I think the fact that they seem to understand that the whole society we have at present is built almost entirely of bullshit.. is going to work well for them changing things for everyone, even if all they do is not comply. They seem to understand, at least in some contexts, that appearances aren’t worth much if there’s no substance.
The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise.
Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters.
People have been complaining about kids these days ever since the invention of kids.
Just look at the Christian creation myth. One of Adam and Eve's kids straight up murdered one of his siblings and then lied about it. Back in Adam and Eve's day they never did anything like that. Heck, look at God. He put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, stocked it with everything they could ever possibly need or want, and gave them one rule. ONE RULE. And if they followed it they could stay there forever. Then He turns His back for FIVE MINUTES and what does He find them doing?
Children. Goblins, the lot of them. They've been successively lowering the bar below where their parents imagined it was in their day with every passing generation, and honestly I'm proud of us for it.
I think the younger generations are finally shrugging off the apathy that plagued GenX and Millennials.
They're engaged, interested in broad ranges of subjects, are more aware of other cultures.
I also see a greater sense of kindness and community.
Being born into a shit world that has only gotten more shit, instead of just making sarcastic jokes about it they protest and organize, plan and research.
I like this and wish it wasn't so long coming.
Great job younger gens! Sorry you got the worst of this but I am more than willing to help put it all right once the boomers die off.
I'm an older millennial. My take on the GenZ entering the workforce: Super accepting of people of color, LGBTQ, vegan diets and green initiatives. Just really fun, pleasant people to be around.
I just changed projects recently from an office that skewed younger and it's like I ended up in 2003 again. The office is just slightly older than me and it's just a weird vibe....people randomly ranting about EVs and how they would never own one as if anybody asked; dancing around asking what my ethnicity is as if it matters, etc. Talking bad about Asians and then looking my direction and stopping mid conversation. Ranting about vegans like it's physically hurting them. It's disheartening. There's no positivity and no small talk; it's just dead silence unless you are hating on something that has no bearing on your life.
Like live and let live right? I am not vegan but I'm not going to complain about it, or equate eating meat with manliness. And even if I had issues with veganism, work isn't the appropriate venue to be ranting about it.
I’ve been really surprised by urban high schoolers and college kids - their sense of style and affect is much more unisex and there’s a distinct apathy toward gender norms. Plenty of ostensibly “straight” young couples wearing clothes and behaving in ways what would have coded millennial youth as queer.
Most of the openly nonbinary people (they/thems) I’ve met are much younger than me.
Groovy. Gender roles are dead. Guess this might help explain why trans folk are seen as the big bad by boomer conservatives and rural folks.
There appears to be a punctuated rejection of more traditional gender roles in current youth. With the concurrent increased visibility of trans people, I can sort of see how someone who is under-informed and fearful of change might blame trans folks for this or perceive them as a threat. There’s no actual reason to think these are causal, but I can kind of see how one could end up seeing it that way.
Just spitballing, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around where the vitriol toward trans* folks comes from lately. Like yeah, bigotry and lack of understanding, but that kind of dismissal doesn’t lead to understanding or dialogue. Still not sure what is so scary about cultural changes, but there seem to be people who strongly feel that “the way things are/have been” is somehow sacred or important regardless of whether there’s objective rationale?
As far as whether trans* people necessarily follow gender roles, I haven’t really seen that to be the case in the circles I orbit. Especially since trans and nonbinary aren’t, like, mutually exclusive.
There is a lot of pressure to conform with gendered expectations in order to “pass” and receive medical treatment, but there’s also lot of exposure to how arbitrary and unimportant gender is as a social construct.
It's an interesting topic. Are genders as a social construct meaningful in any way? And is there any sort of objectivity to it?
Duality might be a fundamental dynamic that is useful in many ways.
I mean it's a bit like morality. Some people argue it is entirely subjective and others that there is an objective morality. Like if we'd run into aliens they'd also have the same fundamental morality as we do. Like a kind of math. What if that's true in this case as well?
It has not been my impression that the US has more business scams than other places. Most of the big ones I can think of are phone and internet scams primarily run out of other countries to avoid US law enforcement.
Truth in advertising laws aren't perfect but do exist and are mostly enforced. Although I'm not sure false advertising exactly counts as a scam.
Is there a specific type of scam you're thinking of?
Ah, I'm not sure how the US market rules compare to other large stock exchanges but I don't believe there are an enormous number of outright scams on either the NYSE or NASDAQ. There's definitely a fine line between marketing, hype, and scam. Musk, for instance, pretty blatantly crosses the line into market manipulation but that's more an exception than a rule. In general, disclosures are accurate and you can pretty much know what you're getting into before buying.
Honestly, most goods and services are a scam. Companies don’t care about workers, customers, or even their own longevity. Shareholders and next quarter profits reign supreme. If there is something that is not yet a scam, it will be co-opted and enshittified by a more powerful rent-seeker.
Despite what some may claim, the US market is pretty well controlled. The tools are mostly geared towards corporations being able to hit other corporations over the head with a bat, but on occasion even some "average Joes" can pull a class action suit... although if a corporation manages to stay clear of other corporations, it can usually scam its users either for free, or for some "cost of doing business" kind of fines, as long as it does so without losing too much public image.
By comparison, a more "intervened market" like China's, is 100% full of scammers... because the CCP won't let anyone get big without having some way to blackmail them with shutting them down if it fits its agenda, so it's a given that every larger Chinese corporation either has, or actively is breaking some law (just not openly). In addition, the CCP can step in and change the rules of the game at any moment, so it makes no sense to do business any other way than "get rich quick and GTFO before they change their mind".
An alternative is the EU's "free market with client protections", which gives every client like a mini-bat to hit any corporation that wrongs them... but that's only punishing against smaller scammers, while bigger corporations can still write it off as "cost of doing business". It does work to keep users protected from at least part of the scams, though.
I was. As a boy, I had undiagnosed ADHD and had a terrible time managing my emotions. It wouldn't take much for me to cry, like getting out in dodgeball. It was easy ammo for the bullies. My parents were very controlling which stunted my social growth and I had very few friends. I remember one of the boys being dared to put his arm around my shoulders at lunch. I thought he legitimately wanted to connect with me until he started counting out loud. All I could do was put my head down in shame...I don't look back on my childhood very fondly. Things were rough.
I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life. Only the last 10 years has that improved but it will always be a struggle.
Kids are assholes and I was tormented all through grade school up until my last year of middle school. That’s when I was strong (and fed up) enough to protect myself.
Before that I used humor to try and deflect. Self deprecation, deflection, and sometimes just avoiding the situation altogether. Which meant isolation for the most part.
My “solution” isn’t recommended but ultimately giving the bullies a taste of their medicine kept them away. But I suffered immensely prior to that. It fucks you up for life.
What you say about self deprecation and so on, reminds me of someone in my youth. I hope he's OK.
I'm sorry that you are struggling with your weight. I once dated someone who had issues with her weight and we had a magnificent time. I think she attracted me because she learned to accept herself at a young age.
I totally feel you on the self deprication survival instinct. I also struggled with my weight all through school, and being the first one to call myself fat helped deter others since I already made the joke.
Turns out calling yourself fat all the time isn't much better than others doing it though, as I now have quite the complex about eating, exercise, body image, etc.
Hello, yes.
All eleven years. Yelling, picking, fighting, name-calling, stealing, stalking - never understood why, until I was diagnosed with ASD not long ago. I guess I really was that different.
At one point in middle school I remember being so sick of one guy in particular, - he always kicked and pushed me during PE. Sometimes he would steal my things and throw them in the girls changing room to lock me there when I go to get them (I am a man). One time he pulled my pants down so the other guy could snap a photo of my bare behind on his phone. When I asked them to delete the photo, he punched me in the face.
I had a crush on a girl once. Came clean about it, we even went on a small date. This one time she waited for me after school with two girl friends - they pushed me to the ground, kicked me in my stomach, my back and between my legs, laughed at my pain and threw snow at my head. We were 10 at the time, and I was a lot smaller than the girls. I never told anyone, didnt want them to laugh at a boy who is being picked on by girls.
In middle school I got in a fight with one of my bullies during PE. He kicked me, I caught his foot with my hands and lifted it up - he fell on his wrist and broke it. The entire school started treating me like a plague. No one talked to me for several days, aside from the occasional "maniac" or "break my arm too, I wanna stay home".
There were several kids like me in our school. Teachers did nothing - for them I was a weird quiet kid, and quiet kid always get picked on. Parents did nothing, because nobody knew I'm autistic - they thought I'm just "lazy and weird".
I don't know what is there to learn besides "don't raise bullies".
My god I'm so sorry. I wish I could've been there for you. Especially the part about the girls is horrifying. Can you imagine what it must be like to be that small? They may well have leveled up to become Karens.
Do you want to say anything about ASD? I have a friend that might have it and it's challenging for me to communicate with her at times.
Do you think bullying might be due to incompetent parenting?
I was only recently diagnosed, and I am into my thirties now, which means I am a "high masking" individual. I am learning very slowly how to communicate what I actually feel and think, instead of saying what "would be appropriate to hear from someone who fits in". It can be very challenging.
I have family and friends now who are supportive, and they do a lot of things that help: we normalized non-verbal communication (texts, gestures, etc, - I have read about communication cards as well). Also, it is ok to be unable to say anything at all sometimes, especially during an intense moment.
Something I have noticed about myself which is also fairly typical (AFAIK) for people with ASD is that our attention and focus work differently than in most people. I seem to be unable to divide my attention up between things: I am either hyper-focused on something singular, or relaxed. So when I am focused, and something distracts me, it is distressing. Imagine someone you know suddenly startling you as you exit your home bathroom as a prank - getting pulled out of the focus feels sorta like that, minus the fear. When that happens, the frustration can be tough to control. If I suddenly snap at someone when they're trying to reach out - that is the reason most of the time.
I wish I could help you more - but I am only learning these things myself now. I used to really struggle with communication as a kid, and it turns out I just didn't have access to the support I needed.
When it comes to bullying, I think the most effective way to get rid of it is to start deliberately calling it out. This may be tougher than it sounds: sometimes we have to overcome a lot of bias and fear to call out a bully. Once I nail that, I'll think about a way to teach it to a kid.
Yeah. As a small child I was quite outgoing and confident, but I was also super nerdy and as far as being boyish as a boy can be. School happened and I quickly became an introvert and stayed one. It’s complicated to consult those memories: it’s all jumbled, mixed with harsh internal discourse and emotional fog. It left me with a negative charge. Even though I was always unable to violence, I could understand victims lashing out destructively. I’m glad my kid’s school takes bullying way more seriously than in my time. I think rampant bullying can leave reservoirs of darkness all over a community.
it’s all jumbled, mixed with harsh internal discourse and emotional fog
I suspect this is common in people who have been bullied a lot? My family think it's weird that I have very few clear memories of my childhood. A few events are very, very clear, but the rest is just a jumbled fog. For ages, I thought it was normal for people to not really remember 99% of their childhood.
Yea, but because I was a weird kid at middle school and bullies took advantage of that. To my advantage everyone hated them anyway (they were just two spesific people)
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