My husband and I often wonder what kinds of stories these younger generations will have. While we and my parents tell stories that start like “well this one time I bought a moped...”
I fear all this new generation will have to tell stories about will be “this one time on tiktok..”
It makes me sad, my dads stories are especially hilarious, an entire generation is missing out on real life
We played gladiators on a giant dirt hill in the woods on the other side of a creek and basically tried to pull each other off so they’d tumble down and fall in the creek. How no one broke anything doing that I’ll never know 😂 but I’ve had broken bones and stitches otherwise!!
at 5 yrs old, I went outside as soon as the sun came up... played with Polly & Freddie til my mom made me come in, eat breakfast, & get dressed. ran back out to play til lunch, then back out til dinner. Mom would go play bridge or golf or go to the grocery store & leave me home playing. we climbed trees, shot each other with our homemade rubber band guns, shot at birds & squirrels with our slingshots, played ball, tag, marbles, jacks, hopscotch, rode trikes, then bikes all over, watched bugs, spiders & lizards, played in the sprinkler & the mud, washed the dogs in the mud, tried to dig to China, went to the corner store for penny candy (alone)... made button necklaces & sold them to moms for a penny. built forts, dug holes, nailed boards on the back of the shed (got a whipping for that!) painted the fence (got another whipping!) when my big brother got out of school, he & his friends played war with us hitting us with dirt clods or acorns & we made huge piles of "ammo" & tried to ambush them first. we were the original free range kids. and so were my kids.... but the grandkids? nope, cps would have them arrested if they found a 5 year old outside by themselves.
Well I do prefer to focus on the fun parts. When I was 10 older brother by 6 years developed cancer and this was back in late 1960s. Since they had no idea how much radiation to give him they gave him too much and burned all his organs. Gave him 6 months to live. He lived till he was 58. But again you have to face adversity to understand how to get through it.
Yes.. I was 5 years old and was standing too close to my neighbor/ friend.
Looking back - the sad thing is my friend's parents blamed him, and they beat the sh** out of him (he was probably a whopping 6 years old). I was equally (if not more) at fault. But I always think of that - how different parents are today.
We played "Kill the carrier". You had say 5 kids, not enough for a reasonable football game so you threw the ball out into a big yard, whoever got it tried to run as long as he could. There were no goal lines or end zones. And the other kids all tried to bring that one down. Hard.
Same here. Also from 12-16 my best friend and I would get dropped off at sunrise out in the countryside with our shotguns and hunt til sunset. Sometimes we had to walk along country roads for a little bit to get to the next field and cars passing us, yes even police cars. Never once were we stopped or even asked what we were doing. It was to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times.
> It makes me sad, my dads stories are especially hilarious, an entire generation is missing out on real life
I'm proofreading my father's memoirs. There are more than a few similarities between his life and mine, a fair bit of which is probably from both of us having grown up as Air Force brats who got to spend some time overseas courtesy of Uncle Sam.
That said, there are still some things he got away with growing up in the 50s and 60s that were already off the table as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Likewise, there are things I did (such as walking to school by myself, starting in kindergarten) that would probably get today's parents a visit from CPS if discovered. It's like the window of allowable behavior has inexorably ratcheted ever closer to "closed."
“So anyway, we all were over at Jimmy’s and it turns out his MOM HAD RUN OUT OF AVOCADOS!! No avocado toast!! Jimmy lived....”. ....after the story....”that was funny Uncle Ted. Was that when you were a teen?” Childless Ted says “That was last year.”
I don't want to protect this generation at all but: "I wanted to buy a moped: the price was too high also buying it requires a complicated paperwork, I couldn't get the licence to drive it due to regulations etcetc."
When I go to Asia 10 years old kids are driving mopeds because it is available for peanuts. No one cares who drives it. So there's that...
Never broke a bone or had stitches, but when I was 13, I awoke to my mom screaming because my dad was beating her up. I chased him out of the house by pointing his shotgun at him. Would that qualify, lol?
I've been in business for 30 years, sometimes living large, sometimes not so much. But I survived because I had to. So I look for "because I had to" stories in prospective employees. I think we're on the same wavelength; overcoming adversity. No adversity, nothing to overcome, your mettle never tested.
I too share an almost identical childhood experience. Truly awful.
The question I use is a conversation starter. There are plenty of people who did stupid shit that resulted in a broken bone and/or stitches.
The overall question is to get a sense of how someone calculates risk and what motivates them to take it - and how did that experience(s) inform them of calculating risk/benefit going forward.
I'm not sure who said this but I once heard, "If you're not handsome in your 20s, strong in your 30s, rich in your 40s, or wise in your 50s, you'll never be handsome, strong, rich, or wise." I'm guessing you're in your early 50s, or precociously wise in your late 40s.
Most childhood risks come with huge downsides and little to no upside, except the huge upside of learning from failure and mistakes. Childish motivations, like looking cool to your friends, impressing a girl with your bravery, or just the thrill of flying, never worrying about the landing. But the hard landings are what inform and mature us. I'm glad you survived and learned from your landings. And don't run crying to your mom, but I'm stealing your interview question. 😂😂😂
I had a similar experience except I ran to the neighbors (who called the police - who actually came). This haunts me to this day and by God I’ll never run from adversity again.
Well, don't be too hard on yourself. I wasn't as brave as it sounds. My dad was an alcoholic and we were dirt poor. We didn't have a phone or I'm sure I would have done what you did. As it was, I was trembling, fighting back tears, and I actually wet myself.
And thank God I didn't have to pull the trigger! Don't think I could have. My dad turned to me and said, "You're not my son anymore." And left. I hear he's still around, somewhere in Florida.
I broke the chain from my abusive childhood, got married at 21 had 2girls soon after. I taught them responsibility at a very young age, they got baby sitter jobs at 12 so they could buy stuff they wanted. They worked thru high-school and college. Both turned out well rounded independent responsible adults married with children! NOW IT'S REALLY MY GRANDKIDS I'M WORRIED ABOUT! They all play sports, but it's the electronics and the internet I'm worried about, not to mention the indoctrination!
Congratulations on breaking the chain, Porge. That is huge, and so important. If there is any way you can encourage your kids to either homeschool your grands, or be very particular in choosing a school, you might want to do that.
We're raising our grandchild, and we have only had her in public school for one year, and she lost a lot of learning in that year (especially arithmetic). It was 1st grade, and they were already indoctrinating, and belittling the paler children. We took her out after one year. In retrospect, I wish I had taken her out after one week!
Thankfully, we can manage tuition at one of the lower-priced Catholic schools, which happily is teaching from the "Classic Liberalism" tradition (not political liberal, by any means!). They focus on academics + virtues (and no, 'equity' is not one of them).
It's sooo important to check out the philosophy of a district/school. We wouldn't put our grandkiddo in our rural/farm public schools because a self-avowedly 'privileged' person is the superintendent. The CRT (whether by that name or another) philosophy people are now making inroads into conservative rural areas.
People really need to start becoming educated as to the positions of local candidates for school board, council, etc, because they are doing a lot of damage to our children and communities when the progs get into positions of local power.
Thanks Perplexity, both my daughters in tune with what's going on out there. Neither one jabbed,my oldest 42 got covid early on before the jabs were ready so she never got jabbed even though she tends to be a little on liberal side ( college u of llinois) but switched her kids to catholic school last year ( boys 2nd and 4th grade. Younger daughter 40, now home school part time and church group home 2days a wonderful. Boy 5 girl 7 no mask ever for them. I pick them up from church on Thursdays. So far so good 👍
Cool. You need IT people? Gen X. Broke my leg twice and my wrist once. 😹
I have been a primary caregiver for a severely disabled child and a frequent one for aging parents for most of the past six years. I'm working on getting back up to snuff with tech skills currently in demand and moving to an area with better access to high-paying jobs so I can begin working outside the home, again. Starting from Ground Zero. Ugh. I have 20+ years in various IT roles and I'll be an entry-level developer or data analyst. Oh, well. Bring it!
It's time for my Millennial sibling to step up for a while on the parent situation.
My collegiate son needs to do more adulting than just attending college. I certainly did at his age. I worked at least 10 hours a week during college for my incidentals. I worked full-time over breaks toward college tuition. My son doesn't, and some of that is on me. He's never held a paying job! We were overindulgent because of what he had to put up with with his severely disabled sister in the house. I often facilitated a lot of his stuff, too, because it was quicker and easier than fighting him on doing any little thing when I was already dealing with his sister. I should have let him fail early and often, at many things.
He does have ADD and a couple LDs. But I had ADD and not one single person gave/gives a shit. I had to figure it out and get things done.
Sometimes caregiving is enabling, even with one's parents. My stepfather should really be in assisted living, for example. But he's going to be a pill/borderline abusive about it, while further actively impairing his health & independence. Me being around all the time had allowed them to not face that decision. Time for some boundaries, because - yes - people will just expect you to be there and pick up all the pieces they don't want to deal with/decisions they don't want to make.
And I think that is the problem with the younger generations who come from some level of socioeconomic comfort: They've never dealt with fallout. They've never had to make hard decisions. They've never flown without a net beneath them, and they are really comfortable with using that net. They feel entitled to that net. I've heard younger people on Twitter say that you shouldn't have kids if you aren't going to care for them for life. THAT ISN'T THE DEAL WE GREW UP WITH! Kids were expected to become adults at some point, barring severe disability. Kids were even expected to help their parents some day. Can you imagine!?!
The funny thing is that I always had a net. My parents would never have let me be homeless. I just had that shame about using it when I really didn't have to. You're supposed to take care of yourself as an adult. You're supposed to do work you hate, if that's what you can get that pays your bills. You don't quit until you have another job. You're supposed to not buy things you can't afford. You're supposed to work hard, get along, and continue trading up in title, responsibilities, skills, and salary. You're supposed to do all that and still be a wife, mother, sibling, and friend.
So many of the affluent of younger generations consider a lot of that "abuse." They think you shouldn't have to do work you don't love. They think work should accommodate their personal life more than we used to. (To some extent, that's true. But you still have to get the job done.) They cancel relationships at the drop of a hat, when some microaggression is committed. Relationships are work, too. Love isn't enough. But I'm beginning to wonder if we've broken the younger generations' ability to love. Love is what makes you do the work, rather than treating your partner as disposable. If most of your relationships are on-line, you can drop them like a TV show that's jumped the shark.
Superglue is great. I never buy or use precut band-aids. My travel/cycling med kit has superglue for small cuts, and then it is straight to 1" cloth medical tape if it's too big for superglue to fix. Most people think I'm weird, maybe partly because the only other thing I habitually ride with is Benadryl (bees, poison ivy, etc. are a bit miserable without an antihistamine right away.).
Do you find things heal better with just the medical tape? I react to a lot of band-aids. I have scars around a biopsy that are from the band-aids, not the biopsy.
I find band aids to be kind of small and fragile, skin reaction isn't an issue for me. Band-aids catch on things and fall off, and leak if you have real bleeder. With a bit of gauze (or napkin, paper towel, corner of your kerchief, etc. (not kleenex tissue - fibers get in the wound)) a good wrap of med tape allows you to carry on with your activities, and you can customize it to any size or placement. I also keep it on hand so I can wrap my wrist (with a plate and 9 screws holding it together) for sports - the inch wide is like a cast if you do a few windings. Good stuff! I usually end up with whatever cloth-type me tape the store has on hand, not sure about Hy Tape in particular but it looks like good stuff. I may use it without knowing the brand sometimes.
I'm all for toughness and grit, but sometimes suffering is needless. 1. Use rubber gloves for chores, always. 2. Use mittens, not gloves, for warmth. 3. Use hand cream after every single time you wash your hands or shower. 4. Have hand cream beside every sink, in your car if you drive, in every purse/bag, at your desk, everywhere. Use it all the time.
i would disagree with this, hand creams usually have massive ingredient lists, anything you put on your skin ends up in your blood stream, it not good for the liver to have to deal with this vast list of chemicals
I'm a little late to this post, I was 21 when I opened my first auto repair shop. One thing I found out was very few employees care about my business. Maybe 1out of 5 hires . Most of my techs were alcoholics and or druggies . They never lasted bc the job just wasn't that important to them. Then I started looking for guys with families. That worked out pretty good but then it was too expensive to give them health insurance. Anyway after 25yrs in the business I shut it down and started my own handyman business. NO EMPLOYEES , PROBLEM SOLVED!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of the games we used to play in my childhood was kick ball in the circle 1 street behind me. We used old license plates for bases. One time running to first I slipped on the plate , fell and broke my arm on the curb.
No one sued anyone, but we kids started finding other things to use for bases after that...
To become the "neighborhood legend", you had to be able to calculate risk.
Taking into account the "worst case scenario" is what separates the smart risk takers from the idiots who can't think through net negative/positive scenarios. Some of those kids didn't take into account that you're not much of a legend if your dead or maimed.
My risk threshold (for the greatest of "double dog dares") was; could this result in a broken leg? That was a no go for me.
I heard of a survey study where Gen Zers said, by a wide margin, that they would rather have their hand broken on purpose than lose their phone on accident.
The era of constant distraction, mindless entertainment, and lack of boredom by removing yourself from the world produces some frightening choices for life trade offs indeed
I honestly think a lot of them would consider recovering their data an impossible hardship to surmount. They wouldn't know where to start and I find that paralyzes many younger folks. Even in this age of Google. Google is this generation's "We have a dictionary. Look it up (you lazy, little crotch goblin)." Except now you can do it for everything.
"Google, let's play a game. How about global thermonuclear war?"
I'm more of a "Start wherever" type. If you chose poorly, you'll learn and get there eventually. The starting is the hard part.
Exactly! in the “good old days” you had to “wonder” about things for which there were no answers. And then make a decision anyway. The younger set can’t boil water without a wiki-how video and reading 100 reviews for the teapot.
They only say that, because they have never broken their hands or prpbably any other bone. I used to box a little bit, my hands are super strong and kinda destroyed. Arthritis, disfigured, lack of complete nerve control, and they'd give up good hands for a piece of replaceable plastic? We are screwed as a society. And we did it to ourselves.
If you think leading them is bad try working for one.
“Reeeeeeeeee I’m saying all the magic words why isn’t it workinnnnnnnnnnng?”
“Because everyone sees you’re full of shit?”
“Reeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!”
Anyway, to answer your question, as a child I took a baseball bat to the face once. After the initial shock wore off, I calmly followed my mother’s direction.
We went to the hospital. I got stitches. Went home. That was that.
Proud of all the scars on my chin from hitting it on the slippery edge of the public pool, one on my ankle from stepping on a nail, stitches going barefoot at a house being built next to us...the list goes on and on. :-) Those things are medals as we get older....I got my sister while playing darts once. In the arm. Maybe it was an accident.....
I continued to play basketball with a broken finger as if it had never happened (and now it's permanently crooked), and hockey, well, you play through everything :)
Second grade (6 or 7?) I hit a bully in the face with my Walt Disney school bus lunch box. I broke his nose. I've broken a number of bones but I can't remember the first, too damn old I am.
When I was a kid, 8mm film was the standard for "video" and my dad had a Mighty Mouse reel in the inventory with our home movies. Sometimes when he took the projector out to show some home movies, he'd show in the MM movie without telling us and we kids were thrilled when it would start!
When I think of the things we did as kids and I know if my mom knew what we did, she’d have killed us right then and there to get it over with. But we all survived.
Broke my arm in San Felipe, Mexico. I was on a knee board in the water being towed by a 3-wheeler (on the beach). A dune buggy pulling a water skier was coming from the other way. I did what I saw others do...go up onto the sand, around the dune buggy, and back into the water.
Yea...didnt work out so well when I hit a bump and when flying.
Funny you should be talking about broken bones. I visited a PA recently for a wellness check at the doctor’s office. (doctors dropping patients they haven’t seen in three years). My three years were up for this particular GP office so I went in. Came out with instructions to go get a bone scan. I’m at that age and it wouldn’t be the first. I told husband I’m not doing it. He said, “why?” Because, when I was younger and I fractured my ankle and my wrist the doctors didn’t ask for a bone scan. I jumped out a first floor window to avoid a perceived truant officer. I later fractured my wrist by speed skiing down a bunny slope crashing or falling one too many times. So my husband says, “get the bone scan”. Nope.
Regarding gen x. My husband is very practical with his kids. He says “no” a lot. Like when you get a call at 12 am because of dui. He says, “that’s too bad, try to stay warm I know how cold those cells are.”
My thing with these medical tests is: am I going to do whatever treatment they recommend? The pills or surgery or whatever? For some condition I didn’t know I had? Probably not. So why aggravate everyone? Lol
Bone scan (DEXA) depend on age and sex and genes. After multiple vertebral breaks, I got the scan. So far the fancy drug has stopped that. Still getting 3" shorter hasn't been fun. I was warned that a bad fall, broken hip might lead to a permanent wheelchair, please no.
Interesting observation. I have two steps sons in the mid/late 20s. Both played sports; the elder has broken bones, while the younger had concussions. Both are self supporting; the younger one has a child and one on the way. They don't want to live in anyone's basement.
This is definitely an anglo-american thing, like the chem castration fads, 72 genders, and woke destroyers and race marxism or other satanic fixations of failing empires. There are Ukrainian teenagers who escaped the cocaine poison dwarf's mandatory call of duty, now hustling food on bicycles here in Poland for $2-$4 per hour happy not to be stuck in the Empire of Lies' Nazi military meat grinder that can only end with Nuclear war or until the last Ukrainian is dead. I give them $4 tips and their gratitude is off the charts because they know where else they could be at that moment. A compulsory draft might be a good thing for the spoiled socialist babies across the Atlantic. It'll at least get the marxist vampires out of the basement for the first time, and do a push up for the first time... there'll be a lot of firsts if they finally leave the basement but getting laid won't be one of them.
i do not think it's confined to anglo-america. the israelis, the chinese, the japansese, the saudis etc all have versions as well.
it seems to me to be the result of the emergence of well off upper middle classes and above. there seems to be a sort of wealth threshold where "johnny no longer had to run."
you do not see it in places like ukraine or the dominican republic because there is no safety net. you parents CAN'T carry you. but it's endemic on puerto rico where so many people are on public assistance. (this seems to be the other big factor. large amounts of "the dole" just gut incentives.)
i see it in lots of people in the US, but not in immigrants.
"...it's endemic on puerto rico where so many people are on public assistance. (this seems to be the other big factor. large amounts of "the dole" just gut incentives.)"
The 87k new IRA agents will be tasked to shake down taxpayers and provide UBI for YZ layabouts. Democrats are trying to ensure voters for life.
Or to offer free tax services to those that need it. I recall a gal working at a strip mall tax center telling me, one of her clients received over $30,000 in government assistance. (Edit: not disability). Evidently, paying taxes is required even if you don’t earn your $$?
Plenty of the people with a paycheck and the performative exercise called a job don't earn their $$ either, but yes, state benefits are taxable income.
I think it'll be nicely resolved with the long-term health impacts of the clot shot. You're gonna be out of excuses for reasons the kid with the weird hair who didn't sign-on to a war crime can't be given some responsibility.
They did a study in trendariffic New York where openly trans job applicants with the same resumes trained to answer interview questions the same way got one entry-level job offer for every six that ostensibly cis applicants did.
For morbid obesity (which we were pushing all the wrong treatments for for 100 years, despite having data showing mild calorie restriction does not work) that number's 2-1.
You are picking some talented kids last for dodgeball. The Graphene Oxide Death is going to force you to let them play a more-central role... and the vicious graspers? Well, they already got their jab too.
Interesting. Any idea on how openly trans people did on resisting the shots, as compared to others? What I've heard bruited is that they were some of the demographics most inclined to uptake.
Had an Interesting conversation a few years ago with an indigenous tour guide in a small African country. He was a very smart 30-something who had worked his way up from dishwasher to tour guide with a lot of responsibility. He lamented that the younger kids wanted to be “a director” straight out of school. So it’s everywhere.
Interesting you mention the DR. I did some work there a few years ago (in the actual country, not the resorts), and was amazed by the can-do attitude. Where Americans (Westerners) would give up and throw something out, the Dominicans would fix it. Not only that, but they would do it quickly, energetically, and while laughing and making jokes.
In addition, I was struck by the way that people there are poor, but not bitter. In the West, poverty is strongly associated with a simmering resentment that periodically boils over (especially when provoked by leftist agitators, as I e.g. BLM). In the DR, there was a completely different attitude.
I have saved an absurd amount of money over the years just by having the ability to take something apart and fix it. Doesn't matter if it's a recliner chair or a computer -- parts are available for nearly anything. I just spent $16 on a new cable assembly for a recliner on a sectional couch rather than replacing the whole thing. I just hate the ever-increasing trend of so many things being glued or welded shut to discourage fixing them.
Oh yes, religion means something different to them too. I'm Jewish, but I was extremely moved by the energy and devotion I saw during Christian church services. When you have nothing BUT faith, it becomes very real.
The first-world nations have drifted so far into the worship of false gods (e.g. "scientism") we've totally lost sight of what real faith looks like.
Lex, we all have nothing BUT faith: faith that our parents love us; faith that our teachers want us to learn; faith that miniscule amounts of CO2 are going to destroy the world... and - faith that being able to buy designer hamburgers and Gucci t-shirts is a good way to live.
You mentioned that you've saved 1000s by knowing drywalling and plumbing -- I've saved 1000s by avoiding doctors, dentists and Gucci.
That's true. but it's not just Ukrainians. there are social nets in eastern and central europe and it's not as bad here. The lingering stench of communism and reminders at the Sunday dinner table from elders ensures a minimum work ethic that isn't lost on zoomers or millennials.
I love the DR, but yeah ... Highest teen pregnancy in Latin America for how many years now? Also disappointing that the government forced 100% of hospitality workers to get COVID jabs.
The bad news is we went through a phase where if you didn't have a vax card, you couldn't get into stores, even grocery stores and clinics, without a PCR less than 3 days (cost: $85.)
The good news is the vaxxxes were not the mRNA type. The other good news was the PCR we got was in an unflattened .pdf so we could easily alter it. And did. Nobody even looked at it, but people were all mask preening.
That may be valid in some places, but in the DR, it has more to do with the remnants of a culture of child brides, and kids living in poverty with nothing to do and no access to, or education about, contraception.
Pretty sure if having children young becomes a less-rational decision, parents, who are putting more energy into the outcomes of each individual child will be dismantling that culture and giving that education... Correlation is not always causation.
Too large a middle class perhaps? Or bourgeoisie if you prefer.
Olden times, upper crust was a couple of percent of the population total, and the rest was divided into different trades and crafts and agriculture with related areas of labour, and the managerial or middle class(es) was typically not more than a few percent either.
Nowadays, from late 19th century, the (sub)urban middle class is the major class. Who was it wrote about the 2/3-society n the early 90s? Naomi Klein? As in 2/3s are on the "inside" of society, and 1/3 is perpetually outside for various reasons.
If our leaders, political as well as business, aren't very careful they risk recreating the economical and societal conditions which gave rise to marxism as a viable and credible alternative for the population.
Thank you, that's probably where I read it. And that book came out (checks online) 1992.
One could possible formulate a thesis around this: The more annointed and hallowed an econ/pol sci book is by existing establishment, the more rubbish its ideas are in real life.
Like how Bush Sr et al embraced the End of History hypothesis as an objective truth, while rejecting the Clash of Civilisations-school of thought as old-fashioned and outmoded.
Looking at the world and what's been going on since the turn of the millennium...
I agree with you. Immigrants still have the eye of the tiger. They come to America with the attitude that they will do whatever it takes to survive and succeed. Unfortunately, a couple generations of living in the land of the free, and they get lazy, entitled, and pathologically neurotic.
Set the bar for migration high and you'll get the best from the countries people are leaving, bleeding thse nations of talent and attitude and increasing the percentage of problem-people in the total.
Set the bar so low it's valley, as the EU has done for 25+ years now, and you instead get the dregs the home nations wants to be rid of.
That’s true in Calif. Very smart and capable. And crafty. Apply for all the subsidies and scholarships. Free/cheap college, food, medical, internet, cable, and phone. Paid under AND over the table so can get Fed aid / workers comp, etc. Vote any time. Half price housing. I’ve heard it all.
Might be a regional thing. Immigrants coming to the South with the intention of gaming the system are going to be disappointed with how that turns out.
Why should there be a universal cause or a universal solution? Israel is not the US is not Japan is not Britain, and that's before we go into the issue of multiple ehtnicities living in various nations - does the behaviour hold true across various ethnicities in one nation or does it vary would be worth checking for a budding sociologist.
Here in Sweden we of course have the problem described above, but to a much lesser degree (so far, knock on wood) and there's a definite ethnicity-factor, class-factor and regional geographic factor to it. Outside the big cities, outside the swedish liberal-progressive upper middle class it is virtually unknown, and it is also very uncommon among the non-european migrants, even in the third generation of such (they don't integrate or assimilate at all, hence third generation migrant rather than "swede of X origin").
Yeah, but they're not actually fighting a war, they're basically drafted to be the guards in the Stanford Prison Experience, but with extra war crimes.
1.) Does it disturb your conscience at all that being pro-conscription puts you in the company of Vladimir Putin?
2.) Is there any contradiction in supporting the draft and also supporting Ukrainian teens' avoidance of the draft?
3.) According to our bad cat, this is also a big problem in Israel, where there's a universal draft. What does that say about the draft as a solution to the problem?
Generally speaking, whenever the government forces the people to do something, it benefits the government, not the people.
I have friends from countries that requires mandatory service, and for the most part, training is a joke. They may jog and do a few pushups, but it's not like they're going in as Alfred E. Neumann and coming out as Chuck Norris.
Mandatory service should not automatically and/or exclusively be "military" service. I think we could probably make good use of another round of CCC right about now. Get them slacker young'uns up off the couch and out to work rebuilding all grades of failing infrastructure, planting new trees, clearing dead trees, farming (since we've got this looming food shortage), etc....
I'd be open to discussing that if it were run by the states. No way I trust the federal government to manage an army of teenagers doing public works projects.
Definitely - States or even Regional Economic Development Commissions, in some cases. The flatter and smaller the bureaucracy, the more likely they would actually get something meaningful done. I can say that with confidence, having worked in both the Federal & State Gov sectors for a while in the past. Would also be a useful exercise to pass on practical and much-needed trade craft type skills to the next generation, since they cancelled all the shop classes years ago, and over half the young folk today probably don't even know how to change a tire, let alone run a welder, a tractor or a chainsaw...
And then there are some kids who are out there putting it on the line. Making the world better in some small way. Why just yesterday I was transiting at Narita airport in Tokyo. I had passed immigration, very quick and I was just transiting, and was in security about to have my backpack checked. There were four lively young people in front of me. I thought ‘odd group’. They were clearly a group but it was as if there were no cues showing any kind of common social ground. Like they came from four parts of the world, four different socioeconomic classes etc. one small Asian woman, a half black man, a cute Scarlett Johannsen type, and a lanky college looking guy. Aha! I had it, I thought. They were all from a large denomination group but from four areas of North America on their way to doing some missionary work. I asked them where they were from. San Diego, New York, Calgary, and Florida. I asked what brings them together. ‘We all are working in Social Media’. I said ‘interesting I don’t think of those who work at social media as congregating and working together. Shows you what I know.’ Then I asked ‘which area of social media do you work in?’ A bit of a hesitation. Then one said ‘you want the truth, or a lie?’ Obviously I wanted the truth. ‘We are all porn stars’. Okay, the church part I had wrong. And some ‘missionary’ work would likely take place, but that wasn’t their focus. They were on their way to a location shoot. See...there are hard working young people out there!
True story, by the way. It cracked me up. We chatted for a bit. When I left I said ‘okay well you kids have fun, and try not to work too hard’. Which seemed wildly inappropriate on so many levels.
There are many pieces to this puzzle. Consider also that my generation is not merely (failing in) seeking the work, but the HR departments at such workplaces have inflated into a grotesque tumor and are increasingly run by that same demographic. Ironically, they are doing what Marx hated (Iron Law of Woke Projection) and pushing circlejerky ideology rather than contributing usefully.
Yes. My very large company seems to have moved from merit based to some other attribute for advancement. Seems to not matter how you perform but what you like like.
One point that tends to go unnoticed in these kinds of conversations is the issue of gender. Not fake gender, but actual differences in biological sex.
Girls of generation y and z are much more successful than boys. They work harder in school, get better grades, and have better academic and professional outcomes than their Y chromosome peers. They often exceed their mothers and grandmothers in achievement.
In contrast, boys in their teens and twenties are physically, mentally, and emotionally weaker than any other generational cohort before them.
I'm not sure we have so much of a generational problem as we have an emasculation problem.
When boys are demonized as "hyperactive" from the age of 2 and told to sit down, shut up, and eat this adderall so their parents and teachers can carry on ignoring them then this is what happens.
You know the major reason girls get better grades nowadays?
How we grade has change from hard metrics, to softer ones which places grater emphasis on social skills and emotional aptitude in which girls and women are much stronger.
Trubble with that approach is, if you want to build a bridge or hydroelectric dam with attending infrastructure, an essay in which the main focus is demonstrating your ability to communicate won't help.
Hard metrics - can you demonstrate the stress put on a 1" water pipe where 10^68L of water per minute is supposed to pass through or not? - are equal and fair. Metrics which emphasise the inborn stengths of either sex are not. Compare it with physical ed/gym: men are much much stronger. So let's say doing 3 pull ups with 25 kilo backpack nets an A for adult students. Most men can't do that, and almost zero women. So do we let the girls wear a lighter pack? Or do we judge and grade based on the teacher's arbitrary estimate of how hard the student applies themself?
Grading is much trickier and bothersome than teachers want to admit.
On the emasculation issue, you are so right it hurts. That was noted a century ago already: boys from rural areas/backgrounds or poor city areas were much more manly in their behaviour than the affluent upper-middle class bourgeoisie.
It's called evolution. Domesticate the wolf to the point it becomes a Bichon Frise, then let jackals and dingos into the enclosure. Guess what? The male toy dogs will die out, and the bitches will be mated with, no matter what they want.
I wonder if this is dietary, even if in part? Nearly everything has soy of some sort in it, which has estrogen. I have not done enough research into the subject and waded through the agendas of those involved to have an informed opinion.
Yes, but it's more than that. It's due to the soup of chemicals we all swim in, that can't be escaped anywhere on Earth. Which of them specifically is impossible to say though as we have almost no real data on their safety individually, let alone in possible synergistic action with each other.
Feminism has destroyed everything! (I'm a woman btw, so I can say such things. 😄) How much of all this would be different if couples married young and started families?
Way to go! Worth all the sacrifices! I'm 20 years a stay-at-home mom of 5, myself. Our oldest is 20 and 2 years launched already, so I can see the fruits of our efforts. Keeps me going! (The baby is 5, so I've got a while left to go!)
Women don't want to settle early. Promiscuity got released for women and they only want to settle with the best ones at the right time so most of the men are left behind.
Yeah, it's almost like a primary front in the culture war has been a concerted war on masculinity and these boys have just been internalizing the implicit and explicit messaging, incentives, and disincentives of the progressive death cult's long march. But that would be like some kind of conspiracy theory. These boys just need to "man-up" (gen-x), "pull themselves up by their bootstraps like I did" (Boomer), "sit down shut up and listen" (millennial), or "use my pronoun you bigot!" (gen z).
Your manual labor could start by throwing the copier out the window and then going to beat the shit out of it with a baseball bat...:)
Sounds better than this:
"You know what, Stan, if you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, like your pretty boy over there, Brian, why don't you just make the minimum 37 pieces of flair?"
In any given day, I’d say I get about a solid 1.5 hours of work in. Just enough not to get fired. What would you say….you DO here? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE! I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS DAMMIT!!!!!
I've encouraged my son to learn a trade. (He's 12.)
I'm encouraging my daughter to earn a degree in marketing. Second choice: carpenter. Third choice: private pilot. (She wants to be a ballerina in a company, but thinks she'd like to be a private pilot too.)
Good man, Jordan Peterson. The fact that he's slandered as some kind of misogynistic right-wing zealot is just another example of how far the lefties are divorced from reality.
Lex, girls outpace boys in "achievement", not in achievement. Pushing paper around in an office to earn fiat currency isn't achievement. To give a concrete example -- can you (and I'm not trying to pick on you) show me a *bunch* of all-female bands that are as innovative as Led Zeplin or Pink Floyd? And yet -- women make fantastic classical musicians.
The issue here is that it's impossible to masculinize women, ie giving them camaraderie and curiousity... but it sure is possible to feminize men.
Interesting perspective, Shiyen. I don't necessarily disagree with your premise, but I would not classify camaraderie and curiosity as masculine traits. Interpersonal connection (what between men is called camaraderie) is generally considered a strong feminine attribute, and curiosity is more associated with the "big five" trait of Openness, which has great variation in both genders.
I don't think the rock band question is fair, because there just haven't been that many all-female bands. However, there have been a lot of innovative female artists in popular music. Just to name a few: Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Cher, Joan Jett, Madonna, Annie Lennox ... More recently, we've had Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, and less well-known but highly innovative singer-songwriters like Melody Gardot and Natalia Clavier.
More women at the table and less denial of the differences - both are "gifted" in certain generalized areas.
I'll never be as good of a "mother" for my children as my wife. My wife will never be as good as I am "protecting" my family.
We should embrace that.
As far as musicians; I guess it depends on taste.
The power of a man's performance is lung capacity, sheer masculinity and stamina. Whether or not females will admit it; the vast majority like masculinity - and so do men.
So I do think there's more crossover for women in their proclivities for male performers vs. Males and their preference for female performers.
Ryan, I think you hit the nail on the head. I work with several 20-something women, whom I would consider to be culturally mainstream. They support the current things politically, but in their personal lives, they have nothing but contempt for feminized men.
I have blamed the parents for decades. It’s been horrifying to watch some of my peers. Homeschooling prevents a lot of this. Travel. Letting them fail, telling them they will have ramen noodles and not a bMW when they graduate. Telling them “we’re not the Cosby’s” and when you leave you’re gone. Letting them get hurt (physically and emotionally) by life. Setting boundaries and consequences and sticking to them. Letting them do things that scare you as a parent (hunting, semester abroad, etc). But not showing them your fear so they try things. My adult kids are all either employed or self employed and are great at working. They all got jobs as soon as they were of age, had to pay for their own stuff once they did, did their own laundry from 12, had broken bones and stitches and groundings and failures. They’re great kids
Vaccines, glyphosate, high fructose corn syrup, soy, antibiotics, the education system, and media have destroyed their bodies and minds. It’s actually not their fault. Pray for us all. It will not end well.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that economic factors play a large role in people's work habits.
Wages in the past have been stagnant (this may be changing now that employers are finally waking up). In the meantime real estate prices have skyrocketed and the investment markets have been .. volatile in a way that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Social security is a farce, that's been true for at least 20 years.
We see changes in people's careers now, it's no longer advantageous to stay with the same company. In order to get maximum gains one must change jobs around every 3-5 years. If you're not married to your workplace, and you feel like it's just a stepping stone, how invested are you going to be in it?
On the flip side of that, people who have been at their job for over 5 years and are no longer seeing a return for their work are going to slowly be less willing to put forward their best effort. If your raise is the same whether you put in 100 or 50 percent effort, then why would you put in 100?
You always see these claims that employers are having trouble hiring and/or they have to do this or that. What are these employers doing to retain the talent they already have? Just anecdotally I have a coworker who got a 40k a year raise by quitting our company and making a lateral move to another employer. He was one of our best employees, had been there for 20 years and is now gone because the company was unwilling to give him raises commensurate with market rate. Now think of that, it's a 40k a year raise, not some insignificant number, which shows how out of touch some employers are. Had he stayed at this workplace and was being paid so far below market would you blame him for not putting forth his best effort?
Or, they take someone who has been at a company for decades, is one of their better performers, and give them the boot so they can hire someone younger at less pay. Yah, yah, I know, "age discrimination is illegal". But it happens. A lot. And you can't prove it or fight it. Don't think younger people aren't watching and listening? Don't think THEY don't see what is happening? And then companies piss and moan about "there's no employee loyalty these days."
Yeah, that's sort of what happened above, although my coworker didn't get the boot, they just stopped giving him raises or would only bump like 1200 a year in salary. They'll replace him with someone fresh out of college for less money, but he's one of the best we had, so the cost saving benefits are dubious when you factor in loss of productivity + training and on onboarding costs.
Just to add on this, I think it's predatory behavior by employers. They know most people don't want to job hunt because it's very stressful. So they bank on the fact that most people will not leave, and they put the excess savings into hiring so that they can fill the gaps when it does happen.
The obvious advice is "just find another job" but beyond the fact that it is not always practical for everyone, not everyone is psychologically equipped to do that (job hunting after being employed some where for 10+ years). Employers know that.
My old neighbor, stronk independent woman single mom living off her inheritance and occasional child support from her layabout yoga teacher baby daddy, was giddy one day as she bragged of teaching her 3 y/o son and 4 y/o cousin to say "down with the patriarchy!" on camera to then post to her instawhateverthefuck page. She was telling me this as I was winterizing her sprinkler system because the 100k free videos on youtube were out of her stronk independent reach. While I am guilty of such end-of-empire brass polishing on the titanic enabling, I do so out of pure momentum of the residual social contract, which was the only thing I inherited from my dad when cancer took him from me a long time ago. Helping neighbors is just the right thing to do and all that.
Now we are in that phase where we clutch pearls and ask how we got here, while pretending that the answer is deep in some philosophy that has never before been encountered across all of human history because we must only bleed chickens and rub bones and not gore those sacred cows in one stroke. How did for no reason at all suddenly a man decide one day to put on a womens speedo and ruin all that great progress?
Strangle masculinity in the cradle and cue the angst about males not becoming men to make all the nice (and dirty) things work in the world. We are going to finally get the utopia that is the end of "the patriarchy" and we are gonna get it good and hard.
I also think the Great Recession had a major negative psychological impact on these generations view of work. When the people that caused it all get compensated instead of punished it is a disincentive to participate productively in an unjust society.
Here in UK/Europe we are ahead of the USA with the notion that others should provide what you don’t provide for yourself and other people’s money is for your use. This has been taught to populations by the socialistic ideology that pervades Europe since WWII. We have shifted from self-dependency to dependency on the Collective via the State. In my childhood, once you hit age 15, for most kids it was get a job or get out of the house. Parents couldn’t/wouldn’t support work capable children. Additionally, at the time unemployment payment was not only minimal, but not available until after you had made sufficient National Insurance contributions, which you could only do if you worked. It was a matter of shame not to work. That started to change as we went into the 1970s, parents got wealthier so could support teens who stayed on at school, being unemployed was not your fault, school-leaving age was raised to 16 with an expectation of further education and university for everyone, unemployment benefit became universally available. Leave school at 16, go on welfare. (Now UK school-leaving age is 18 - it makes youth unemployment figures... zero... look good.) The solution? Stop all welfare.
You know what raises the ire for someone who's studied ideologies?
That there's nothing in actual marxism, communism, socialism, fascism - be they nationalistic or gloablist - about /not/ working.
"Sharing the wealth" and so on by the workers owning and controllong the means of production and have rational need-based production and so on, lots of it and not only from Engels and Marx - but /not working/ under text-book definitions of any marxist ideology (or any version tried) only means you get assigned a task and if you don't perform it's off to camp.
This isn't marxism as such, it's Star Trek-fantasy world.
‘Needs-based production’… and there is nothing in these ideologies about not just having needs but also wishes and desires, which is unique to the Human condition. Animals can meet their needs. Needs-based production for Humans is called farming which is what we had for thousands of years until along came the Industrial Revolution in which the sole purpose of production was to meet wishes and desires. This is why the -isms fail. Central planning and control of production to meet everyones needs (water, food, shelter) is possible on a small, local scale although there still is the problem of lack of incentives and some will do less work than others. Scaled up it is impossible which is why people starve. But the real clincher is meeting everyone’s wishes and desires. How can a central authority know what these are, much less be able to plan and control production to meet an exhaustive variety.? So this is where control comes in. Those in charge decide for you what your wishes and desires are, what you may and may not have. And isn’t that just what is happening to us now? We keep being told we have too much choice and this wastes resources, we eat too much, use too much electricity, travel too much, etc. Control our needs, control our choices, control us.
Yeah, I used to annoy reddish friends who were into the idea of centrally plannd production of essentials and necessities by asking:
"So, tell me how much loo paper the city needs per year."
What they didn't understand is that for it to be enough, you have to produce surplus since you never can calculate how much will be used.
And if we can't calculate something dead simple like the amount of loo paper a city of 300 000 needs per year, how in afterlife-of-your-choice are we going to calculate more complex things like how many obstetricians we need in 15 years time and such.
It' the whole modernist/futurist folly of the decades right around the year 1900 all over again.
Indeed! I had a great advantage in teaching economics in that I worked in supply chain for about a decade beforehand. Managing stocks to have inventory on hand means having extra all the time. On top of that, there are over 350,000 unique stock keeping items (SKUs, or individual products) as of 2000 or so. Inventory and production needs to be planned for each and everyone one of those, and no one calls you ahead of time to let you know they intend to have the runs this weekend and expect to use a lot more TP and maybe some stomach meds, but goddamnit, it had better be there on the shelf when they want to buy it!
Companies struggle to properly plan and manage production and inventory for just the handful of products they produce, and if they are really bad at it they go under. How could you possibly try to do that within the government, and who do you fire when it fails?
I don't necessarily disagree with any of this. However, the root cause analysis could probe a bit deeper. Boomers, etc are not without a hefty share of the blame. If your kid turns out to be a worthless leech, the parent is largely responsible for that. We could sit here and make all sorts of negative generalizations about boomers and every other generation too. As far as I'm aware, millenials and younger generations haven't acquired a ton of power (yet) to enable their destruction of society. Boomers, Gen x, silent generation, etc haven't exactly knocked it out of the park here. For evidence, look at the growth of the federal government and the surveillance state over the past 50 years. Having said all that, the acquiescence of today's young people to things like covid mandates has been very disheartening. I wasn't around back then, but the young people of the 60s/70s seemed to have a refreshing sense of anti-authority.
Yes, boomers REFUSING to give up the reigns until their literal dying breaths is a big part of this problem. Shoot, you see that even in government! We've got a bunch of octogenarians still running for everything! The Rolling Stones can't even say enough is enough. (Talking Bout My Generation)
Eh, doesn’t every generation complain that younger generations are lazy? I feel more and more disconnection from what motivates younger generations, but I sure remember Joe my generation was nicknamed the slacker generation.
If there is a labor problem right now, I think it is an outcome of Covid policies. Society was shown that governments would arbitrarily decide to suspend your ability to work and destroy your business. Meanwhile, many other people were told to go home and literally phone it in. Then, everybody was told that doing a job would get you killed. Oh, you can also make more money by not working. I think the whole thing broke a lot of people.
Except in rural areas. Many where I live basically said "screw that". Local police coached the renegade barber to open early. "you can't be in town unless you are renovating" so he put brown paper over windows and a sign saying "make an appointment to check out our renovations".
I think everybody was scarred by the pandemic response. Middle aged people may be able to try to forgive and forget. The younger generations and school kids have probably been fully conditioned to the “new normal”. I just think that is a bigger issue than the fact that kids have been given the wrong incentives to condition them to want to succeed at producing tangible results. Even the kids that weren’t indoctrinated to be cy-boys have just been shown that all of their effort can be demolished by the whims of the government.
I guess I experienced a little of it the first year of the pandemic scam when people said I was crazy, but I knew I wasn't. And that I'd just have to watch everyone learn how their intellectual laziness would eventually come home to roost for them.
I employ over 300 millennials and GenZer's.
Gato's generalizations are spot on.
It took me 10 years to figure out how and who to hire.
It boils down to one question for me:
Tell me about a time when you broke a bone or had stitches.
My husband and I often wonder what kinds of stories these younger generations will have. While we and my parents tell stories that start like “well this one time I bought a moped...”
I fear all this new generation will have to tell stories about will be “this one time on tiktok..”
It makes me sad, my dads stories are especially hilarious, an entire generation is missing out on real life
Or Heavens to Murgatroyd we rode bikes without helmets !!
We played gladiators on a giant dirt hill in the woods on the other side of a creek and basically tried to pull each other off so they’d tumble down and fall in the creek. How no one broke anything doing that I’ll never know 😂 but I’ve had broken bones and stitches otherwise!!
at 5 yrs old, I went outside as soon as the sun came up... played with Polly & Freddie til my mom made me come in, eat breakfast, & get dressed. ran back out to play til lunch, then back out til dinner. Mom would go play bridge or golf or go to the grocery store & leave me home playing. we climbed trees, shot each other with our homemade rubber band guns, shot at birds & squirrels with our slingshots, played ball, tag, marbles, jacks, hopscotch, rode trikes, then bikes all over, watched bugs, spiders & lizards, played in the sprinkler & the mud, washed the dogs in the mud, tried to dig to China, went to the corner store for penny candy (alone)... made button necklaces & sold them to moms for a penny. built forts, dug holes, nailed boards on the back of the shed (got a whipping for that!) painted the fence (got another whipping!) when my big brother got out of school, he & his friends played war with us hitting us with dirt clods or acorns & we made huge piles of "ammo" & tried to ambush them first. we were the original free range kids. and so were my kids.... but the grandkids? nope, cps would have them arrested if they found a 5 year old outside by themselves.
right and I bet plenty of us have even eaten dirt!
oh yes, mud pies!
Sounds as if you pretty much had that perfect childhood!!
Well I do prefer to focus on the fun parts. When I was 10 older brother by 6 years developed cancer and this was back in late 1960s. Since they had no idea how much radiation to give him they gave him too much and burned all his organs. Gave him 6 months to live. He lived till he was 58. But again you have to face adversity to understand how to get through it.
We played in quarries and sand pits until someone would see us.... (now they are all fenced off- darn!)
We used to ride our bicycles into building sites and make ramps out of a pile of bricks and a scaffolding plank.
We WERE Evel Knievel !!
Pah, Evel wore a helmet and gloves . . . sissy.
Found a golf club once with cousin. Playing and I didn't move far enough got hit in the eyebrow. ER only 8 stitches!
I did this with a croquet mallet!
Yes.. I was 5 years old and was standing too close to my neighbor/ friend.
Looking back - the sad thing is my friend's parents blamed him, and they beat the sh** out of him (he was probably a whopping 6 years old). I was equally (if not more) at fault. But I always think of that - how different parents are today.
We played "Kill the carrier". You had say 5 kids, not enough for a reasonable football game so you threw the ball out into a big yard, whoever got it tried to run as long as he could. There were no goal lines or end zones. And the other kids all tried to bring that one down. Hard.
We didn't call it that.
We loved alliteration.
We played bottlerocket wars
Same here. Also from 12-16 my best friend and I would get dropped off at sunrise out in the countryside with our shotguns and hunt til sunset. Sometimes we had to walk along country roads for a little bit to get to the next field and cars passing us, yes even police cars. Never once were we stopped or even asked what we were doing. It was to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times.
You would love the Ted talk Sons of Sputnik by Kary Mullis describing a well spent childhood blowing things up
Thanks!
I remember those days!!! Damn that was fun! We used the empty beer bottles or cans that we finished off! BUUURRP!
yes, my father.... omg
He was a POW, taken up in a razzia in Rotterdam.
He found the whole thing an adventure.
They were on a train (a bunch of POWS) being moved to a differnt location
One kid jumped out, grabbed a bunch of boxes of Christmas gifts for nazi soldiers.
They opened the boxes and ate all of the cookies and threw the boxes out of the windows.
He has many many other wild stories
> It makes me sad, my dads stories are especially hilarious, an entire generation is missing out on real life
I'm proofreading my father's memoirs. There are more than a few similarities between his life and mine, a fair bit of which is probably from both of us having grown up as Air Force brats who got to spend some time overseas courtesy of Uncle Sam.
That said, there are still some things he got away with growing up in the 50s and 60s that were already off the table as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Likewise, there are things I did (such as walking to school by myself, starting in kindergarten) that would probably get today's parents a visit from CPS if discovered. It's like the window of allowable behavior has inexorably ratcheted ever closer to "closed."
Glad my kids are grown AND not falling for the Vax BS!!
Agree. I think that's why many of them can't "see" the "colors" of life.
“So anyway, we all were over at Jimmy’s and it turns out his MOM HAD RUN OUT OF AVOCADOS!! No avocado toast!! Jimmy lived....”. ....after the story....”that was funny Uncle Ted. Was that when you were a teen?” Childless Ted says “That was last year.”
I don't want to protect this generation at all but: "I wanted to buy a moped: the price was too high also buying it requires a complicated paperwork, I couldn't get the licence to drive it due to regulations etcetc."
When I go to Asia 10 years old kids are driving mopeds because it is available for peanuts. No one cares who drives it. So there's that...
Never broke a bone or had stitches, but when I was 13, I awoke to my mom screaming because my dad was beating her up. I chased him out of the house by pointing his shotgun at him. Would that qualify, lol?
I've been in business for 30 years, sometimes living large, sometimes not so much. But I survived because I had to. So I look for "because I had to" stories in prospective employees. I think we're on the same wavelength; overcoming adversity. No adversity, nothing to overcome, your mettle never tested.
Yes. Exactly.
I too share an almost identical childhood experience. Truly awful.
The question I use is a conversation starter. There are plenty of people who did stupid shit that resulted in a broken bone and/or stitches.
The overall question is to get a sense of how someone calculates risk and what motivates them to take it - and how did that experience(s) inform them of calculating risk/benefit going forward.
I'm not sure who said this but I once heard, "If you're not handsome in your 20s, strong in your 30s, rich in your 40s, or wise in your 50s, you'll never be handsome, strong, rich, or wise." I'm guessing you're in your early 50s, or precociously wise in your late 40s.
Most childhood risks come with huge downsides and little to no upside, except the huge upside of learning from failure and mistakes. Childish motivations, like looking cool to your friends, impressing a girl with your bravery, or just the thrill of flying, never worrying about the landing. But the hard landings are what inform and mature us. I'm glad you survived and learned from your landings. And don't run crying to your mom, but I'm stealing your interview question. 😂😂😂
51!
You're the best Don!
Nah. Just trying to spread peace, love, and understanding. Have a good one.
I had a similar experience except I ran to the neighbors (who called the police - who actually came). This haunts me to this day and by God I’ll never run from adversity again.
Well, don't be too hard on yourself. I wasn't as brave as it sounds. My dad was an alcoholic and we were dirt poor. We didn't have a phone or I'm sure I would have done what you did. As it was, I was trembling, fighting back tears, and I actually wet myself.
And thank God I didn't have to pull the trigger! Don't think I could have. My dad turned to me and said, "You're not my son anymore." And left. I hear he's still around, somewhere in Florida.
The most effective heros are those most reluctant... You'd have been fine. Some take to it naturally. I thank you on your mother's behalf.
Kind words. Thank you.
Omg! Same here. My mom dealt with domestic violence. Giving and receiving. Gulp.
It's a sad thing. All I can say is do your best to break the chain because it tends to get passed down.
I broke the chain from my abusive childhood, got married at 21 had 2girls soon after. I taught them responsibility at a very young age, they got baby sitter jobs at 12 so they could buy stuff they wanted. They worked thru high-school and college. Both turned out well rounded independent responsible adults married with children! NOW IT'S REALLY MY GRANDKIDS I'M WORRIED ABOUT! They all play sports, but it's the electronics and the internet I'm worried about, not to mention the indoctrination!
Congratulations on breaking the chain, Porge. That is huge, and so important. If there is any way you can encourage your kids to either homeschool your grands, or be very particular in choosing a school, you might want to do that.
We're raising our grandchild, and we have only had her in public school for one year, and she lost a lot of learning in that year (especially arithmetic). It was 1st grade, and they were already indoctrinating, and belittling the paler children. We took her out after one year. In retrospect, I wish I had taken her out after one week!
Thankfully, we can manage tuition at one of the lower-priced Catholic schools, which happily is teaching from the "Classic Liberalism" tradition (not political liberal, by any means!). They focus on academics + virtues (and no, 'equity' is not one of them).
It's sooo important to check out the philosophy of a district/school. We wouldn't put our grandkiddo in our rural/farm public schools because a self-avowedly 'privileged' person is the superintendent. The CRT (whether by that name or another) philosophy people are now making inroads into conservative rural areas.
People really need to start becoming educated as to the positions of local candidates for school board, council, etc, because they are doing a lot of damage to our children and communities when the progs get into positions of local power.
Thanks Perplexity, both my daughters in tune with what's going on out there. Neither one jabbed,my oldest 42 got covid early on before the jabs were ready so she never got jabbed even though she tends to be a little on liberal side ( college u of llinois) but switched her kids to catholic school last year ( boys 2nd and 4th grade. Younger daughter 40, now home school part time and church group home 2days a wonderful. Boy 5 girl 7 no mask ever for them. I pick them up from church on Thursdays. So far so good 👍
Good name: “progs”
Have to develop that "grit"!
And not the BS adversity described in DEI programs.
I'd be afraid to hire you!!
Lol, I've had to fire some guys that have threatened to cause me bodily harm if I did. Wasn't easy! I'm a teddy bear though.
Cool. You need IT people? Gen X. Broke my leg twice and my wrist once. 😹
I have been a primary caregiver for a severely disabled child and a frequent one for aging parents for most of the past six years. I'm working on getting back up to snuff with tech skills currently in demand and moving to an area with better access to high-paying jobs so I can begin working outside the home, again. Starting from Ground Zero. Ugh. I have 20+ years in various IT roles and I'll be an entry-level developer or data analyst. Oh, well. Bring it!
It's time for my Millennial sibling to step up for a while on the parent situation.
My collegiate son needs to do more adulting than just attending college. I certainly did at his age. I worked at least 10 hours a week during college for my incidentals. I worked full-time over breaks toward college tuition. My son doesn't, and some of that is on me. He's never held a paying job! We were overindulgent because of what he had to put up with with his severely disabled sister in the house. I often facilitated a lot of his stuff, too, because it was quicker and easier than fighting him on doing any little thing when I was already dealing with his sister. I should have let him fail early and often, at many things.
He does have ADD and a couple LDs. But I had ADD and not one single person gave/gives a shit. I had to figure it out and get things done.
Sometimes caregiving is enabling, even with one's parents. My stepfather should really be in assisted living, for example. But he's going to be a pill/borderline abusive about it, while further actively impairing his health & independence. Me being around all the time had allowed them to not face that decision. Time for some boundaries, because - yes - people will just expect you to be there and pick up all the pieces they don't want to deal with/decisions they don't want to make.
And I think that is the problem with the younger generations who come from some level of socioeconomic comfort: They've never dealt with fallout. They've never had to make hard decisions. They've never flown without a net beneath them, and they are really comfortable with using that net. They feel entitled to that net. I've heard younger people on Twitter say that you shouldn't have kids if you aren't going to care for them for life. THAT ISN'T THE DEAL WE GREW UP WITH! Kids were expected to become adults at some point, barring severe disability. Kids were even expected to help their parents some day. Can you imagine!?!
The funny thing is that I always had a net. My parents would never have let me be homeless. I just had that shame about using it when I really didn't have to. You're supposed to take care of yourself as an adult. You're supposed to do work you hate, if that's what you can get that pays your bills. You don't quit until you have another job. You're supposed to not buy things you can't afford. You're supposed to work hard, get along, and continue trading up in title, responsibilities, skills, and salary. You're supposed to do all that and still be a wife, mother, sibling, and friend.
So many of the affluent of younger generations consider a lot of that "abuse." They think you shouldn't have to do work you don't love. They think work should accommodate their personal life more than we used to. (To some extent, that's true. But you still have to get the job done.) They cancel relationships at the drop of a hat, when some microaggression is committed. Relationships are work, too. Love isn't enough. But I'm beginning to wonder if we've broken the younger generations' ability to love. Love is what makes you do the work, rather than treating your partner as disposable. If most of your relationships are on-line, you can drop them like a TV show that's jumped the shark.
Well said, Lara. You speak for me, too.
It's a shame you, and all the millions of other americans like you, are too busy creating wealth to also run for office.
Not kidding at all.
Real people with real experience.
We need to get more people on these Stacks' who "write checks".
I personally think we make more of an impact that way vs. running for office.
Although both would be good.
There's elections every 2yrs RG! LOL! 🤔
ive never broken a bone cos my bones are strong, and i didnt get stitches, i used superglue!
Superglue is great. I never buy or use precut band-aids. My travel/cycling med kit has superglue for small cuts, and then it is straight to 1" cloth medical tape if it's too big for superglue to fix. Most people think I'm weird, maybe partly because the only other thing I habitually ride with is Benadryl (bees, poison ivy, etc. are a bit miserable without an antihistamine right away.).
Do you find things heal better with just the medical tape? I react to a lot of band-aids. I have scars around a biopsy that are from the band-aids, not the biopsy.
Hy tape usually works pretty well on me.
I find band aids to be kind of small and fragile, skin reaction isn't an issue for me. Band-aids catch on things and fall off, and leak if you have real bleeder. With a bit of gauze (or napkin, paper towel, corner of your kerchief, etc. (not kleenex tissue - fibers get in the wound)) a good wrap of med tape allows you to carry on with your activities, and you can customize it to any size or placement. I also keep it on hand so I can wrap my wrist (with a plate and 9 screws holding it together) for sports - the inch wide is like a cast if you do a few windings. Good stuff! I usually end up with whatever cloth-type me tape the store has on hand, not sure about Hy Tape in particular but it looks like good stuff. I may use it without knowing the brand sometimes.
I use superglue when my fingertips crack and bleed in the wintertime.
Us old farts are just made of sterner stuff.
take MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) with vitamin c to improve your skin, will make it as soft as a kitten.
Great tip. Thanks.
I'm all for toughness and grit, but sometimes suffering is needless. 1. Use rubber gloves for chores, always. 2. Use mittens, not gloves, for warmth. 3. Use hand cream after every single time you wash your hands or shower. 4. Have hand cream beside every sink, in your car if you drive, in every purse/bag, at your desk, everywhere. Use it all the time.
i would disagree with this, hand creams usually have massive ingredient lists, anything you put on your skin ends up in your blood stream, it not good for the liver to have to deal with this vast list of chemicals
I use coconut oil ...for hands or lips. I don't moisturize after hand washing as much as I should.
Kittens? I dunno...I do kinda like the thought if ' murder mittens ' 🤔
I am all for options and whatever works for you....except cracked bleeding stinging fingers (if avoidable).
I'm a little late to this post, I was 21 when I opened my first auto repair shop. One thing I found out was very few employees care about my business. Maybe 1out of 5 hires . Most of my techs were alcoholics and or druggies . They never lasted bc the job just wasn't that important to them. Then I started looking for guys with families. That worked out pretty good but then it was too expensive to give them health insurance. Anyway after 25yrs in the business I shut it down and started my own handyman business. NO EMPLOYEES , PROBLEM SOLVED!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of the games we used to play in my childhood was kick ball in the circle 1 street behind me. We used old license plates for bases. One time running to first I slipped on the plate , fell and broke my arm on the curb.
No one sued anyone, but we kids started finding other things to use for bases after that...
Better times imo.
To become the "neighborhood legend", you had to be able to calculate risk.
Taking into account the "worst case scenario" is what separates the smart risk takers from the idiots who can't think through net negative/positive scenarios. Some of those kids didn't take into account that you're not much of a legend if your dead or maimed.
My risk threshold (for the greatest of "double dog dares") was; could this result in a broken leg? That was a no go for me.
I heard of a survey study where Gen Zers said, by a wide margin, that they would rather have their hand broken on purpose than lose their phone on accident.
The era of constant distraction, mindless entertainment, and lack of boredom by removing yourself from the world produces some frightening choices for life trade offs indeed
well said!
Wow. That tells you everything you need to know.
The irony is that they probably didn't even question to what extent the hand was broken.
Secondarily, they didn't even think that most of the data on a cell phone is cloud based.
Nimrods.
I honestly think a lot of them would consider recovering their data an impossible hardship to surmount. They wouldn't know where to start and I find that paralyzes many younger folks. Even in this age of Google. Google is this generation's "We have a dictionary. Look it up (you lazy, little crotch goblin)." Except now you can do it for everything.
"Google, let's play a game. How about global thermonuclear war?"
I'm more of a "Start wherever" type. If you chose poorly, you'll learn and get there eventually. The starting is the hard part.
Exactly! in the “good old days” you had to “wonder” about things for which there were no answers. And then make a decision anyway. The younger set can’t boil water without a wiki-how video and reading 100 reviews for the teapot.
Exactly. Imagination has been destroyed.
Gosh Lara. Exactly!
You sound just like me.
I'm keeping this comment. True and funny.
You would love my wife. From the sound of it you guys are simpatico.
That may be the dumbest thing I have ever read.
They only say that, because they have never broken their hands or prpbably any other bone. I used to box a little bit, my hands are super strong and kinda destroyed. Arthritis, disfigured, lack of complete nerve control, and they'd give up good hands for a piece of replaceable plastic? We are screwed as a society. And we did it to ourselves.
If you think leading them is bad try working for one.
“Reeeeeeeeee I’m saying all the magic words why isn’t it workinnnnnnnnnnng?”
“Because everyone sees you’re full of shit?”
“Reeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!”
Anyway, to answer your question, as a child I took a baseball bat to the face once. After the initial shock wore off, I calmly followed my mother’s direction.
We went to the hospital. I got stitches. Went home. That was that.
Got a gnarly scar out of it. Kinda proud, tbh.
Proud of all the scars on my chin from hitting it on the slippery edge of the public pool, one on my ankle from stepping on a nail, stitches going barefoot at a house being built next to us...the list goes on and on. :-) Those things are medals as we get older....I got my sister while playing darts once. In the arm. Maybe it was an accident.....
I can show you my scars from when I should have had stitches but we never had money for luxuries like emergency rooms! Lol.
I told my parents for a week that I broke my arm. They kept telling me let's see how it is the next day.
The real reason they wanted to wait is they were "hoping" it wasn't broke because we couldn't afford medical care.
I even played 4 games of baseball with it, before my mother said; alright time to go to doctor.
Ended up in a cast for 8 weeks.
But I wouldn't change it cuz it's been good life lesson...and we won the city championship for baseball that year.
Love for baseball was stronger than the pain!..;]
I continued to play basketball with a broken finger as if it had never happened (and now it's permanently crooked), and hockey, well, you play through everything :)
That happened to my eldest brother too, Ray. He fell out of a tree, and it took him a week to convince my mom that it was broken. lol
Second grade (6 or 7?) I hit a bully in the face with my Walt Disney school bus lunch box. I broke his nose. I've broken a number of bones but I can't remember the first, too damn old I am.
Ouch! I remember whacking some big bully on the head with my algebra book. He squirted me with mustard! I feel kinda bad about it now.
Don't feel too bad, Ver, for all you know, that could well be the closest his brain ever got to comprehending algebra.
For one day, he was Mighty, not Mickey, Mouse!
I loved Mighty Mouse when I was growing up!
When I was a kid, 8mm film was the standard for "video" and my dad had a Mighty Mouse reel in the inventory with our home movies. Sometimes when he took the projector out to show some home movies, he'd show in the MM movie without telling us and we kids were thrilled when it would start!
Just brought back more memories!! Thankyou!
Love the lunch box punch! Those old metal ones were sure useful!!
The broken arm and the stitches were badges of honor!
When I think of the things we did as kids and I know if my mom knew what we did, she’d have killed us right then and there to get it over with. But we all survived.
My mom told me she "always knew where we were and what we were doing..." okay, mom. pffft
mine didn't want to know and didn't try to. our job was to be home in time for dinner. we ran absolutely wild
in 50's 3 small children allowed to ride on tailgate of family station wagon, the toddler in the middle. great time to grow up
I would love a photo of that! :-)
51 yr old Gen X'er here (and I work in IT).
Broke my arm in San Felipe, Mexico. I was on a knee board in the water being towed by a 3-wheeler (on the beach). A dune buggy pulling a water skier was coming from the other way. I did what I saw others do...go up onto the sand, around the dune buggy, and back into the water.
Yea...didnt work out so well when I hit a bump and when flying.
hospitals are scary in Mexico- I stepped on a sting-ray once when there and the "Doctor" was about 15. Uh, no. Drank a lot of beer- foot fixed!
Funny you should be talking about broken bones. I visited a PA recently for a wellness check at the doctor’s office. (doctors dropping patients they haven’t seen in three years). My three years were up for this particular GP office so I went in. Came out with instructions to go get a bone scan. I’m at that age and it wouldn’t be the first. I told husband I’m not doing it. He said, “why?” Because, when I was younger and I fractured my ankle and my wrist the doctors didn’t ask for a bone scan. I jumped out a first floor window to avoid a perceived truant officer. I later fractured my wrist by speed skiing down a bunny slope crashing or falling one too many times. So my husband says, “get the bone scan”. Nope.
Regarding gen x. My husband is very practical with his kids. He says “no” a lot. Like when you get a call at 12 am because of dui. He says, “that’s too bad, try to stay warm I know how cold those cells are.”
LOLOLOL
My thing with these medical tests is: am I going to do whatever treatment they recommend? The pills or surgery or whatever? For some condition I didn’t know I had? Probably not. So why aggravate everyone? Lol
Bone scan (DEXA) depend on age and sex and genes. After multiple vertebral breaks, I got the scan. So far the fancy drug has stopped that. Still getting 3" shorter hasn't been fun. I was warned that a bad fall, broken hip might lead to a permanent wheelchair, please no.
Sounds like you're doing well to me ROI!
Interesting observation. I have two steps sons in the mid/late 20s. Both played sports; the elder has broken bones, while the younger had concussions. Both are self supporting; the younger one has a child and one on the way. They don't want to live in anyone's basement.
This is definitely an anglo-american thing, like the chem castration fads, 72 genders, and woke destroyers and race marxism or other satanic fixations of failing empires. There are Ukrainian teenagers who escaped the cocaine poison dwarf's mandatory call of duty, now hustling food on bicycles here in Poland for $2-$4 per hour happy not to be stuck in the Empire of Lies' Nazi military meat grinder that can only end with Nuclear war or until the last Ukrainian is dead. I give them $4 tips and their gratitude is off the charts because they know where else they could be at that moment. A compulsory draft might be a good thing for the spoiled socialist babies across the Atlantic. It'll at least get the marxist vampires out of the basement for the first time, and do a push up for the first time... there'll be a lot of firsts if they finally leave the basement but getting laid won't be one of them.
i do not think it's confined to anglo-america. the israelis, the chinese, the japansese, the saudis etc all have versions as well.
it seems to me to be the result of the emergence of well off upper middle classes and above. there seems to be a sort of wealth threshold where "johnny no longer had to run."
you do not see it in places like ukraine or the dominican republic because there is no safety net. you parents CAN'T carry you. but it's endemic on puerto rico where so many people are on public assistance. (this seems to be the other big factor. large amounts of "the dole" just gut incentives.)
i see it in lots of people in the US, but not in immigrants.
"...it's endemic on puerto rico where so many people are on public assistance. (this seems to be the other big factor. large amounts of "the dole" just gut incentives.)"
The 87k new IRA agents will be tasked to shake down taxpayers and provide UBI for YZ layabouts. Democrats are trying to ensure voters for life.
Exactly
Or to offer free tax services to those that need it. I recall a gal working at a strip mall tax center telling me, one of her clients received over $30,000 in government assistance. (Edit: not disability). Evidently, paying taxes is required even if you don’t earn your $$?
Plenty of the people with a paycheck and the performative exercise called a job don't earn their $$ either, but yes, state benefits are taxable income.
And it worries the hell out of me because they're very motivated. This is a large, obnoxious population to placate.
Yes, what they lack in ability, they make up for in viciousness. Trouble on the horizon.
I think it'll be nicely resolved with the long-term health impacts of the clot shot. You're gonna be out of excuses for reasons the kid with the weird hair who didn't sign-on to a war crime can't be given some responsibility.
They did a study in trendariffic New York where openly trans job applicants with the same resumes trained to answer interview questions the same way got one entry-level job offer for every six that ostensibly cis applicants did.
For morbid obesity (which we were pushing all the wrong treatments for for 100 years, despite having data showing mild calorie restriction does not work) that number's 2-1.
You are picking some talented kids last for dodgeball. The Graphene Oxide Death is going to force you to let them play a more-central role... and the vicious graspers? Well, they already got their jab too.
Interesting. Any idea on how openly trans people did on resisting the shots, as compared to others? What I've heard bruited is that they were some of the demographics most inclined to uptake.
Of all the fuckery that the Biden administration has foisted upon us, this is the biggest threat.
The next step will me arming the media.
Had an Interesting conversation a few years ago with an indigenous tour guide in a small African country. He was a very smart 30-something who had worked his way up from dishwasher to tour guide with a lot of responsibility. He lamented that the younger kids wanted to be “a director” straight out of school. So it’s everywhere.
It's everywhere that Western media exists, telling people work is for suckers. Which, due to smartphones, is now *everywhere*.
Interesting you mention the DR. I did some work there a few years ago (in the actual country, not the resorts), and was amazed by the can-do attitude. Where Americans (Westerners) would give up and throw something out, the Dominicans would fix it. Not only that, but they would do it quickly, energetically, and while laughing and making jokes.
In addition, I was struck by the way that people there are poor, but not bitter. In the West, poverty is strongly associated with a simmering resentment that periodically boils over (especially when provoked by leftist agitators, as I e.g. BLM). In the DR, there was a completely different attitude.
I have saved an absurd amount of money over the years just by having the ability to take something apart and fix it. Doesn't matter if it's a recliner chair or a computer -- parts are available for nearly anything. I just spent $16 on a new cable assembly for a recliner on a sectional couch rather than replacing the whole thing. I just hate the ever-increasing trend of so many things being glued or welded shut to discourage fixing them.
I'm blessed with the same ability - or at least the fearlessness (lack of good sense?) to give anything a shot.
Have recently taken to tabulating it all so at the end of every year I can buy something nice without guilt.
New water heater install = new firearm.
Repaired the washing machine = Ag, Au, or Pb.
Kid dropped the iGadget and broke the screen; replace it on the cheap = AAPL share.
My husband, an IT guy, says if you can't take the back off something, you don't own it
Love that
100% agree. Basic drywall and plumbing skills have probably saved me $10,000 over the years.
Very true.
I have lived in the DR for 14 years and see what you mention every day.
L:ittle is disposable here. They fix things.
There are a few areas where things "boil over", and tires are burned in the streets.
The problem is the "ruling class" that the politically connected belong to are globalists.
The other problem is Haiti.
I highly recommend the movie Poverty Inc.
Makes a solid case that it's anti-competitive in-kind aid that's disrupting business formation and not 'rich kid be lazy'.
I can't speak for the DR... but in Nicaragua and Guatemala they also fix things quite readily -- but they do a horrible job.
😂
One of my kids did a mission trip to the DR and reported the same: wonderful spirit in the face of grinding poverty
Oh yes, religion means something different to them too. I'm Jewish, but I was extremely moved by the energy and devotion I saw during Christian church services. When you have nothing BUT faith, it becomes very real.
The first-world nations have drifted so far into the worship of false gods (e.g. "scientism") we've totally lost sight of what real faith looks like.
Lex, we all have nothing BUT faith: faith that our parents love us; faith that our teachers want us to learn; faith that miniscule amounts of CO2 are going to destroy the world... and - faith that being able to buy designer hamburgers and Gucci t-shirts is a good way to live.
You mentioned that you've saved 1000s by knowing drywalling and plumbing -- I've saved 1000s by avoiding doctors, dentists and Gucci.
That's true. but it's not just Ukrainians. there are social nets in eastern and central europe and it's not as bad here. The lingering stench of communism and reminders at the Sunday dinner table from elders ensures a minimum work ethic that isn't lost on zoomers or millennials.
Here in the DR, if you don't work, you don't eat. Families live together and pull the wagon together.
That said, there is an epidemic of young teen reproduction which is problematic, and stimulates petty crimes.
I love the DR, but yeah ... Highest teen pregnancy in Latin America for how many years now? Also disappointing that the government forced 100% of hospitality workers to get COVID jabs.
I guess that will take care of the teen pregnancy problem.
True.
The bad news is we went through a phase where if you didn't have a vax card, you couldn't get into stores, even grocery stores and clinics, without a PCR less than 3 days (cost: $85.)
The good news is the vaxxxes were not the mRNA type. The other good news was the PCR we got was in an unflattened .pdf so we could easily alter it. And did. Nobody even looked at it, but people were all mask preening.
There's a lot to be said for a government that can't afford to do oppression properly.
And Pierluisi in Puerto Rico forced all kiddos to get jabbed in order to attend school. I'm so sad and angry that parents went along with his diktats.
Awful.
Kids ARE your safety net under the system you laud. That's why that happens so frequently.
"Laud?" Really?
And living here for 14 years I thought the reason so much illegitimacy was because kids were bored and take cues from rap & dembow videos....
That may be valid in some places, but in the DR, it has more to do with the remnants of a culture of child brides, and kids living in poverty with nothing to do and no access to, or education about, contraception.
Pretty sure if having children young becomes a less-rational decision, parents, who are putting more energy into the outcomes of each individual child will be dismantling that culture and giving that education... Correlation is not always causation.
I just noticed the word 'indolent' includes the word 'dole.'
Too large a middle class perhaps? Or bourgeoisie if you prefer.
Olden times, upper crust was a couple of percent of the population total, and the rest was divided into different trades and crafts and agriculture with related areas of labour, and the managerial or middle class(es) was typically not more than a few percent either.
Nowadays, from late 19th century, the (sub)urban middle class is the major class. Who was it wrote about the 2/3-society n the early 90s? Naomi Klein? As in 2/3s are on the "inside" of society, and 1/3 is perpetually outside for various reasons.
If our leaders, political as well as business, aren't very careful they risk recreating the economical and societal conditions which gave rise to marxism as a viable and credible alternative for the population.
And we know how that one plays out.
To answer your question, you may be thinking of Galbraith in 'The Culture of Contentment'.
Thank you, that's probably where I read it. And that book came out (checks online) 1992.
One could possible formulate a thesis around this: The more annointed and hallowed an econ/pol sci book is by existing establishment, the more rubbish its ideas are in real life.
Like how Bush Sr et al embraced the End of History hypothesis as an objective truth, while rejecting the Clash of Civilisations-school of thought as old-fashioned and outmoded.
Looking at the world and what's been going on since the turn of the millennium...
https://inflamedcynic.substack.com/p/explaining-neets-to-larry-summers
I think this is a relevant angle on the problem.
I agree with you. Immigrants still have the eye of the tiger. They come to America with the attitude that they will do whatever it takes to survive and succeed. Unfortunately, a couple generations of living in the land of the free, and they get lazy, entitled, and pathologically neurotic.
Not the latest immigrants. They show up and say show me the money. They come with PHDs in how to game the system.
Thats' the thing:
Set the bar for migration high and you'll get the best from the countries people are leaving, bleeding thse nations of talent and attitude and increasing the percentage of problem-people in the total.
Set the bar so low it's valley, as the EU has done for 25+ years now, and you instead get the dregs the home nations wants to be rid of.
That’s true in Calif. Very smart and capable. And crafty. Apply for all the subsidies and scholarships. Free/cheap college, food, medical, internet, cable, and phone. Paid under AND over the table so can get Fed aid / workers comp, etc. Vote any time. Half price housing. I’ve heard it all.
Might be a regional thing. Immigrants coming to the South with the intention of gaming the system are going to be disappointed with how that turns out.
Israel has mandatory military service. What % of their youts are snowflake slackers?
seems similar to the US.
the article cited in the post describes how their psychologists are calling is an actual syndrome.
Doesn't Israel's example disprove Good Citizen's claim that a draft would solve the problem? Israel has a universal draft and it doesn't seem to help.
Why should there be a universal cause or a universal solution? Israel is not the US is not Japan is not Britain, and that's before we go into the issue of multiple ehtnicities living in various nations - does the behaviour hold true across various ethnicities in one nation or does it vary would be worth checking for a budding sociologist.
Here in Sweden we of course have the problem described above, but to a much lesser degree (so far, knock on wood) and there's a definite ethnicity-factor, class-factor and regional geographic factor to it. Outside the big cities, outside the swedish liberal-progressive upper middle class it is virtually unknown, and it is also very uncommon among the non-european migrants, even in the third generation of such (they don't integrate or assimilate at all, hence third generation migrant rather than "swede of X origin").
Yeah, but they're not actually fighting a war, they're basically drafted to be the guards in the Stanford Prison Experience, but with extra war crimes.
As I understand the folklore, being drafted is supposed to be "character-building" in peacetime as well as wartime.
But who knows? It's like debating which powers Superman would have if he really existed.
Devil's advocate, sort of (or maybe not):
1.) Does it disturb your conscience at all that being pro-conscription puts you in the company of Vladimir Putin?
2.) Is there any contradiction in supporting the draft and also supporting Ukrainian teens' avoidance of the draft?
3.) According to our bad cat, this is also a big problem in Israel, where there's a universal draft. What does that say about the draft as a solution to the problem?
Generally speaking, whenever the government forces the people to do something, it benefits the government, not the people.
I have friends from countries that requires mandatory service, and for the most part, training is a joke. They may jog and do a few pushups, but it's not like they're going in as Alfred E. Neumann and coming out as Chuck Norris.
Mandatory service should not automatically and/or exclusively be "military" service. I think we could probably make good use of another round of CCC right about now. Get them slacker young'uns up off the couch and out to work rebuilding all grades of failing infrastructure, planting new trees, clearing dead trees, farming (since we've got this looming food shortage), etc....
I'd be open to discussing that if it were run by the states. No way I trust the federal government to manage an army of teenagers doing public works projects.
Definitely - States or even Regional Economic Development Commissions, in some cases. The flatter and smaller the bureaucracy, the more likely they would actually get something meaningful done. I can say that with confidence, having worked in both the Federal & State Gov sectors for a while in the past. Would also be a useful exercise to pass on practical and much-needed trade craft type skills to the next generation, since they cancelled all the shop classes years ago, and over half the young folk today probably don't even know how to change a tire, let alone run a welder, a tractor or a chainsaw...
Love that idea. Yes, local levels.
And then there are some kids who are out there putting it on the line. Making the world better in some small way. Why just yesterday I was transiting at Narita airport in Tokyo. I had passed immigration, very quick and I was just transiting, and was in security about to have my backpack checked. There were four lively young people in front of me. I thought ‘odd group’. They were clearly a group but it was as if there were no cues showing any kind of common social ground. Like they came from four parts of the world, four different socioeconomic classes etc. one small Asian woman, a half black man, a cute Scarlett Johannsen type, and a lanky college looking guy. Aha! I had it, I thought. They were all from a large denomination group but from four areas of North America on their way to doing some missionary work. I asked them where they were from. San Diego, New York, Calgary, and Florida. I asked what brings them together. ‘We all are working in Social Media’. I said ‘interesting I don’t think of those who work at social media as congregating and working together. Shows you what I know.’ Then I asked ‘which area of social media do you work in?’ A bit of a hesitation. Then one said ‘you want the truth, or a lie?’ Obviously I wanted the truth. ‘We are all porn stars’. Okay, the church part I had wrong. And some ‘missionary’ work would likely take place, but that wasn’t their focus. They were on their way to a location shoot. See...there are hard working young people out there!
True story, by the way. It cracked me up. We chatted for a bit. When I left I said ‘okay well you kids have fun, and try not to work too hard’. Which seemed wildly inappropriate on so many levels.
I did not see that coming.
Your browser history suggests otherwise.
So to speak.
There are many pieces to this puzzle. Consider also that my generation is not merely (failing in) seeking the work, but the HR departments at such workplaces have inflated into a grotesque tumor and are increasingly run by that same demographic. Ironically, they are doing what Marx hated (Iron Law of Woke Projection) and pushing circlejerky ideology rather than contributing usefully.
Yes. My very large company seems to have moved from merit based to some other attribute for advancement. Seems to not matter how you perform but what you like like.
I can confirm that big Silly Valley company HR depts are woke-awful.
One point that tends to go unnoticed in these kinds of conversations is the issue of gender. Not fake gender, but actual differences in biological sex.
Girls of generation y and z are much more successful than boys. They work harder in school, get better grades, and have better academic and professional outcomes than their Y chromosome peers. They often exceed their mothers and grandmothers in achievement.
In contrast, boys in their teens and twenties are physically, mentally, and emotionally weaker than any other generational cohort before them.
I'm not sure we have so much of a generational problem as we have an emasculation problem.
When boys are demonized as "hyperactive" from the age of 2 and told to sit down, shut up, and eat this adderall so their parents and teachers can carry on ignoring them then this is what happens.
THIS.!
100% agreed!! Schools and the latest gender ideologies are emasculating our boys and young men. It's really sad.
Boy energy is no longer celebrated nor accepted as natural.
Well said
Adderall is the Devils drug
You know the major reason girls get better grades nowadays?
How we grade has change from hard metrics, to softer ones which places grater emphasis on social skills and emotional aptitude in which girls and women are much stronger.
Trubble with that approach is, if you want to build a bridge or hydroelectric dam with attending infrastructure, an essay in which the main focus is demonstrating your ability to communicate won't help.
Hard metrics - can you demonstrate the stress put on a 1" water pipe where 10^68L of water per minute is supposed to pass through or not? - are equal and fair. Metrics which emphasise the inborn stengths of either sex are not. Compare it with physical ed/gym: men are much much stronger. So let's say doing 3 pull ups with 25 kilo backpack nets an A for adult students. Most men can't do that, and almost zero women. So do we let the girls wear a lighter pack? Or do we judge and grade based on the teacher's arbitrary estimate of how hard the student applies themself?
Grading is much trickier and bothersome than teachers want to admit.
On the emasculation issue, you are so right it hurts. That was noted a century ago already: boys from rural areas/backgrounds or poor city areas were much more manly in their behaviour than the affluent upper-middle class bourgeoisie.
It's called evolution. Domesticate the wolf to the point it becomes a Bichon Frise, then let jackals and dingos into the enclosure. Guess what? The male toy dogs will die out, and the bitches will be mated with, no matter what they want.
70 year decline in testosterone.
50% lower now than in the Greatest Generation.
I wonder if this is dietary, even if in part? Nearly everything has soy of some sort in it, which has estrogen. I have not done enough research into the subject and waded through the agendas of those involved to have an informed opinion.
Yes, but it's more than that. It's due to the soup of chemicals we all swim in, that can't be escaped anywhere on Earth. Which of them specifically is impossible to say though as we have almost no real data on their safety individually, let alone in possible synergistic action with each other.
parabens, phthalates, and other endocrine disruptors in all manner of plastics, and in foods and beauty products are to blame.
there is no proof about soy. The "famous" study about declining testosterone by soy is a junk paper...
Feminism has destroyed everything! (I'm a woman btw, so I can say such things. 😄) How much of all this would be different if couples married young and started families?
And honestly if more women were able to stay home with their kids if they wanted to.
More women SHOULD want to! It's great!! :)
We are so blessed that my wife has been able to stay at home raising our kids.
I can't imagine it any other way.
Way to go! Worth all the sacrifices! I'm 20 years a stay-at-home mom of 5, myself. Our oldest is 20 and 2 years launched already, so I can see the fruits of our efforts. Keeps me going! (The baby is 5, so I've got a while left to go!)
So your "baby" is 15 years apart?!
I'm the oldest and I have a younger brother who's 12 years younger. That's where I learned to be a good "parent".
Women don't want to settle early. Promiscuity got released for women and they only want to settle with the best ones at the right time so most of the men are left behind.
Yeah, it's almost like a primary front in the culture war has been a concerted war on masculinity and these boys have just been internalizing the implicit and explicit messaging, incentives, and disincentives of the progressive death cult's long march. But that would be like some kind of conspiracy theory. These boys just need to "man-up" (gen-x), "pull themselves up by their bootstraps like I did" (Boomer), "sit down shut up and listen" (millennial), or "use my pronoun you bigot!" (gen z).
In my field the guys do better. I’m a real estate developer. The guys in trades are killing it. The women in peripheral jobs are a pain in the butt.
Im 45 yo successful at a desk job but thinking about getting out and doing some type of manual labor. The movie Office Space comes to mind often.
One of the best movies of all time.
Your manual labor could start by throwing the copier out the window and then going to beat the shit out of it with a baseball bat...:)
Sounds better than this:
"You know what, Stan, if you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, like your pretty boy over there, Brian, why don't you just make the minimum 37 pieces of flair?"
In any given day, I’d say I get about a solid 1.5 hours of work in. Just enough not to get fired. What would you say….you DO here? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE! I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS DAMMIT!!!!!
I've encouraged my son to learn a trade. (He's 12.)
I'm encouraging my daughter to earn a degree in marketing. Second choice: carpenter. Third choice: private pilot. (She wants to be a ballerina in a company, but thinks she'd like to be a private pilot too.)
Jordan Peterson would agree with you. Society demands that white boys become small and silent. Unless they really want to be girls, of course.
Good man, Jordan Peterson. The fact that he's slandered as some kind of misogynistic right-wing zealot is just another example of how far the lefties are divorced from reality.
Lex, girls outpace boys in "achievement", not in achievement. Pushing paper around in an office to earn fiat currency isn't achievement. To give a concrete example -- can you (and I'm not trying to pick on you) show me a *bunch* of all-female bands that are as innovative as Led Zeplin or Pink Floyd? And yet -- women make fantastic classical musicians.
The issue here is that it's impossible to masculinize women, ie giving them camaraderie and curiousity... but it sure is possible to feminize men.
Interesting perspective, Shiyen. I don't necessarily disagree with your premise, but I would not classify camaraderie and curiosity as masculine traits. Interpersonal connection (what between men is called camaraderie) is generally considered a strong feminine attribute, and curiosity is more associated with the "big five" trait of Openness, which has great variation in both genders.
I don't think the rock band question is fair, because there just haven't been that many all-female bands. However, there have been a lot of innovative female artists in popular music. Just to name a few: Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Cher, Joan Jett, Madonna, Annie Lennox ... More recently, we've had Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, and less well-known but highly innovative singer-songwriters like Melody Gardot and Natalia Clavier.
Fair point.
More women at the table and less denial of the differences - both are "gifted" in certain generalized areas.
I'll never be as good of a "mother" for my children as my wife. My wife will never be as good as I am "protecting" my family.
We should embrace that.
As far as musicians; I guess it depends on taste.
The power of a man's performance is lung capacity, sheer masculinity and stamina. Whether or not females will admit it; the vast majority like masculinity - and so do men.
So I do think there's more crossover for women in their proclivities for male performers vs. Males and their preference for female performers.
At least when it comes to rock.
Ryan, I think you hit the nail on the head. I work with several 20-something women, whom I would consider to be culturally mainstream. They support the current things politically, but in their personal lives, they have nothing but contempt for feminized men.
Perfect examples btw
They all have terminal affluenza
Spot on.
The fear of being poor is a learned attribute that one can only gain through experience.
Gets my ass out of bed every morning.
I was up at 4:26 am today. Need this to be a habit. Stuff gets done in the morning.
There's an old Chinese proverb that addresses this:
“No one who rises before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family wealthy.”
Every time I scrape myself out of bed in the morning that's what I tell myself.
What do they do the other 5 mornings though?
Bank holidays
Gettin' Jiggy Wit It?.......:)
Will Smith would like to slap you for that reference
I have blamed the parents for decades. It’s been horrifying to watch some of my peers. Homeschooling prevents a lot of this. Travel. Letting them fail, telling them they will have ramen noodles and not a bMW when they graduate. Telling them “we’re not the Cosby’s” and when you leave you’re gone. Letting them get hurt (physically and emotionally) by life. Setting boundaries and consequences and sticking to them. Letting them do things that scare you as a parent (hunting, semester abroad, etc). But not showing them your fear so they try things. My adult kids are all either employed or self employed and are great at working. They all got jobs as soon as they were of age, had to pay for their own stuff once they did, did their own laundry from 12, had broken bones and stitches and groundings and failures. They’re great kids
You are a great mom!
Awesome post!
Vaccines, glyphosate, high fructose corn syrup, soy, antibiotics, the education system, and media have destroyed their bodies and minds. It’s actually not their fault. Pray for us all. It will not end well.
Succinct and spot on.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that economic factors play a large role in people's work habits.
Wages in the past have been stagnant (this may be changing now that employers are finally waking up). In the meantime real estate prices have skyrocketed and the investment markets have been .. volatile in a way that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Social security is a farce, that's been true for at least 20 years.
We see changes in people's careers now, it's no longer advantageous to stay with the same company. In order to get maximum gains one must change jobs around every 3-5 years. If you're not married to your workplace, and you feel like it's just a stepping stone, how invested are you going to be in it?
On the flip side of that, people who have been at their job for over 5 years and are no longer seeing a return for their work are going to slowly be less willing to put forward their best effort. If your raise is the same whether you put in 100 or 50 percent effort, then why would you put in 100?
You always see these claims that employers are having trouble hiring and/or they have to do this or that. What are these employers doing to retain the talent they already have? Just anecdotally I have a coworker who got a 40k a year raise by quitting our company and making a lateral move to another employer. He was one of our best employees, had been there for 20 years and is now gone because the company was unwilling to give him raises commensurate with market rate. Now think of that, it's a 40k a year raise, not some insignificant number, which shows how out of touch some employers are. Had he stayed at this workplace and was being paid so far below market would you blame him for not putting forth his best effort?
Or, they take someone who has been at a company for decades, is one of their better performers, and give them the boot so they can hire someone younger at less pay. Yah, yah, I know, "age discrimination is illegal". But it happens. A lot. And you can't prove it or fight it. Don't think younger people aren't watching and listening? Don't think THEY don't see what is happening? And then companies piss and moan about "there's no employee loyalty these days."
Yeah, that's sort of what happened above, although my coworker didn't get the boot, they just stopped giving him raises or would only bump like 1200 a year in salary. They'll replace him with someone fresh out of college for less money, but he's one of the best we had, so the cost saving benefits are dubious when you factor in loss of productivity + training and on onboarding costs.
Just to add on this, I think it's predatory behavior by employers. They know most people don't want to job hunt because it's very stressful. So they bank on the fact that most people will not leave, and they put the excess savings into hiring so that they can fill the gaps when it does happen.
The obvious advice is "just find another job" but beyond the fact that it is not always practical for everyone, not everyone is psychologically equipped to do that (job hunting after being employed some where for 10+ years). Employers know that.
And we think the suicide rate in young people is high now... Just wait until reality really starts setting in.
Truly worries me Rob. And what happens if these younger generations have to defend this country?
Ryan so many of them can’t defend themselves. We will have to defend the country.
My old neighbor, stronk independent woman single mom living off her inheritance and occasional child support from her layabout yoga teacher baby daddy, was giddy one day as she bragged of teaching her 3 y/o son and 4 y/o cousin to say "down with the patriarchy!" on camera to then post to her instawhateverthefuck page. She was telling me this as I was winterizing her sprinkler system because the 100k free videos on youtube were out of her stronk independent reach. While I am guilty of such end-of-empire brass polishing on the titanic enabling, I do so out of pure momentum of the residual social contract, which was the only thing I inherited from my dad when cancer took him from me a long time ago. Helping neighbors is just the right thing to do and all that.
Now we are in that phase where we clutch pearls and ask how we got here, while pretending that the answer is deep in some philosophy that has never before been encountered across all of human history because we must only bleed chickens and rub bones and not gore those sacred cows in one stroke. How did for no reason at all suddenly a man decide one day to put on a womens speedo and ruin all that great progress?
Strangle masculinity in the cradle and cue the angst about males not becoming men to make all the nice (and dirty) things work in the world. We are going to finally get the utopia that is the end of "the patriarchy" and we are gonna get it good and hard.
I also think the Great Recession had a major negative psychological impact on these generations view of work. When the people that caused it all get compensated instead of punished it is a disincentive to participate productively in an unjust society.
Here in UK/Europe we are ahead of the USA with the notion that others should provide what you don’t provide for yourself and other people’s money is for your use. This has been taught to populations by the socialistic ideology that pervades Europe since WWII. We have shifted from self-dependency to dependency on the Collective via the State. In my childhood, once you hit age 15, for most kids it was get a job or get out of the house. Parents couldn’t/wouldn’t support work capable children. Additionally, at the time unemployment payment was not only minimal, but not available until after you had made sufficient National Insurance contributions, which you could only do if you worked. It was a matter of shame not to work. That started to change as we went into the 1970s, parents got wealthier so could support teens who stayed on at school, being unemployed was not your fault, school-leaving age was raised to 16 with an expectation of further education and university for everyone, unemployment benefit became universally available. Leave school at 16, go on welfare. (Now UK school-leaving age is 18 - it makes youth unemployment figures... zero... look good.) The solution? Stop all welfare.
You know what raises the ire for someone who's studied ideologies?
That there's nothing in actual marxism, communism, socialism, fascism - be they nationalistic or gloablist - about /not/ working.
"Sharing the wealth" and so on by the workers owning and controllong the means of production and have rational need-based production and so on, lots of it and not only from Engels and Marx - but /not working/ under text-book definitions of any marxist ideology (or any version tried) only means you get assigned a task and if you don't perform it's off to camp.
This isn't marxism as such, it's Star Trek-fantasy world.
‘Needs-based production’… and there is nothing in these ideologies about not just having needs but also wishes and desires, which is unique to the Human condition. Animals can meet their needs. Needs-based production for Humans is called farming which is what we had for thousands of years until along came the Industrial Revolution in which the sole purpose of production was to meet wishes and desires. This is why the -isms fail. Central planning and control of production to meet everyones needs (water, food, shelter) is possible on a small, local scale although there still is the problem of lack of incentives and some will do less work than others. Scaled up it is impossible which is why people starve. But the real clincher is meeting everyone’s wishes and desires. How can a central authority know what these are, much less be able to plan and control production to meet an exhaustive variety.? So this is where control comes in. Those in charge decide for you what your wishes and desires are, what you may and may not have. And isn’t that just what is happening to us now? We keep being told we have too much choice and this wastes resources, we eat too much, use too much electricity, travel too much, etc. Control our needs, control our choices, control us.
Yeah, I used to annoy reddish friends who were into the idea of centrally plannd production of essentials and necessities by asking:
"So, tell me how much loo paper the city needs per year."
What they didn't understand is that for it to be enough, you have to produce surplus since you never can calculate how much will be used.
And if we can't calculate something dead simple like the amount of loo paper a city of 300 000 needs per year, how in afterlife-of-your-choice are we going to calculate more complex things like how many obstetricians we need in 15 years time and such.
It' the whole modernist/futurist folly of the decades right around the year 1900 all over again.
Indeed! I had a great advantage in teaching economics in that I worked in supply chain for about a decade beforehand. Managing stocks to have inventory on hand means having extra all the time. On top of that, there are over 350,000 unique stock keeping items (SKUs, or individual products) as of 2000 or so. Inventory and production needs to be planned for each and everyone one of those, and no one calls you ahead of time to let you know they intend to have the runs this weekend and expect to use a lot more TP and maybe some stomach meds, but goddamnit, it had better be there on the shelf when they want to buy it!
Companies struggle to properly plan and manage production and inventory for just the handful of products they produce, and if they are really bad at it they go under. How could you possibly try to do that within the government, and who do you fire when it fails?
That’s a great point - must remember it. On the other hand (Gasp!) You don’t need loo paper Comrade. Problem solved. 😊
'Course I don't, I've got both the Manifesto and Dass Kapital to make ends meet!
(Dass in swedish is outhouse...)
I don't necessarily disagree with any of this. However, the root cause analysis could probe a bit deeper. Boomers, etc are not without a hefty share of the blame. If your kid turns out to be a worthless leech, the parent is largely responsible for that. We could sit here and make all sorts of negative generalizations about boomers and every other generation too. As far as I'm aware, millenials and younger generations haven't acquired a ton of power (yet) to enable their destruction of society. Boomers, Gen x, silent generation, etc haven't exactly knocked it out of the park here. For evidence, look at the growth of the federal government and the surveillance state over the past 50 years. Having said all that, the acquiescence of today's young people to things like covid mandates has been very disheartening. I wasn't around back then, but the young people of the 60s/70s seemed to have a refreshing sense of anti-authority.
Yes, boomers REFUSING to give up the reigns until their literal dying breaths is a big part of this problem. Shoot, you see that even in government! We've got a bunch of octogenarians still running for everything! The Rolling Stones can't even say enough is enough. (Talking Bout My Generation)
I’m a millennial, but I identify as Gen X.
Does that mean that GenZ is screwed?
Eh, doesn’t every generation complain that younger generations are lazy? I feel more and more disconnection from what motivates younger generations, but I sure remember Joe my generation was nicknamed the slacker generation.
If there is a labor problem right now, I think it is an outcome of Covid policies. Society was shown that governments would arbitrarily decide to suspend your ability to work and destroy your business. Meanwhile, many other people were told to go home and literally phone it in. Then, everybody was told that doing a job would get you killed. Oh, you can also make more money by not working. I think the whole thing broke a lot of people.
Except in rural areas. Many where I live basically said "screw that". Local police coached the renegade barber to open early. "you can't be in town unless you are renovating" so he put brown paper over windows and a sign saying "make an appointment to check out our renovations".
The question is:
Would they have been broken if they had not been coddled?
I think everybody was scarred by the pandemic response. Middle aged people may be able to try to forgive and forget. The younger generations and school kids have probably been fully conditioned to the “new normal”. I just think that is a bigger issue than the fact that kids have been given the wrong incentives to condition them to want to succeed at producing tangible results. Even the kids that weren’t indoctrinated to be cy-boys have just been shown that all of their effort can be demolished by the whims of the government.
Yeah I get your point.
I guess I experienced a little of it the first year of the pandemic scam when people said I was crazy, but I knew I wasn't. And that I'd just have to watch everyone learn how their intellectual laziness would eventually come home to roost for them.
And here we are...