Sorry about that. Yes, I meant Dork Vader, and I didn’t use the chrono-visualizer illegally again. Really. :D:smack: And I still agree with Darren in this case.
Wesley, it’s not ridicule as I see it, it’s more about perspective. Are things bad, yes they are. Could things be better? Absolutely. The thing is, for most of the world things are leaps and bounds better than they were, and in order to preserve that instead of being bitter, maybe do something about it rather than whinging about what’s already occurred. It’s always easier to blame Someone Else rather than deal with what’s in front of you.
It’s not that the complaints aren’t valid, it’s that they aren’t unique or unprecedented. It’s more like they’re simply part of the human condition and the person writing that post thinks that no other generation has ever faced similar issues.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be working on fixing those valid problems, or that we should diminish their impact because other generations had worse. We can be better, but we also need to look at this in context.
Right.
There is a LOT of panicky, whiny drama on Reddit about how the world is going down the tubes, how corporations are the root of all evil, and so on…
It’s just the same old stuff as we (Gen-X) saw when we were younger, except that they’re not concerned in large part with being 30 minutes from nuclear war, or some sort of escalation of hostilities in Europe starting a conventional WWIII, but instead, it’s global warming, inequity, etc…
But it does seem to me that the bitching and whining and general pessimistic attitude on the part of the Millenials and Gen-Z types is more widespread and bitter than that of years past. I recall an overall undercurrent of hopefulness when I was in high school and college about the world- that maybe detente, glasnost and the SALT treaties might actually be helpful. And that things would probably be better in the future.
But this bunch seems to be a huge bunch of Eeyores who are convinced that in 20 years, we’ll be lucky to be living in a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic hellscape, or that it’ll be some sort of super-corporatized hell a-la William Gibson.
What gets me is that they totally discount all the historical progress we’ve made in getting where we are, much of which has been in the past 20 or so years.
I think part of that is that the complaints are online and widely visible. Being online also pushes attitudes towards the extremes. Any and all bad news from around the world gets seen.
I heard plenty of whining from my high school (mid-'90s) classmates about how the world was shitty now and the older generations had it easier. Still, the was a general feeling of hope and accomplishment between the breakup of the Soviet Union and 9/11, plus some good economic years.
I don’t blame them for feeling screwed over; what annoys is them thinking they’re the only ones.
Thanks boomer who lived his life with half of the worlds labour market closed off in a different economic/political bloc.
Yes, because everyone has been reduced to surviving on Ramen and tap-water, huddled around the warmth of a light bulb.
It’s the usual reasons. It’s easier to ridicule that which you don’t like than to actually engage. You don’t have to worry about them actually maybe having good arguments and having to change your views, and you don’t have to worry about having to put in the mental effort to debunk that which is wrong.
Also, it’s the usual generational animosity. That’s why the whole “we had it bad, too” argument is being used. There will always be those who see the newer generation as opponents to defeat. Rather than listen to what is concerning them, you can tell them “we had to deal with something worse.” It’s about winning against them, for some reason.
The argument is fairly good. The latest generation grew up in a more pessimistic world than at least the past generation. You have their most foundational memories being made soon after 9/11, followed by the economic crisis, followed by the election of the single most transparently evil president we’ve ever had, undermining all the progress that one generation prior took for granted. The wealth gap is largest it’s been since the 1950s at least. And we’re actually to the tipping point where global warming could actually seal the fate of humanity.
Nothing about the fact that we made it through things in the past mean will make it through this time. Nothing about the past means that we’ll be able to make people listen to us like happened throughout the Civil Right era.
Ridicule, like taking obvious rhetoric literally, is the low hanging fruit. It’s easier to say “no one actually subsisted on Ramen and a lamp to keep warm” than to actually engage in understanding this latest generation or why we need to fix things.
Yeah, my post may seem pretentious. I don’t know how else to convey the sentiment. You tried the less direct “I don’t see why,” but no one listened. Part of why I may seem more lectury than others is that I often come in after the less direct methods have been tried.
Sorry, but sometimes ridicule is all that is required. As an example, those who say “False accusations of rape against men are something all men should be worried about” or “Antifa is a greater threat than any right wing violence!”
I’m not going to waste my time engaging and debunking that. It’s just easier to pointedly laugh at such a person.
Perhaps I’m just old now (46), but kids complaining about the state of the world when they are just out of college know little more than they did in college. It’s especially grating when they complain about house buying, or in-affordability of a two-bedroom apartment or something similar, but without discussing why they think they SHOULD be able to get that.
Also, I wish they would get off my lawn!
To me, this kind of stuff is just an indictment of how the current generation is having their brains broken by social media and 24 hour news.
Horrible shit has ALWAYS happened in the world. You just didn’t hear as much about it in the old days because you weren’t seeing it all over Facebook and on the news all the time. Clickbait news emphasizes the worst and scariest stuff so that people are now constantly outraged and terrified about things that they never would have heard about 30 years ago.
Imagine living during the days of the Black Death and seeing like 60% of the population around you dying. Don’t you think those people were scared as shit that the world was ending? Rape and murder used to be much more common than they are now and far easier to get away with than they are now. It used to be normal to have several of your children die in infancy or early childhood of diseases that can now be prevented with a simple vaccine. Nowadays most people have a reasonable expectation that ALL of their kids will survive to adulthood, which wasn’t the case as recently as when my own grandmother was born. Corruption has been a part of “politics” for as long as politics have existed. Life really isn’t that bad right now in many ways. Anyone who thinks this is a uniquely awful time to be alive just hasn’t been alive long enough to have perspective on things.
To me, this kind of stuff is just an indictment of how certain members of the “older generation(s)” will take any chance they can get to curb stomp “the current generation.”
Honestly, I’m not even sure what the point is of discussing this if the OP (the actual OP) isn’t here to discuss it and the proxy OP (who copied it to this forum) doesn’t seem too interested in highlighting just what exactly they found “powerful” about it.
Is it possible to thread-shit a topic that basically started out as a chance for old folks to yell at clouds?
It is ridiculous to completely ignore that life as a whole is significantly better than it has ever been. Being poor today in a western country beats being wealthy in most of history anywhere. Being in a poor country today beats being in a poor country any other time, for most people. Life in almost any country is better today than any time before. This isn’t bitching about how tough we had it when I was x age, because when I was x age the exact same things were true. When I whined, at x age, about no future and The Bomb and whatever else provided existential angst, that was ridiculous too.
So to me, the post quoted in the op is anything but profound. It is trite, and the only thing profound about it is its profound unoriginality.
Not even that. We replaced the comfort and warmth of an incandescent bulb with efficient LED’s to reduce our carbon footprint so he’s reduced to discussing his plight to the whole world by the cold glow of computer monitor.
Remember the good old days of drought, financial collapse, plague, and massive world wars in the first half of the last century. Good times. Good times.
I’d suggest the author petition his parents for papers giving him safe passage from their basement but this looks like a mental health issue.
The Reddit writer has a point, which some people have missed. He sees his life as being more hopeless than, say, someone a decade or so older, and that’s his experience. To date. He doesn’t have a lot of it.
Now I too remember being in my 20s. Graduating from college into the worst job market since the depression. There were wage and price controls and hardly anyone was hiring, and few of my college friends were attaining jobs “in their field.”
Things got better. But when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t know that things are going to get better.
I think the turning point for me was the headline “NIXON RESIGNS!” That was the point at which I figured things were going to get better. Or anyway, that there was a chance.
I’m hopeful that this young person will also receive a sign that things are gonna get better. It probably won’t be a headline. Maybe a tweet.
I love that people terrified to go to Wal-Mart without concealed carrying a pistol, because AOC is turning America into Venezuela, are confidently judging the over-dramatic kids these days. Comedy gold, dudes.
Lot of boomer nonsense in this thread.
Uh, are you calling me a boomer, or is that directed at baby boomers in general? I’m not a baby boomer, I’m a GenXer. I agree though, its all the baby boomer generation’s fault
You don’t ‘farm’ goats.
Well, not with Ramen and tap water you don’t!
I know the perfect 16 year old for him! Ehh? Oooh, but she might have a bo-what the fuck am i smoking! She’s free to court. Free as, well, free as air.
(assuming they are both in countries that allow such conduct).