OK Boomer; Normal friction or wealth and social inequality symptom

Socrates (469–399 B.C.) QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.

 

I think the Boomers’ greatest luck was to grow up in a time of great enthusiasm. Life wasn’t all that easy but there was tremendous self-confidence. After the war it was almost as if society was reborn and going through its own teenage years with a mix of innocence and boldness.

The current young generation is unlucky to grow up in a society that feels very mature, even old, exceedingly knowledgeable yet powerless to come up with solutions for its predicaments. Not that the predicaments are greater than before, but they’re met with almost a sense of despair rather than excitement.

Being a Boomer I can see this with my kids. They’re all doing much betther than I did at their age and I’m sure they’ll do much better than I do when they’ll get to my age, but for some reason they don’t believe they can. Not their fault, not my fault – I suspect it’s just civilisation going through its own cycle of transformation.

If governments need to adapt their policies, so be it, and this should be welcome, however I doubt that the underlying mood will change.

PS: Other countries are going through different stages, which explains why this mood is very peculiar to western societies even though wealth imbalances are much greater elsewhere.

 

So nothing has changed in the last 2,500 years .

You left off this bit:

“They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”​

 

I live in an area with lots of new migrant families (overseas parents with children born in Australia in last 10 years). Majority of them are very hard working, push their kids to excel and access the best opportunities. Regardless of being up against the establishment or not.
They don't think twice about generational divide. They are of course from different background, but just shows its attitude not the economic divide.
Just like Elliott waves within Elliott waves, it's hard to discern if your country is in a mature stage of a mega cycle or just repeating what has happened thousand times over for each generation.

 

Unless they have strict ass parents who 'beat' (not physically) them into human beings from young

I discipline my daughter from 6 months. She understands now at 9 months, no means NO and she immediately stops. No exceptions.

Love them, of course. But don't destroy them by trying to be their best friend while growing up.

 

What article?

 

The article in this link

Another over entitled mentality Gen Y

 

This is a great quote which always gets wheeled out for these generation threads ‍‍‍

 

So we told black people until rather recently....

So we've been telling women throughout history....

So we now tell our own children....

It's all mindset, don't worry about inequality, don't worry about trying to create a better society, don't worry about systemic "problems" (define that how you like), don't worry that the system has inefficiencies and is skewed towards a few, don't worry that you may have to work twice as hard for the same result. None of that is an issue and to suggest otherwise is to attack those who have gone before and done it all through their own grit and determination.

Just have the right mindset and work hard and you will be successful and for goodness sake don't rock the boat!!

/end hyperbole.

Seriously though, consider this....

Would you tell women wanting to discuss the gender pay gap and how to address that issue to just "ignore it, it's all mindset, just work hard and you'll be successful"?

*Yes I said I wouldn't reply again and I probably shouldn't have and I promise to try better next time.

 

Female, black, raped at 9 and a pauper in rags suffering every inequality under the sun.

Fast forward to 2019 and this woman has a net worth of 2.8 billion.


Oprah Winfrey

 

Obviously she has the WRONG mindset!!!

 

Nah, have the wrong mindset, be lazy and, for goodness sake, rock the boat as hard and often as you can .

Not a great recipe for success in my eyes .

 

Pretty sure she fights pretty hard for women's and black rights now.

But ok, Oprah did it so we shouldn't try to change situations for the betterment of all. Any suggestion that things could be "better" or "fairer" or whatever should obviously be instantly squashed with the admonition that one should ignore all that stuff and just get their mindset right.

 

Did anyone ever suggest that mindset? I'll wait for a link to an actual quote if you like.

How about a mindset of "I've worked hard, am successful and everyone who wants to be successful should do the same. However, I can admit there are systemic problems that could be fixed and I'm willing to have a discussion about that"

 

Not saying that at all. Fight for equality, better conditions etc. Absolutely.

But there is also much to be said for those who have come from s*itty situations and have made a massive success of their life. And in the majority of those cases it wasn't achieved by protest.

 

Did I suggest that someone had ever suggested that mindset?

I'll wait for a link to an actual quote if you like .

If only it was that easy. Then we would be successful .

In my humble opinion and my limited experience, I believe it takes a lot more than that .

That is why only a few succeed .

I am not that active of an investor .

I don’t really know (or care) if there are really systemic problems .

My mantra is:

Learn the rules, play the game.
If they change the rules, change one’s game.​

It has worked OK for me so far .

 

You painfully misunderstood my reply, or assumed bad intentions. To somehow correlate this with social movements, tends to demonstrate your intention to politicise every issue; a problem of our times.

The gender gap doesn’t exist and has been debunked for decades, yet once again, is rising from the ashes to fight a new battle in a new time. When oh when will people grasp simple statistics.

What systemic problems do you see in the system? How is the system skewed towards the few? How might you reshape society if you had the keys to change? What makes you think you have the answers to all the world’s problems? Including the intricate and complex networks of the world that have lifted billions of out of poverty in the last 25 years.

To clarify, acknowledge what you have whether that be family, friends, a roof over your head - whatever. If you’re unhappy and/or disappointed in things, find fault first in yourself and look to what you could have done better. Once you’ve interrogated your own failings, of which there will likely be many, then do you unpick society’s problems. But be careful as you pull the strings of resentment - it might topple all the cards.

It’s easy to blame the world for one’s own shortcomings. It’s much harder to acknowledge the mistakes you made. The psychology is crystal clear on this.

I think Thomas Sowell, a man once of the Left - who grew up in a time of actual systemic racism and oppression towards blacks - and managed to discard a victimhood mentality to go on and became one of the greatest thinkers of the last 50 years, sums it up nicely in the quote.

 

Oh, that would be nice.

And you replied AGAIN.

That's pretty much how I've lived as well.

Nothing in life is fair. You can bang on about baby boomers, or pay gaps, or gender, or skin colour, or even the privilege of living in a Western Country. Complaining won't change any of that, and yes, it would be nice if it was an even playing field, but it isn't. The best you can do is to look at your own personal situation, and work with that. You have many people in this world who were born into the most privileged positions who have wasted or taken everything for granted, and others born into adversity who just buckle down, work hard & do well for themselves.

 

@kierank
You thoughtless *******!

No Xmas present from Santa for you. ​

 

Confirmation bias!
What percentage of billionaires are black or female or black AND female? The absolutely overwhelming majority is white and Chinese males.

Edit: I had a look and there are well over 2000 billionaires. How many are black and female? ONE! There's one other of mixed race, but either way, it's such a minute number that if you were to tell a black girl that she can become a billionaire, you'd be lying to her.

All up, there are only 12 black billionaires.