Boomers v. Millenials (and hey, did you know there's a Gen X too?)

[Anastasis 23191]

16 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

ha. yup.

we also had floppy disks, and would have ambitious games and programs that required us to have possibly ten or more floppy disks. if you managed to touch the tape disk inside, it could ruin your game forever.

Text based single player adventure games. 

Jesus that sounds pretty pathetic when you type it out. But it was groundbreaking at the time. 

[Huckleberry 32139]

34 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

For example, the Boomers are very different than the previous generation because of universal access to reliable birth control, higher family incomes (parents had great and well-paying employment in the post-war era), increasingly urban population (pre-war, we were still heavily rural and agrarian, post-war, not so much), etc.  Hell, their parents went through the Great Depression -- any of us with family members of that generation know how much that experience shaped them compared to those that followed.

Let's take this as an example of why generation arguments are dumb.

Who had more access to reliable birth control and a higher family income, a Baby Boomer black female born to one of the remaining sharecroppers in 1949 or a Silent Generation white male born to college graduates in 1932 New York City?

What generation you're a part of is essentially useless compared to the other demographic information I just gave you about these two hypothetical people. Differences within generations are way more important than differences between generations. That's not to say there is no important information to consider based on year of birth, only that it is tremendously overstated and given way too much attention in popular culture.

[Js1 82350]

21 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

ha. yup.

we also had floppy disks, and would have ambitious games

They make pills for that, its ok.

[Brisketexan 103139]

11 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Let's take this as an example of why generation arguments are dumb.

Who had more access to reliable birth control and a higher family income, a Baby Boomer black female born to one of the remaining sharecroppers in 1949 or a Silent Generation white male born to college graduates in 1932 New York City?

What generation you're a part of is essentially useless compared to the other demographic information I just gave you about these two hypothetical people. Differences within generations are way more important than differences between generations. That's not to say there is no important information to consider based on year of birth, only that it is tremendously overstated and given way too much attention in popular culture.

That's why I plainly said that there are absolutely anecdotal exceptions and other factors that should be accounted for.  But the GENERALITY is still correct: The group of people born in the 20 years after WWII had MUCH greater access to easy and reliable birth control during their sexually active years than the group of people born 20 years BEFORE WWII (and, I mean, while I hope that 40 year old dudes were getting lots of action in the early 70s, because I like the encouraging precedent, we all know that the people doing most of the boning then were in the 18-30 age group).

There are absolutely other factors that, on sub-populations, can have an equal or greater effect.  Race is one of those factors.  Urban vs. rural can be another.  But my statement above remains correct.  The GENERAL trend for the boomers is greater sexual freedom because of birth control.  And we see significant ripple effects because of that.  For example.....the smaller size of the next generation (Gen X).

Edited March 4, 2019 by Brisketexan

[Huckleberry 32139]

And?

What is the benefit to naming the generations and trying to draw dividing lines between them? The entire exercise is silly and tells me that someone born in 1943 has more in common with someone born in 1960 than they do with someone born in 1942 (using one popular breakdown), which is clearly absurd.

No shit the year you were born (and also therefore your current age) affects the society you experienced. Nobody is arguing against that. The generations construct is just a lazy crutch so sociologists can look at a handful of big groups instead of more detailed subsets.

[bernorange 8336]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

...

And as for the thesis of the original article I posted, what we are seeing happen economically is very much a product of the generational characteristics of the generations at issue.  ...

What we are seeing is the byproduct of an insane monetary policy.  Political backlash will always occur in unbalanced systems.  Recorded history isn't that long all things considered, but I'm pretty sure there are sufficient data points to validate the point.

[Brisketexan 103139]

1 minute ago, bernorange said:

What we are seeing is the byproduct of an insane monetary policy.  Political backlash will always occur in unbalanced systems.  Recorded history isn't that long all things considered, but I'm pretty sure there are sufficient data points to validate the point.

In the end, though, any policy is just a tool.  Wielded by certain people for certain reasons.  And a significant part of the reasoning here is that the generation in control (Boomers) is wielding it for their short-term gain, at our long-term expense.

[Eastwood 4394]

The Boomers and those who came before them are a group of elderly who, for the first time in history, have made themselves obsolete to society. The elderly used to be a vital resource of knowledge and experience that the younger generations needed to go to for guidance. If you had a question, there was a good chance your parents or grandparents had some kind of thoughtful and productive answer, even if it didn't solve the problem 100%. But then came the technology. Despite how much their children told them that they needed to learn it, no matter how much we pleaded with them that computers and the internet were the future, they scoffed. It's just a toy. It's just a TV with an extra device attached to it. You'll always need paper records. There's nothing the internet can tell me that I don't already know. Stop tinkering with that computer, you'll never earn a high paying job that way. But here we are today.

There are your outliers. Your survivors. Those who read the tea leaves and started paying attention. A large chunk of our Boomers on here are part of that. They wouldn't be here, otherwise. But for the most part, the Boomers and older are now a disconnected generation in an interconnected world. The world is entirely alien to them and they resent it and everyone in it for that. They ask us what happened to respecting your elders? What happened to valuing your parents and grandparents? There is little value, now, outside of the typical familial roles. Yet they persist to maintain their hold on power, making decisions that they don't truly comprehend that are causing a cascade failure that will take many generations to clean up. The only hope for the younger generations is that we mitigate the damage as much as we can and learn from their mistakes.

[Homercles 10162]

ha. yup.
we also had floppy disks, and would have ambitious games and programs that required us to have possibly ten or more floppy disks. if you managed to touch the tape disk inside, it could ruin your game forever.

Try buying books and coding your own game by hand. Get one character wrong and it’s ruined until you painstakingly debug it.

[Nivek 16643]

Text based single player adventure games. 
Jesus that sounds pretty pathetic when you type it out. But it was groundbreaking at the time. 

Yep. I found and old one online that i had when I was a kid. Came with a book about survival and a manual on how to play. Back then those helped to get you hyped for the game.

Also remember hole punching the 5.25s? So you could read/write?

[bernorange 8336]

24 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

... And a significant part of the reasoning here is that the generation in control (Boomers) is wielding it for their short-term gain, at our long-term expense.

Yeah, and I don't buy that premise.  FT is promoting a false narrative (fake news!) to garner political opposition to ideas being floated by the left wing (POTUS candidates).  But the premise is wrong.  The Fed isn't acting for specifically or even mainly just to enrich the olds. Ironically, they were trying to correct an imbalance in the system they created.  The real problem is the system itself, but no one (that has the power to do anything about it) is going to acknowledge that until the (global financial) world burns.

[ryskey 447]

4 hours ago, gmr548 said:

I believe the boomers refusal to do anything about gun violence will result in the millennials and gen z going way further than they otherwise would have on that issue in particular. Most millenials and all of gen z have grown up with school shootings and mass shootings being normal, and are aware of how fucked up that is.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

This is a good point, and it probably goes beyond gun control to just about everything.  The trend towards Trumpism is a dangerous game for the GOP.

[F250 28379]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Text based single player adventure games. 

Jesus that sounds pretty pathetic when you type it out. But it was groundbreaking at the time. 

It's crazy how long text based adventure games remained popular. Once they became online multiplayer it turned into heroin. I had a roommate that was addicted to a MUD so bad he flunked out of school. From what I remember there was talk of banning them from campuses because so many students were getting addicted. Then EverQuest came out and that took shit to 11.

I never got the allure of text based adventure games. I tried it a few times but it was "words, words, words, boring." As a young CS student in the 90's, I was a major John Carmack fan boy so I was more engrossed with 3d game engines which is probably just as dorky.

[BradInATX 9208]

28 minutes ago, F250 said:

It's crazy how long text based adventure games remained popular. Once they became online multiplayer it turned into heroin. I had a roommate that was addicted to a MUD so bad he flunked out of school. From what I remember there was talk of banning them from campuses because so many students were getting addicted. Then EverQuest came out and that took shit to 11.

I never got the allure of text based adventure games. I tried it a few times but it was "words, words, words, boring." As a young CS student in the 90's, I was a major John Carmack fan boy so I was more engrossed with 3d game engines which is probably just as dorky.

Tradewars 2020 was the jam

[NameAlreadyInUse 5092]

Fuck you had to go and bring up Everquest.  That game helped me stay in the closet an extra 5 years because it gave me an excuse to have absolutely no social life.

[F250 28379]

16 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Fuck you had to go and bring up Everquest.  That game helped me stay in the closet an extra 5 years because it gave me an excuse to have absolutely no social life.

Man, you must have really hated the initial release of WoW.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

7 hours ago, gmr548 said:

I believe the boomers refusal to do anything about gun violence will result in the millennials and gen z going way further than they otherwise would have on that issue in particular. Most millenials and all of gen z have grown up with school shootings and mass shootings being normal, and are aware of how fucked up that is.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

Gun violence has plummeted over the last several decades.

 

 

 

So has the overall murder rate:

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23245]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Gun violence has plummeted over the last several decades.

 

 

 

So has the overall murder rate:

 

Now do mass shootings 

[Coors yellow belly 105]

Save the graphs and post for the next time a Chicago discussion takes place

[Dahobbs 17088]

2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Now do mass shootings 

Or just school shootings. 

[Johnny Sack 8397]

2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Now do mass shootings 

I am not sure we have accurate stats on that to compare apples to apples.  I do know people perceive gun violence a lot differently than reality.  The gun murder rate has been halved in the last 25 years.  But the majority believe otherwise.

 

 

[Johnny Sack 8397]

Our schools are also much, much safer from gun violence than they were 25 years ago.  NPR did a pretty outstanding argument how the perceived threat of school gun violence does not match the actual threat.

Quote

Second, the overall number of gunshot victims at schools is also down. According to Fox's numbers, back in the 1992-93 school year, about 0.55 students per million were shot and killed; in 2014-15, that rate was closer to 0.15 per million.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/593831564/the-disconnect-between-perceived-danger-in-u-s-schools-and-reality

[Johnny Sack 8397]

We have a very ill informed public on gun violence.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23245]

Now do gun violence in the United States versus every other country.

[Coors yellow belly 105]

This is a thread for Gen X attention seekers.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13267]

3 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

We have a very ill informed public on gun violence.

FIFY

[David Dennison 17657]

4 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

We have a very ill informed public on gun violence.

It's not going to matter. More gun restrictions are coming in the next few decades.

[Brisketexan 103139]

2 minutes ago, Coors yellow belly said:

This is a thread for Gen X attention seekers.

Like, whatever man.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

40 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

 

 

 

This chart doesn't look right.

Whatever, it was already approved by the preditor.

What's that?

The pre-editor.  He reviews things really early.

[Pescado_Rojo 19192]

28 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Like, whatever man.

Damn I loved her back in the day...I actually went out with a girl that looked a lot like her for a while. I think I'm gonna look her up on FB and see how she's... oh my god, why did I do that! 

[Js1 82350]

9 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

This chart doesn't look right.

Whatever, it was already approved by the preditor.

What's that?

The pre-editor.  He reviews things really early.

It's amazing how low firearm homicide rate since I've been told Chicago is a warzone with THOUSANDS getting murdered by Democrat gun policies. 

[F250 28379]

8 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Damn I loved her back in the day...I actually went out with a girl that looked a lot like her for a while. I think I'm gonna look her up on FB and see how she's... oh my god, why did I do that! 

I hadn't seen her in awhile until Stranger Things. Considering they made her look. really rough around the edges for her role, I think she looked pretty good.

 

[Js1 82350]

Just now, F250 said:

I hadn't seen her in awhile until Stranger Things. Considering they made her look. really rough around the edges for her role, I think she looked pretty good.

 

[Pescado_Rojo 19192]

1 minute ago, F250 said:

I hadn't seen her in awhile until Stranger Things. Considering they made her look. really rough around the edges for her role, I think she looked pretty good.

 

yea, I meant I looked up my ex that looked like her...

[gmr548 16251]

Gun violence has plummeted over the last several decades.
      So has the overall murder rate:  

1.) Yes, violent crime, gun related or otherwise, is as low as it's been in decades. Still, gun violence in this country to the rest of the developed world is crazy high.

2.) Excluding suicide from gun related fatalities is disingenuous, akin to excluding car accidents from a discussion of transportation fatalities.

3.) My comment wasn't about what should happen, it was about what will happen. Bottom line is that young people perceive gun violence as a pretty serious issue and that has largely been dismissed by boomers. Regardless of the merit, there is going to be a backlash to that.



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[gmr548 16251]

It's amazing how low firearm homicide rate since I've been told Chicago is a warzone with THOUSANDS getting murdered by Democrat gun policies. 

It's also amazing how the low overall violent crime rate suddenly explodes when arguing for the wall.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[F250 28379]

48 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Like, whatever man.

Hawke and Ryder are a few years older than me but I did relate generationally to this depiction of Gen X. Unlike the movie Singles.

 

These people always felt like the older Gen X crowd.

[Foosters 17624]

30 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 Bottom line is that young people perceive gun violence as a pretty serious issue and that has largely been dismissed by boomers. Regardless of the merit, there is going to be a backlash to that.


 

I wouldn't say its been entirely dismissed. They have suggested proactive solutions like arming college students and arming teachers and everyone just shooting at everything.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

20 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I wouldn't say its been entirely dismissed. They have suggested proactive solutions like arming college students and arming teachers and everyone just shooting at everything.

I don't think most people want to arm anyone.  The proposals have been to allow people who want to carry and have the license to do so, be allowed to carry concealed at schools just like they are allowed to do in a multitude of public places.

Many jurisdictions already allow this.  Doesn't seem to cause any problems.

[Coors yellow belly 105]

Thoughts and Prayers for the loss of Luke Perry. 

[Js1 82350]

48 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I wouldn't say its been entirely dismissed. They have suggested proactive solutions like arming college students and arming teachers and everyone just shooting at everything.

The guns need guns to protect the guns 

can you live with the guilt of a stray bullet from a bad gun hits and kills a good gun who didn’t have a gun to protect itself? 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Js1

[Bat Guano 359]

Somewhat relevant:

 

The New 30-SomethingHave you or haven’t you cut the financial cord with your family?

tl/dr: Boomers are supporting their millennial offspring financially and with other services, allowing them to enjoy better lifestyles than they would otherwise.

Quote

It’s the financial riddle of the 30-something years. How does anyone, even those with a stable, upwardly mobile job, let alone a family, afford to live in places like New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Washington, D. C.?

The answer: Many are bankrolled, to varying degrees, by their parents.

Quote

More than half (53 percent) of Americans ages 21 to 37 have received some form of financial assistance from a parent, guardian or family member since turning 21, according to a 2018 report by Country Financial, a financial services firm in Bloomington, Ill. This may include paying bills for a cellphone (41 percent), groceries and gas (32 percent), rent (40 percent) or health insurance (32 percent).

Then there are the free services. Ms. Palmer, who is 39 and lives near Washington, D.C., said that the free 20 to 25 hours of child care she receives every month from her parents contributed to her family’s decision to have a third child (Dylan Palmer Davé arrived on Feb. 9). If she were to pay a babysitter, Ms. Palmer estimates it would add up to around $6,000 a year.

On average, each millennial parent receives $11,011 per year in combined financial support and unpaid labor, the 2017 TD Ameritrade Millennial Parents Survey found, for an annual total of $253 billion in America.

Hey, maybe not all boomers are the greedy geezers some of y'all want to portray them as, and the millennials aren't the problem-solving wunderkinds you want to give them credit for; that's a significant amount of support, comparable to some UBI proposals. On the other hand, it also supports Brisket's original point: nobody's giving Gen X any credit, or even talking about them!

Edited March 5, 2019 by Bat Guano

[Js1 82350]

Fuck, I have the wrong parents.  Anyone want to adopt me?  I'm getting $0/year and have been since I was 24.

[David Dennison 17657]

32 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Fuck, I have the wrong parents.  Anyone want to adopt me?  I'm getting $0/year and have been since I was 24.

You would be shocked at the number of people who buy their first homes with assistance from parents, usually in the form of the down payment.

On the other hand, that's what family is for. 

Edited March 5, 2019 by David Dennison

[Js1 82350]

Just now, David Dennison said:

You would be shocked at the number of people who buy their first homes with assistance from parents, usually in the form of the down payment.

It wouldn't shock me, I'm well aware. 

[Eastwood 4394]

You would be shocked at the number of people who buy their first homes with assistance from parents, usually in the form of the down payment.
On the other hand, that's what family is for. 

I've been on my own dime since I was 19, but my grandparents insisted that they pay for the down payment on my home. I had the money. I wanted to use my own money, but they were unrelenting. Their reasoning: their parents helped them with their first ever down payment and they wanted to pay it forward. Generational talk regarding attitudes is pointless. The only big difference between the generations is what I pointed out up thread. Almost two entire generations of people are left out in the technological cold and they only have themselves to blame.

[Js1 82350]

1 minute ago, Eastwood said:

12 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

You would be shocked at the number of people who buy their first homes with assistance from parents, usually in the form of the down payment.
On the other hand, that's what family is for. 

I've been on my own dime since I was 19, but my grandparents insisted that they pay for the down payment on my home. I had the money. I wanted to use my own money, but they were unrelenting. Their reasoning: their parents helped them with their first ever down payment and they wanted to pay it forward. Generational talk regarding attitudes is pointless. The only big difference between the generations is what I pointed out up thread. Almost two entire generations of people are left out in the technological cold and they only have themselves to blame.

At least with my friends (all in our late 20s, early 30s), it sure feels like parents picked one (wedding, honeymoon or down payment) at a minimum. 

[NBMisha 224]

Parents who are the age of boomers at this time, at least within this society, get anxious when they see their well provided for and well educated grown kids struggling, versus the assumed "right" schedule we hold in our heads based on our own lived experience.  I now wish I had not been so susceptible to this emotional pull.  With one, hard working, smart, just sort of unlucky kid, I have meaningful sized loans that will not likely be paid back in my lifetime, and a subsidized  rent situation in a house I own that I can't see how and when I can get them out of there - and still have an intact family life.  I could have a yuge boat had I not been such a gullible dad.

Its a boomer thing that I'm in this situation.

[Zonahorn 7848]

On ‎3‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 7:31 PM, JimmyJames said:

Killing in the name of...

And know you do what they told ya'

[Captainant 26861]

20 minutes ago, NBMisha said:

Parents who are the age of boomers at this time, at least within this society, get anxious when they see their well provided for and well educated grown kids struggling, versus the assumed "right" schedule we hold in our heads based on our own lived experience.  I now wish I had not been so susceptible to this emotional pull.  With one, hard working, smart, just sort of unlucky kid, I have meaningful sized loans that will not likely be paid back in my lifetime, and a subsidized  rent situation in a house I own that I can't see how and when I can get them out of there - and still have an intact family life.  I could have a yuge boat had I not been such a gullible dad.

Its a boomer thing that I'm in this situation.

If your concern is about how you're going to collect rent on your second home that you own, you are definitely part of the wealthy class of America. I'm sorry to hear about your son's difficulty in getting professional traction, but just imagine all the folks who don't have loaded parents that can provide a goddamn house for them.