LogFAQs > #966379527

Entity13 posted...

When it's your turn to raise the next generation, and are deliberately sidelining yourself, then you're doing something wrong. I say this not to you personally, PO, but to the hypothetical-you, as in the members of Gen X who made the choice to have kids and then took the hands-off approach

Well, to be fair, I was talking more about the effect on the world as a whole than simply just how Gen X raised their kids.

The Boomers grew up complaining about how all the "old men" ruined the world, but they were the ones who were going to fix everything. Give peace a chance, man! Save Mother Earth! Open your mind! And then they fucked everything up and became bitter old fucks. Millennials have grown up constantly complaining about how all the Boomers ruined the world, but they are the ones who are going to fix everything. Capitalism bad! Save the planet! Social justice! And they're almost certainly going to fuck everything up and become the exact same bitter old fucks they spend all of their time blaming everything on.

30-40 years from now, when an old Millennial looks into a mirror, they're going to see a Boomer staring back.

Meanwhile Gen X just sat on the couch and watched TV and played video games. Can't blame us for shit!





(Also, my first post was at least somewhat facetious, because not doing anything is itself kind of a bad thing. Seeing all the problems in the world and reacting by deliberately not caring and not trying to fix anything isn't necessarily a more moral stance, just an easier, lazier one. But if nothing else, it does come with a bit more self-awareness than most people on either side of us seem to have.

Boomers see themselves in the younger generation, and are reminded of all the ways they compromised their ideals and failed in their dreams. The younger generation looks at the older generation and rants at all their flaws without seeing any of their own. Neither side is right, both are wrong. But neither will ever admit it.)



Entity13 posted...

and then screamed bloody murder against the music, the television, the video games, and so on

I mean, to be fair, every generation does that.

That's pretty much an inevitable consequence of rapid pace of advancement. When large swaths of culture and technology change within the span of a single human lifetime, humans have a hard time adapting to changes.

I always used to point out that my grandmother went from being born at a time when the only way to go from place to place was by horse, and before she died humans were on the fucking moon. Most humans for the first 500,000+ years worth of our history never had to deal with stuff like that. Sure, there'd be the occasional invasion, conquest, or falling empire to really shake things up, but every day was more or less much like the last one for thousands of years. Culture still evolved, but the pace was glacial compared to what it is today (and has been for the last 150-200 years or so).

In the old days old people used to be valued because their experience was useful, and they had tons to teach the younger generation. Now, everything changes so quickly and people live even longer, so the oldest among us are almost completely obsolete by the end. Far from being able to teach anything, the young adapt to constant changes far more effectively.

In a way, everyone is adapted to live in the world the way it was when they were 20-30 somethings. The problem is the world keeps changing, so the longer ago that time was, the harder it gets for us all to relate to the world around us. The alienation starts in superficial ways at first (music, pop culture), but slowly creeps to encompass all aspects of culture and technology.

Everyone gets old eventually. Even the young.