Is it all the baby boomers fault?

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The Google verdict is in. A definitive yes for the worst generation ever

Our parents are ruining the entire world

One Author Argues 'Sociopathic' Baby Boomers Have Hurt America

How the baby boomers destroyed everything

An on and on it goes.

What it does say is the chickens do come home to roost. It was the boomers who said do not trust anybody over thirty, their parent's music and lifestyle were "square" and they have spent a lot of time and money trying to avoid the inevitable. Not fun being on the other side of it is it? Not a surprising result. The net is dominated by Millennials based on technology invented by boomers.

But is it true? As in most of these situations yes and no.

The boomers certainly have never really let the bitter divisions of the 60's go and that has and still is infecting American politics. But one is judged on what you do with what is given to you. Millennials were given a bad political and economic climate true, but MRA, Alt Right, SJW, Antifa, those are not boomer phenomena.

The other charge is that selfish boomers ruined the economy. Well, selfish elitist boomers certainly destroyed a great thing, but most boomers were victims of them more than the cause.

Another charge is that workaholic individualist boomers destroyed family life. Well, some of it was the thing we called "women's liberation" or that dirty word "feminism". Do you all really want to go back to the 50's when if you still single at 30 you were viewed as mentally ill and if you were female you were an "old maid"? Do not think so. Boomers changed that. Well, some did, mostly we were workaholics because we had to be due to the changing economy caused by the elite boomers.

And if need to get away from it all and listen to some music which generation had it better is debatable because everything is, it is but not much of a debate.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 08 Jul 2017, 10:32 am, edited 8 times in total.

Yep....somebody has to be blamed....

Yes the baby boomers can f**k off, I mean sure some individuals are fine but as a whole f***k off. 'oh go get a job, millenials are so....entitled and should just get a job.' Ok grandpa/grandma how about you go get a f***king job and get off the freaking roads no one needs to deal with your leisurely sucky driving while they are at work, going to work or doing other things. That is the problem most of us millenials are working or on SSI if we are disabled...and most of us don't have the bank of mom and dad. The trouble is wages freaking suck, the federal government is a joke and baby boomers are in the way. With their crappy driving and their slow walking, slower than a 5 year old at the grocery store and their super entitled attitude that they're the 'betters' because they're older.

I'm a Baby Boomer. I resemble those remarks

Guess who the post-millennials are going to blame.

There's nothing new under the sun.

I think this post is US-specific; In many Arab countries it's the total
opposite for instance; their millennials are the ones who f****d up everything.

Glad I'm Gen X.We knew it was all f****d from the get go.

It has nothing to do with a specific generation, rather human tendencies, of which any generation could fall victim. One event led to our current predicament: winning WWII. We are following the parallel path of Athens after it won the 2nd Persian War (the 'world war' of that time period). The victory created an Athenian hegemony over the Aegean, Athens controlled the trade routes that were previously under Persian control and grew exceptionally rich in the 70 years after the 2nd Persian War. The Athenians used that great wealth in a series of spending sprees-- building the acropolis, numerous commissioned artworks, the Parthenon, etc. Greed is insatiable, and the influx of new wealth after the Persian Wars was something the Athenians couldn't live without once they tasted it, thus they started making short term decisions (stealing from the common Greek city-state coffers) to keep the good times going. Eventually Athens' neighbors (Sparta and Corinth) grew tired of the arrogance and thievery of their northern neighbor and demanded concessions. Around the same time Athenian wealth was starting to diminish, their art and projects had decimated their treasury even with the new trade gained from the Persian Wars and the theft of common coffers since they'd expanded well beyond what practical economics could support. Faced with the option of diminishing lifestyle and peace versus war with the prospect of retaining their untenable financial footing, the Athenian democracy turned populist and pursued war with it's southern neighbors. It was a disaster, the Peloponnesian War wiped out over half of Athens' population (a large part was due to plague, most likely bubonic, but the plague was exacerbated by the war), and Athens lost all power in the Aegean, including the power to rule their own land. The period between the 2nd Persian War and Peloponnesian War is called the 'golden age' of Greece. It lasted a mere 70 years, and was created mainly by vast expenditures on projects with little economic return value. This is also the time period of Sophocles and Plato, and a major reason why Plato viewed populist rule as the poorest form of government.

Now for us, we won WWII (2nd Persian War) and subsumed the global trade infrastructure the faltering European nations could no longer manage after the decimation of the war (just as Athens did with Persian trade). We've grown accustomed to living at that economic level, even as global resources diminish and costs rise, we fail to adapt and demand the same standard of living (just as the Athenians). Here we are a little over 70 years later (same amount of time as Athens' 'golden age') jumping two feet in with populism to correct the issue. Granted, we haven't waged war with our neighbors to keep our standard of living, but I have no doubt that choice is coming in the next decade.

...and I didn't even mention what happened to Sparta when the Peloponnesian War gave them their first taste of wealth and greed. I'll just say it was ugly, really ugly.

Internationally, America is ....

#1 in Net Adjusted disposal income per capita
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/

#1 in Household financial wealth per capita
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/

#10 in HDI Human Development Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index

#3 in Car Ownership per capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

> Is it all the baby boomers fault?

Yes, pretty much.

I have a theory about aspies and generations, however. I think we tend to be "off" by one or two decades, so aspies in their 30s tend to align better with NTs in their teens and 20s, aspies in their 40s tend to align better with NTs in their late 20s and 30s, etc. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but it means we are perpetually out of sync.

I can't comment on other countries but at least here in the US - a lot of the boomers were definitely spoiled rotten by their parents, grew up to be incredibly selfish, and will be trying to milk everything they can till they're out.

As far as the shape of things though economically - while they didn't help, no, I'm not sure that you can squarely place our current situation at their feet. You have the march of technological progress for starters. The US also greatly enriched itself on reconstruction after WWII. As far as direct cultural effects you also had one of the worst things that ever happened to any family across all races predominantly happen to the black family with the Great Society and the stipulations for their receipt of government assistance (it worked out so badly that it's almost plausible that there was malice/racist intent). While I'd have to read up on this more to really be in a debate position it also looks like single-parenthood, especially with respect to raising boys, is a bust.

Most of this is natural economic rise and fall but yeah - we made some pretty big blunders along the way as well.

Yes. Everything is their fault! Didn't you know?

Seriously though, I find the whole concept of generations to be problematic at best. For instance, how is the 'Baby Boomer' generation actually defined? I've come across people who have said it covers those born between the years 1946 and 1964, but there are those who disagree with this and say that only those born between 1946 and 1960 qualify.

Then there is 'Generation X'. Does the label cover those born between 1965 and 1978, or 1965 and 1982? Who decides these things, and why? How can one seriously group everyone born at a certain time, say they are basically all the same, condemn them for perceived injustices, and get all high and mighty on one's soapbox about it, and yet not take into consideration cultural differences (the world is not the United States you know), and the fact that each and every one of us is different?

Sweetleaf, how old are you? I'm just curious. Obviously not a boomer. Neither am I.

Anyway, I most definitely can relate to what you say about older drivers though. Boy are they frustrating! I get stuck behind those people practically all the time, because where I live there are only single-lane roads for kilometres around, many of these roads are dangerous due to (among other things) low maintenance, they often curve so you can't see what's coming from the other direction (so there are double white lines), and so I have to sit behind some idiot who thinks that the 100 km sign means they should go at 70. I've been informed by a couple of these older people that the reason why they do this is because "they have slower reflexes", but if that's the case then THEY SHOULD GET OFF THE ROADS ENTIRELY! This makes them, in my not-so-humble opinion, dangerous, and so they should catch the tram, bus, have someone else drive them, or whatever.

Edit: It may seem that I am contradicting what I said above about not stereotyping all people born during a certain time, but I'm talking about drivers who fail to see that their driving days are over, due to physical impairment and a stubborn insistence that they are still as good as it as they were when they were young. These people tend to be, where I live, all over the age of 60.

^^ you're not stereotyping at all, you're pointing out a fact: as humans age their reflexes, sight, and hearing diminish, and all are necessary for one to be a competent driver.

edit: I suppose bashing the poor driving skills of the elderly is something we can both agree on, and there's not a nobler pursuit than getting deadly drivers off the road.

My nan shouldn't be on the road, she is noticeably unaware of what's going on around her these days. She used to have a sharper eye. I tried to tell my mum subtley but as I've said many times, she doesn't listen. So I've given up.

Egos get in the way of everything.

My nan for instance, one of the last times I was in the car with her, she pulled in slightly into a petrol station, but most of her car was on the main road. It is a good thing that she could easily be seen by the queue of drivers that built up behind her.

The last time I was with her in the car, she went through a red light even though she had time to stop, her reflexes were slowed. She kind of brushed it off and said it didn't matter. But it was one of those temporary traffic lights in a country lane where all the drivers on the other side from a distance couldn't see people driving towards them.

A fun quiz about the generations.
http://www.jenx67.com/what-generation-am-i