this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] [email protected] 376 points 10 months ago (11 children)

How disappointed we will all be when all the boomers are dead and it doesn’t solve any of our problems.

[–] [email protected] 101 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

We'll just have to see, won't we?

Plus, it's not like the climate will just snap back into place when the boomers are finally too old for their skeleton talons to cling to power. That shit is going to take generations of sacrifice to roll back, if it doesn't topple civilization first.

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/warmest-arctic-summer-on-record-is-evidence-of-accelerating-climate-change

The whole ethos of the majority of baby boomers seems to have been to raze the forest they got to enjoy behind them (as opposed to planting trees whose shade they'd never sit in like most generations aspire to), and they seem to be having remarkable success in that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

thats the ethos you project onto boomers, not the ethos boomers live by.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The results speak for themselves. The majority of their generation's attitudes about the results indicate satisfaction with the results.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not true. You dont know what they think or feel

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The issues they left behind will last for generations. Funny that anyone could believe this goes away in our lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Or that we won't make new problems that we get to blame on new generations. It will never end

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Many of the issues they leave behind are ones that existed when they were born.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's not about a magic cure that'll fix everything over night.

It's about repairing decades of harm done by a generational mindset that valued wealth acquisition and material possession above every other facet of society. We won't fix that trauma in one, two, or three generations but it will get better and better with time and distance to boomerism.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

The values of wealth accumulation and materialism are not at all limited to or even expressed mostly strongly by the Baby Boomer generation.

The line of thinking that capitalism dies with boomers or that Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, or whatever comes next will not fully embrace capitalism and will move towards socialism or some other non-competitive society seems pretty naive.

Humans are a competitive species. Most people want to win. I doubt this mindset dies with boomers.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Humans are a co-operative species, same goes for our ape and monkey cousins.

It is this instinctual nature of working together that enabled us to take down bigger prey, settle new lands, and become the dominant species on the planet.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I don’t disagree. That said, would suggest that externally we are cooperative, but internally we are competitive. Even in ape families, there exists a hierarchy generally ruled by the biggest, strongest male.

Which brings us back to the point at hand. Will humans come together to solve climate change? Or will humans continue to try to win at all costs?

I can see either as a possibility. But I don’t see boomers dying as a catalyst.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The rich are very concerned about the fact that all statistical evidence pointing to younger generations being starkly more socially minded than boomers. Don't forget that Millennials have lived through a major economic crisis. Just like the Great Depression, that generally makes people realize that Capitalism is bullshit.

The wealthy are funding massive propaganda campaigns as a result. They are unfortunately making some in roads with young men. But overall I don't think it will be enough.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Don't forget that Millennials have lived through a major economic crisis.

Yes, yes we have.

I’ll be very interested to see how the younger generations age. Anecdotally, I’ve witnessed numerous people go from progressive socialists, to centrist capitalists as they age. Not saying that will continue, only saying this as I’ve seen similar studies that show younger people are more progressive than older folks every 5 years for the past 3 decades. It’s not a terribly new concept, and I’m hopeful that it remains true.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I agree! A change of the mindset is generational change at best. In many cases flawed ideologies and poor educational standards are just beeing continued. Yet I want to be one of the naive and think that there will be a new way of thinking and noticeable political change. For the better or the worse.., who knows?!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

The next most conservative generation is Gen X. All few dozen of us. Expect those with power to retain it with massive use of wealth to constrain the rules of democracy, rather than numbers of voters.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

It will solve the problem of their voting habits. They have lead us down this insane path because they are a narcissistic generation. Things won't be perfect, but we might, just might, start turning things around. If we still can.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Boomer is a state of mind. They are never going extinct.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Because that's how it works, right? When your house is flooded because of a burst pipe, when you replace the pipe then your house is magically unflooded right? I mean of course no reasonable person thinks that, but that seems to be the understanding you're suggesting. Meanwhile you're trying to say that if we do repair the pipe and the house is still flooded, rightly acknowledging that the pipe is 100% the cause of the flood is somehow..... wrong?

The facts are that boomers fucked the world up, heavily, and did everything they could to hold onto power and rob the next generation (at least) of their deserved place in the driver's seat of society, and cleaning up the messes and lessons left over by the boomers will take generations to clean up. The fact that boomer built long-term systemic problem without simple solutions does not mean that the boomers are not entirely at fault or that we aren't entirely better off without them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

They're smart to balance their checkbooks on the way out. They never let any opportunity to consume go to waste.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

But then you have to blame the job creators!?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

I dunno, I feel like if I lived through the Black Death and I was there when—at the end of the suffering, surrounded by death—the last plague rat died, I’d take it as a win…

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

most boomers where lost generation per them

i said what i said

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

They were called the Me Generation but they got offended and changed it to Boomer