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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.

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Sure it is. It mostly always is. Of course we have more work to do for women, POCs, whatever the other oppressed groups are out there, but ignoring and brushing off the progress made in the last century is sad. We've made great strides and will continue to.

This is a non data based take. Support with information.

Climate change, increased Cost of living, etc. - Do you really need data for this? About the abortion thing, just visit the page of a random media outlet. It will be among the first 10 articles.

These are problems, yes. But how did they "wreck the world". It is these kind of outlandish takes that are pervasive on social media and give no context or relativism to the current problems of the world.

Of course we have problems. There will always be problems. Instead focus on giving the younger generation confidence that they can solve the problems by being optimistic about these things. I'm not saying to ignore these things. But instead recognize how good we actually have it, and how powerful and creative we are in solving insanely hard problems.

Some problems are worse than others.

I don't think anyone would choose to live during World War 2 or the great depression. The idea that all generations are the same and there problems are the same is just a worthless platitude. Never before in history has humanity had the knowledge or capability of ending itself like it does now. That can't be ignored.

Thank you. A lot of people I know act like the problems of today are somehow astronomically worse than they have ever been, unsolvable, completely new, and in-addition-to all previous generation's problems ("nothing has improved in a hundred years!").

An acquaintance of mine told me over drinks, after complaining a lot about the current world and in all seriousness, that "I don't think there has ever been a worse time to be alive." I've heard similar sentiments, less drastically put, from quite a few people in person and all over social media. He wouldn't even backtrack after I started pushing him to seriously describe why life is somehow worse now than it has ever been.

It's infuriating, like seriously, you'd rather be born a random person 100 years ago instead of today? I can't even imagine someone wanting to be born a random person 50 years ago vs today (unless by random you mean "random middle class white heterosexual man in a western country" in which case, maybe your odds were better 50 years ago).

You'd have to be completely ignorant of almost all human history AND brainwashed by social media to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately I think this describes way too many people.

The phrase "wreck the world" is obviously referencing climate change and environmental degradation. The danger of carbon emissions was well understood in the 1980's, yet we still have a large portion of the population who believe it is some elaborate conspiracy instead of an urgent crisis. Guess what generation most of those people belong to.

>> Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it.

This is the exact kind of BS the parent comment is referring too. The world is full of problems but it’s never been better for most people in most ways.

Your comment represents the same worthless platitude.

It doesn't make sense to say "yea your life is significantly worse than your parents, but hey at least you aren't a slave building the pyramids at Giza."

The fact is it's relative. People are, in general, worse off than their parents were in the west at this point in time. That matters.

Being slightly economically less well off (although still doing exceedingly well and having lots of opportunity) is not the same thing as “boomers wrecked the world”. There are people in very tough situations and as a society we need to help them more but the vast majority of young people (and I say this as one who isn’t doing exceedingly well) need to grow up, cheer up, and start taking more responsibility for things. My parents may have been able to buy a house, but there is much much more about their younger lives that I am glad I don’t have to deal with.

Younger people will be the ones enduring a transformation of our economy as they attempt to prevent the worst consequences of global warming.

Also, not sure what "grow up" means in this context. Quietly endure injustices and environmental catastrophe instead of speaking out and taking action?

I sincerely hope you don't actually believe this. Reductionist statements like this which attempt to blame an entire generation for a world that few if any of them had any control over.

"Boomers" tried to scrape together a life and provide for a family within the rules of the world where they lived. They elected people to solve the problems that they knew about at the time, just like every other generation.

"Boomers" is just shorthand for the older generation who treated the environment like a toilet, pillaged the welfare state, jailed anyone who wanted to get high in their free time and made hating/mocking LGBTQ people a national pastime (to name a few examples).

I'd say #notallboomers but it's implied unless you're being willfully obtuse.

“Boomers” I suppose are responsible for passing the clean air and clean water act which had the effect of essentially ending pollution as we know it in the US.

They also essentially created the welfare state…

They were and are pretty bad on effective drug policy.

LGB discourse went off the rails when progressives added all the other letters. To be fair, it’s not just boomers who are deeply concerned with the political religion of queerness.

> They also essentially created the welfare state…

Nah the Silent Generation did that.

But also most of our political gerontocrats are also either Silents or very early Boomers. They're not really the core of the Baby Boom generation.

You forgot a couple letters, each of which represents actual human beings who have historically been denied fundamental rights and have been subject to violence, including state violence.

Also, your understanding of the origin of the welfare state is way off the mark. Sometimes, the best thing a person can do is spend a little time studying basic history.

Wait are we not still treating the environment like a toilet? Do people younger than boomers not create mountains of plastic trash that will be here hundreds of years after their bones turn to dust? Do they not use phones with lithium mined by child slaves, and wear make up with mica mined by child slaves? Do they monitor how much has and electricity they are using? I'm not a boomer but I know enough to know the younger generations are not ready to sacrifice present comfort for future generations

and young people know they need to fix it - by misrepresenting and blowing every issue out of proportion and throwing names around so when actual problems arise most people have little more than a deep sense of tired antipathy towards others.

Well maybe only 50% of women

At least until the next case hits SCOTUS. With a far-right majority like that, anything is possible.

Boomers wrecked the world, Millenials are wrecking minds, I'm sure Gen Z will find plenty left to wreck. Thankfully, each generation also builds.

As usual GenX gets skipped. But whatever. Apathy is our lot in life.

Where I am from, we don't really use these terms. I'm sorry for offending you by ommiting something.

Ah, I was making a joke. In the US, “Generation X” was told repeatedly from its inception that it was apathetic, specifically.

I also find these terms a bit maddening

Edit: for the record, I was in no way offended, but I realize that probably didn’t come across well in my comment

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