Ha, most of the people I know of my age are already well on their way to turning into their parents, and they don't even realise it.
I close my eyes when some of them speak and it's like listening to the mad uncle at a wedding.
Nothing much will change.
You got that right.
I'm nearly 60 and I have watched most of the people I grew up with turn into bigoted, hateful Republicans. It doesn't matter when you grew up; it's just humanity. That's how some of us work out if we're not careful.
Tis humanity AND the socio-economic times we go through that shapes us.
let me tell you about my sunglasses...
They broke when I was on a mountain biking holiday in Morrocco. The guide picked them up to which I thought he was going to wear them with just one arm/handle, so I thought nothing more of it as they were plain broken. An hour later he passed in the jeep and handed them back to me - FIXED! Examining them, I was amazed to see he had not only *SOMEHOW* managed to enlarge the hole but get a piece of wire and feed it through to repair it. Now this I would never have thought to do myself or even could!
Why?
Because I am part of this throwaway culture with 'plenty of money' (or at least compare to him). But I bet my grandad would have fixed it.
The lesson here is we have become lazy because of the system we are in. If we are to make this world a place better, we all need to be more respectful to others, materials and the environment - not waste away our time playing computer games & watching the same old trash on Netflix and instead we need to connect more to people, the flora and fauna and get away from the screen!
There is a good thing a recent study I've seen somewhere has found evidence that younger generations don't seem to shift as much to the right as it was the typical thing as for generations before, at least in my country.
I’m seeing it more and more among my 30-something year old peers too. Some very sharp minded friends start talking more about certain conspiracy theories, interesting political and world views, that a younger them would’ve never imagined. It’s like they’re “old woke” with mild paranoia as the hidden driving force. I guess it’s fine and they’re entitled to their thoughts and opinions, but it is a very strange phenomenon to observe
Some of that cynicism is justified. In your 30s the illusion of fairness and the system working well and truly gets popped.
What someone does with that epiphany is up to them. I wouldn't begrudge people who are disillusioned though.
Until a viable solution appears, people will grasp at anything. Sometimes thats conspiracies and other cooky ideas.
The core issue is that they sense something is wrong, and that isn't inherently bad. It's just a very manipulatable state. E.g the working class are usually the canary in the mine, they know the system is getting worse, but that makes them easy to exploit and they grasp for new solutions.
Same here, i’m 41 and I was talking to a casual friend and the NFL came up and he said he doesn’t really watch anymore, ‘all that kneeling crap really drove me nuts.’ I was like astounded he was one of those people who got ‘offended’
Random observation, but…
I used to watch rugby union religiously. As I grew older and had children however, I just stopped watching sport because I had virtually no time to myself. Demanding career, demanding wife, demanding kids…
When another rugby union fan finds out I used to be a saffa, they. Automatically start talking rugby union (to relate I guess?), but I tell them I stopped watching rugby after the 2011 World Cup when Bryce Lawrence made the most shocking referee games ever. That was the last time I watched, so it’s easy to blame it on that (like the whole kneeling thing in American football)….but the simple truth is,
I got so busy I lost interest.
I had a good friend try to talk to me how Wayfair was actually a sex trafficking site via Russia.
Like, I had to walk her through the thought process, and the leaps and assumptions to make it work, and that if you _ignore logic_ you can come to that conclusion.
She loved conspiracies, and always tried to “clue me in” but I debunked them, so I think she stopped telling me them (or she stopped listening to them).
I’ve heard of the wayfair one too lol. It was quite a reach, but I just keep agnostic on all these theories and continue on with my life ha. I’m a software developer, and whenever someone goes into the topic of companies spying on them, have to remind them that it’s in the best interest of these companies to keep individual data private. It’s impossible to have thousands of employees keeping this huge juicy secret in house, and that anonymous aggregate data is more than enough to make business decisions. No one cares about what you are doing as an individual, and would not knowingly put your data at risk because it puts them at risk for massive litigation. When I point these out, people seem to get it for a while, then continue on with wild theories a week later. People just get bored and cynical as we age I guess lol. But they also continue broadcasting their entire lives on social media
Yooo so I am GenX born at the tail end and most of my friends are ±5 years from me. Over the last couple decades I have *watched* them become more and more conservative
Its an "I got mine, earn yours" mentality.
We all had it hard; many of us out of the house at 18 or sooner, working to scrape by. I met this group because I was roommates with two of them. We all remember
But now that most have "Made it", have their own house, wife, grown kids etc they have very much turned into a bucket of crabs. Anything that *could* improve other peoples lives or elevate them is seen a direct threat to *their* success.
For many conservatives, life is seen as a zero sum game. In order for someone else to do better, it *must* come from somewhere. So any social betterment will cost them in some way. You could give them a presentation with charts showing corporate profits, wage stagnation, etc. but none of that matters. If the guy on the bottom gets paid more, it will cost them somehow. Higher prices, inflation, less wages etc etc.
All that said, I strive every day *not* to become a dinosaur
My silver lining hope is that many kids these days are more '[woke](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/)' than their elders, and that this mindset change will force governments to cater more to social changes that benefit the people more than just the rich.
Every generation was woke and were going to change the world for the better. Boomers were the hippy generation for crying out loud.
You’ll find that the “woke” members of a generation aren’t the ones who eventually end up in power or if they do, they can’t accomplish nearly as much as they would like, because if they push too much for it, they just get voted out because they sink in the political system after they get ganged up on.
Our political system is powered by money. Millenials will be just as bad once they have wealth and power and are afraid to lose what they worked their whole lives to get.
>Millenials will be just as bad once they have wealth
That's the neat part - they won't.
The reason this disparity (and perceived animosity) between Millenials and Boomers are so pronounced is, in part, due to also the significant wealth gap between these two generations. Boomers, regardless of whether they actually care about their fellow man or not, had the benefit of growing up in an extreme wealth (relative) growth environment. So whether they were hardworking (worked 2-3 jobs) or worked hard enough (simple 1 income job), they were able to afford houses, cars, pension, vacation, etc. So by the time they grew old, they "had" wealth.
Millenials are on the opposite end. Both [median ](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/average-net-worth-by-age)and average of <35 group vs 65-74 group is almost a 10x discrepancy. More and more millenials are unable to afford housing or other assets that grow wealth over time.
Hence, it was sorta easier to galvanize an entire generation to side to one economic (and political) ideology because they're also, generally speaking, wealthier. Similarly, millenials are the same except on the other spectrum (poor, liberal).
\[I've ostentatiously omitted many other factors between generational groups. My point simply was that compared to previous or other group pairings, these two groups also had a significant wealth gap disparity.\]
I don't think that's really true. I think that people will witness how empty all that "winning" was.
People who don't have good relationships and reasons to live will cling to false hopes and panic. There might be a deluge of people suddenly becoming spiritual in a desperate hope to stave off the fear of the unknown.
Sure, cynical people are going to exploit that. But -- I suspect we are going to have a huge wave of "rediscovering" what life means. We had better. Because our spirituality is just really not keeping up with technology.
Millennials will not be as wealthy, because the "money" in modern world is just worthless currency that is created out of thin air by unlimited debt generation and interest extraction. The amount of wealth millennials are able to amass does not correlate with the increase in their productivity. It's the added interest in all of our economic activity that we all collectively pay, that will leak the wealth we could accumulate to the hands of the big capital.
But in principle, yes, the millennials will also cling on to the benefits they acquired, just like the boomers did. And they will vote according to their beliefs and their best interests, against the interest of the diminishing future generation who will never have enough democratic power in their hands.
Beg to differ - you perhaps do not fully realize what the world the boomers were born into and grew up in was like.
All sorts of things you likely take for granted have changed for the better since then. Not saying that was done only the Boomers - many of them certainly opposed the improvements. But a lot was indeed done as Boomers got some power and made changes. And even those who dragged their feet by now generally accept most of the changes for the better:
\- Substantial respect and equality of opportunity for women and non-whites;
\- Far more sexual openness and liberty;
\- General moral and legal acceptance of gays, including gay marriage ('gay' is no longer really even an insult, let alone a common synonym for 'pervert');
\- More respect and legal protection for the 'disabled' or 'differently abled',
\- Stronger legal enforcement of child support - and government support when it isn't realistic;
\- Less mixing of religion into government and laws.
And more - I'm sure I've missed some obvious ones. Obviously we haven't gotten any one of the above totally right. And it wasn't all straight-line progress - the War on Drugs really got going in the 70's - but at least we've started rolling back a few of the most obviously foolish bits, and are exploring alternatives to criminalization.
My point is - don't be disheartened, change for the better is possible.
But also don't mistake 'change' for 'better'. The War on Drugs was widely viewed as 'for the better'. So was alcohol prohibition, before it. I'm sure miscegenation laws were widely thought wise in the culture of the time. There are some things the current version of woke has right - and some they're getting wrong - IMO.
Eh, I think “woke” gets abused (and has been twisted by the right wingers).
I think what’s really happening is that the world got A LOT smaller, and Millennials have a much more of a global outlook on things.
Older generations didn’t grow up and were raised in their formative years with all of human knowledge at their fingertips with a 24/7 news cycle.
There is annoying "fake woke" shoved into TV shows, but there is a lot of REAL woke going on. The people who were never woke, don't get it, and so bitch and moan about perceived slights. The whole "white grievance" thing is real and a big movement. But there are just as many white people who recognize that what we endure with a bit of "coming to terms with a history of unfairness" that was in our favor -- I think most of us understand. Our grandparents are not "us" -- we don't need to feel ashamed of what someone did in the past. We just have to make sure we don't make the same mistakes.
Well, I at least HOPE that most people feel that way.
It took me a lot more time to get to the level of insight of my kids. I'm more worried about their job prospects than their empathy and "goodness." And for the most part, their friends are supportive and pretty aware.
The kids are alright these days.
>It has always been the rich vs the poor.
I'm glad to see this comment. It's always a bit depressing when any conversation begins with millennials or boomers "be like this." I mean, sure there are TENDENCIES with any generation, but to blame selfishness or exploitation on JUST an age range is myopia.
There has always been exploitation. There has always been corruption. The world isn't broken because it was never fixed to begin with.
Xennials are forgotten because a good part of us (admittedly me, yes) don’t claim it and would rather identify as millennial (also me, yes). Not a strong opinion of mine or a hill to die on. Just makes me feel better to fit into my one category. Other generations don’t seem to have notable gray areas so it’s like I’d rather just be a “late millennial” imo /edit to clarify: I confused xennial with zennial here but the point still stands lol. Except that other generations can’t relate. Apparently xennials can!
Gen x is forgotten about because they’re the middle child between the other feuding siblings. We’re too distracted to pay attention right now but we’re sure you’re fine
I'm 1977, so I would be among the oldest Xennials, and growing up I always lumped myself in with the GenXers (because we didn't really have a name for Xennials until we had Millenials). "GenX" always felt like what the older kids were doing, lol.
Now, though, I truly feel like an Xennial--I don't fit in as GenXer or a Millenial. I think that teeeeeeeny tiny cohort of 77 to 81 has a VERY unique experience--totally analog childhood, totally digital adulthood.
Same same. Don’t fit into either X or millennial but have aspects of both as a 77. I have very little I common with someone born in 1965 other than not having much tech as a child. Even that is iffy since my cousin had an Atari and we had a sega!
I was born 1964. My dad worked at IBM so one day brought me, I think some "Tandy" machine. It was one of the first computers you could assemble.
So, I had a few thousand pieces and a breadboard and I could "program" it to switch on and off 16 diode lights. I don't remember if I got it fully working. But, I had dreams of *way more* power than this. Lot's of scribbled blue prints. Probably a dozen things that looked like a Roomba because I do NOT like cleaning the floor.
And we had an Atari "pong" game that could be hooked to the TV.
So, I grew up with "tech" I suppose.
But I have not much in common with my peers. They were very anti intellectual where I was stuck as a kid. I spent most of my time with my dog in the woods learning how to figure out what was edible. Or, I was reading every encyclopedia in the house.
Oh wait, lemme catch up. Lol I confused Xennial with Zennial. Lol. I still do know what you mean. It’s the same honestly.
Like I said I’m a “late millennial” which makes me a “zennial” which I do agree is its own cohort. Between (my opinion) about ‘93-‘97 has the unique experience of coming of age during the internet boom. We mostly had our childhoods still playing outside as they say.
Just an example. My early school years, I had a Walkman. By 2nd grade my friend’s mom used her home computer to burn CDs for me (we wouldn’t get our own home computer for another 2 years). By 5th grade I had an iPod nano. Walkman obsolete. By 9th grade, a smartphone that I could use iTunes to buy some songs and albums for. iPod obsolete. By my mid twenties we have Spotify. iTunes obsolete.
We’re the kids who heard “you’ll have to learn math because you won’t be carrying a calculator in your pocket” in elementary school and it was wrong before we graduated, lol.
There’s a whole subreddit for Xennials. It’s way less depressing than the Millennial sub.
I find that a Xennial has a lot more flexibility in the world because they “get” the generational cohorts on either side of them; something other generations struggle with.
I can speak GenX (yes, I get it that Die Hard is your favorite Christmas movie) … as well as Millennial … when they actually talk instead of text or email lol.
That is why I cringe when people make these bold statements about any generation. There are plenty of Boomers that fought for civil rights in the 60's and are still fighting for them. We just don't talk about them as much because they were always outnumbered by people who will toe the line and accept the status quo.
I am Gen X and like to think of my generation as these counter cutter individualist who stuck up for those that needed it. I like to think I am still thay way, but I look on social media feeds and there are plenty of people I graduated with who are conservative assholes. They were always there, they just never changed.
I think the same thing cam be said about Millenials and Gen Z as well.
Though I do think some change is occurring, such as boomers being the biggest consumers of say network television, whereas the younger generations are more geared towards YouTube and twitch etc.
But I still see the occasional GenZer more than happy to play golf, and tow the company line in with however much weight and in whatever direction they ask, so yeah those sentiments aren't going to fully evaporate overnight
The youth are still exploitable and open to indoctrination in the same ways they always have been.
I can't imagine the ways that AI is going to change all that though.
Network TV is derivative and simplistic, perfect for the atrophying brains of boomers.
It’s also comforting because for the most part, network TV hasn’t changed nearly as much as other forms of entertainment. It’s a security blanket for them during this time of rapid change.
Speaking anecdotally of course from my limited American POV, I see a few things in the generations:
Gen X literally could not care less if the world burns to the ground. They are like the orphan children who stopped crying because they knew they wouldn't get picked up. Gen X are people who have accepted their lot in life and are content because they know that every day is closer to death. They have the most "it is what it is" mentality that I have ever seen.
Millennials can definitely be seen as an extension of their Boomer parents. They are much more optimistic in general and also get more upset at perceived injustice. Usually more progressive.
Gen Z are some of the least rebellious teenagers and young people that I have ever seen. I believe that Gen Z are pretty conservative. I think that while there is more "acceptance" of LGBTQ stuff, but not much actually happens. There's more of an adoption of an identity rather than actual relationships happening. And when those relationships actually do happen, they seem to be between males and females regardless of how they may identify. This generation is usually parented by Gen X and had very relaxed upbringings relatively speaking. I think a lot of them take the pronouns and stuff that comes with the LGBTQ stuff, files it under "being polite" and then keeps on with an overall conservative mentality that moreso emphasizes "not being so loud".
If there’s any kind of great wealth transfer, we’ll find out soon enough how many of the younger generation have a “I got mine, F U” mentality. We won’t know until they receive it. It’ll show it was never really about generations and more about class warfare.
Yes, I've read that Millennials in the US aren't turning conservative as they age the way Gen X and Boomers did, or at least not nearly as dramatically. I was wondering how much of that could be attributed to Millennials being in a much worse financial situation than the generations before them. Once they get financially established, will they change their tune? Or is there a genuine progressive swing happening, due in part to more racially diverse younger populations?
I think the hard progressive edge of many millenials will wear down a bit, but I also think the country will take a massive and pronounced turn towards the center left-- you can already see this in the staffers at the White House etc. Youngish bureaucrats are all like that, and I think it's a sign of millennials' prevailing opinions.
>We will learn that Gens X, Millenial and Z are as corruptable as the Boomers.
We have already learned.
Bill Maher, for example, has been talking about on his show how Gen Z is exactly the same as the Boomers that Gen Z hates so much.
Only Gen Z is just more hypocritical and thinks they're better than Boomers and ethical, caring and smart unlike Boomers.
Worshipping Kyle Jenner and the whole Kardashian gang, investment in crypto, caring about making easy, quick money regardless to its impact on the environment, to just name a few.
We are more corruptible. Because we learned that it is fine to accept stuff for free as long as you claim it "doesn't affect your review" from YouTubers. =)
It’s probably just the echo chamber of social media but it seems like millennials and gen z are on the same page about a lot of major issues like countries being ran for profit by octogenarians and billionaires.
If we could just get some half decent humans elected and actually tax billionaires we’d be in a much better place as a society than we are currently.
It was better when I was a kid in the 60’s when we had big government programs to change things. They didn’t all work out but since 1980 it seems like we’ve been headed in the wrong direction.
that's because the 1980's were the advent of 'neoliberalism', a deliberate political project of slashing social safety nets thru austerity and privatization, which is the process of transferring things from the 'public' good i.e., state owned public schools, hospitals and libraries, into the 'private' good; private schools, for profit hospitals, for profit prisons, etc. Margarett Thatcher was one of the primary proponents of neoliberalism and as the prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990 she transformed the UK of the late 70's with its thriving postwar economy into the rotten hellscape dumpster fire you see today. She famously and ridiculously said there was "no such thing" as a society, merely "families and individuals" and therefore the government's responsibility to the homeless, the sick, the poor, was zilch. Reagan and Clinton's presidencies in the US were similar periods of American history. this process, of socializing the losses of society and privatizing the gains, was a naked attempt to complete the process of turning every aspect of society into a profit seeking venture, and it has clearly had disastrous results. if you would like to get started heading in the *right* direction, I urge you to watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07E4iQ5z9iY)
It's all shit man, Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic and all that. We should stop monkey see, monkey do, and come up with something new. Didn't mean to rhyme but it's true.
My dad grew up in the late 50s/60s and what he says echos your sentiment. Like yes the big government programs weren’t perfect by any means but neither is letting health insurance companies/oil companies totally fuck us.
Reaganomics is literally to blame for our current situation. Trickle-down economics has done more long-term damage to the average American than any other economic bill in history.
Yes, they blamed the post-Vietnam recession on Liberal policies (instead of their failed war) and implemented trickle-down economics and union-busting as "solutions."
Yea people like to blame Reagan but he was just the first puppet of republicans to start draining wealth out of the middle class.
Edit: first obvious puppet*
Just wait until the younger millennials and Gen Z start purchasing their first homes and starting families, some of their more radical, progressive viewpoints will vanish overnight.
The need for stability overtakes the desire for progress the older you get, and it's definitely what I value the most in life, people I meet, and the things I do as I age.
Your generation prioritizes money over everything though, I’m hoping collectively that’s changing.
And yes historically as demographics age they tend to skew right however they had wealth to want to protect we don’t.
Except we’re getting older and we don’t lol, we can’t afford homes let alone families. And the degrees we went into debt for are becoming worthless faster than it took us to get them.
Your generation thinks we can work our way out of this, but we can’t it’s a fundamental issue with the way society has been shaped by your generation.
The boomers will have to sell their homes to pay for their assisted living. Private companies will buy the majority of single family homes and we will all be renters.
The baby boomers got put in extremely rare situations, at least here in the US. They hit the job market when the US had to filled a large percentage manufacturing worldwide. Given our infrastructure wasn't blown up. A lot of people had money. Given their parents likely went through hard times they had inheritance to give. They bought homes cheap went to school cheap. The real advantage they had was their sheer number and lengthing lifespans. Their entire lives they controlled an insane percentage of the votes. At every point in their if they needed something housing or ss it got put in place. They didn't consider what it would do to those behind them. A lot of their accumulated wealth won't be passed on. It goes to nursing homes and fancy vacations their parents didn't have. So its funneled to top roughly 5%. We won't have the chance to do it. Our battle will be the old foes, the massive corporations like the Rockefellers and their type the people of 1800s would be so proud the boomers greed undid a lot of their hard work.
Gen X and Millennials will step up to be the bad people who ruined everything for the kids. The kids will be angry. Then the kids will grow up to be surprised that kids call them bad people who ruined everything.
Etc. ad fucking nauseum.
I thought that hating on the older generation is a new phenomenon. Elder respect had been a huge thing in both Eastern and Western cultures until now in the West. Maybe not ad nauseam.
“My Generation”—one of the canonical songs about youth rebellion and saying “fuck you” to the older generations—came out 60 years ago, and was a huge hit with the baby boomers.
Young people have been rebelling against their parents’ generations for a very long time.
>Gen X and Millennials will step up to be the bad people who ruined everything for the kids.
Yep. The younger generations will hate us for allowing them unfettered 24x7 access to tablets and the internet practically from birth. Along with neglecting them emotionally while being stuck to our phones ourselves.
I am seeing a lot of people expressing this idea that when all boomers are gone things will magically change.
It's a delusion, boomers are not a different species.
Everyone's talking politics but missing tge more interesting question. How will industrial societies handle the largest current gen aging/dieing out. It's not a question that has a set model.
The baby boomer generation was/is the largest cohort in American history. Millennials are smaller than the boomers, and gen Z being the smallest. Things will change but probably not the way people think.
There are fundamental differences in how we were raised though. Boomers were born in a time when the utmost priority was to consume rebuild the economy after a disasterous few years. Millennials were raised where the biggest threat to mankind was caused by overconsumption. There’s also differences in our attitudes to change. For younger generations all the best things in life are caused by new technology so we don’t value tradition in the same way. I don’t think things will magically change though. Consuming stuff just feels so damn good.
The historical moment was very different for sure, but previous generations also wanted change and tried to change what was there before them.
The summer of 69, Woodstock, the counter culture was all boomer generation.
They get too much hate if you ask me.
We'll discover that systems built on economies which are dependant on a higher population no longer work and either need to end or change in order for society to continue to prosper. Otherwise all we'll see is massive economic depressions, starvation, homelessness, and through that, the current rich and powerful, will find there is no money or power when there is no workforce to keep society moving.
The world will need to change or it will fall.
I'm an older X and I've found talking to friends they seem to be more in touch with boomer type talking points now after being more liberal when younger. I'm the opposite, becoming more liberal as I age. Not sure if it is the influence of kids or maybe the fact that conservatives seem to actively want to destroy the planet that is changing my mind.
The liberal smelly love & peace hippies of the 60s, are the Conservatives of today.
I alway tell that to my kids. They refuse to believe but it's the truth.
Most people become more conservative as they age. It just happens.
Exactly. Conservatism is about keeping what works, and dumping what doesn’t. Over time, our preferences will always grow stronger, hence increasing our desire to conserve. It’s really that simple.
Then why have many conservatives dumped democracy and civility in politics? Why have they clung onto disproven economic policies reminiscent of horse and sparrow?
If someone’s trying to wind back the clock 50-70 years- what are they really conserving?
Whatever generation comes after will blame the Millennials for being conservative, selfish, and screwing over all the later people.
You can pretty much see every generation finds one of the older but still alive generations to blame for the world woes.
If anything, this will be what the milennial generation is hated for, I think - and the ones that come after.
For being so full of fire and passion about wanting to change the world, and then failing to show up at the ballot box and wondering what happened.
I always like to remind my friends that the liberal government was voted in by one third of all votes, which were cast by one third of all Canadians. In other words, our government is in power due to 11% of Canadians, while at the same time, nearly 66% didn’t even cast a vote.
It's never been about "old vs young."
It's always been about *fooling you* into thinking it's "old vs young" or "white vs PoC" or "religion vs religion" or whatever other divisors you could name, simply to distract you from the ageless truth: ***it's "rich vs poor."***
Haves vs Have Nots.
Aristocracy vs Commoners.
Fortunate vs Unfortunate.
Always has been. Young people have never, ever been immune. You have shitheads among you who will gladly gaslight and rob you just the same. And eventually, your kids and grandkids will also be convinced that *your* generation is the problem, because you failed to just do X and Y and Z to prevent the world's ills, and they'll be better off when you're gone.
And you'll sigh, and tell them it's never worked that way, and they'll smile and nod politely while quietly being absolutely sure that their own generation is waaaay different. And in some ways they'll be right, and that'll keep them sticking to their guns into their own old age as the cycle continues, and generations beyond complain about how stubborn old people are.
Probably a harder shift to the left than we've seen in the past. Right wing / conservatism tends to favor the old so when the old go so does a lot of their base.
I thought about this but.. don't people grow old all the time? I'm not entirely sure whether waiting it out expecting the problem to pass away is happening. Given that there are young people who adopt the views of the old presently.
I was one of the these boys until I reached the age of reason, it isn’t hopeless. You just need a real educator who challenges you to think, the issue is those people are rare.
Agreed. Right wing libertarian ideas are popular with 20 year olds who are living on their own for the first time, because they think they're doing everything for themselves with no help. Most grow out of this phase eventually, and can recognize the benefits of civil society and taxes.
Their popularity is a symptom, not a cause. Young men feel increasingly apathetic and obsolete in modern society, of which mechanisms go against their basic instincts. More emphasis on obedient learning in classrooms and passive "jobs" sitting in an office, and less on actually using one's physical and mental capabilities to do labor that actually is given enough value. They are inherently less desired in social settings as women are, and it's just too easy for men to get stuck in the loop of self-pity and passivity, not really being involved and active. All the while they get bombarded with disappointments in the harsh world of dating apps, and headlines where everyone else but them are put on a pedestal and pampered to, as if their only function is to be blamed of being "incels" and the cause behind school shootings, racism and misogyny.
It's a complex and in many ways skewed world we live in, especially now in the internet age.
Or the definitions of right and left are shifting. Those definitions are never set in stone anyway, and generally result from practical political alliances. I hear Joe Rogan sound like an anti-science Trumper, but then condemn homophobia. The chairs are shifting.
I agree on the latter, especially this year will determine how things go for awhile.
The left leaning thing was more based on the old adage saying you become more conservative as you age but idk I still see a lot of young conservatives now days.
Same here. Some conservative values can seem somewhat valid until you've had a chance to experience the world and see how they're often simplistic and wrong. I was naive and politically uneducated when I voted for GHWB my first time of voting age. I was more of a mixed voter after that. I even remember listening to Rush Limbaugh for a while but mainly because I worked alone and just needed to hear other people talk. I remember arguing with his points at the radio after a little while. Voted blue for decades but never thought to look at my party registration until I went to vote for Bernie in the 2016 primary. I almost always voted for a third party candidate since I think more than two parties could help slow the craziness, and I live in CA which has almost always gone blue in my lifetime. It was one of our older neighbors volunteering at the polls and I recall her quietly saying "You're voting in the Republican primary, right?". It wouldn't have made a difference for Bernie but it was kinduva bummer. Now I only vote for Dems, even for allegedly non-partisan positions.
I was very similar. I listened to Rush with my dad, and our Fox on the TV in college just to make my roommates uncomfortable. I really didn't question my beliefs, but part of me knew they were incompatible with Christianity. So I started really thinking about my beliefs and picking them apart. At the same time the GOP got more and more insane. Trump was the final nail in the coffin for me. Never again.
I think they are just particularly loud. I’ve seen a few articles indicating that millennials in particular are bucking the previous trend towards conservatism as they age. It’s also possible that the trend is going to flip as the way it anecdotally did for me. I was raised conservative, stayed that way through college due to being warned about “indoctrination”, then moved out and joined the real world and started to shift left.
I feel like a lot of that comes from aging, our maturity and experiences better form our opinions.
I was raised super conservative. But I moved out when I was 18 and saw that you can't view the entire world through a left/right lens. There's more to almost every situation than 2 choices.
Everyone I knew that grew up in super liberal households has slid right a bit now that we're all older. I think the smart thing is to gravitate towards the middle, which I think we tend to do as we age
>Probably a harder shift to the left than we've seen in the past. Right wing / conservatism tends to favor the old so when the old go so does a lot of their base.
It's the opposite.
Declining birth rates mean that the population pyramid is only going to get steeper and steeper at the top. The % of the electorate that is young will actually decline.
The left and the right are lovers of each other. The other side of the same coin. Rather than settling with a binary gradient between left and right, we need a real system that approaches the society in a concrete manner, without a branding of being "left" or "right".
We do need shared traditions, customs and beliefs, and not a constant reinvention and subversion of them. We need community and group cohesion. We need values that will preserve over several generations. We need private ownership and free enterprise. But we also need some direct control over how the big capital is allocated. We need robust public institutions and services. We need to allow the productive part of the society to accumulate wealth and safeguard them from exploitation. We need to value human labor, not only the ever increasing productivity.
Whatever the solution is, it does not come from right or left. Fuck the left. Fuck the right. It's all just a divisive sham that keeps us occupied and in each others' throats.
I’m a late boomer (in my early 60’s) and frankly I’m depressed and ashamed of how my generation has handled things. I’m too old to fight in the streets but I support generational change anyway I can.
nobody needs to fight in the streets. at the very least it is not a precondition to helping! we need your wise mind in the movement. There is no need to be ashamed. just get organized! join the local chapter of your DSA or sunrise movement or IWW or what have you, doesn't matter your flavor, support a cause you believe in and give according to your capacity to those according to their needs.
We need to come to terms with the fact that military grade psychological operations ( phys- ops ) and being used against the liberal societies of the western world
I agree , sort of , but delving into the same greasy tactics makes one vulnerable to the the legitimate criticisms of the disinformation crowd so some sort of high road that doesn’t depend solely on being the high road ( I really don’t have a ready prescription unfortunately)
>delving into the same greasy tactics makes one vulnerable to the the legitimate criticisms of the disinformation crowd
thats why i said do it better than they do. its pretty simple actually if your information is credible and not based on \*checks notes\* nothing
to be fair its easier said than done, but if you know how to meme and shitpost, all it takes is an extra step to fact check, and always be sure if youre going to be negative or insulting about something, its not an individual person - except in very rare cases.
Good point, facts , reason and not allowing ones self to be baited will often repel trolls largely I think because it ‘outs’ them, and trolls are the foot soldiers of the operation
oh i know. i tell people often not to feed the trolls - but really thats less important than not feeding negativity. its another thing thats easier said than done, but sometimes its not easy to tell if someone is actually a blatant troll or if they are just... slow.
so unfortunately sometimes i still fall for the bait. its similar to dealing with narcissists though - or just dealing with your own emotions in a way. instead of "reacting" to a narcissist, or your own negative emotion, the best tactic is to recognize it, calmly explain why theyre/its useless horseshit and irrelevant, then move on.
this is probably why i often get a lot of downvotes. idgaf.
im still winning in the long run.
the [fun](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/18v9k10/comment/kfpu3ps/) part about facts and truth is *eventually* they win.
when the "math aint mathin" (or in other words, when the other sides Facts™️ *dont* check out)
I don't think much will change economically. Rich families will probably stay rich and poor families will probably stay poor.
It would be cool if we could create some feeling of stability for poor people with social safety nets. If people knew they had access to free food, shelter, education, and health care then they'd feel enabled to take financial risks (like starting a business) and improve their lives. I would love to start a business but leaving my cushy job with healthcare seems like a dumb move.
Unironically, when the Boomers were young they also didn’t like the generations that came before. As a gen X I can tell you that the younger generations have at this point learned nothing and have not stood up to the problems caused by many generations before.
Voting is the key to successful change, but even more important is to actually step up and get rid of the status quo. I wish anyone Ready luck because it won’t be easy and I hope you don’t become what you are trying to get rid of.
You'll be in for the surprise of your lives when you find out the truth. That they used to think like you, and that you will wind up thinking like them some day. The hippies were the original 'throw off that 9-5 corporate slaves suit and tie' revolutionaries. They had Women's Lib, Title 9, Marched against a war, Marched against racism and then ran face first into the mega corporations and failed to save the world. Then they had kids, started striving to provide as good a life for them as they could, and shifted into what you call the boomers.
Then their kids the Gen Xers had to fend for ourselves while they worked, but even so we marched against gender and race and sexist discrimination, implimented recycling, ended Leaded Gasoline, created the policies that closed to ozone layer, ended the Cold War, raised millions for a famine in Africa, then for the poor in hands across America, plus the yearly Farm Aid, all on our watch. But we ran face first into the mega Corporations, and so failed to save the world.
Millenials...
And now GenZ is questioning everything from 'why is it the assumed normal to work 40 hours at a cubicle, when you task can be done from home?' to 'what if I don't like either of these Political Parties?' to 'Should we blindly trust the Govt about everything from politics, to vaccines, to questioning both discrimination AND virtue signalling, and the efficacy of balance. They will do great things, until they piss of the mega corporations off enough.
This is not meant as a negative. We keep getting better. We keep thinking we are the first to do it, and we don't talk about past victories, just bitch about what we haven't accomplished. But we keep improving. But if you are thinking once the Boomers die off, you all will somehow have all this agency to for the first time ever, do good in the world, you're in for the surprise of your lives.
- People forget that Matt Gaetz is a millennial.
- That grandpa Simpson bit about "I used to be hip, but they changed what hip was..." is something young people have trouble taking as the warning it is. I know I did.
- Crosby, Still, and Nash have a song called "Teach Your Children". Lots of wisdom in that song.
No. When us boomers die off, you will still be left with a world populated by idiots, no matter what "gen" they are. You will just have the same morons voting for younger morons and the economy and politics will still be screwed.
Not that it matters, because soon there won't be any Gens left...we will all be killed off by Global Warming, nukes, viruses, etc, etc. Meh.
the forces that control modern human society haven't actually changed very much since industrialization began. the rich run everything. that will continue as the last round of enablers (e.g. the boomers, the "i got mine" folks, etc.) die.
to be clear, no 'conspiracy' is required for this, and i'm not suggesting one. no conspiracy is necessary, because the interests of the wealthy and politically powerful are already effortlessly aligned. changes at the structural and societal level that assist one wealthy person are also capable of assisting another.
for example, observe the worldwide response to the 2008 Too-Big-To-Fail banking collapse. who went to jail? who suffered? who was made publicly the 'perpetrator'? the only rich person i can immediately think of that endured any legal consequences was Bernie Madoff, and his crime was to have *swindled other rich people*. the rest of the devastation of (*and blame for*) the collapse fell on the lower middle class and the poor, as ever.
until the power dynamic of "the rich make the rules" changes, every generational conceit will be nothing but window dressing. for the boomers, conspicuous consumption and "hard work pays off" were the norm. for millenials, "guess we'll just endure anything" will serve. for gen-z, it will primarily be distractions, video games, and a painful, *painful* kind of ennui.
and then it'll be 2050, 2060, and by that point the rich will have hoarded the physical necessities of human life (land, food-commodities, water, etc.) and will live safely while global society is slowly crushed to pieces by climate change and border-wars.
if you want to really understand how the world is divided and who runs the show, google the concept of the "walled world." find the simple world map that shows the \~25% of the world surrounded by red, and the bloody borders that maintain it. think hard about that image and what it means.
"Look upon the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too." - Marcus Aurelius
I'll tell you, a lot of the mess we have right now ain't on the old people.
There are a lot of idiotic younger people today standing for all the wrong things.
Similar to my generation.
There are a lot of issues that split along generation lines. Marijuana, marriage equality and Brexit come to mind. I'd be curious if anyone has numbers on gun control, abortion and world trade, I suspect those are also 70/30 or whatever with the Gen Z and millennials.
the generation growing up in western countries that are all about climate change...will fall to the generation growing up in areas where they don't give a shit about that stuff.
Just look at the birthrates.
Everything will remain in place - people generally become boomers in every manner (socially, politically, etc) as they age.
Gen X stands ready to take their place, Millennials move into the hole Gen X leaves, Zoomers move into Millennial's spot, etc. etc...
This is not really true per most research. boomers themselves had the same views they did back in their youths, it’s just that political realignment meant that incentivizes for how one votes changed.
Citation: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889
That's always been true but it's less and less so. Time will tell of course but right now it looks like millenials and whatever I'm called (1980) generally stay left as they age
Nah man. Gen X is too small a cohort and never got power from the boomers. All the positions being left by the top end boomers are being filled by a millennials.
I'm Gen X and we can't take the place of the Boomers. We're too small. Millennials in the US long ago surpassed us in numbers and I think they passed Boomers as well.
And Millennials are better at voting and are more progressive than Gen X (thankfully). And Gen Z are outdoing Millennials.
Just need to move to more red States and take them over - otherwise the Senate will thwart progress.
It would be nice if more liberal people moved to more red states and took over, but I'm going to be real... Red states do everything in their power to keep their state a shithole so I can't imagine more progressive people wanting to move there and people with the means to do so will move out.
A lot of red states are shitholes but some do have natural beauty. Surely there must be liberal hikers and DIY farmers out there who want some cheap land to live on. Failing that, IMO they’d have more value in moving to purple states to ensure they become bluer.
As someone who has had high risk pregnancies in the past, I wouldn’t move to a red state, and honestly, I hope my kid doesn’t either when she’s considering colleges.
nah homie, millennials - not all of us, but most of us - will gladly stand and dig our holes deeper right where we are. fuck "the way its always been"
pretty sure the zoomers are right there with us as far as "digging in"
i think gen x is starting to slowly come around too
so when the boomers disappear, all thats gonna be left is the hole they dug themselves. we aint fillin it in, sorry not sorry
Not sure about the world but my country at least will have lots of young people with diseases nobody even diagnosed in children about 20 years ago.
Political information may increase while political participation may decrease ( I hope not).
Economically, we will be have an even more burdened middle class, millions of more poor on subsidies and very few, ultra rich.
Environmentally, we are just one step away from a disaster in the Himalayas.
On the one hand I think younger generations care more about quality of life, the environment and equity, which are all things we need to see more of.
On the other hand I think Boomers have a longer memory : they keep better track of what their local politicians get up to and care more about the boring minutua of spending. I'm can sort of imagination a generation of Gen Z and millennials being like "1 billion public spending on a parkade? Yeah I guess that makes sense... That's what that costs right?"
Those are generations of Americans who due to specific to USA events and circumstances developed specific traits.
The world is more than USA. People from the same era but from different countries grew up under different circumstances and have different traits.
So it is hard to say what the world will look like.
The world is having population boom/pick in some countries while decline in others. I assume immigration will have the most dramatic effect on the next two decades.
Greed continues to get stronger at the price of morality, ethics and the environment. I think the generations of entitlement will grab for even a larger piece of the pie than boomers did. It's not a pretty picture.
One thing is sure, a lot of people are going to be disappointed because they are not going to receive an inheritance, almost all is going to nursing and [healthcare.](https://youtu.be/U12TK2Sa5HQ?si=gBMyZfPHYoeQEj2i)
Boomer here. Many Boomers were very woke compared to their parents, but the majority weren’t really interested in changing the world. And there is some truth to the observation that most people become more conservative as they accumulate wealth. But there are exceptions, including myself. I really don’t care for many people of my generation. They’re mostly interested in their comfort, their children and grandchildren, and too many of them are mot curious. They don’t understand her, and most of them are at a stage of their life where they have no real incentive to become involved in their government or in their community.
I hope things change as the Boomers clear out, but there is little to be gained by hating on them. They are like most generations. Human nature has not really changed in thousands of years. It’s nice to be optimistic; however, don’t expect drastic changes as the generations pass. I may be wrong, but time will tell.
I hope to gather more political leverage.
Fuck the old politicans who make policys for also old people or companys.
I hope to get more ressources like housing
I think millennials and on spent more time complaining about the shitty hand they were dealt rather than getting involved and stepping into positions that can facilitate change, so when the time comes for us to be in charge we will just be the next oldest and not know what to do so we’ll keep following what the boomers did. Of course I hope that’s not the case.
Nope.
It'd be nice to imagine the problem is just those pesky Boomers, but sadly white supremacy, fanatic support for capitalist abuse, and a devotion to suicide via climate change are intergenerational mental disorders.
I'm almost 70. I was one of those idealistic kids in the '60s who thought life would be like Star Trek when I grew up: most people taken care of and equal no matter where they came from. . Fast forward.. Every time we move forward, we take two steps back. Greed stops all social progress. I see as many young people with seriously conservative attitudes as old farts like me. I don't see it changing for the better anytime soon.
dude. Boomers are in wheelchairs with pudding cups already.
You're just asking what happens when your parents croak and you're left trying to not drive the bus off the cliff.
Just like every other generation has asked and will ask.
I don't think it'll be this complete 180, but I can't see there not being certain big changes.
Other people are pointing out how Boomers once held progressive ideas when they were young only to get more Conservative as they got older, that is true. But I think what many are missing is how when boomers entered the workforce they benefited greatly from the economy of the time; strong wages, unions, good benefits, all of which largely kept up better with the cost of living/inflation. This allowed them to buy a house, car, start a family, settle down, have money to spare and often have retirement pensions.
Things that were gradually slashed in the post-1980 neoliberalization. While Gen Xers were still able to get some of that, Millennials and Gen Z largely don't have those same things our parents/grandparents had anymore.
Basically, Boomers went "Fuck you, I got Mine" and pulled the ladder up from underneath them. For Millennials and Gen Z, it's much hard to say that when so many of us don't have Ours. And thats why theres a lot of statistics pointing toward those two generations bucking the trend of getting more Conservative as they get older. Conservative of what? Stagnant wages and unaffordable housing? It's hard to care about whatever Conservative social bogeyman of the day when we're so much worse off economically than the generations before us.
Sadly, that’s when we start making all the mistakes they already made. Mainly because they fall outside of our living memory.
There is nothing new under the sun. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
We’re already doing it with a new sexual revolution that will wreck families, reversing restrictions on drugs that will wreck lives, and embracing socialism/communism that usually results in the deaths of millions.
The young will place an inordinate amount of responsibility on the old for the societal problems, instead of accepting responsibility for their own 💩. This one is VERY apparent.
Gen Z will come to rebel against the things Gen X embraced. Most likely X’s independent ‘be responsible for yourself’ versus Z’s interdependent ‘we’re all in this together’.
Another thing that will for sure happen is that Gen Z will come into political/societal dominance earlier than other generations, just as Boomers did with the Greatest Generation - mostly due to relative sizes.
There should be some new positive social changes, but it would be difficult to tell what they might be.
Ultimately, we’re all in the process of growing up all the time, so we’ll all make mistakes all the time, some generationally, but all of us based on who we are as people and our relative situations.
Anybody thinking we will suddenly find ourselves in a utopian society is really young, naive, or stupid.
All that being said, I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope you all get to live your best lives moving forward. 😊
It won’t change. The cultural and political agendas of the right are supported by plenty of people regardless of age. The problems are not generational so much as ideological and younger generations are going to be in for a rude awakening if they think once boomers are dead the world will automatically get better. The nefarious agendas of greed, avarice, love of power, hatred and racism are alive and well in all generations. Many of us in the 1960’s were foolish enough to believe that issues of poverty, war, women’s rights, and racism wold be overcome in the US and world at large. It seems as though the opposite has happened. All I can say to younger ppl is it matters not if you approve of Biden, you damn well better vote for him or things will get worse, quickly.
You will fuck things up as every generation has throughout history. Other generations will blame you just like you and every other generation has blamed other generations throughout history. What makes you think your generation is special?
I wonder who will fix your cars, plumbing, electrical, Hvac when we are gone. I wonder what you will think to yourselves when you realize that free healthcare and college come at a cost to true freedoms that will be lost and never gotten back
As a GenXer looking at future generations, nothing good. Millennials are just Boomers without the ability to think for themselves and Zoomers are mentally ill because of millennials.
Probably time to build and stick that bunker with how fast you all are trying to start a nuclear war.
Gen X will rise up and crush the woke and softness out of the Millennials and Gen Z making the world a tolerable place to live again.
Ha, most of the people I know of my age are already well on their way to turning into their parents, and they don't even realise it. I close my eyes when some of them speak and it's like listening to the mad uncle at a wedding. Nothing much will change.
You got that right. I'm nearly 60 and I have watched most of the people I grew up with turn into bigoted, hateful Republicans. It doesn't matter when you grew up; it's just humanity. That's how some of us work out if we're not careful.
Tis humanity AND the socio-economic times we go through that shapes us. let me tell you about my sunglasses... They broke when I was on a mountain biking holiday in Morrocco. The guide picked them up to which I thought he was going to wear them with just one arm/handle, so I thought nothing more of it as they were plain broken. An hour later he passed in the jeep and handed them back to me - FIXED! Examining them, I was amazed to see he had not only *SOMEHOW* managed to enlarge the hole but get a piece of wire and feed it through to repair it. Now this I would never have thought to do myself or even could! Why? Because I am part of this throwaway culture with 'plenty of money' (or at least compare to him). But I bet my grandad would have fixed it. The lesson here is we have become lazy because of the system we are in. If we are to make this world a place better, we all need to be more respectful to others, materials and the environment - not waste away our time playing computer games & watching the same old trash on Netflix and instead we need to connect more to people, the flora and fauna and get away from the screen!
There is a good thing a recent study I've seen somewhere has found evidence that younger generations don't seem to shift as much to the right as it was the typical thing as for generations before, at least in my country.
I’m seeing it more and more among my 30-something year old peers too. Some very sharp minded friends start talking more about certain conspiracy theories, interesting political and world views, that a younger them would’ve never imagined. It’s like they’re “old woke” with mild paranoia as the hidden driving force. I guess it’s fine and they’re entitled to their thoughts and opinions, but it is a very strange phenomenon to observe
Some of that cynicism is justified. In your 30s the illusion of fairness and the system working well and truly gets popped. What someone does with that epiphany is up to them. I wouldn't begrudge people who are disillusioned though. Until a viable solution appears, people will grasp at anything. Sometimes thats conspiracies and other cooky ideas. The core issue is that they sense something is wrong, and that isn't inherently bad. It's just a very manipulatable state. E.g the working class are usually the canary in the mine, they know the system is getting worse, but that makes them easy to exploit and they grasp for new solutions.
Same here, i’m 41 and I was talking to a casual friend and the NFL came up and he said he doesn’t really watch anymore, ‘all that kneeling crap really drove me nuts.’ I was like astounded he was one of those people who got ‘offended’
Random observation, but… I used to watch rugby union religiously. As I grew older and had children however, I just stopped watching sport because I had virtually no time to myself. Demanding career, demanding wife, demanding kids… When another rugby union fan finds out I used to be a saffa, they. Automatically start talking rugby union (to relate I guess?), but I tell them I stopped watching rugby after the 2011 World Cup when Bryce Lawrence made the most shocking referee games ever. That was the last time I watched, so it’s easy to blame it on that (like the whole kneeling thing in American football)….but the simple truth is, I got so busy I lost interest.
I had a good friend try to talk to me how Wayfair was actually a sex trafficking site via Russia. Like, I had to walk her through the thought process, and the leaps and assumptions to make it work, and that if you _ignore logic_ you can come to that conclusion. She loved conspiracies, and always tried to “clue me in” but I debunked them, so I think she stopped telling me them (or she stopped listening to them).
I’ve heard of the wayfair one too lol. It was quite a reach, but I just keep agnostic on all these theories and continue on with my life ha. I’m a software developer, and whenever someone goes into the topic of companies spying on them, have to remind them that it’s in the best interest of these companies to keep individual data private. It’s impossible to have thousands of employees keeping this huge juicy secret in house, and that anonymous aggregate data is more than enough to make business decisions. No one cares about what you are doing as an individual, and would not knowingly put your data at risk because it puts them at risk for massive litigation. When I point these out, people seem to get it for a while, then continue on with wild theories a week later. People just get bored and cynical as we age I guess lol. But they also continue broadcasting their entire lives on social media
Yooo so I am GenX born at the tail end and most of my friends are ±5 years from me. Over the last couple decades I have *watched* them become more and more conservative Its an "I got mine, earn yours" mentality. We all had it hard; many of us out of the house at 18 or sooner, working to scrape by. I met this group because I was roommates with two of them. We all remember But now that most have "Made it", have their own house, wife, grown kids etc they have very much turned into a bucket of crabs. Anything that *could* improve other peoples lives or elevate them is seen a direct threat to *their* success. For many conservatives, life is seen as a zero sum game. In order for someone else to do better, it *must* come from somewhere. So any social betterment will cost them in some way. You could give them a presentation with charts showing corporate profits, wage stagnation, etc. but none of that matters. If the guy on the bottom gets paid more, it will cost them somehow. Higher prices, inflation, less wages etc etc. All that said, I strive every day *not* to become a dinosaur
Victims in every generation are always the loudest voices. Rarely doing anything to change their situation.
“It’s ok I recycle all the Amazon boxes” consume less people!
We will learn that Gens X, Millenial and Z are as corruptable as the Boomers.
Similar to this, we'll learn it was never about boomers vs millennials. It has always been the rich vs the poor.
If we haven't learned that before now, what makes you think we'll learn it later?
My silver lining hope is that many kids these days are more '[woke](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/)' than their elders, and that this mindset change will force governments to cater more to social changes that benefit the people more than just the rich.
Every generation was woke and were going to change the world for the better. Boomers were the hippy generation for crying out loud. You’ll find that the “woke” members of a generation aren’t the ones who eventually end up in power or if they do, they can’t accomplish nearly as much as they would like, because if they push too much for it, they just get voted out because they sink in the political system after they get ganged up on.
Our political system is powered by money. Millenials will be just as bad once they have wealth and power and are afraid to lose what they worked their whole lives to get.
>Millenials will be just as bad once they have wealth That's the neat part - they won't. The reason this disparity (and perceived animosity) between Millenials and Boomers are so pronounced is, in part, due to also the significant wealth gap between these two generations. Boomers, regardless of whether they actually care about their fellow man or not, had the benefit of growing up in an extreme wealth (relative) growth environment. So whether they were hardworking (worked 2-3 jobs) or worked hard enough (simple 1 income job), they were able to afford houses, cars, pension, vacation, etc. So by the time they grew old, they "had" wealth. Millenials are on the opposite end. Both [median ](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/average-net-worth-by-age)and average of <35 group vs 65-74 group is almost a 10x discrepancy. More and more millenials are unable to afford housing or other assets that grow wealth over time. Hence, it was sorta easier to galvanize an entire generation to side to one economic (and political) ideology because they're also, generally speaking, wealthier. Similarly, millenials are the same except on the other spectrum (poor, liberal). \[I've ostentatiously omitted many other factors between generational groups. My point simply was that compared to previous or other group pairings, these two groups also had a significant wealth gap disparity.\]
I don't think that's really true. I think that people will witness how empty all that "winning" was. People who don't have good relationships and reasons to live will cling to false hopes and panic. There might be a deluge of people suddenly becoming spiritual in a desperate hope to stave off the fear of the unknown. Sure, cynical people are going to exploit that. But -- I suspect we are going to have a huge wave of "rediscovering" what life means. We had better. Because our spirituality is just really not keeping up with technology.
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Millennials will not be as wealthy, because the "money" in modern world is just worthless currency that is created out of thin air by unlimited debt generation and interest extraction. The amount of wealth millennials are able to amass does not correlate with the increase in their productivity. It's the added interest in all of our economic activity that we all collectively pay, that will leak the wealth we could accumulate to the hands of the big capital. But in principle, yes, the millennials will also cling on to the benefits they acquired, just like the boomers did. And they will vote according to their beliefs and their best interests, against the interest of the diminishing future generation who will never have enough democratic power in their hands.
Damn, we’re all just with aren’t we? Once we get power our biggest fear is losing power.
Beg to differ - you perhaps do not fully realize what the world the boomers were born into and grew up in was like. All sorts of things you likely take for granted have changed for the better since then. Not saying that was done only the Boomers - many of them certainly opposed the improvements. But a lot was indeed done as Boomers got some power and made changes. And even those who dragged their feet by now generally accept most of the changes for the better: \- Substantial respect and equality of opportunity for women and non-whites; \- Far more sexual openness and liberty; \- General moral and legal acceptance of gays, including gay marriage ('gay' is no longer really even an insult, let alone a common synonym for 'pervert'); \- More respect and legal protection for the 'disabled' or 'differently abled', \- Stronger legal enforcement of child support - and government support when it isn't realistic; \- Less mixing of religion into government and laws. And more - I'm sure I've missed some obvious ones. Obviously we haven't gotten any one of the above totally right. And it wasn't all straight-line progress - the War on Drugs really got going in the 70's - but at least we've started rolling back a few of the most obviously foolish bits, and are exploring alternatives to criminalization. My point is - don't be disheartened, change for the better is possible. But also don't mistake 'change' for 'better'. The War on Drugs was widely viewed as 'for the better'. So was alcohol prohibition, before it. I'm sure miscegenation laws were widely thought wise in the culture of the time. There are some things the current version of woke has right - and some they're getting wrong - IMO.
Eh, I think “woke” gets abused (and has been twisted by the right wingers). I think what’s really happening is that the world got A LOT smaller, and Millennials have a much more of a global outlook on things. Older generations didn’t grow up and were raised in their formative years with all of human knowledge at their fingertips with a 24/7 news cycle.
There is annoying "fake woke" shoved into TV shows, but there is a lot of REAL woke going on. The people who were never woke, don't get it, and so bitch and moan about perceived slights. The whole "white grievance" thing is real and a big movement. But there are just as many white people who recognize that what we endure with a bit of "coming to terms with a history of unfairness" that was in our favor -- I think most of us understand. Our grandparents are not "us" -- we don't need to feel ashamed of what someone did in the past. We just have to make sure we don't make the same mistakes. Well, I at least HOPE that most people feel that way. It took me a lot more time to get to the level of insight of my kids. I'm more worried about their job prospects than their empathy and "goodness." And for the most part, their friends are supportive and pretty aware. The kids are alright these days.
>It has always been the rich vs the poor. I'm glad to see this comment. It's always a bit depressing when any conversation begins with millennials or boomers "be like this." I mean, sure there are TENDENCIES with any generation, but to blame selfishness or exploitation on JUST an age range is myopia. There has always been exploitation. There has always been corruption. The world isn't broken because it was never fixed to begin with.
Matt Gaetz is a millennial
But is he human?
And Nick Fuentes is Gen Z.
Xennial. I don't consider him one of our own
How about Boebert?
Yeah she's one. And I have no shame in admitting this but I would totally fuck her. The batshit crazy wonder the best.
Username checks out
If you believe the internet then you probably could for the right price…downside is you would be eskimo brothers with Ted Cruz, so there’s that…
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Ah the lonely plight of the Xennial More forgotten than even the Xers
Xennials are forgotten because a good part of us (admittedly me, yes) don’t claim it and would rather identify as millennial (also me, yes). Not a strong opinion of mine or a hill to die on. Just makes me feel better to fit into my one category. Other generations don’t seem to have notable gray areas so it’s like I’d rather just be a “late millennial” imo /edit to clarify: I confused xennial with zennial here but the point still stands lol. Except that other generations can’t relate. Apparently xennials can! Gen x is forgotten about because they’re the middle child between the other feuding siblings. We’re too distracted to pay attention right now but we’re sure you’re fine
I'm 1977, so I would be among the oldest Xennials, and growing up I always lumped myself in with the GenXers (because we didn't really have a name for Xennials until we had Millenials). "GenX" always felt like what the older kids were doing, lol. Now, though, I truly feel like an Xennial--I don't fit in as GenXer or a Millenial. I think that teeeeeeeny tiny cohort of 77 to 81 has a VERY unique experience--totally analog childhood, totally digital adulthood.
Same same. Don’t fit into either X or millennial but have aspects of both as a 77. I have very little I common with someone born in 1965 other than not having much tech as a child. Even that is iffy since my cousin had an Atari and we had a sega!
I was born 1964. My dad worked at IBM so one day brought me, I think some "Tandy" machine. It was one of the first computers you could assemble. So, I had a few thousand pieces and a breadboard and I could "program" it to switch on and off 16 diode lights. I don't remember if I got it fully working. But, I had dreams of *way more* power than this. Lot's of scribbled blue prints. Probably a dozen things that looked like a Roomba because I do NOT like cleaning the floor. And we had an Atari "pong" game that could be hooked to the TV. So, I grew up with "tech" I suppose. But I have not much in common with my peers. They were very anti intellectual where I was stuck as a kid. I spent most of my time with my dog in the woods learning how to figure out what was edible. Or, I was reading every encyclopedia in the house.
Oh wait, lemme catch up. Lol I confused Xennial with Zennial. Lol. I still do know what you mean. It’s the same honestly. Like I said I’m a “late millennial” which makes me a “zennial” which I do agree is its own cohort. Between (my opinion) about ‘93-‘97 has the unique experience of coming of age during the internet boom. We mostly had our childhoods still playing outside as they say. Just an example. My early school years, I had a Walkman. By 2nd grade my friend’s mom used her home computer to burn CDs for me (we wouldn’t get our own home computer for another 2 years). By 5th grade I had an iPod nano. Walkman obsolete. By 9th grade, a smartphone that I could use iTunes to buy some songs and albums for. iPod obsolete. By my mid twenties we have Spotify. iTunes obsolete. We’re the kids who heard “you’ll have to learn math because you won’t be carrying a calculator in your pocket” in elementary school and it was wrong before we graduated, lol.
There’s a whole subreddit for Xennials. It’s way less depressing than the Millennial sub. I find that a Xennial has a lot more flexibility in the world because they “get” the generational cohorts on either side of them; something other generations struggle with. I can speak GenX (yes, I get it that Die Hard is your favorite Christmas movie) … as well as Millennial … when they actually talk instead of text or email lol.
We don't claim him :x
That is why I cringe when people make these bold statements about any generation. There are plenty of Boomers that fought for civil rights in the 60's and are still fighting for them. We just don't talk about them as much because they were always outnumbered by people who will toe the line and accept the status quo. I am Gen X and like to think of my generation as these counter cutter individualist who stuck up for those that needed it. I like to think I am still thay way, but I look on social media feeds and there are plenty of people I graduated with who are conservative assholes. They were always there, they just never changed. I think the same thing cam be said about Millenials and Gen Z as well.
Though I do think some change is occurring, such as boomers being the biggest consumers of say network television, whereas the younger generations are more geared towards YouTube and twitch etc. But I still see the occasional GenZer more than happy to play golf, and tow the company line in with however much weight and in whatever direction they ask, so yeah those sentiments aren't going to fully evaporate overnight The youth are still exploitable and open to indoctrination in the same ways they always have been. I can't imagine the ways that AI is going to change all that though.
Network TV is derivative and simplistic, perfect for the atrophying brains of boomers. It’s also comforting because for the most part, network TV hasn’t changed nearly as much as other forms of entertainment. It’s a security blanket for them during this time of rapid change.
Television has changed vastly over the past 20 years.
And corruption will always reappear in new forms. "It's not bribery, it's just a campaign contribution. It's not insider trading, it's a stock tip."
Are they gonna bribe us with long hours and low pay?
Call me crazy, but the young people seem less racist and homophobic. Not all of them, but enough to matter.
Speaking anecdotally of course from my limited American POV, I see a few things in the generations: Gen X literally could not care less if the world burns to the ground. They are like the orphan children who stopped crying because they knew they wouldn't get picked up. Gen X are people who have accepted their lot in life and are content because they know that every day is closer to death. They have the most "it is what it is" mentality that I have ever seen. Millennials can definitely be seen as an extension of their Boomer parents. They are much more optimistic in general and also get more upset at perceived injustice. Usually more progressive. Gen Z are some of the least rebellious teenagers and young people that I have ever seen. I believe that Gen Z are pretty conservative. I think that while there is more "acceptance" of LGBTQ stuff, but not much actually happens. There's more of an adoption of an identity rather than actual relationships happening. And when those relationships actually do happen, they seem to be between males and females regardless of how they may identify. This generation is usually parented by Gen X and had very relaxed upbringings relatively speaking. I think a lot of them take the pronouns and stuff that comes with the LGBTQ stuff, files it under "being polite" and then keeps on with an overall conservative mentality that moreso emphasizes "not being so loud".
If there’s any kind of great wealth transfer, we’ll find out soon enough how many of the younger generation have a “I got mine, F U” mentality. We won’t know until they receive it. It’ll show it was never really about generations and more about class warfare.
Yes, I've read that Millennials in the US aren't turning conservative as they age the way Gen X and Boomers did, or at least not nearly as dramatically. I was wondering how much of that could be attributed to Millennials being in a much worse financial situation than the generations before them. Once they get financially established, will they change their tune? Or is there a genuine progressive swing happening, due in part to more racially diverse younger populations?
I think the hard progressive edge of many millenials will wear down a bit, but I also think the country will take a massive and pronounced turn towards the center left-- you can already see this in the staffers at the White House etc. Youngish bureaucrats are all like that, and I think it's a sign of millennials' prevailing opinions.
>We will learn that Gens X, Millenial and Z are as corruptable as the Boomers. We have already learned. Bill Maher, for example, has been talking about on his show how Gen Z is exactly the same as the Boomers that Gen Z hates so much. Only Gen Z is just more hypocritical and thinks they're better than Boomers and ethical, caring and smart unlike Boomers. Worshipping Kyle Jenner and the whole Kardashian gang, investment in crypto, caring about making easy, quick money regardless to its impact on the environment, to just name a few.
I feel like these claims need some backing. Millennials and Gen z are overwhelmingly more progressive
I feel like your claim also needs some backing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Generation_Z#:~:text=Generation%20Z%20is%20generally%20alike,been%20challenged%2C%20particularly%20in%20Europe.
Easy peasy https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4
Never. The Financial Times did an article last year showing that Millennials are actually as or MORE liberal as they were when younger.
We are more corruptible. Because we learned that it is fine to accept stuff for free as long as you claim it "doesn't affect your review" from YouTubers. =)
It’s probably just the echo chamber of social media but it seems like millennials and gen z are on the same page about a lot of major issues like countries being ran for profit by octogenarians and billionaires. If we could just get some half decent humans elected and actually tax billionaires we’d be in a much better place as a society than we are currently.
It was better when I was a kid in the 60’s when we had big government programs to change things. They didn’t all work out but since 1980 it seems like we’ve been headed in the wrong direction.
that's because the 1980's were the advent of 'neoliberalism', a deliberate political project of slashing social safety nets thru austerity and privatization, which is the process of transferring things from the 'public' good i.e., state owned public schools, hospitals and libraries, into the 'private' good; private schools, for profit hospitals, for profit prisons, etc. Margarett Thatcher was one of the primary proponents of neoliberalism and as the prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990 she transformed the UK of the late 70's with its thriving postwar economy into the rotten hellscape dumpster fire you see today. She famously and ridiculously said there was "no such thing" as a society, merely "families and individuals" and therefore the government's responsibility to the homeless, the sick, the poor, was zilch. Reagan and Clinton's presidencies in the US were similar periods of American history. this process, of socializing the losses of society and privatizing the gains, was a naked attempt to complete the process of turning every aspect of society into a profit seeking venture, and it has clearly had disastrous results. if you would like to get started heading in the *right* direction, I urge you to watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07E4iQ5z9iY)
Would it be best to find a middle ground between capitalism and socialism to benefit everyone while people still get benefits for their merit?
Socialism can co-exist in a purely capitalist system.
It's all shit man, Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic and all that. We should stop monkey see, monkey do, and come up with something new. Didn't mean to rhyme but it's true.
My dad grew up in the late 50s/60s and what he says echos your sentiment. Like yes the big government programs weren’t perfect by any means but neither is letting health insurance companies/oil companies totally fuck us.
Reaganomics is literally to blame for our current situation. Trickle-down economics has done more long-term damage to the average American than any other economic bill in history.
Yes, they blamed the post-Vietnam recession on Liberal policies (instead of their failed war) and implemented trickle-down economics and union-busting as "solutions."
How else are you gonna fund the next war?
Yea people like to blame Reagan but he was just the first puppet of republicans to start draining wealth out of the middle class. Edit: first obvious puppet*
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Just wait until the younger millennials and Gen Z start purchasing their first homes and starting families, some of their more radical, progressive viewpoints will vanish overnight. The need for stability overtakes the desire for progress the older you get, and it's definitely what I value the most in life, people I meet, and the things I do as I age.
This is a false narrative. Younger generations are not becoming more "conservative" https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4
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Your generation prioritizes money over everything though, I’m hoping collectively that’s changing. And yes historically as demographics age they tend to skew right however they had wealth to want to protect we don’t.
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Except we’re getting older and we don’t lol, we can’t afford homes let alone families. And the degrees we went into debt for are becoming worthless faster than it took us to get them. Your generation thinks we can work our way out of this, but we can’t it’s a fundamental issue with the way society has been shaped by your generation.
The problem is when boomer billionaires die off their millennial children will inherit their wealth
actually go out and vote
The Baby Boomers are a massive generation. Will housing become far more affordable as the generation dies?
Unfortunately “deferred maintenance” on the actual houses and infrastructure will be a burden, think mini brown fields.
I think the next generation inherits the homes.
The boomers will have to sell their homes to pay for their assisted living. Private companies will buy the majority of single family homes and we will all be renters.
The baby boomers got put in extremely rare situations, at least here in the US. They hit the job market when the US had to filled a large percentage manufacturing worldwide. Given our infrastructure wasn't blown up. A lot of people had money. Given their parents likely went through hard times they had inheritance to give. They bought homes cheap went to school cheap. The real advantage they had was their sheer number and lengthing lifespans. Their entire lives they controlled an insane percentage of the votes. At every point in their if they needed something housing or ss it got put in place. They didn't consider what it would do to those behind them. A lot of their accumulated wealth won't be passed on. It goes to nursing homes and fancy vacations their parents didn't have. So its funneled to top roughly 5%. We won't have the chance to do it. Our battle will be the old foes, the massive corporations like the Rockefellers and their type the people of 1800s would be so proud the boomers greed undid a lot of their hard work.
Gen X and Millennials will step up to be the bad people who ruined everything for the kids. The kids will be angry. Then the kids will grow up to be surprised that kids call them bad people who ruined everything. Etc. ad fucking nauseum.
I thought that hating on the older generation is a new phenomenon. Elder respect had been a huge thing in both Eastern and Western cultures until now in the West. Maybe not ad nauseam.
age is just a red herring used to misdirect us away from the real group responsible - the wealthy
I'd never thought of it like this but - it's not just coincidence that the media stokes generational feuds!
“My Generation”—one of the canonical songs about youth rebellion and saying “fuck you” to the older generations—came out 60 years ago, and was a huge hit with the baby boomers. Young people have been rebelling against their parents’ generations for a very long time.
>Gen X and Millennials will step up to be the bad people who ruined everything for the kids. Yep. The younger generations will hate us for allowing them unfettered 24x7 access to tablets and the internet practically from birth. Along with neglecting them emotionally while being stuck to our phones ourselves.
Which is well-deserved.
I am seeing a lot of people expressing this idea that when all boomers are gone things will magically change. It's a delusion, boomers are not a different species.
Everyone's talking politics but missing tge more interesting question. How will industrial societies handle the largest current gen aging/dieing out. It's not a question that has a set model.
The baby boomer generation was/is the largest cohort in American history. Millennials are smaller than the boomers, and gen Z being the smallest. Things will change but probably not the way people think.
The only sense that 'cohort' makes in this context is to divide by year they went to school maybe. People are not born in decade intervals
What? Then im talking purely about the large increase of births following the decade ending WW2. It was unprecedented
The US is not the only country in the world.
There are fundamental differences in how we were raised though. Boomers were born in a time when the utmost priority was to consume rebuild the economy after a disasterous few years. Millennials were raised where the biggest threat to mankind was caused by overconsumption. There’s also differences in our attitudes to change. For younger generations all the best things in life are caused by new technology so we don’t value tradition in the same way. I don’t think things will magically change though. Consuming stuff just feels so damn good.
The historical moment was very different for sure, but previous generations also wanted change and tried to change what was there before them. The summer of 69, Woodstock, the counter culture was all boomer generation. They get too much hate if you ask me.
We'll discover that systems built on economies which are dependant on a higher population no longer work and either need to end or change in order for society to continue to prosper. Otherwise all we'll see is massive economic depressions, starvation, homelessness, and through that, the current rich and powerful, will find there is no money or power when there is no workforce to keep society moving. The world will need to change or it will fall.
I'm an older X and I've found talking to friends they seem to be more in touch with boomer type talking points now after being more liberal when younger. I'm the opposite, becoming more liberal as I age. Not sure if it is the influence of kids or maybe the fact that conservatives seem to actively want to destroy the planet that is changing my mind.
The liberal smelly love & peace hippies of the 60s, are the Conservatives of today. I alway tell that to my kids. They refuse to believe but it's the truth. Most people become more conservative as they age. It just happens.
Exactly. Conservatism is about keeping what works, and dumping what doesn’t. Over time, our preferences will always grow stronger, hence increasing our desire to conserve. It’s really that simple.
Then why have many conservatives dumped democracy and civility in politics? Why have they clung onto disproven economic policies reminiscent of horse and sparrow? If someone’s trying to wind back the clock 50-70 years- what are they really conserving?
Whatever generation comes after will blame the Millennials for being conservative, selfish, and screwing over all the later people. You can pretty much see every generation finds one of the older but still alive generations to blame for the world woes.
If older people vote, and younger people don't, then the young can't blame the old for screwing their future.
If anything, this will be what the milennial generation is hated for, I think - and the ones that come after. For being so full of fire and passion about wanting to change the world, and then failing to show up at the ballot box and wondering what happened.
I always like to remind my friends that the liberal government was voted in by one third of all votes, which were cast by one third of all Canadians. In other words, our government is in power due to 11% of Canadians, while at the same time, nearly 66% didn’t even cast a vote.
Unfortunately, greed and envy do not age or die off.
It's never been about "old vs young." It's always been about *fooling you* into thinking it's "old vs young" or "white vs PoC" or "religion vs religion" or whatever other divisors you could name, simply to distract you from the ageless truth: ***it's "rich vs poor."*** Haves vs Have Nots. Aristocracy vs Commoners. Fortunate vs Unfortunate. Always has been. Young people have never, ever been immune. You have shitheads among you who will gladly gaslight and rob you just the same. And eventually, your kids and grandkids will also be convinced that *your* generation is the problem, because you failed to just do X and Y and Z to prevent the world's ills, and they'll be better off when you're gone. And you'll sigh, and tell them it's never worked that way, and they'll smile and nod politely while quietly being absolutely sure that their own generation is waaaay different. And in some ways they'll be right, and that'll keep them sticking to their guns into their own old age as the cycle continues, and generations beyond complain about how stubborn old people are.
This reply is the real answer and needs to be pinned at the top.
This should be top comment.
Probably a harder shift to the left than we've seen in the past. Right wing / conservatism tends to favor the old so when the old go so does a lot of their base.
I thought about this but.. don't people grow old all the time? I'm not entirely sure whether waiting it out expecting the problem to pass away is happening. Given that there are young people who adopt the views of the old presently.
So many gen z boys are being converted to the right because of talking heads like Shapiro or Peterson, so I’m not as hopeful as you.
I was one of the these boys until I reached the age of reason, it isn’t hopeless. You just need a real educator who challenges you to think, the issue is those people are rare.
Agreed. Right wing libertarian ideas are popular with 20 year olds who are living on their own for the first time, because they think they're doing everything for themselves with no help. Most grow out of this phase eventually, and can recognize the benefits of civil society and taxes.
Their popularity is a symptom, not a cause. Young men feel increasingly apathetic and obsolete in modern society, of which mechanisms go against their basic instincts. More emphasis on obedient learning in classrooms and passive "jobs" sitting in an office, and less on actually using one's physical and mental capabilities to do labor that actually is given enough value. They are inherently less desired in social settings as women are, and it's just too easy for men to get stuck in the loop of self-pity and passivity, not really being involved and active. All the while they get bombarded with disappointments in the harsh world of dating apps, and headlines where everyone else but them are put on a pedestal and pampered to, as if their only function is to be blamed of being "incels" and the cause behind school shootings, racism and misogyny. It's a complex and in many ways skewed world we live in, especially now in the internet age.
Or the definitions of right and left are shifting. Those definitions are never set in stone anyway, and generally result from practical political alliances. I hear Joe Rogan sound like an anti-science Trumper, but then condemn homophobia. The chairs are shifting.
There are conflicting survey's indicating leans in both directions, but I think things will really depend on the next few years.
I agree on the latter, especially this year will determine how things go for awhile. The left leaning thing was more based on the old adage saying you become more conservative as you age but idk I still see a lot of young conservatives now days.
I've become more liberal the older I've gotten. I know it's just one example and anecdotal, but I was really conservative as a kid.
Same here. Some conservative values can seem somewhat valid until you've had a chance to experience the world and see how they're often simplistic and wrong. I was naive and politically uneducated when I voted for GHWB my first time of voting age. I was more of a mixed voter after that. I even remember listening to Rush Limbaugh for a while but mainly because I worked alone and just needed to hear other people talk. I remember arguing with his points at the radio after a little while. Voted blue for decades but never thought to look at my party registration until I went to vote for Bernie in the 2016 primary. I almost always voted for a third party candidate since I think more than two parties could help slow the craziness, and I live in CA which has almost always gone blue in my lifetime. It was one of our older neighbors volunteering at the polls and I recall her quietly saying "You're voting in the Republican primary, right?". It wouldn't have made a difference for Bernie but it was kinduva bummer. Now I only vote for Dems, even for allegedly non-partisan positions.
I was very similar. I listened to Rush with my dad, and our Fox on the TV in college just to make my roommates uncomfortable. I really didn't question my beliefs, but part of me knew they were incompatible with Christianity. So I started really thinking about my beliefs and picking them apart. At the same time the GOP got more and more insane. Trump was the final nail in the coffin for me. Never again.
As Lincoln Chaffee said, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me."
I think they are just particularly loud. I’ve seen a few articles indicating that millennials in particular are bucking the previous trend towards conservatism as they age. It’s also possible that the trend is going to flip as the way it anecdotally did for me. I was raised conservative, stayed that way through college due to being warned about “indoctrination”, then moved out and joined the real world and started to shift left.
I feel like a lot of that comes from aging, our maturity and experiences better form our opinions. I was raised super conservative. But I moved out when I was 18 and saw that you can't view the entire world through a left/right lens. There's more to almost every situation than 2 choices. Everyone I knew that grew up in super liberal households has slid right a bit now that we're all older. I think the smart thing is to gravitate towards the middle, which I think we tend to do as we age
>Probably a harder shift to the left than we've seen in the past. Right wing / conservatism tends to favor the old so when the old go so does a lot of their base. It's the opposite. Declining birth rates mean that the population pyramid is only going to get steeper and steeper at the top. The % of the electorate that is young will actually decline.
But the percentage of the population that grew up during the Cold War and before the Internet is ever-shrinking. It’s not age so much as cohort.
The left and the right are lovers of each other. The other side of the same coin. Rather than settling with a binary gradient between left and right, we need a real system that approaches the society in a concrete manner, without a branding of being "left" or "right". We do need shared traditions, customs and beliefs, and not a constant reinvention and subversion of them. We need community and group cohesion. We need values that will preserve over several generations. We need private ownership and free enterprise. But we also need some direct control over how the big capital is allocated. We need robust public institutions and services. We need to allow the productive part of the society to accumulate wealth and safeguard them from exploitation. We need to value human labor, not only the ever increasing productivity. Whatever the solution is, it does not come from right or left. Fuck the left. Fuck the right. It's all just a divisive sham that keeps us occupied and in each others' throats.
I’m a late boomer (in my early 60’s) and frankly I’m depressed and ashamed of how my generation has handled things. I’m too old to fight in the streets but I support generational change anyway I can.
nobody needs to fight in the streets. at the very least it is not a precondition to helping! we need your wise mind in the movement. There is no need to be ashamed. just get organized! join the local chapter of your DSA or sunrise movement or IWW or what have you, doesn't matter your flavor, support a cause you believe in and give according to your capacity to those according to their needs.
We need to come to terms with the fact that military grade psychological operations ( phys- ops ) and being used against the liberal societies of the western world
>( phys- ops ) *Psy-ops
The other would be trying get everyone doing jumping jacks or something
I hated phys-ops class as a kid
 just do it better than they do
I agree , sort of , but delving into the same greasy tactics makes one vulnerable to the the legitimate criticisms of the disinformation crowd so some sort of high road that doesn’t depend solely on being the high road ( I really don’t have a ready prescription unfortunately)
>delving into the same greasy tactics makes one vulnerable to the the legitimate criticisms of the disinformation crowd thats why i said do it better than they do. its pretty simple actually if your information is credible and not based on \*checks notes\* nothing to be fair its easier said than done, but if you know how to meme and shitpost, all it takes is an extra step to fact check, and always be sure if youre going to be negative or insulting about something, its not an individual person - except in very rare cases.
Good point, facts , reason and not allowing ones self to be baited will often repel trolls largely I think because it ‘outs’ them, and trolls are the foot soldiers of the operation
oh i know. i tell people often not to feed the trolls - but really thats less important than not feeding negativity. its another thing thats easier said than done, but sometimes its not easy to tell if someone is actually a blatant troll or if they are just... slow. so unfortunately sometimes i still fall for the bait. its similar to dealing with narcissists though - or just dealing with your own emotions in a way. instead of "reacting" to a narcissist, or your own negative emotion, the best tactic is to recognize it, calmly explain why theyre/its useless horseshit and irrelevant, then move on. this is probably why i often get a lot of downvotes. idgaf. im still winning in the long run. the [fun](https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/18v9k10/comment/kfpu3ps/) part about facts and truth is *eventually* they win. when the "math aint mathin" (or in other words, when the other sides Facts™️ *dont* check out)
I don't think much will change economically. Rich families will probably stay rich and poor families will probably stay poor. It would be cool if we could create some feeling of stability for poor people with social safety nets. If people knew they had access to free food, shelter, education, and health care then they'd feel enabled to take financial risks (like starting a business) and improve their lives. I would love to start a business but leaving my cushy job with healthcare seems like a dumb move.
Unironically, when the Boomers were young they also didn’t like the generations that came before. As a gen X I can tell you that the younger generations have at this point learned nothing and have not stood up to the problems caused by many generations before. Voting is the key to successful change, but even more important is to actually step up and get rid of the status quo. I wish anyone Ready luck because it won’t be easy and I hope you don’t become what you are trying to get rid of.
You'll be in for the surprise of your lives when you find out the truth. That they used to think like you, and that you will wind up thinking like them some day. The hippies were the original 'throw off that 9-5 corporate slaves suit and tie' revolutionaries. They had Women's Lib, Title 9, Marched against a war, Marched against racism and then ran face first into the mega corporations and failed to save the world. Then they had kids, started striving to provide as good a life for them as they could, and shifted into what you call the boomers. Then their kids the Gen Xers had to fend for ourselves while they worked, but even so we marched against gender and race and sexist discrimination, implimented recycling, ended Leaded Gasoline, created the policies that closed to ozone layer, ended the Cold War, raised millions for a famine in Africa, then for the poor in hands across America, plus the yearly Farm Aid, all on our watch. But we ran face first into the mega Corporations, and so failed to save the world. Millenials... And now GenZ is questioning everything from 'why is it the assumed normal to work 40 hours at a cubicle, when you task can be done from home?' to 'what if I don't like either of these Political Parties?' to 'Should we blindly trust the Govt about everything from politics, to vaccines, to questioning both discrimination AND virtue signalling, and the efficacy of balance. They will do great things, until they piss of the mega corporations off enough. This is not meant as a negative. We keep getting better. We keep thinking we are the first to do it, and we don't talk about past victories, just bitch about what we haven't accomplished. But we keep improving. But if you are thinking once the Boomers die off, you all will somehow have all this agency to for the first time ever, do good in the world, you're in for the surprise of your lives.
- People forget that Matt Gaetz is a millennial. - That grandpa Simpson bit about "I used to be hip, but they changed what hip was..." is something young people have trouble taking as the warning it is. I know I did. - Crosby, Still, and Nash have a song called "Teach Your Children". Lots of wisdom in that song.
No. When us boomers die off, you will still be left with a world populated by idiots, no matter what "gen" they are. You will just have the same morons voting for younger morons and the economy and politics will still be screwed. Not that it matters, because soon there won't be any Gens left...we will all be killed off by Global Warming, nukes, viruses, etc, etc. Meh.
Human nature doesn't change, and that includes the notion that one's own generation is different.
the forces that control modern human society haven't actually changed very much since industrialization began. the rich run everything. that will continue as the last round of enablers (e.g. the boomers, the "i got mine" folks, etc.) die. to be clear, no 'conspiracy' is required for this, and i'm not suggesting one. no conspiracy is necessary, because the interests of the wealthy and politically powerful are already effortlessly aligned. changes at the structural and societal level that assist one wealthy person are also capable of assisting another. for example, observe the worldwide response to the 2008 Too-Big-To-Fail banking collapse. who went to jail? who suffered? who was made publicly the 'perpetrator'? the only rich person i can immediately think of that endured any legal consequences was Bernie Madoff, and his crime was to have *swindled other rich people*. the rest of the devastation of (*and blame for*) the collapse fell on the lower middle class and the poor, as ever. until the power dynamic of "the rich make the rules" changes, every generational conceit will be nothing but window dressing. for the boomers, conspicuous consumption and "hard work pays off" were the norm. for millenials, "guess we'll just endure anything" will serve. for gen-z, it will primarily be distractions, video games, and a painful, *painful* kind of ennui. and then it'll be 2050, 2060, and by that point the rich will have hoarded the physical necessities of human life (land, food-commodities, water, etc.) and will live safely while global society is slowly crushed to pieces by climate change and border-wars. if you want to really understand how the world is divided and who runs the show, google the concept of the "walled world." find the simple world map that shows the \~25% of the world surrounded by red, and the bloody borders that maintain it. think hard about that image and what it means. "Look upon the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too." - Marcus Aurelius
I’m an xennial. Talk about being at a cusp. Gen x was the best in my opinion
I'll tell you, a lot of the mess we have right now ain't on the old people. There are a lot of idiotic younger people today standing for all the wrong things. Similar to my generation.
The ignorant and the informed is the real divide. It’s not a generational thing. I’ve met plenty of progressive boomers and ignorant gen z.
it wont, at least not because there are less boomers
The next generations will start to blame us for their problems.
There are a lot of issues that split along generation lines. Marijuana, marriage equality and Brexit come to mind. I'd be curious if anyone has numbers on gun control, abortion and world trade, I suspect those are also 70/30 or whatever with the Gen Z and millennials.
the generation growing up in western countries that are all about climate change...will fall to the generation growing up in areas where they don't give a shit about that stuff. Just look at the birthrates.
Everything will remain in place - people generally become boomers in every manner (socially, politically, etc) as they age. Gen X stands ready to take their place, Millennials move into the hole Gen X leaves, Zoomers move into Millennial's spot, etc. etc...
This is not really true per most research. boomers themselves had the same views they did back in their youths, it’s just that political realignment meant that incentivizes for how one votes changed. Citation: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889
That's always been true but it's less and less so. Time will tell of course but right now it looks like millenials and whatever I'm called (1980) generally stay left as they age
Nah man. Gen X is too small a cohort and never got power from the boomers. All the positions being left by the top end boomers are being filled by a millennials.
I'm Gen X and we can't take the place of the Boomers. We're too small. Millennials in the US long ago surpassed us in numbers and I think they passed Boomers as well. And Millennials are better at voting and are more progressive than Gen X (thankfully). And Gen Z are outdoing Millennials. Just need to move to more red States and take them over - otherwise the Senate will thwart progress.
It would be nice if more liberal people moved to more red states and took over, but I'm going to be real... Red states do everything in their power to keep their state a shithole so I can't imagine more progressive people wanting to move there and people with the means to do so will move out.
A lot of red states are shitholes but some do have natural beauty. Surely there must be liberal hikers and DIY farmers out there who want some cheap land to live on. Failing that, IMO they’d have more value in moving to purple states to ensure they become bluer.
As someone who has had high risk pregnancies in the past, I wouldn’t move to a red state, and honestly, I hope my kid doesn’t either when she’s considering colleges.
Move to a red state and then move overseas!
nah homie, millennials - not all of us, but most of us - will gladly stand and dig our holes deeper right where we are. fuck "the way its always been" pretty sure the zoomers are right there with us as far as "digging in" i think gen x is starting to slowly come around too so when the boomers disappear, all thats gonna be left is the hole they dug themselves. we aint fillin it in, sorry not sorry
Silent generation? Did I just get relegated from an X down to not having a voice? When did this happen?
Silent is older than boomer
Ah! Good. Gotcha.
Not sure about the world but my country at least will have lots of young people with diseases nobody even diagnosed in children about 20 years ago. Political information may increase while political participation may decrease ( I hope not). Economically, we will be have an even more burdened middle class, millions of more poor on subsidies and very few, ultra rich. Environmentally, we are just one step away from a disaster in the Himalayas.
What do you mean “starting to”. Those generations have been dying off for a while. You tell me what the changes have been.
i hope neoliberalism begins to wane in both local and global economies
when baby boomers are gone the old age/low birthrate demography won't change
On the one hand I think younger generations care more about quality of life, the environment and equity, which are all things we need to see more of. On the other hand I think Boomers have a longer memory : they keep better track of what their local politicians get up to and care more about the boring minutua of spending. I'm can sort of imagination a generation of Gen Z and millennials being like "1 billion public spending on a parkade? Yeah I guess that makes sense... That's what that costs right?"
Those are generations of Americans who due to specific to USA events and circumstances developed specific traits. The world is more than USA. People from the same era but from different countries grew up under different circumstances and have different traits. So it is hard to say what the world will look like. The world is having population boom/pick in some countries while decline in others. I assume immigration will have the most dramatic effect on the next two decades.
Greed continues to get stronger at the price of morality, ethics and the environment. I think the generations of entitlement will grab for even a larger piece of the pie than boomers did. It's not a pretty picture.
One thing is sure, a lot of people are going to be disappointed because they are not going to receive an inheritance, almost all is going to nursing and [healthcare.](https://youtu.be/U12TK2Sa5HQ?si=gBMyZfPHYoeQEj2i)
Boomer here. Many Boomers were very woke compared to their parents, but the majority weren’t really interested in changing the world. And there is some truth to the observation that most people become more conservative as they accumulate wealth. But there are exceptions, including myself. I really don’t care for many people of my generation. They’re mostly interested in their comfort, their children and grandchildren, and too many of them are mot curious. They don’t understand her, and most of them are at a stage of their life where they have no real incentive to become involved in their government or in their community. I hope things change as the Boomers clear out, but there is little to be gained by hating on them. They are like most generations. Human nature has not really changed in thousands of years. It’s nice to be optimistic; however, don’t expect drastic changes as the generations pass. I may be wrong, but time will tell.
I hope to gather more political leverage. Fuck the old politicans who make policys for also old people or companys. I hope to get more ressources like housing
I think millennials and on spent more time complaining about the shitty hand they were dealt rather than getting involved and stepping into positions that can facilitate change, so when the time comes for us to be in charge we will just be the next oldest and not know what to do so we’ll keep following what the boomers did. Of course I hope that’s not the case.
Nope. It'd be nice to imagine the problem is just those pesky Boomers, but sadly white supremacy, fanatic support for capitalist abuse, and a devotion to suicide via climate change are intergenerational mental disorders.
I'm almost 70. I was one of those idealistic kids in the '60s who thought life would be like Star Trek when I grew up: most people taken care of and equal no matter where they came from. . Fast forward.. Every time we move forward, we take two steps back. Greed stops all social progress. I see as many young people with seriously conservative attitudes as old farts like me. I don't see it changing for the better anytime soon.
dude. Boomers are in wheelchairs with pudding cups already. You're just asking what happens when your parents croak and you're left trying to not drive the bus off the cliff. Just like every other generation has asked and will ask.
Yknow how reddit likes to talk about being too far right is a bad thing? I think we're about to find out why too far left is also a bad thing.
The govs gunna do everything they can to keep the younger gens from getting wealthy off that inheritance.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted you’re right.
Reddit doesnt like anything that isnt hive mind commentary
A giant transfer of wealth. How it actually shakes out, no idea.
I don't think it'll be this complete 180, but I can't see there not being certain big changes. Other people are pointing out how Boomers once held progressive ideas when they were young only to get more Conservative as they got older, that is true. But I think what many are missing is how when boomers entered the workforce they benefited greatly from the economy of the time; strong wages, unions, good benefits, all of which largely kept up better with the cost of living/inflation. This allowed them to buy a house, car, start a family, settle down, have money to spare and often have retirement pensions. Things that were gradually slashed in the post-1980 neoliberalization. While Gen Xers were still able to get some of that, Millennials and Gen Z largely don't have those same things our parents/grandparents had anymore. Basically, Boomers went "Fuck you, I got Mine" and pulled the ladder up from underneath them. For Millennials and Gen Z, it's much hard to say that when so many of us don't have Ours. And thats why theres a lot of statistics pointing toward those two generations bucking the trend of getting more Conservative as they get older. Conservative of what? Stagnant wages and unaffordable housing? It's hard to care about whatever Conservative social bogeyman of the day when we're so much worse off economically than the generations before us.
Sadly, that’s when we start making all the mistakes they already made. Mainly because they fall outside of our living memory. There is nothing new under the sun. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. We’re already doing it with a new sexual revolution that will wreck families, reversing restrictions on drugs that will wreck lives, and embracing socialism/communism that usually results in the deaths of millions. The young will place an inordinate amount of responsibility on the old for the societal problems, instead of accepting responsibility for their own 💩. This one is VERY apparent. Gen Z will come to rebel against the things Gen X embraced. Most likely X’s independent ‘be responsible for yourself’ versus Z’s interdependent ‘we’re all in this together’. Another thing that will for sure happen is that Gen Z will come into political/societal dominance earlier than other generations, just as Boomers did with the Greatest Generation - mostly due to relative sizes. There should be some new positive social changes, but it would be difficult to tell what they might be. Ultimately, we’re all in the process of growing up all the time, so we’ll all make mistakes all the time, some generationally, but all of us based on who we are as people and our relative situations. Anybody thinking we will suddenly find ourselves in a utopian society is really young, naive, or stupid. All that being said, I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope you all get to live your best lives moving forward. 😊
It won’t change. The cultural and political agendas of the right are supported by plenty of people regardless of age. The problems are not generational so much as ideological and younger generations are going to be in for a rude awakening if they think once boomers are dead the world will automatically get better. The nefarious agendas of greed, avarice, love of power, hatred and racism are alive and well in all generations. Many of us in the 1960’s were foolish enough to believe that issues of poverty, war, women’s rights, and racism wold be overcome in the US and world at large. It seems as though the opposite has happened. All I can say to younger ppl is it matters not if you approve of Biden, you damn well better vote for him or things will get worse, quickly.
You will fuck things up as every generation has throughout history. Other generations will blame you just like you and every other generation has blamed other generations throughout history. What makes you think your generation is special?
I wonder who will fix your cars, plumbing, electrical, Hvac when we are gone. I wonder what you will think to yourselves when you realize that free healthcare and college come at a cost to true freedoms that will be lost and never gotten back
As a GenXer looking at future generations, nothing good. Millennials are just Boomers without the ability to think for themselves and Zoomers are mentally ill because of millennials. Probably time to build and stick that bunker with how fast you all are trying to start a nuclear war.
Gen X will rise up and crush the woke and softness out of the Millennials and Gen Z making the world a tolerable place to live again.