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Comment by unpopularopp | Hacker News Reader

> If GenZ had control of the internet you wouldn't let your children and your grandma near it

What do you mean by this? Zoomers are the new puritans not the previous generation

Right? I'm 45 and I teach at a college and it feels like these kids are "less horny" to the point that it's unhealthy and unnatural.

Isnt this based on the assumption that what 'you'underwent in your 20s as natural and healthy? Maybe you are the outlier and others are natural and healthy.

Oh, generally speaking, I think they're a better generation than mine (I mean, I'm black, they're WAY more tolerant. So called "wokeness" is mostly a good thing). Kinder, more compassionate, etc.

But they "party" less? And it could absolutely be the case that they're content at home with videogames over Discord. I suppose there's something special about my 20's that -- hey, maybe they don't feel like they're missing anything at all -- but e.g. "incel" and "incel-adjacent" feels like it could be something that could be improved.

It’s worth considering that, at 45, you simply aren’t made aware of what college-aged people are doing.

Calling individual generations “the new Puritans” makes this position all the more explicitly ridiculous.

Which generation is the new Huguenots?

Nah, it's a reasonable shorthand and more widely understood than "Huguenots."

The point was that there’s no consistent characterization that people have in mind for “new Puritans,” which makes it especially pointless to label an entire generation that way.

Just a small case in point: Gen Z is the most openly queer/non-traditional generation in US history. There are entire segments of our population that consider that nature to be sexually deviant and want to control it with social restrictions. So why are Gen Z the “puritans”?

I think it’s because they have a religious zeal about themselves generally speaking. An inquisition like air that permeates many aspects of culture they are involved in. fundamentalist attitudes abound and an inability to consider alternatives blended with a constant appeal to authority.

In essence, an extremely conformist and neurotic generation.

i d classify it more as 'fear'. There is a pervasive attitude that every space has to be 'safe' for everyone everywhere all the time. That's infantilizing, rather than radicalizing, and it s very prominent.

Or, alternatively, they’re passionate kids with priorities that are different from yours and you’re out of the loop.

I haven’t seen any evidence that they’re particularly conformist, or more neurotic than most people I’ve talked to. This comment in point: what’s more neurotic than saying that an entire generation has an “inquisition like air”?

Yes, zealots tend to be passionate. Passion isn’t by itself a good quality. Especially when you’ve acquired no wisdom at all.

I think they’re a group of people with too much knowledge but nearly no wisdom. They mistake knowledge for knowing something. Again, generally speaking.

I don’t think it’s their fault. We have infantilized them and never let them out of the cage. We were so scared of them failing that they’ve picked up on it and have packaged it as compulsive neuroticism. They’ve been overloaded with information from dubious sources for years now.

Saying that there’s a lot of great kids out there.

> Yes, zealots tend to be passionate. Passion isn’t by itself a good quality. Especially when you’ve acquired no wisdom at all.

Sure, but this is not a particularly new phenomenon. Nobody expects a generation of children and young adults (at the absolute oldest!) to be wise beyond their years. I'm in my mid-20s, and even I'm too old to be a Zoomer.

People accused Gen Xers of being coddled and "smart without being wise." They called them zealots when they burned their draft cards and tied themselves to trees, engaged in mass strikes, etc. Passion in young people is not new, and neither is "but this generation is different."

For what it's worth, I actually do agree that helicopter parenting (among other things) have a deleterious affect on kids. But that's a 40+ year old phenomenon, one that's not unique to gen Z. And of all the people I know online, Zoomers are the least susceptible to fake information (if only because so many of them are nihilistic).

I think you’re confusing Boomers with GenX. GenX is notorious for not caring and for slacking and for cynicism. It’s why there’s so many great comedians from that generation working today. Not much was taken too seriously. I’m sure some tied themselves to trees though but not group strikes.

GenX has very suspicious of group identity and “selling out”. A corporation pandering to their values would be mortifying. Very much the opposite of todays kids. Which makes sense as it’s their kids.

Yeah, I got things a little twisted. But the point stands: Boomers were originally lambasted for being soft and idealistic, as the first post-war generation. They’re now the ones, if we’re painting broad strokes, posting reactionary screeds about the younger generations.

> GenX has very suspicious of group identity and “selling out”.

The Pepsi Generation is suspicious of selling out?

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