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My take is that the "eh every generation says the same thing about the new one" idea and the "this generation and the people who are 18-20 in 2016-2017 are the worst" idea are NOT mutually exclusive. I agree with both. They actually go hand in hand. I think we're regressing generation by generation. I think the more abject luxury and safety and hovering protection and inclusiveness we create, the more we ruin the strength and self-sufficiency of the new humans. My generation (I'm 42) is extremely culpable.
It's been a steady regression from Silent to Greatest to Boomer to Gen X to Millennials to the iGeneration or Post-Millennials or whatever those born around 1997-2000+ are called (I see those who entered college in the past couple of years, who've been immersed in social media for their entire adolescence, as quite different from the average, say, 30-year-old).
I think it's turning out that humans need genuine adversity, challenge, struggle, danger, discomfort, chance of failure, independence, etc. in order to become strong and capable. In the absence of these things, people tend to invent their own problems / dangers / challenges, which is an issue because these imaginary problems / dangers / challenges aren't rooted in reality and can basically become anything. (Does this mean *everyone* is like this? Of course not. There are huge individual variations, always. We're talking averages and majorities and sea changes.)
I think it will continue. I think it will intersect with the rise of simulated thinking -- AI. I think when the children of today's college students reach 25 -- think 2050 -- the regression will have reached a critical level. Those people will be fine with the idea of being led by machines, of the concept of owning things being passe, of constant millisecond surveillance of types we can hardly comprehend today.
By then we'll have or be on the way to having artificial wombs, cheap genetic programming on a level that seems like science fiction today, comprehensive narrow AI handling virtually all intellectual labor and all transportation, the ability to monitor thoughts, virtual reality that makes a strong case for a lot of people to never leave virtual reality, authoritarian control and enforcement of nearly every aspect of existence, possibly Artificial General Intelligence i.e. consciousness instantiated in a hyper-intelligent / hyper-connected system... our technology will be more advanced than most of us here at the beginning of 2017 understand, especially when it's no longer humans doing the science, design, and engineering. Humans will be weaker physically and mentally than ever before because they can be. Average human life expectancies will hit 120 years while human existence becomes more inconsequential than ever.
And the children of today's college students will be right there to usher it all in. Remember, you can convince anyone of anything... if you start early enough.
I'm not sure the speaker would disagree with you. Personally. I don't. I work with a lot of millennials, and by and large they are great. My only beef is that they sometimes assume us gen xers on the team as old and seem surprised when we are up on technology and have innovative ideas, too. Surprising them can be really fun, though, and we did the same to boomers when we were new in the workforce ,
Very true. I'm Gen X and I've worked with several Millenials. I've never had an issue with their work ethic or innovation. But they DO like to tout their youth. One of my coworkers constantly made remarks about my age and would be surprised that I would understand so much about technology, social media, etc. I suppose I did do the same when I was a pup too.
Yeah. They also did a very poor job in raising their kids.
I don't think they did. As I said up thread, I've worked with numerous Millenials and I've found them to be engaging, hard working, innovative and kind. They certainly have different ideas on society than people older than them or older than me but I didn't see it affecting their day to day lives or work. IE - many of them believe in public postsecondary education and single payer healthcare yet I wouldn't describe any of the millenials I know as lazy or entitled.
I think each generation seeks to make the life of their children better than what they think their own was. 100 years ago kids walked through miles of snow to get to school, worked hard on family farms and wore older siblings hand me downs. People made do.
Credit cards didn't exist. Welfare didn't exist. Social security didn't exist. Television didn't exist.
Today parents seem to feel that their job is to be the BFF instead of the parent.
50 years ago what rational parent would accept their teen child getting tattoos, face piercings or body piercings?
Times change. Now everyone deserves a trophy. Win lose or draw. That is a utopian concept. The real world only winners get a trophy. In the real world sub-par performance has very real consequences. The real world is competitive, uncaring and at times brutal. I don't believe that we prepare our kids for success or the ability to deal with the realities they will face.
To most, if you don't have the money and take a loan, you are expected to repay it. You accept that you own the debt. Today we have people who took loans for college demanding everyone else pay back their loan. It isn't fair we hear. 200,000 in debt and my degree is worthless. Well buyer beware. There just aren't that many openings for art majors.
I think each generation seeks to make the life of their children better than what they think their own was.
Yep. Therein lies the paradox. Civilization has reached a point where each generation is significantly different than the one that came before. It's possible now to actually provide a "better" life for one's immediate offspring (this has certainly not been the case for most of the past 12,000 years). And it's arguably natural to want to do so. And it's done at the micro level within families and at the macro level within society itself.
But it turns out providing a "better" life is actually quite destructive and contrary to the creation of capable, independent, strong humans. Yet it seems inevitable that it will continue unabated, barring some sort of apocalyptic catastrophe (a colossal CME like that which hit the earth during the 1859 Carrington Event -- irreparably and instantly destroying every single piece of electronic equipment on the entire planet -- would do it). It's kind of like watching a slow motion train wreck play out over a series of decades.
It's not 1984 or Terminator or Idiocracy that will be our future. It's Wall●E.
"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."
- Socrates about the millenials 2500 years ago.
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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