Poll of the Day > Why do people always want to lump everyone together into groups?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like I know it's easier to just call out a group pf people when you're trying to talk about a lot of people at the same time. But why? Like why do people think all millennials are the same? Or all cops? Or all military members?

Like millennials only really have a 20 year birth period together. They are all very different, just like how other humans born around the same time are very different. Or how because some cops are bad, all cops are bad. Or because people are in the military, then have no education or are all about shooting and killing people. Or thinking they like war.

It's just kind weird...
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Look man, we need to respond to a lot of people daily. And we have a very limited amount of time to do it. If we don't come up with a default template to treat different groups of people, we'll never have enough time to converse with and understand each and everybody.

Because grouping things is a fundamental part of how our brains keep track of multiple objects at once. Consider phone numbers: trying to remember 10+ distinct digits is extremely difficult, but when you break them up into 3-4 character segments it becomes much easier. It's a very handy trick that allows us to comprehend concepts on a scale beyond our raw mental capacity, but it's a rough approximation and can cause problems in situations that call for more nuance.
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And I know grouping for most things is easy. And an easy way to keep track of things. And I get that. But why for groups of people who were born up to 20 years apart. Or people with the same occupation...
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LinkPizza posted...

And I know grouping for most things is easy. And an easy way to keep track of things. And I get that. But why for groups of people who were born up to 20 years apart. Or people with the same occupation...

It doesn't matter. The tendency is automatic. You've just seized on some groupings that don't make sense to you personally, but maybe that's just a glitch in an otherwise tremendously useful process, or maybe those groupings are useful in ways you just don't fully grasp.
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Because generalizations make life easier and, while individuals are unique to an extent, they generally share traits within their peer group. And, quite frankly, it makes a *lot* of sense in self-chosen affiliations. In things without choice, you might have a shared experience. However, in the case of generations, it's become a fucking marketing gimmick. When it started, it had some legitimacy but variations in birth rates have undermined the system and, for the most part, the struggles are less universal. Even the economic downturn only hit a portion of millennials, given the timing.
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Because language is used to describe concepts
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Theres a lot of tldr inna dis topic
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Agreed. There are two kinds of people, those who group people together and those who don't.
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