The New Twenty Somethings

[thecontributer]

[YMix]

Good find. Thanks.

According to Spengman, prayer and faith in the bronze age god from the Middle East would be enough to change all this. Presumably, the newly found 20-something Christians would start having children without a secure house, a secure job or a secure future. I suppose that faith makes up for all that. This should really bring the West back on track. Most of all, faith will change the economy that forces young people to become "emerging adults".

[Tinker]

Actually, I think Boomers like Spengler are putting an incredible amount of stress on our generation about this issue. Sure, there is the aspect of being dependent upon parents for a long time. But I think this is just a preparation for extra longevity. I fully suspect my peer group to regularly break 100 or even 120. We're going to live a very long time once you control for avoidable death. If I can get my diet and exercise under control there is no reason for me to expect not to live that long in terms of my health. I know a lot more about physiology than either of my parents, or any of my grandparents. My Uncle is pretty healthy and is very vibrant in his late 50s as a result of a clean-living kick he went on after he kicked the booze in his 30s. My Paternal Grandparents lived into their 70s, as did my Maternal Grandfather. My Maternal Grandmother lived into her mid-nineties. I need to control for diabetes, heart attack, cancer and arthritis. A lot of that can be avoided by better diet, I need to kick the sugary drinks habit most of all. Otherwise my diet isn't horrible.

My generation goes through an extreme amount of stress known as the quarter-life crisis where Boomer Self-Esteem building expectations crush our self-esteem when we learn that we are not masters of the universe out of the box. That indeed we cannot do/be anything we want. As a result we get held back, we don't hustle enough at 25, and then at 30 we are held back because we regret not hustling and all the missed opportunities we had in our twenties. People let small opportunities slip from their grasp because they have an expectation of holding out for something better. And we are constantly inundated with this barrage of messages that if we don't get our careers locked down, we're never going to have another shot. My friend who has a Masters degree is having trouble finding work, and I'm constantly listening to comments like, "I should kiss a beretta.", hopefully it's mainly his black humor and his sardonic wit, but I have known more than one person who has taken their own life. One friend was one of the most dynamic individuals I ever met, by the time he took his life around 25 he had finished the first draft of his book on education reform, had released a couple of Hip Hop albums and was generally where he wanted to be most of the time.

The hippy generation never forgave themselves for not saving the world when they were 25, and as such have pushed that onto us. We're not allowed to have fun at parties because it's nowhere near as cool as the parties THEY had. Though I confess, I've generally partied like it was the 60s. But we're stuck chasing the dragon of false expectations placed upon us by boomer controlled pop-culture. Even the people I know who completed their ten year plans by 28 get stuck in a malaise. One guy is happy that he has done everything he planned to do at 18, and is like, 'now what?', he's one of the more healthy and stable individuals I know. Another guy completed it, had his house, his career, his wife, but then his wife left him, and so that vision is forever shattered.

So I am hoping that most people will come to the conclusions that I've come to. I was getting great jobs just out of High School by virtue of the fact that I'd touched a computer in my life. Then of course all the younguns graduated with their Comp Sci degrees and my three years of experience wasn't more valuable than their degrees and the job market was tough, particularly considering the dotcom bubble bursting in 2000 and then the double-dip after 9/11. But the conclusion I've come to is, "Fuck those expectations, working for my own survival, the survival of my family, and helping those immediately around me is noble enough.", and I think that's a much more adult attitude. But I'm approaching 33, so I'm at the age where we start to become adults these days.

[YMix]

[Colonel Sun]

Across Japan, every year a is held for people who have turned 20 to welcome them into the adult world with it's rights and responsibilities.

On the other hand, there has been extensive hand wringing in the media about the current generation's so-called failure to launch.
No idea how extensive it is, or not, in reality.

____

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

~ Socrates (470 BC-399 BC) [attrib.]

[noddy]

Tinker - not sure about all that.

There is a certain amount of truth in the extended lifespan, delayed adulthood theory - I need some excuse for being as irresponsible and indulgent as I was, for as long as I could get away with it

but only some - the destruction of christianity has thrown a lot of cultural baby out with cultural bath water and we are probably in for a hell of a lot of denial and attempts to defeat history before we can settle back into a shared cultural understanding of whats solvable and government problems and whats not solvable and personal problems, with adult being the label for "these are your problems".

[Tinker]

noddy Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the notion of being an adult. Adult never meant to me a life of drudgery, I hated childhood, and have preferred adulthood all the way. I think people who want to live as children forever are fucking idiots, being an adult is way better.

But there are some statistical facts at play. When you control for avoidable death, and death before 18, statistically, the average lifespan shoots up to somewhere in the 80s if not 90s. That is simply a mathematical reality. Remove obesity complications, car crashes, lung cancer, murder, and you've got people living well into their 90s on a regular basis. The notion of average life-span is misleading because it takes all the artificial causes of death and averages them in with the people living to be centenarians. Hell, just control for SIDS cases and you've pushed the average lifespan close to 80 from 78. I know with absolute certainty that SIDS will never kill me.

So even without going Sci Fi there are lots of ways to extend the average lifespan by a decade and a half. So barring some artificial death, it is near certain that I will live to the average lifespan and beyond. This is a statistical probability not a hope for some alchemist named Aubrey DeGrey to save me from my senescence.

[Endovelico]

[noddy]

dunno endo - im not a christian, yet I dont think we have "replaced" it.

your right all the morality around ethics is now mainstream, where I reject that analysis is in the outcome.

have people really internalised christianity, are they really comfy with life and death and stress ?

or are they on a moral vanity trip on how lovely they are and how they can live for ever in the new age of wonder.

[Mattmovies]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[Demon of Undoing]

Fuck all that . Right now you have a world steeped in the vestigial remnants of Alph's global protestantism . When enough people get far enough away from the ideological/philosophical/theological roots of that , someone is going to say 'Love thy neighbor' and will be asked ' Why ?' .

Any following conversation about game theory, how civilized we Euro types really are , and why history has shown blah blah blah , well , get ready to be laughed at . One thing my study on hell has shown me is that many people need scary stories to even begin to act right . I think it is highly optimistic to assume more altruism from people that have had it easier due to material plenty than we expect from their ancestors , especially when the future of that plenty may be in serious jeopardy . Again, we are three missed meals or a couple of churchless generations from Vercingetorix .

[Rhapsody]

[Tinker]

I just had a great experience with a bunch of people who think this asinine Target boycott is the 'best thing ever!'

Apparently, "You shouldn't protest an incredibly LGBT friendly corporation, because of one tangental contribution to a business PAC just because that PAC gives to a candidate you don't like.", is a really stupid thing to say.

So now I understand precisely why this country is run by elites. The people who have the baseline intelligence to commit to effective action are going to run it. Most everyone else is going to be completely disengaged, and the ones who are engaged will spend a lot of their time on totally empty gestures.

I am not sure if this is happening more with this new generation, or whether it's sort of a constant.

[noddy]

[Endovelico]

[Colonel Sun]

[Tinker]

[noddy]

[noddy]

[noddy]

[Endovelico]

Progressive is the opposite of reactionary. Progressive thought recognizes that society cannot stand still, that there are things which can be improved and strives to achieve it. Often it is the left which personifies such thought, because it is the left which feels more strongly the need to improve living conditions for most people. Not very frequently the right may also strive for progress, but more often than not rightists want to go back to some thing, to some past situation which they fantasize was a lot better than the present situation. That's the more common position of those who are well off, who resent being asked to share responsibilities for the worse off. I thought most people understood what one meant by being progressive.