Comment by illumin8 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by illumin8 | Hacker News Reader

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The angst expressed in this article is real. These are not just the emo writings of a depressed kid. This is the backlash of the children of the baby boomers against their parents, who grew up during the 60s, espoused free love, peace, and other hippy pop culture platitudes, and yet, became the worst generation, squandering all of the greatest generation's (grandparents) hard won treasure and resources, outsourcing their kids futures to Asia so they could have cheaper electronics. Squandering their national treasure and good standing in the world, that the grandparents fought so hard to win in WW2, so they could fight pointless wars and get enough cheap energy to drive unsustainable land yachts to their unsustainable McMansions in the burbclaves.

There are a lot of reasons that the current generation has to be angry with their parents. They've destroyed the economy, the jobs market, and are well on their way to destroying the planet. They'll retire in the next decade supported by a ponzi scheme (social security) on the backs of their children. The world is less safe, less secure, and more violent because of them.

I can't help but look at Japan in the 90s and think that we are in for a repeat of that. An aging workforce, being constantly downsized and outsourced. No new jobs for college graduates, so they must live with their parents until their 30s or 40s. Property deflation over decades because their parents refused to acknowledge the losses on their overpriced houses. The parallels between Japan in the 90s and US in the 2010s are eerily similar. Study their culture to see what is next.

I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you that if the younger generations don't get involved in politics, the world will be destroyed by the older generations before we get a chance to truly participate.

"This is the backlash of the children of the baby boomers against their parents, who grew up during the 60s, espoused free love, peace, and other hippy pop culture platitudes, and yet, became the worst generation"

And built the internet. And kept social security afloat for years after it was supposed to become bankrupt (most of those people now using it also paid into it, remember). And did a thousand other things. What makes you think this generation will be any more responsible? Greed and ignorance are basic human conditions and are in no short supply in any generation.

The boomers managed to keep SS afloat simply because their parents chose to have lots of children. It also helped that their parents managed to die younger than the boomers will.

Besides building the Internet, which arguably grew from funding started in the 50s under DARPA (making it more an achievement of their parents, the greatest generation, who funded it), what other legacy or accomplishments have the boomer generation made?

IIRC the funding of Internet research in DARPA is in 60s.

Thanks to boomers in USA. They enable all my fellow people in East Asia lives a better live than my grandparents due to free trade.

Thanks to boomers in USA, now Rock, Punk, Alternatives, Hiphop music styles influence the music styles around the world. I hope you have patience to sit through traditional Japanese style music performance.

Thanks to boomers in USA, now we can have all cool movies from 70s and 80s to watch. All the exploitation movies in 70s are awesome.

Thanks to boomers in USA, now a homosexual/bisexual person can live life with less stigma, I think that's pretty fair to 10% of the population.

Thanks to boomers in USA, they dream about cheap personal computer that we can type rubbish into. Now we can generate so many bits that we never thought that we can capture them before.

The problem isn't generational. It's class warfare. Plenty of Baby Boomers have been fucked just as bad as our generation has.

The worst villains are mostly Baby Boomers, but just because that's the generation who is in power, and most people of any generation are out of power.

I don't like ripping on "the Baby Boomers" because it's similar to the "politicians are awful, but my Congressman is great" mentality that keeps incumbents in office despite dysfunction. People who rip on the Baby Boomers will except their parents, and this makes sense, because the villainy isn't generational but class-based. So let's frame this issue in proper terms. There's been a whole lot of chicanery going on, but it's not something that can be placed on one generation.

Nope, it's pretty much generational, not class-based. Our grandparents built this country into the superpower that it is. They single-handedly built the Interstate highway infrastructure, fought and won WW2, built the manufacturing base of our country's economy, brought peace to Europe, and gave all of this infrastructure to their children.

Since then, their children have squandered national treasure and influence and their greed is dragging the entire economy down.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but "their children" who have looted and ruined the nation aren't just Baby Boomers, but mostly conservative, white, well-to-do Baby Boomers-- a small subset of them. I don't think they're any more or less repulsive than their Silent and G.I.-generation counterparts (Strom Thurmond, Robert Bork, Dick Cheney).

Also, the dismantling began in the 1980s when people who are generally considered pre-Boomer were in power. CEOs in that time generally had birthdates in the 1920s and '30s, not '40s and '50s. Reagan was one of the so-called "Greatest Generation".

This is largely a class issue. Baby Boomers did most of the villainy because most of the egregious opportunities presented themselves while they were in power. That's all. They're not any better or worse than the rest of us. (Born in 1983, I have no specific need to defend the Boomers, other than intellectual honesty.)

On the other hand, all generations of the American upper class and right wing have been fucking over all generations of the rest of us for about 30 years.

Well put. I agree with what you are saying. It's the subset of boomers that elected Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr, that have really screwed us all. Clinton would have never been elected if it hadn't been for Ross Perot. Essentially, we've had 30 years of "conservatism" and it's completely failed everyone but the top 1%. I use conservatism in air quotes because it's really anything but.

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