Kill All The Boomers?

[Momanohedhunter]

as a post war population boom you guys had two things working for you - a massively expanding marketplace and a previous generation that had been, to some extent, decimated.

so no, you guys didn't have to wait your turn. there was nobody in front of you with 30 years of experience who just won't fucking retire and let everyone else move up the chain. There was no expectation of experience for every damn job.

(you do realize that i'm being a bit facetious, but only a bit, right?)

Yes, I do realize you are........but I lived it and you are wrong. In fact, in the office next door to mine is an exec in his late 70's. I first met him back when I was hired in 1981 and he was already an exec back then. I sure wish he'd retire and get out of my way. I've only got another decade I plan to work.

My experience with the "old guys" who hang in there has been that they never really developed any outside interests and their work is all they have and without it they wouldn't know what to do with their time.


I retired just about 10 years ago at 51. I can't tell you how many people ask me "what do you do all day long?"

I bet you dont watch TV and drink beer all day. Surely you have something to do, fishing, hunting, crafts of some kind ? No one just retires and does nothing do they ?

 

[The Gadfly]

Social commentary from an unknown angry Canadian poet writing in an unknown Canadian magazine. "Leave my pop culture alone"? Gladly. Baby Boomers are creative geniuses compared to the self indulgent whining spoiled Gen X'ers.

You know, that part of it made me raise my eyebrows a bit; just what pop culture is he so worried about boomers destroying? Let me see what sort of "pop culture" that is; hmmm, so far as I can tell, it seems based largely on video games, bad movies based on video games, cell phones, "social media" as a substitute for real, live human contact, "reality TV" which is anything but real, and the aimless, non-committal, scratch-an-itch sex of "friends with benefits" relationships. In short, detached, alienated, self-absorbed, sterile and dysfunctional; lacking warmth, creativity, passion, grand vision, or any sense of adventure except of the vicarious sort; a barren, amorphous, anonymous, socio-phobic, digital hell with icons for emotions, case for tone of voice; synthetic, anesthetic, safe as the womb, lifeless as the tomb, with an off switch or a reset button for when it all becomes too much like...well, living. Shut the TV, the cell phone and the video game box off for a week, and most of them would go stark raving mad from boredom, simply from being denied their "imitation of life" and a sorry imitation it is.

No wonder they screech so loudly, when the real world actually has the unmitigated gall to impinge on their fantasy world of abstract perfection.

Damn! Why, as a Gen X'er, do I feel like I just got virtually slapped!

Sad thing is, I can't find much to argue with when it comes to our pop culture... Never really paid close attention to it and when I did, it was quite disturbing.

I do find it entertaining when I hear the older generation complaining about the up and coming one though! I can imagine your generation heard it quite a bit from your parents as well...
All I can say is have faith Gadfly, like your generation, we've had unique experiences growing up. Many of us became latch-key kids because women were finally allowed(had) to enter the workforce so this built independence in us at a very early age. Our generation also were the ones to cut teeth on mouse pads and monitors, technology has made leaps and bounds in just the few decades we've been alive. We saw the birth of public access internet which is giving people all over the world limitless knowledge. We also witnessed the worst terrorist act on America's soil... The one positive you could pull from that tragedy is that it was the first time the United States felt, well, united! The list goes on but I'm sure you catch my drift.
As you said, with your generation, the long haired hippy types took awhile to realize that the straight and narrow was actually "groovy." Our pants-sagging, arrogant "peeps" will also come to this conclusion.

Nate, while your generation is currently a "lost generation" if ever there was one, I do see quite a bit of hope for you yet. Your generation was born into a society which had just experienced a great social revolution, on many fronts; race relations, gender roles, sexuality, societal values, all still very much in a state of flux. Even my generation, which started it all, hasn't yet sorted out all we have wrought. With great progress have also come excesses, mistakes, and unintended and unforeseen consequences. Add in a revolution in knowledge and technology, and it is small wonder so many of you are adrift, uncertain, alienated, and more than a little confused as to what to do with it all. This has always been so with times of great change in any society, and it will be your challenge, just as the times we came of age in were our challenge.

Your generation has great potential, but most of it is unrealized.What lies ahead of you will take patience, preparation, and time, before you are ready to tackle it. Youth is inherently impetuous, impatient, and confident (often excessively so). That is all well and good, but we, your elders, would not be doing you a favor if we handed you the keys to the kingdom just yet. Just as we had to learn that responsibility and power are earned, not simply given, so will you. Even the finest talents and minds, like the finest steel blades, are useless until properly tempered and honed; otherwise, they are brittle, will not hold an edge, and will break under pressure. Just so, your talents and enthusiasms will have to be tempered and honed by experience, including the experience of failure. Adversity has many lessons to teach, including humility, self-discipline, and the futility of self-absorption. These have to be taken in and learned, not once, but many times.

Like the generations before us, we will not be here forever, and your time will come. Rather than resent the waiting, use it; use it to work, to grow, to prepare, and yes, use it to learn from the past. The legacy you will take on is not a blank canvas to scribble on, but a complex tapestry only partly woven, a puzzle partly finished, and you cannot hope to know what direction to go in, unless you fully understand where you are, and what has been done before.

 

[kwc57]

Yes, I do realize you are........but I lived it and you are wrong. In fact, in the office next door to mine is an exec in his late 70's. I first met him back when I was hired in 1981 and he was already an exec back then. I sure wish he'd retire and get out of my way. I've only got another decade I plan to work.

he's the exception. your generation is the rule.

Whatever gets you thru the night.

 

[daveman]

BTW Retard. Do you gitcha summa that thar soshillistic security on top of your pension for spending a measly 20 years as a professional meathead ?

Who are you talking to, you irrational, smelly hippie?

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

This is why I enjoy pointing out the obituaries of young people who die to young people. They think they're invulnerable. I like to enlighten them to the fact that many young people will not outlive many of the older people who are alive right now.

You can see the light bulb come on, and they get upset. They thought they were immortal! I like to clear that misconception up at every chance I get.

Oh, look, this 30 year old woman died of cancer! Etc. Shakes them up a bit. Knocks them off their high, superior horses. The "we're better because we're young" delusion.

Hehe.

 

[The Gadfly]

This is why I enjoy pointing out the obituaries of young people who die to young people. They think they're invulnerable. I like to enlighten them to the fact that many young people will not outlive many of the older people who are alive right now.

You can see the light bulb come on, and they get upset. They thought they were immortal! I like to clear that misconception up at every chance I get.

Oh, look, this 30 year old woman died of cancer! Etc. Shakes them up a bit. Knocks them off their high, superior horses. The "we're better because we're young" delusion.

Hehe.

Now, now, let's not knock all that youthful cockiness out of them; taking a bit of the edge off it will suffice, and real life experience will take care of that for most of them. For the rest, it won't be entirely a bad thing; it may give them the courage to dare to attempt what seems impossible, and society needs a few daring souls, just as much as it needs the more cautious majority. Honestly, one of my worries with Gen X is that too many of them seem too averse to risk, too protective of themselves, and too afraid of failure, at an age when they ought to be more adventurous. The attitude you speak of is not youthful confidence, but simply the result of being exposed to mass marketing that sells the illusion that youth, sex and beauty are everything.

 

[DiAnna]

Eh, it's easy to say Boomers should have prepared better for retirement... especially when most non-Boomers have no idea of what preparations have or have not been made. As soon as IRA's, 401k's, deferred compensation became available... in the 80's, I think... most of us Boomers stuffed every spare penny into those babies. We thought we'd be set. After all, if all went well we'd have a cool $300,000+ at retirement, which would let us live a good, middle-class lifestyle for 15-20 years, right?

Thing is, $20,000 was a good, middle-class annual salary back then. Now we retire with that same $300,000 when a good, middle-class lifestyle is $100,000 a year. Oops. Now what?

The best-laid plans, young'uns. Never underestimate the power of inflation or the inability to know the unknowable. We're doing our best, but short of mass suicide most of us still have to work to pay the bills, just like y'all do. Unless, of course, your generation wants to generously take their parents back into their own homes and support them during their golden years the way they supported you during your growing years.

Just a thought.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I say we hook up some juice to the voting machines, anybody that votes democratic gets fried. Regardless of age, color, religion, gender, that way there's no discrimination and we cull the herd of idiots.

A neutron bomb over Texas would be a good way to begin to cull idiots, Chief Retarded.

how about one right on top of your chubby ass?.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

BTW Retard. Do you gitcha summa that thar soshillistic security on top of your pension for spending a measly 20 years as a professional meathead ?

at least he did not run like a pussy.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

I say we hook up some juice to the voting machines, anybody that votes democratic gets fried. Regardless of age, color, religion, gender, that way there's no discrimination and we cull the herd of idiots.

A neutron bomb over Texas would be a good way to begin to cull idiots, Chief Retarded.

If you want to cull idiots, I'm thinking maybe New York and California.

your responding to a major idiot....now how do you feel?....