Thread: Makes you wonder about people

At one time a whole population lived under a rock somewhere. Now they have come out and gather on the internet where they can encourage each other and goad each other on.

Someone who would never imagine acting out his or her sick thoughts can now accomplish them and feel good about it.

In our society we accept the fact tens of thousands die on our roads each year. That's just a de facto thing. Some day someone is going to write a dissertation and calculate how many die because of the internet.

millennials ,, X,s and O,s for all I care, there is bad in each generation. but this total disrespect for life didn't come about in a big way till this last generatrion of I want it now and f**k you if you wont give it to me,, that's not to say it s all of them, don't get me wrong, I have 3 grandchildren who are or have graduated college and work all the time, and still say yes sir and yes mam. maybe itd the damn video games they want to try to act in real life. and if we hadn't put phones in every ones hands maybe the younger gen, would actually work instead of texting all day at work Tc

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,. maybe itd the damn video games they want to try to act in real life. and if we hadn't put phones in every ones hands maybe the younger gen, would actually work instead of texting all day at work Tc

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

My wife teaches Kindergarten and we're talking kids 5 years old and they have no respect for anyone. They demand and expect and most can curse like a sailor and if they don't get their way they start screaming and throwing things and other kids around and hit the teachers.

Now where you think they learned all this? Hmm...this is a hard one.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

My wife teaches Kindergarten and we're talking kids 5 years old and they have no respect for anyone. They demand and expect and most can curse like a sailor and if they don't get their way they start screaming and throwing things and other kids around and hit the teachers.

Now where you think they learned all this? Hmm...this is a hard one.

Respect and discipline. These two things are no longer part of raising a kid. (Now I'm not talking about everyone just those taters that spoil it for everyone else) Everyone wants life to be better for there kids than they had it but in the process fail to teach these two very important things. Then here in the USA the government gets involved in how you should raise your children and this re-enforces the loss of respect and the absence of discipline. I really think we need to have mandatory military service for all able bodied young people. Other countries have it and from the ones I've met it seems to promote a better citizen. At least there would be consequences for there actions. My oldest brother taught 5 grade in a small rural school and one of the students didn't like what he was told and said I'm going to tell my farther at which my brother took out his cell and said what's his no. that was the end of that problem. we need more teachers and fathers like that.

Originally Posted by Dieseld

I agree on most of what's said here.
But I think you guys are mistaking Generation X and Millennials. Gen X is born between 1961-81, Millennials after that.

Most Gen Xer's I know are my friends, and we've used outhouses and were taught about WWII in school. Now the schools curriculum changed when the Millennials got there. They aren't taught what we were.

The future doesn't look to bright if run by Millennials though.

And as to Morals and Ethics..................we're the last generation with them in my opinion.
I try to raise my sons with both, and hope I succeed.

Agreed - Gen X myself...we straddle both worlds in many ways.....

I'm right there with Dieseld!
Geezer - I think you meant Gen Y aka Millennials.
If Millennials scare you, think about Gen Z, they will be joining workforce in a couple of years!

Originally Posted by Dieseld

I agree on most of what's said here.
But I think you guys are mistaking Generation X and Millennials. Gen X is born between 1961-81, Millennials after that.

Most Gen Xer's I know are my friends, and we've used outhouses and were taught about WWII in school. Now the schools curriculum changed when the Millennials got there. They aren't taught what we were.

The future doesn't look to bright if run by Millennials though.

And as to Morals and Ethics..................we're the last generation with them in my opinion.
I try to raise my sons with both, and hope I succeed.

Seems to be a great deal of casting about for explanations - both simple and complex - for where we are as societies today.

IMHO, It goes way beyond fashion. While I'm in total agreement that something must be a bit wrong with anyone who reckons wearing one's pants around one's knees is a sensible thing to do, and that whoever came up with the absolutely flat baseball cap brim has some explaining to do, I also know that fashion is just fashion. It will change. It's also worth remembering that there is nothing new in this: peoples' clothes and how they wore them was put forward as one of the many sincere explanations offered by contemporaries for the onset of the Black death in the middle of the 14th century.

It goes beyond groupings of generations as well. I too am a Gen Xer, having arrived in the world smack dab in the middle of the 61-81 range given above. But what does that actually mean? I have a facebook account, but am well familiar with both outhouses and cook stoves. I now have a pretty cutting edge mobile phone, but hated my buddy's phone # when I was a kid because of all the 8s and 0s it contained. (if you don't get that, google rotary phone...) I grew up during the cold war, knew veterans of both World Wars, and sincerely hope we're not heading for round III. I treat everyone with respect until they show it to be undeserved. I don't feel the world owes me anything, and have worked damn hard for what I have earned.

I last taught at a university ten years ago, and back then we were starting to more regularly encounter students who (I think) embody many of the characteristics that are driving much of this thread. (sense of entitlement, lack of sense of personal responsibility, coddling parents, constant drive to be online/texting, etc) Some of them drove me nuts: not doing assignments and expecting there not to be any consequence; requests to completely restructure my carefully structured syllabus because they weren't "into" something in the course; calls/emails from parents asking to discuss their (adult) child's grades, etc., but to be honest it didn't take long to get them straightened out: after losing a letter grade or two, assignments started appearing on time; after being 'forced' into following the syllabus, students discovered new interests; and no, Mr. Smith, your child is an adult, so he/she can come talk to me about grades any time, but I cannot and will not discuss them with anyone else.

What *really* shocked me was how utterly unprepared many of them were for university and/or real life away from home. May of them couldn't write or make a cogent argument to save their life, but it went way beyond lack of academic skills. In fact the worst thing about my time as a lecturer was watching obviously bright students gradually fall apart during the first semester, then disappear after the Christmas break. So my question is what are doing - or not doing - before they get to the point where they are leaving home? Why are these young adults so utterly unprepared for the outside world, when they have all of it seemingly at their fingertips?

But then when I stop to think about it, I remember that these were not the majority. Most of my students were just fine: bright, smart, hard-working, self-reliant... all the things people say is absent from Gen Y. And these folks have gone on to start building careers as diverse as forest fire fighting, sports journalism, nursing, welding, and academia. So I'm pretty confident the generation isn't a write-off as a whole.

Much of this is very familiar, but while it's true that every generation has despaired for the ones to come in one way or other, there seems to be something deeper, more widespread, and just plain nastier going on these days. Declining capacity for critical thought and the echo chamber of social media and other online forums have much to answer for. But I also think the growing lack of empathy is just as worrying. It seems like more and more people are just unable to even imagine what the world looks like from another's perspective. And as long as that is the case, I fear hatred, division, bullying/trolling, will just get worse. Feed that back into the echo chamber, and it's hard to see things getting better any time soon.

Happy thoughts for Monday morning... Sorry for the rambling.

EDIT: apologies Bob for nudging this farther from your original post: I agree with your sentiment there

Originally Posted by Cangooner

But then when I stop to think about it, I remember that these were not the majority. Most of my students were just fine: bright, smart, hard-working, self-reliant... all the things people say is absent from Gen Y. And these folks have gone on to start building careers as diverse as forest fire fighting, sports journalism, nursing, welding, and academia. So I'm pretty confident the generation isn't a write-off as a whole.

Thank you for at recognizing this. I think it's hard to look beyond the few squeaky wheels which is why we see the stereotype, so I appreciate you doing so.
Much of this talk is no different than my grandpa saying "kids these days" when my dad was in his early adulthood (still says that ). Every generation has the generations above them speak down about them, it's just part of becoming an adult I guess. And yet, the world still turns.

The original intent of the OP I believe was to bring attention to the condition of the world as a whole, which is dim sometimes to say the least. The individual of focus wasn't a millennial, though many of his victims were. So I'm failing to see how this ended up being about what a horrible generation millennials are... again

Originally Posted by Cangooner

Happy thoughts for Monday morning... Sorry for the rambling.

EDIT: apologies Bob for nudging this farther from your original post: I agree with your sentiment there

Absolutely no apologies needed, very well put.

Bob