerly await being proven wrong.

One of the harshest applications was around academic performance. If I had any bad marks, or a teacher reported sluggish work or improper behaviour, it wasn't good.

And whether as result of personal talent (ha!), or simply through being beaten and fear-driven into learned intensity, you'd better believe I was the top of my class or close to it most of the time.

But the stress part-destroyed my social abilities and integration (as opposed to academic learning), and along with other unusual childhood stressors and instability I suffered, is the biggest reason why later I spent most of my adulthood walking my own path - to the extent of being considered autistic.

Being a young man then, I was our offices champion of new technology, but years of legacy projects still being tied off meant I had no choice but to learn and practice many of the manual skills.

So my job was a weird mix of pushing everybody into the cutting edge of tech, then having to go and do some 50-100+ year old processes using special pens and papers and even chemicals.

For example, the look up the 'diazo machine' -style of copier. Then imagine going into a small room with an armful of 30 x A1-sized engineering plans, and standing next to this machine for 2 hours slowly feeding in each page while surrounded by ammonia fumes. These days, the Wikipedia page says : "When making multiple copies of an original no more than four or five copies can typically be made at a time, due to the build-up of ammonia fumes, even with ventilation fans in the duplication room", but back then the working reality was more like "Junior staff member! I need four copies of these! ".

Much cooler was the Houston Instruments pen plotter. A machine whose vacuum bed (think of air hockey) held the paper down while rollers ratcheted it back and forth at high speed, and a robotic pen arm 'printed' out a plan by physically drawing it with pens. It automatically changes to different pens when it needs different line thicknesses (or even colours). All done at such a whirlwind of organised precision, it was a joy to watch.

Another aspect of the manual age was the notion of Originals, or Master Copies. That is, for important documents, there'd be a master copy printed out on high grade stock - often archival grade, multi-layered Mylar or similar, for stability and durability. It could be hard work when a project made a late change, because at worst you might find yourself having to (e.g.) manually remove and extremely-carefully redraw an entire table of figures on a master plan. Sometimes just because row 1 of that table had changed such that the rest had to be moved down. The removal involved caaarrrefully buffing the ink off the page using a rotating electric eraser. If you put a hole in the plan by rubbing too hard on one spot, god help you. Doing that, then having to get 5 different signatures from high people in various offices redone on a new master copy, while a large project could be held up for weeks while delays and interest and costs accrue, would be considered a fairly notable faux pas.

The fact that some players learn by transcribing, while others learn by jamming, and yet others learn by rote theoretical study, or 10-hour practice sessions, etc, is a big part of the variety which results in the wonderfully varied tapestry of music styles and approaches that humanity creates and enjoys.

Not to take away from the age-old, valid advice in the link about the value of ear-to-fretboard work.