What do you think of Millennials?

[unbillievable]

10 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

I'm not dumping on you --- unless you hold the reactionary views you spouted in your original post on this topic, in which case, yeah, I'm dumping on you. 

 

I find it odd that there are people in this thread, like you, trying to virtue signal their opposition to generational stereotypes, like some crusade to right a reputational wrong.

Everything in this thread is nothing but superficial nonsense, born out of memes, jokes, and social media; yet a few seem to be genuinely offended, like stating that young people act young, and old people act old is somehow controversial.

 

As far as your response to me, you clearly didn't understand what it meant when I told you "I'm not a boomer."

Think about it...what does that make me, instead?

 

[SoTier]

Just now, ExiledInIllinois said:

Automation (even in ditch digging) is still displacing people.

 

What do we do?  Less jobs more people.  What balances the labor-automation equation?  UBI?

 

 

 

I don't know -- and anybody who proffers an easy solution is full of bull manure. 

 

I think that the best, and maybe the only solution, is the same one that Franklin Roosevelt came up with during the Great Depression: giving people some light at the end of the tunnel, ie, hope.   FDR's concern was that the severity of the Great Depression would push Americans to embrace communism, and I think that he was right in his general fear if not in his specific one.   Creating a permanent underclass is very dangerous to a democratic society.  The rise of the right-wing extremist political parties in some European countries hint at that, and I think we see some of that, but on a much smaller scale, here in the US with the rise of fringe hate groups.  People have to have hope that their hard work for not much can today somehow enable their children to have it better which means that there needs to be the ability for smart, talented young people to rise. 

 

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

2 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

I don't know -- and anybody who proffers an easy solution is full of bull manure. 

 

I think that the best, and maybe the only solution, is the same one that Franklin Roosevelt came up with during the Great Depression: giving people some light at the end of the tunnel, ie, hope.   FDR's concern was that the severity of the Great Depression would push Americans to embrace communism, and I think that he was right in his general fear if not in his specific one.   Creating a permanent underclass is very dangerous to a democratic society.  The rise of the right-wing extremist political parties in some European countries hint at that, and I think we see some of that, but on a much smaller scale, here in the US with the rise of fringe hate groups.  People have to have hope that their hard work for not much can today somehow enable their children to have it better which means that there needs to be the ability for smart, talented young people to rise. 

 

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.

 

You could use to read a history book and take a basic economics course.

 

 

[BuffaloBill]

I really admire my now deceased grandparents generation who dealt with the Great Depression, WWII and the Korean War.  Today, if we don’t have at least two cars, central AC, cellphones, internet, 24 hours of multi-channel entertainment and five big box stores within 10 minutes of our driveways we think we are in hardship.  I really believe that we have lost perspective.  Yes, I am personally guilty of the same (I am an absolute tail end baby boomer or early gen x’er).

[ExiledInIllinois]

1 hour ago, BuffaloBill said:

I really admire my now deceased grandparents generation who dealt with the Great Depression, WWII and the Korean War.  Today, if we don’t have at least two cars, central AC, cellphones, internet, 24 hours of multi-channel entertainment and five big box stores within 10 minutes of our driveways we think we are in hardship.  I really believe that we have lost perspective.  Yes, I am personally guilty of the same (I am an absolute tail end baby boomer or early gen x’er).

I came from nothing and can return to nothing.  Everything in the middle is just icing on the cake.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

5 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

But people should be working at the same job for 20-30 years... As long as you it's your vocation.

 

That's the problem with these kids.  They are taught that there is always something better... Bigger, brighter, better that suits their "dream" NOT what their calling/vocation may truly be.

 

Of course... Stick them in a "lowly, grinding job" with jaded people, they won't find it too "glamous" and always want something better.  It's "too lowly" to work in a restaurant setting mentality... I gotta always find something better and more prestigious mentality where others work with their body.  "I am too smart, need to work with my mind... The other saps should labor" type thinking.

 

That's the problem with the younger generation, since college preparatory was pushed instead of the trades, starting in the 1970s... Everybody thinks they are better than the next... Well the world needs ditch diggers too:

 

Well, excuse me for getting all up in your crusade by offering a suggestion of a job that tends to be willing to employ <18

 

I think it's a long stretch from the story I told to decide people should be wanting to work 20-30 years as a busser unless they're freakin' malcontents who think they're better than everyone else and too smart.

 

I don't disagree with the premise that college prep isn't for everyone and that working with one's hands should be valued - but you're mounting and riding your own private hobbyhorse here (and projecting it on me and the story I told about my kid).  But anti-intellectualism, where people have their knee ready to jerk that because someone wouldn't want to work in a restaurant for 30 years it means blahblah think you're better than the next blahblah other saps should labor blahblah ..... anti-intellectualism is also a problem. 

 

We're currently starving for people with the skills to be electrical engineers and chemical engineers and a whole host of other professions which require learning a buttload of math and hard freakin' work in college, so the companies that can't hire enough here (or get 'em into the country) outsource the work to other countries.  But God Forbid anyone should want to work with their mind.

 

Over and out.

 

 

[Augie]

8 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

 I will not be shamed for being responsible with the money that I earn.  I'm where I am today because I worked hard and only because I worked hard.  I was willing to start from the bottom, be patient, work hard and move up the ladder.  Every single one of my coworkers had the same opportunity. 

 

You are 100% correct, sir. On the list of reasons why you might be shamed, that should be near the bottom!

 

 

?

 

 

EDIT: I did NOT mean to imply that the list would be short. That is beyond my knowledge.  

Edited August 1, 2019 by Augie

[SoTier]

13 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

I really admire my now deceased grandparents generation who dealt with the Great Depression, WWII and the Korean War.  Today, if we don’t have at least two cars, central AC, cellphones, internet, 24 hours of multi-channel entertainment and five big box stores within 10 minutes of our driveways we think we are in hardship.  I really believe that we have lost perspective.  Yes, I am personally guilty of the same (I am an absolute tail end baby boomer or early gen x’er).

 

Materialism has been a growing trend in the US since the 1920s when Americans started buying consumer products like cars, radios, refrigerators, etc.  Consumer credit also became popular.  The Great Depression and WW II put the brakes on consumerism, but after the war, Americans gave themselves over to things that made their lives easier, more convenient, and more comfortable. 

 

It's not a generational or even cultural thing (despite what many critics of American society claim), but something that seems natural for people in general: when people in undeveloped areas of the world get the opportunity to acquire consumer products/technology, they embrace it.  In the 16th-18th century, when Native Americans acquired horses from the Spanish, they incorporated horses into their cultures so quickly and thoroughly that by the 1800s, it seemed that the Plains tribes had always had them.  The growth of cell/smart phones use in the US can't hold a patch to the growth rates of their use in Asia.

 

People like stuff!

 

10 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Well, excuse me for getting all up in your crusade by offering a suggestion of a job that tends to be willing to employ <18

 

I think it's a long stretch from the story I told to decide people should be wanting to work 20-30 years as a busser unless they're freakin' malcontents who think they're better than everyone else and too smart.

 

I don't disagree with the premise that college prep isn't for everyone and that working with one's hands should be valued - but you're mounting and riding your own private hobbyhorse here (and projecting it on me and the story I told about my kid).  But anti-intellectualism, where people have their knee ready to jerk that because someone wouldn't want to work in a restaurant for 30 years it means blahblah think you're better than the next blahblah other saps should labor blahblah ..... anti-intellectualism is also a problem. 

 

We're currently starving for people with the skills to be electrical engineers and chemical engineers and a whole host of other professions which require learning a buttload of math and hard freakin' work in college, so the companies that can't hire enough here (or get 'em into the country) outsource the work to other countries.  But God Forbid anyone should want to work with their mind.

 

Over and out.

 

 

 

Thank you for saying this.  We do NOT need more people to dig ditches or check out groceries in the US because we already have machines that can do that.  We need more engineers and medical researchers and computer programmers right now, and we'll need even more in the future.   STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and math -- is where the job opportunities are, not to mention the opportunities to make a difference in the world.    

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, SoTier said:

Thank you for saying this.  We do NOT need more people to dig ditches or check out groceries in the US because we already have machines that can do that.  We need more engineers and medical researchers and computer programmers right now, and we'll need even more in the future.   STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and math -- is where the job opportunities are, not to mention the opportunities to make a difference in the world.   

 

We also need more skilled tradespeople - auto and aviation and subway mechanics, and electricians, and plumbers, and HVAC technicians, and welders.

These are all trades that (when I was a kid) used to have a smooth entry through BOCES or other vocational ed. in High School.  If you were a chap who had trouble to sit still and learn, you could graduate high school and move right into a decent job.

I think a few people on this group have counter-examples, but in most places shop class and vocational ed are dead, dead, dead.  The unfortunate result has been a rise in "technical college" to learn these skills, usually for-profit, that charge exorbitant tuition and saddle kids with debt to learn stuff it used to be they could come out of high school knowing.  Sometimes the current generation thinks they "have it worse" because ..... they do.

I just felt the story of a kid working her a** off at a bussing job before going to college was a very inappropriate jump-off for a diss that anyone who doesn't want to work as a busser for 20-30 years thinks they're "better than everyone else" and "other people should work with their hands".  It's called an "entry level job" for a reason.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

16 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

I really admire my now deceased grandparents generation who dealt with the Great Depression, WWII and the Korean War.  Today, if we don’t have at least two cars, central AC, cellphones, internet, 24 hours of multi-channel entertainment and five big box stores within 10 minutes of our driveways we think we are in hardship.  I really believe that we have lost perspective.  Yes, I am personally guilty of the same (I am an absolute tail end baby boomer or early gen x’er).

 

It's all economics, but there's kind of a vicious cycle going on.

 

My FIL used the skills he gained in the Navy (Korean war) to work at factories making consumer electronics.  The electronics he made were sold for quite high prices - you had to save for a while to buy an AMPEX reel-to-reel tape player or an RCA console TV.  In return, he was paid enough to buy a house and food and provided with family health insurance, though his wife also worked (nights) so they could make ends meet.

It wasn't that they didn't want stuff - it was that stuff was expensive, so expensive that it made sense to repair it instead of throwing it out once you got it or to make things yourself.  And almost every guy had some amount of repair skills learned both from his dad or in school.  

 

Nowadays, cheap transportation means that most stuff is made overseas by cheap labor living in hovels.  Stuff is cheap.  Repairs are relatively expensive - repairpeople are scarce and charge a good bit just to show up and diagnose the problem - and few people have the skills to diagnose and repair stuff themselves.  Lacking the skills to go downstairs and take apart the furnace and see that the igniter has gone bad, they're at the mercy of repair services who say "well, it'll cost $300 to come out and diagnose your unit and then whatever parts or repairs are needed, and it's 20 years old, so why don't we replace your furnace?  The gas company will finance it at 0% interest and put $100/month on your bill"  instead of determining the part in question costs $30 and can be shipped in overnight for $7.95.

No one knows how to darn a sock or turn a collar (much less make a shirt) because a new package of socks made in Guam is so cheap and fabric is expensive, plus they never learned the skills in part because no one was teaching them.  When the collar gets worn you throw it out or stick it in the red clothes box.
 

Jobs that are actually a vocation (but don't require college) or even that pay well enough to support a family, are relatively scarce.  It's all burger flipping, retail, or wiping butts.

The cycle is cheap consumer goods -> people lack driver to learn repair skills -> people lack repair skills -> throwaway culture and market for cheap consumer goods

[Steve O]

On 7/30/2019 at 7:47 AM, Another Fan said:

So if you’re born after 1980 that makes you one.   Technically I’m considered one.

 

In general that phrase I think has a negative vibe to it.  People think self observed, lazy, rude, pampered, weak, etc...

 

I’d agree this generation doesn’t really have the best work ethic.  Only think I would say in that defense is my dad worked for the same company for 35 years before being laid off.  So loyalty can be a two way street.  Plus many were going to school and or looking for jobs around when the economy collapsed back in 2008 

What gives me hope is the following quote:

 

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

 

While there is some dispute as to the actual origin of the quote, it is commonly attributed to Socrates. So, young people have always been as you describe - self observed, lazy, rude, etc. And always will be.

 

[Johnny Hammersticks]

They suck!

[RaoulDuke79]

Evidently a good portion of millennials dont have any friends. 

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-millenials-no-friends-yougov-poll-20190804-ek5odkrxmvbfhex7ytvp2p6rwy-story.html?outputType=amp

[DC Tom]

2 hours ago, RaoulDuke79 said:

Evidently a good portion of millennials dont have any friends. 

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-millenials-no-friends-yougov-poll-20190804-ek5odkrxmvbfhex7ytvp2p6rwy-story.html?outputType=amp

 

They're better off.

 

I went out with friends last night for the first time in four years.  It was stressful as hell.  

[Augie]

6 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

They're better off.

 

I went out with friends last night for the first time in four years.  It was stressful as hell.  

 

But you’re comfortable here, apparently. My wife calls you all my “imaginary internet friends”. Is this stressful? Or do we just annoy you? 

[DC Tom]

53 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

But you’re comfortable here, apparently. My wife calls you all my “imaginary internet friends”. Is this stressful? Or do we just annoy you? 

 

You're not actually real people.  Just characters on a screen.  

[RaoulDuke79]

1 hour ago, DC Tom said:

 

They're better off.

 

I went out with friends last night for the first time in four years.  It was stressful as hell.  

I'm sure they were chomping at the bit over an evening of delightful conversation with DC Tom.

[DC Tom]

1 minute ago, RaoulDuke79 said:

I'm sure they were chomping at the bit over an evening of delightful conversation with DC Tom.

 

People like me.  You'd be surprised.  I am.

[mead107]

Just now, DC Tom said:

 

People like me.  You'd be surprised.  I am.

You better come up for the opener 

[RaoulDuke79]

1 minute ago, DC Tom said:

 

People like me.  You'd be surprised.  I am.

Possible Stockholm syndrome.