Generation hate.

[Redeemer]

I'm going through my almost scheduled bout of insomnia that I get every exam time, so I was browsing facebook at the same time some of my American buddies were, and my optics were assaulted with a massive post by a middle aged guy, shared by one of my older friends. He's always been a bit controversial but usually I miss all his interesting stuff because I'm sleeping at this time. So anyway, this status, it was just a wall of hate on our generation and technology. Phones, computers, music, parenting, video games, you name it, he resented it.

 

It gradually got more and more angry as the list went on, and by the time he reached the subject of TV shows, he was officially name calling. Oh yeah, guys, we're all under 40 so we're "rat-bastards" because we like all these cool TV shows, just so you know. Now if that post was a joke, fair play and whatever, but the responses were all serious so it seemed pretty aggressive.

 

Basically it was a big load of butthurt because he didn't have those things when he was younger, and apparently all these things are why we're a horrible generation. I can't help but wonder what 40 year olds were slinging at him when he was our age, and I'll bet he was pretty rat-bastard like in his time. I sincerely don't think that technology is what's making brats. I think that's more a society and media thing.

Now I did write back. I expressed how I appreciated how things were back then, but I didn't understand the slandering of technology. Because really, in the future, I want to see the curing of diseases and space exploration. I want that shit, but before we can do that, we probably need to invent like, hoverboards first. It's a step-by-step process. But then I realised that I would probably get into a fight somehow, and I ain't got time for that shit, so I deleted my comment.

 

So what's the deal? What do you guys think about this? Why is there so much bitterness from a selected range of older people? Have you ever been lectured on how "easy" life is now? Lol easy. Yeah, inflation is at its worst, and none of us can get jobs, but hey, at least we have Family Guy, right?

[Vulvokunvrii]

It most likely bad parenting, media, and environmental conditions shaping those called brats.

As for the old man, he's probably like that becasue in his time period, everything is different and he was trained differently on how to percieve what around him. Its like throwing an old dog into a litter of puppies. There is something wrong with this picture, and it'll get ugly.

ITs like back then in the 50s(?), where all this dancing and "hip" stuff was titled to be work of the devil by the people from the 40s and below. A lot of people are just not ready to be open minded and embarace the change of the equipment on the battlefield known as society and the world. I mean I look at some of this new stuff and I'm wondering, "Why do you need thi when we had something just like it.." and so on. Everyone was trained to differently, and its apparently hard ot suddenly have to transition to some kind of new perameters each generation and so on. I could be wrong of course, but I tried right?

[Ori]

Short version: Technology has up and down sides, indeed makes stuff easier, digressing everything now is roses and puppies. Up side is we now don't need to travel from Falkland Is. to Canada if we want a game made there, and we can know people from basically everywhere. Down side is people can't stand differences considered alien to them and flame wars ensue, and all kinds of 'in-utilities' are available through the internet.

 

Long version:

 

Okay, life is full of thorns and spikes since before written history. Anyone who has eyes to see it (and even who doesn't, actually) knows that technology didn't erase dementia, crime, sickness and impairments, death and most importantly, stupidity from humans. Every single time I turn every single electronic equipment on, are they all connected to a web full of information? Yes, and something is always happening. And it's not usually good stuff.

I know a lot of old people who don't think that tech made stuff easier. In fact, they think that it helps but doesn't 'spoil the generation' like the oldies that think everything now is lazy-arsed. That's not a thing stereotype of the old age. That's a thing from each person to decide, and then there's the dumb people.

 

I could do a big fat rant full of cluster**cks telling how some technophobes can be pretty blind to something in their face, but nah. Point is, I don't think our generation is spoiled. There's always, ALWAYS been the more intelligent and the, well, not intelligent people for every age in history. If in the 60's or in the 40's the dumb people were the ones who didn't like rock 'n' roll and smoke and drink (stereotype bias), today the dumb people are the ones who do overuse of memetic terms, take no thing seriously, spend their whole lives using drugs and plotting suicide/the next porn. And then there's Carioca funk.

On a less-related note, people also say that technology is ruining the cinematographic standards. Oh yeah? I digress. OVERUSED (*cough*MichaelBay*cough*) CGI is ruining everything. See Star Trek Into Darkness to understand. Technology is just a new way to do stuff. Not the ultimate ruin of the humanity that falls into a unintelligent humanoid race. There will be stupid people when we have colonies on Moon/Mars? Yes, there will. It's natural of the humanity to have 'infinite stupidity' to dedicate time to things that are almost out of any practical purpose. Entertainment itself is not useful, but try to live without reading a book or watching a movie. Our stupidity can have its good uses. It's just that most people in any generation can't figure out how to use it well. Hence memes and bad comedy.

 

That's what I have to say.

[Dr. Orange]

First. This is on Facebook, so much shit happens there it's almost a porta-potty.

 

Also, I can understand him about the things we don't have that made past generations great. I can easily get butthurt about how "Kids don't listen to the Classics like Frank Sinatra." or at any mention of Bobby Darin people look at you like you just grew a pair legs. How the fuck can't kids know what a record is gosh! 

 

Sure there's a bunch of problems with the modern era, but there's also a lot of great things. So my guess is that he's a nitpicker or is having a bad day. Watch him in a couple of days enjoy the company of being able to actually use Facebook which, I'm most certainly sure, wasn't in the 1960's.

[manthony_Higgs]

This is literally nothing new.  There will always be older folks who think Rock and Roll/New technology/Genetically Engineered pet dragons/whatever new thing happens is bad. It's nostalgia goggles applied to real life.

[Snys93]

   Both Twitter and Facebook are humanities stupidity dumps. One thing I've learned is that social media and personal opinion don't make good bed fellows. Personally I like a good rant on movies, games, phones, etc. But then comes the ranting to excess like the aforementioned individual. Letting anger not only consume you, but becoming this bitter entity online when every reply via social media is negative. In short its not healthy and doesn't present a good outlook for yourself.

 

   Generation Hate and Generation Stupid have at least one outstanding similarity. They're people who don't know when to shut up when they've said enough. Its not enough for these morons that they've made their point, but begin to thrust their beliefs on others.

[TCPeppyTc]

Is the baby boomers generation stupid?

[LoneWolf]

TV, Video Games, and pop music are turning us into satan-worshipping alcoholic serial killers determined to rule the world with our eye-pods and nike shoes.

 

Humanity is doomed.

 

We should all listen to hymns and remember that despite the democrat lies, the earth is flat.

[Snys93]

Is the baby boomers generation stupid?

 

no, but we can all agree that they are exceptions to the rule. Idiots are everywhere in every generation.

[Kid_Cortet]

I had a customer come into my store and do this. He was looking for Jumbo Find-A-Words to do while his wife was recovering either a heart attack or surgery, either way it involved her heart. When we could not find them, he started going off about technology. He went on and on, but at the same time, I wanted to calmly reply back, that if it was not technology, his wife would be gone. A part of me still wishes I had, but to keep my job, I zipped it.

 

I too hope for exploration of space someday, I KNOW we cannot be the only things in this large abyss known as space to have evolved or be living at all. I want to meet what might be out there, though if I have to settle for a hoverboard for now, b**ches get outta my way, I am plowing through. lol.

 

Then again, technology does have its ups and downs, in fact without it, we wouldn't even be discussing this here together. As it may have made some people become lazy, others use it for far better use, like keeping in touch with families in other states or countries. Learning more about how far off places are. Heck our own personal amusement suck as a TV has helped us. 

[Drasiana]

The only contributing factor technology has had on this is that now it's just easier for more people to see you being a shithead. Shitheadery has been a constant of kids these days since both kids and days existed, and if anything, the interconnectivity of the internet has actually made it easier to identify and isolate issues that have always existed in the undercurrent.

[Redeemer]

First. This is on Facebook, so much shit happens there it's almost a porta-potty.

 

 

Oh of course, for some people. I just actually know this person and tend to not dismiss him right away. It depends how many morons you have on your facebook. XD

 

Even at my work, I've been complained to because a lot of the staff are young, so how can we possible know how to do anything in a kitchen? Granted one staff member has absolutely no idea what he's doing, but the rest are good.

 

And I'm not going to chastise the baby boomer population, because that was a result of WWII, and I don't feel we can judge them until we experience something similar. However, interestingly enough, the baby boomer population is exactly why we have such a steep increase in elderly people, which is taking its toll on the economy in many ways. At my uni, we're almost being bought over to train to work with the elderly, because in about 10-15 years, there will not be enough staff to look after them all. Not to mention there will be less working age people, therefore less tax, whatever. The UK is trying to prepare for this but I sense something very bad is about to happen financially.

 

But yeah, I refuse to believe that "back in the day" young people were respectful, fully contributing members of society. In fact, I would not like to be living "back then" as a woman, because women were still heavily repressed. Plus medical technology wasn't as good, and I'll bet that in 100 years, people are going to say the same thing about us. XD

[Geo Stelar]

Idiots are everywhere in every generation.

 

Yep, because for every idiot-proof system ever devised, a new, improved generation of idiots will arise to overcome it.

 

 

 

That person probably just had a negative experience back in his past years.

 

Anyways, I agree that while technology is fast developing, it has its scary-as-hell disadvantages and excellent advantages. I also am hoping that we could cure diseases that are incurable at present time, discover something new about Earth we don't know now, and yes, traveling on space. 

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

There's certainly many different ways to go about viewing and commenting on technology. Clearly the man described on BookFace (or whatever you kids call that con-fangled computer game  ) is angry because the world around him is changing at an unprecedented pace. However, I do believe there is validity in his points about kids acting like dirty rats. Clearly children do not appreciate technology for what it gives them, or they wouldnt misuse it. For instance, mocking other individuals on the internet when there is nothing else to do.

 

Sometimes even I joke around about technology. One of my personal favorite jokes (only because I made it): "You kids these days and this caller ID witchcraft. Back in my day, if you wanted to know who was calling you had to pick up the phone and say hello. But nowadays, you bad-mannered kids look at the caller ID and decide not to pick up the phone just because you want to irritate me, and everyone else around you."

 

^^^Maybe I went a little far with that. But think about it, many years down the road when improved versions of today's technology exist, we will be amazed by it, while children will have no way of understanding how much more time consuming certain tasks may be without them. (Take for instance, the time I just spent typing this message, while in the future, when voice-command is nearly perfected, the speed by which we will be able to communicate will be cut down much further from what it is like now. Kids tomorrow will not appreciate this keyboard thing, because they wont use it as it seems too impractical. Similarly, I used to find it difficult to imagine why people ever made use of the type-writer, as it had its flaws...)

[Thu'um]

I think a lot of people look back at what ever decade they had been a child, and simply remember it as better for a number of reason. One probably being that they were a child and life was good. I'm a big traveler by airplane and i'm barely old enough to remember to Atlanta air port before 9/11. I could look back and claim it to have been a better time, but it wasn't. It was simply a different one.<br /><br />But another thought might be that older generations see us taking pride in our own and the only response that comes natural to them is to defend theirs. When you go " hey this ipad is cool" to them you've slapped the TI82 they played with as a kid, or the coloring books they had to use. One day kids will never leave their virtual reality pods where they can experience all of life with out ever stepping out the door and no doubt we'll think its shit.

[Dr. Orange]

It depends how many morons you have on your facebook. XD

Many... Oh so many... to many to count...

 

They come by truck loads... and you can't get rid of them... It's all this spam and and shiet...

[Faisul]

Subjective reality is a thing, so this guy probably filtered the 'bad' bits out of his memories of the 70's - 60's so that everything is magicked into malt milkshakes and traditional family values pre-80's and after that everything turns into a bubbling pail of shit. I have no idea who this person is or what his personality is like but if he's so pissed about Everything Newâ„¢ it wouldn't surprise me if he bitches about "political correctness gone mad" too, which if so, makes him a bigot as well as a luddite. But that's speculation.

 

Though within all that bitter grumbling about new-fangled doo-dads and that hippy-hop MTV turning our kids all mixed up, there is usually a grain of truth. While society was degrees of magnitude more fucked up and intolerant back in the 60's - 90's (civil rights abuses, AIDS scare, the rise of neoconservatism and neoliberalism) you could at least bet on getting gainful employment even without a degree. It was easier for the average white guy to get out there, flip some burgers, and earn enough to feed himself and to afford an apartment in short order (yes, it was shitty for everyone else, but we're discussing a middle-aged white guy's memories of society). Now if you work minimum wage WITHOUT parental support you have to scrape and cook road kill in order to SURVIVE. The traditional blue-collar jobs an average Joe could work and earn enough to live comfortably with are all but gone, exported to sweatshops far abroad. The manufacturing base has been destroyed and all the jobs are either in finance, IT, engineering, or the service industry, only one of which can be reliably worked in without a college education, and which also pays the worst, generally. So there's an example of how society has gotten worse since the crest of the financial golden age of 70's America, becoming a cynical, fraudulent, corporate feudalist kleptocracy blrarhgagharbgh I'm turning into the old guy mentioned by the OP please send help. Oh, this is about life in Britain? Well, shit. Sorry. Couldn't help myself!

 

You also have the ideological component to consider. Back when mr. Whitey Beer Belly was young, there was a strong sense of right and wrong, or what you can call moral tradition. In the 70's the notion of the 'nuclear family' had already become frayed with the sharp increase in divorce, as women began to take to traditionally male occupations and fight for equality en masse. Feminism flourished in the public and academic spheres. Traditions that said women were too weak and frail for occupations requiring physical strength, authority, or just simple professionalism were being shown to be totally wrong. What was considered the fucking arse of satan to conservative traditionalists like the Tories became more and more commonplace. Old theory (the just world fallacy, assumptions casting the world in black and white morality, wealth disparity seen as ordained by God or whatever, extreme nationalism) slowly began to be trumped by new theory (gender equality, political awareness of racism, social security institutions) and became a minority position when more progressive ideologies grew to become more or less commonplace.

 

Essentially, old values were easier to hold because they relied on a binary belief system that said X good, Y bad. They were an easy, safe way to view the world (if you were white, above lower class, and male) because you were good (straight, white, male) and they were bad (gay, Pakistani, female, for example - "chavs" occupy this space now). But when progressive policies were put into place everything became more difficult to deal with because that binary belief system became replaced by something that closer resembled a graded system of overlapping moral considerations. A murderer, for example, wasn't punished for being inherently evil, but an individual that, say, killed due to mental illness or earlier abuse, and whose sentence was geared towards rehabilitation and eventual release. It is often this ambiguous and circumstantial way to view the world, which has become the desired norm, that is what these folks rail against. They look back to a life that seemed so simple (because they were white or because of subjective reality) and look at the present with scorn because of 'political correctness gone mad.'

 

Reading the Daily Mail is like walking into a fucking time machine. It's all there, the binary morality, the condemnation of progressive thought, and the demonization of the lower class. The greatest irony is that the Daily Mail is perhaps most widely read amongst the working class, except for the Sun, which has tits and an editor that isn't a Tory cocksleeve. Murdoch's a shriven old lizard but his rags and syndicated news companies are prime examples of social engineering. Tits! Arse! Flaurgh!