My mother is pre-Boomer (born soon after the U.S. entered the war) and has been incredibly progressive her entire life. She has never voted for a Republican. She marched for civil rights. She wanted me to know that women and men are equal and that color and religion and ethnicity should not make you dislike someone. She taught me about sex (appropriately) when I asked about it at 3 or 4 years old rather than shielding me from it. My brother and I both have (had in my case, but that’s another story) gay best friends who were also best man at both of our weddings. She always welcomed them even though my brother and his friend became friends in the mid-1980s. I remember asking my mother what she would do if I was gay and she said she would love me no matter what I was. I don’t specifically know her politics, but my dad, born even earlier (1931) was mostly the same way. He definitely had his prejudices- although he would deny it- and he was a lot more sexist than he thought he was, but he was also an outspoken socialist until the dementia got too bad for him to be outspoken about it. One of the last things I was able to tell him before he was too far gone to understand was that Bernie was running for president.
I have certainly had a lot of issues with Boomers and people older than them, but it is far from universal, but I am really proud of my parents for always being progressive.
Again, my father was a socialist. He wrote a his dissertation on Shaw and the socialist aspects of one of his plays. He was British and said he was never more proud of his homeland then when he helped it usher in the National Health Service with his vote. When I moved here to Terre Haute, Indiana, he made sure to get me to take him to the Eugene V. Debs museum because of how much he admired debs. How does that make him an 80s liberal? Do please explain.
Again, my father was a socialist. He wrote a his dissertation on Shaw and the socialist aspects of one of his plays. He was British and said he was never more proud of his homeland then when he helped it usher in the National Health Service with his vote. When I moved here to Terre Haute, Indiana, he made sure to get me to take him to the Eugene V. Debs museum because of how much he admired debs. How does that make him an 80s liberal? Do please explain.
I was speaking of the word used as an identifier/label, ‘progressive’, vs ‘liberal’, and not the content of what was being said, at all. No disrespect was meant towards the comment, just a tongue-and-cheeck attempt at discussing the labels. As I mentioned before, concerning the content of your comment …
(BTW, your comment was a good read.)
When it comes to my comment discussing labels, today’s ‘liberal’ is considered a ‘centrist’ by today’s younger generations (which pisses me off to no end, but that’s another discussion for another time), and what they think of as liberal they call progressive, hence my comment.
And for the record (not trying to measure dicks here, but only because you quoted your dads history) I’m a Gen-Xer who was born/raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles in the 70’s/80’s, a perverbial “Valley Dude”, and lived ‘in the capital of Liberalism’ the vast majority of my life. Liberalism of that day is not what Progressivism is today. I feel that I could be considered a ‘subject expert’ in a court case when it came to Liberals and Liberalism of that time.
In what world is this kind of verbal policing useful?
No need to be hostile.
Concerning your question, at the very least, my world. But I suspect most people can recognize a conversation comment about how different generations see things and identify them, for its own sake. You know, Lemmy is about conversations about subjects.
It turns out that the media jumped all over things like Hippies and anti-war protests. In reality, the average person was just as conservative then as they were 10 - 20 years ago.
You have 4 people, 3 liberals and 1 conservative, graduating from high school at 18, 75% are liberal. When they are in their late 30s, one of the liberals dies, so 66% are liberals. Then at age 50 another liberal dies, so the group is 50% liberal. One year after retirement (65) the last liberal dies and now the entire cohort is conservative. Without looking at the size of the population, one would think that the group of 4 slowly became more conservative over time.
Death, not persuasion, causes the political leaning of the population to shift as they get older. It is the very concerns of those that are liberal which also lead to their earlier deaths. If you are less likely to die from something that can be fixed with politics, you are more likely to be conservative and not want to rock the boat.
They got more conservative as they got older. All those hippie kids who protested Vietnam and experimented with drugs and sex ended up voting for Reagan.
People seem to have this view that everyone in the '60s was a hippie but that’s just not true. Time Magazine put the number around 300,000. In a country of 200 million, that’s only 0.15% of the population. They were a counterculture not mainstream culture. The vast majority of kids did not become hippies, and many actively hated the hippies.
Uh huh. Here’s some historical views of the ‘yoot’.
“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances… They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” Rhetoric, Aristotle - 4th Century BC
“The beardless youth… does not foresee what is useful, squandering his money.” Horace - 1st Century BC
Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. Book III of Odes, Horace - circa 20 BC
In all things I yearn for the past. Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased. I find that even among the splendid pieces of furniture built by our master cabinetmakers, those in the old forms are the most pleasing. And as for writing letters, surviving scraps from the past reveal how superb the phrasing used to be. The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened. People used to say “raise the carriage shafts” or “trim the lamp wick,” but people today say “raise it” or “trim it.” When they should say, “Let the men of the palace staff stand forth!” they say, “Torches! Let’s have some light!” Instead of calling the place where the lectures on the Sutra of the Golden Light are delivered before the emperor “the Hall of the Imperial Lecture,” they shorten it to “the Lecture Hall,” a deplorable corruption, an old gentleman complained. Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), Yoshida Kenkō - 1330 - 1332
Youth were never more sawcie, yea never more savagely saucie . . . the ancient are scorned, the honourable are contemned, the magistrate is not dreaded. The Wise-Man’s Forecast against the Evill Time, Thomas Barnes - 1624
… I find by sad Experience how the Towns and Streets are filled with lewd wicked Children, and many Children as they have played about the Streets have been heard to curse and swear and call one another Nick-names, and it would grieve ones Heart to hear what bawdy and filthy Communications proceeds from the Mouths of such… A Little Book for Children and Youth, Robert Russel - 1695
“Whither are the manly vigour and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt…” Letter in Town and Country magazine republished in Paris Fashion: A Cultural History - 1771
The total neglect of this art [speaking] has been productive of the worst consequences…in the conduct of all affairs ecclesiastical and civil, in church, in parliament, courts of justice…the wretched state of elocution is apparent to persons of any discernment and taste… if something is not done to stop this growing evil …English is likely to become a mere jargon, which every one may pronounce as he pleases. A General Dictionary of the English Language, Thomas Sheridan - 1780
The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison? Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, Reverend Enos Hitchcock - 1790
We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last … it is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressor on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion. The Times of London - Summer, 1816
…a fearful multitude of untutored savages… [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits…[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody…the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly. Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Speech to the House of Commons - February 28, 1843
… see the simpering little beau of ten gallanting home the little coquette of eight, each so full of self-conceit and admiration of their own dear self, as to have but little to spare for any one else… and confess that the sight is both ridiculous and distressing… the sweet simplicity and artlessness of childhood, which renders a true child so interesting, are gone (like the bloom of the peach rudely nipped off) never to return. “Children And Children’s Parties”, published in The Mothers’ Journal and Family Visitant, S.B.S. - 1853
Household luxuries, school-room steam-press systems, and, above all, the mad spirit of the times, have not come to us without a loss more than proportionate…[a young man] rushes headlong, with an impetuosity which strikes fire from the sharp flints under his tread…Occasionally, one of this class…amasses an estate, but at the expense of his peace, and often of his health. The lunatic asylum or the premature grave too frequently winds up his career…We expect each succeeding generation will grow “beautifully less.” “Degeneracy of Stature”, The National Era, Thrace Talmon - December 18, 1856
A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship. Scientific American - July, 1858
Why the fuck are you waiting on your opponents to die when it’ll be too late? Just do what you want and then fight or kill them if they try to stop you.
You can infer the age you entered society from the age you left the womb.
That doesn’t work. Technically I’m a Boomer, but I act and think completely like a Gen-Xer.
In fact growing up I used to give Boomers crap myself, until I got more wise. They acted completely different from me, based on the times they grew up in.
I didn’t come up with the age range, but it’s been well established for a while now. Someone else told me about “Generation Jones”, which is basically just the younger half of the Boomer generation I guess. I feel like that’s splitting hairs, but who knows, maybe it makes some sort of sense to you?
So it takes 20 years for a sexed up WW2 vet to hop in the sack after returning from the war?
Fuck if I know, that’s not what I’m speaking about.
You don’t pop out of your mother’s womb already programmed to have an understanding of the socieity that you live in. You learn as you go from external sources (parents, family, society) and you act a certain way at each milestone of your life (child, young teenager, older teenager, young adult, adult, middle aged, senior).
When we all judge someone by applying a generation label its done based on how they act/opine, and not the chronological date that they entered the World. There’s a lag/delay from when a person starts to exist on this Earth to the time they form a personality and express said personality.
They did that for Gen Z, where it’s essentially the dividing line between people who were more or less cognizant when 9/11 happened, and those who weren’t.
I love how many people are going on about how one generation isn’t the cause of all our problems. I agree. Neither the post nor the website say anything good nor bad about any generation, just that it’s -mildly interesting- that boomers just hit 1/3 dead.
That’s how statistics work. You take a sample and abstract it to the population. If you required every one to be checked, then no numbers of any sort would be made up because that’s too much work.
That’s how statistics work. You take a sample and abstract it to the population. If you required every one to be checked, then no numbers of any sort would be made up because that’s too much work.
Yeah sure, I’m aware of how statistics work. I’m just not confident that they are interpreting the statistics correctly.
No other age cohort has been responsible for caring for the earth for the time they were adults and done such a horrific job. In the US, the cherry on top is also that this generation kicked everything their parents generation fought for into the dirt, including most of the social safety net, because of a bunch of dumb conservative rhetoric.
I think it is pretty fair as far as generalizations go, though of course it is a generalization. Boomers get all defensive with the “but you shouldn’t just blame a whole generation!” even though blaming millennials seems to be a major policy point for a lot of boomers… but they just don’t get it. The boomer generation will be remembered for literally thousands of years for being the generation that was adults in power when climate change was pushed into an unstoppable momentum, biodiversity catastrophically crashed, and the priceless gift of earth that has been handed down to every generation was dealt a massive amount of damage that will reverberate for again, literally thousands of years at the minimum.
Boomers think I am attacking them in an us vs. them mentality, it is unfortunately so much bigger than a petty fight between generations though. Boomers aren’t just another generation that will be largely forgotten a century or two from now, and it is a massive understatement to say the time they were stewards of the earth will not be remembered kindly by future generations.
Wait, why do you consider learning about things initially through social media a bad thing?
Sure there is a ton of nonsense and outright lies out there, but social media is also unarguably a massive source of education for people on a dizzying array of topics. Look at how silly but genuine ADHD tiktok or instagram accounts have massively raised awareness about ADHD for the better as only one example. Look at /r/ADHD as a huge source of good information and discussion for people with ADHD as another. The existence of social media has irrevocably raised the voices of the oppressed in a way TV and newspapers aren’t really interested in doing except for the odd anomaly that gets through the filter of the rich.
Wait, why do you consider learning about things initially through social media a bad thing?
Sure there is a ton of nonsense and outright lies out there
You answered your own question.
For the record, I’m distinguishing between “Social Media” and “the Internet”. The former is for entertainment, and the latter is for learning/knowledge.
This is precisely the thing I’ve noticed recently. You make a statement like yours and suddenly people start crying about not generalizing or how there’s really no such thing as generations and whatever other nonsense. Frankly, I don’t think that too many people over the age of 50 are on Lemmy yet so I think that there are some people who just want to be contrary taking the chance to.
Just How stupid does one have to be to think all their woes exist with only one generation? There are far bigger monsters alive today in current younger generations (many in millennial) that are far more destructive to our lives and the earth. They’ve seen more $$$ than any boomer and will laugh at you while you live out of a garbage can.
And you’d still probably be posting stupid memes like this acting completely oblivious to the burning hell around you.
…as long as choice #3 isn’t apocalyptically bad, right?
Right?
That’s only true if everyone believes that, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Would really be fantastic to see just once, one time, everyone interconnects on social media and agrees to vote on a third party, as an experiment if nothing else, to finally prove/disprove that theory.
Funny enough these newer generations have this communicative interconnectivity of the Internet available to them, that previous generations didn’t have, but they don’t seem to use it, instead they just share mene pics/vids, etc.
Could you imagine the political earthquake though if a third party actually won? Would be glorious to see.
The problem there isn’t that we (assuming the US) don’t want third parties, it’s that our voting system encourages party consolidation rather than cooperation. That only gets more true the higher in the government you go.
The problem there isn’t that we (assuming the US) don’t want third parties,
That’s not true. People don’t vote for third party because of the self-fulfilling prophecy, but it doesn’t mean they don’t want it. They also want ranked-choice voting.
I would advocate to put that self-fulfilling prophecy to the test, even if just as an experiment one time.
I think you’re agreeing with me there. People want other choices, but they get ignored because they have no chance of winning.
It would be great if we couple coordinate and just try it one year, but change needs to be able to happen gradually too. Our system in practice actively punishes third party voting by your vote benefiting the major party you DON’T want.
I bet people would want ranked choice or similar if given the option. I think the establishment really doesn’t like that idea and actively works against it, though.
I just wanted to be explicit and generally push back against the notion that Americans don’t want other choices to vote for, especially in this election cycle.
And as others have also pointed out, the website isn’t anything anti-boomer. It tracks each generation, and it’s just mildly interesting that boomers just hit 1/3.
And as others have also pointed out, the website isn’t anything anti-boomer. It tracks each generation, and it’s just mildly interesting that boomers just hit 1/3.
How it’s presented to us though in this Lemmy article does suggest that though.
On a tangent, I really hate how people who create Lemmy posts really bias the article they’re posting about in the title of the Lemmy post, sometimes to the point where the title doesn’t match the article they’re posting, or speaks about the title in just one/two sentences of a long article.
What kind of psycopath counts generation death as a good thing. All interesting humans dead and you take it as an achievement.
Stop crying on the past. Stop blaming past on generations. Start learning from past generation mistakes, and thank them for having you.
Because as a new generation we’re going to make a lot of mistakes, who knows if more or less than the past generations. And we shouldn’t be blamed in the future.
Blaming the past generations and not learning from them is a childish response. Start doing something productive and useful to society, blaming is not helping.
Stop having tantrums and grow up. And thank you have past generations otherwise you would have to create all we have now from scratch.
It’s like saying “Newton dumb” because his work is old and it doesn’t work correctly for all physical frames, not like Einstein his work is much better. Both are as good because they lived at different times with different technology, knowledge, society, etc.
This feels like explaining basic life knowledge to a 3 year old tbh.
It’s more about the comments around this post. Idk what were the intentions when OP posted this. But the comments are pretty clear. Stuff like “Death to all boomers”, " when boomers dead all good", etc.
But yeah you definitely seem a cool guy to hang with, calling retard to everybody that thinks different or doesn’t agree with some ways of dealing with life.
Firstly, I genuinely don’t care what you or anyone else thinks of me because you are not someone I have ever met and we will very likely never speak again outside of this board. That being said, I do care about the feelings of others when it comes to how they feel emotionally, and my post was not meant to be deep cutting but rather a light jab. I realize that words online are much more difficult to convey the exact meaning of because you cannot tie emotion to them in a way that other people will pick up on.
Second, your point was made invalid when you stated that this was specifically something made for boomers, which if you would have went and clicked on the link, would have realized is not the case.
Three, you literally did the exact same thing! You compared their intelligence to that of a three year old! You didn’t make your comment about the othsr comments, you made it about the content of the post, that is incredibly clear.
Now do I think you are a human who is actually mentally handicapped? Of course not, but in that particular moment you were definitely favoring it, and that’s totally fine, the intention of my comment was not to try and hurt your feelings, but rather to point out your mistake so that you and others can learn that this is not just some calendar made to shit on boomers and celebrate the death of them (which becomes a harder ask as healthcare becomes even better).
Kiddies who can’t think beyond the “us vs them” mentality but also think that all old people are bad, like that’s not as insane a generalisation as saying “all people of X race/sexuality/whatever are bad”. Human brains love trying to put everything in categories and labels, especially other humans.
Speaking of how we categorize …Rememberer how a bunch of idiots tried to categorize Covid as if it was china to blame and relating it to diet of eating bats meanwhile there’s white dudes in North America chowing down on venison infested with prions pretending mad cow isn’t a thing. No one should be pointing fingers.
Not many people actually believe this. It’s more that statistically it’s better for the country as more old people die. My boomer parents are progressive, but the generation by and large is holding us back. Of course the electoral college is part of the problem as well.
Ok so when that generation is dead, how does that fix the musk, Bezos, chesky, Zuckerberg problem exactly? We’re still stuck with them. They are still doing far more damage.
And yet somehow the younger generations are powerless to stop the evil boomers when they have the political numerical superiority to make the changes they want now…
Get out and vote. Run for office - local politics is where you start - get involved. Be that change.
******And always remember that one day YOU will become the hated generation that is standing in the way of progress.
I have served in local politics and public safety but my time is long past. It’s well past time the next generations start to run things and I’m tired of waiting.
It’s well past time the next generations start to run things and I’m tired of waiting.
Well, you know what they say about Power and Vacuums, they get filled, and the current stock of power lords will die off eventually.
So at some point they’ll run for office (if they can put their phones down long enough to do so ( I kid! I kid! :p )).
To be fair though, we’re not making their (future) elected jobs any easier by fucking things up today and doing our elected jobs poorly; its a team effort.
So you think Doubling down somehow erases the problem. It totally doesn’t put you at their level, right? Or did you think everyone is just so dumb they can’t see your stupid thrown into the ring too?
No, they don’t. They blamed the silent gen for ecological destruction, social inequality, and war. They also, like every generation back to australopithecus blamed their elders and thought the younger generation was spoiled & had shorter attention spans.
Don’t foolishly attribute a universal human flaw to a single group of people.
There is a lot of projection in that comment. Maybe there were a few anti-boomer memes before this post in your feed which led you to it.
The website shows death statistics of every generation with people alive, famous people and animals. The title of this post just points out that exactly a third of the boomer generation has now died, which is a mildly interesting threshold, hence the community this is posted in.
This is a neutral post and it isn’t anti-boomer per se.
Because as a new generation we’re going to make a lot of mistakes, who knows if more or less than the past generations.
musk, Zuckerberg, Chesky, bezos are but a few who aren’t even boomers and have done probably far more destruction to society with their attainment of wealth.
We’re gonna see this current generation posting this usVSthem bullshit explain all that away to the future generation when their kids look into their online memes like this one about how ‘they knew better than boomers enough to criticize’
“Tell me about how you stood by Greta thunberg and didn’t just sit on your ass posting drivel on your iPhone while you rented Airbnb and got half your things off of Amazon. Did you vote in trump? Tell me how did he become president again?”
Part of me thinks this generation posting this generation meme drek is a poor attempt to quickly burry this giant steaming pile of poo.
I kid, I kid, my parents are already dead, not everyone who was/is a boomer is horrid. But this generation has hung around power for too long, it’s time to move on.
The only way we can start to have actual positive change is unfortunately to wait for them to die out. They have proven they refuse to make the world a better place and will go out as selfishly and as damaging as possible. What a harmful and entitled generation.
The problem isnt going to end with them. My right wing friends are completely indoctrinated by their boomer parents. And getting louder and louder about it.
Here’s to hoping. It’s exhausting. I can’t have a single conversation without them slyly trying to slip in some earworm or go off on a tirade unexpectedly because I inadvertently trigger them.
Here’s to hoping. It’s exhausting. I can’t have a single conversation without them slyly trying to slip in some earworm or go off on a tirade unexpectedly because I inadvertently trigger them.
It’s worth the effort though. Thank you, citizen, for taking the time to do so.
mildlyinteresting
Newest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.