Just looked up polls, and more than half of boomers answered that “climate change should be a top priority.” A higher percentage of millennials believe that than Gen Z, which is surprising to me (and a bit worrying).
It’s likely that GenZ is just fatigued and apathetic to climate change. They might have just resigned to their fate, knowing the world governments and greedy corporate vermin won’t let anything meaningful happen in their lifetime.
Tech illiteracy will happen to most everyone, get off your high horses. Replace lead with microplastics or some shit for future generations. I’m sure the next generations will hate gen Y/Z just the same.
Generalizing entire groups of people usually isn’t recommended. I know boomers who would code circles around any of the kids who think that configuring wifi is the height of tech literacy.
Cool, tell those boomers to tell their boomer peers we are literally on a dying planet and they need to vote for politicians that want to stop the end of the world.
I understand it’s fun to blame boomers for climate change, but this was something that started before their generation existed and it will continue to be a problem after they’re gone. You can also blame them for inaction in addressing it, but given that the only real solution is an extreme degree of collective austerity across multiple civilizations, which is something innately at conflict with the expansionist nature of capitalism as an economic system (something which also predated boomers and which will continue to be a problem after they’re gone), then I would say that if you expect the problem to start being solved as soon as that generation is dead and buried, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
We’re too late to prevent climate change. Our efforts should instead be going towards mitigating the damage that consumerism is doing to our environment.
At this point we need drastic geoengineering and carbon capture solutions.
Oh no! A statement which applies to the vast majority has some exceptions! Better break out the um-actually and technically-incorrect stamps.
As someone who has worked in IT, age has a strong negative correlation with tech literacy. Is every boomer tech illiterate? Of course not. Some boomers built the tech we use today. But most boomers are worse with tech than most ten year olds.
My generation will have tech illiteracy problems worse than the boomers. Yours will be even worse than mine. It’s because most people reach a point where they stop trying to keep up with everything and fall behind.
You’ll start to see it after you pass 40 or so. Then when you’re in your 60s it’ll be your generation’s turn to be mocked as the bumbling idiots who ruined the world.
Gen z doesn’t have to understand shit about tech. They’ve been given apps that work flawlessly since birth. The only people “forced” to understand tech were the late Xers/early millenials where you got some cool new program or hardware and it almost never worked out of the box so you’d have to troubleshoot the shit out of everything before you could even google for answers.
After that plug and play started to work better and after that we got apps.
Exactly this, our first computer came with msdos, if you didn’t wanted to type commands in a terminal, you couldn’t play games. If you didn’t wanted to learn how to setup your soundcard for every game, the game had no (or super crappy) sound.
It’s not about understanding tech at all. I work in a software development team and have a pretty deep understanding of how a lot of tech works. But I never owned an Apple device, so I can’t tell you basic shit about a how use iOS.
Gen X had to learn learn how a computer works at a pretty basic level just to be able to use one. I took basic computer skills and programming for the TI 994a in elementary school. Then another hardware/software class around 5th grade. It was pretty easy to troubleshoot anything hardware or software until the mid 2000s.
People do tend to become more (small c) conservative as they grow older for a multitude of reasons. It makes sense - you’ve spent years accomplishing various goals and establishing a place for yourself. You’ve got more to lose, so you resist change.
But what I’m talking about is the loss of novelty. You stop caring about every new fad, every new piece of tech, every new movement. Life loses the magical quality it holds for the young. You focus more on the things you think are important, while the rest becomes background noise.
You don’t really notice at first. Then one day you look up and everything is different. Young people are talking about stuff you’ve never heard of and doing things that seem silly and inconsequential. New ways of doing things become common, and you feel stupid because you haven’t learned them. Instead of being more knowledgeable over time, you find yourself having to relearn new ways of doing things you mastered years ago.
Some people try their hardest to keep up, even though it’s harder every year. Some people shrug and accept it, content to let the young find their own way. Some complain endlessly and try to fight against change, insisting that the way of life they’ve led is the only proper way to live.
This happens to almost everyone. There are a few who manage to hold on to that spark of curiosity and wonder into old age, but they’re few and far between. You probably aren’t one of them. I know I’m not.
Gen z is notoriously tech illiterate for anything but the bare minimum. The amount that have never touched a PC or anything other than an iPhone is incredibly disturbing.
Yeah nah, I’m sure every generation will cop flack for something, it’s just that since WW2, and the cold war, problems like plastic, lead paint etc let alone the environment weren’t really on the agenda. People just didn’t have a list of big bad world problems besides war.
On one hand I agree that technology is changing at a rapid pace, and ageism is a thing, especially more so now with climate change, but I think the issue is how quickly can the “wall of education” be broken down so that a critical mass of the human population can be enabled to learn how to calculate complex integrals, produce a computer software and program, to make a pipe bomb lol, or fix their car etc, you get my point.
Information freedom is becoming a big deal for people these days but at the same time individuals are no longer expected to be so rigidly self reliant. First it was paper, then books in libraries, nowadays we have the internet. YouTube, torrents and search engines definitely help a lot, but I haven’t seen a top ten problems for humanity video on YouTube yet lol. We’re almost coming full circle, however, I still think we should pay homage to the idea that being self reliant and learning how to do something for yourself is essentially a good thing, not necessarily only valuable to prevent loss of information but for further collaboration opportunities. It’s not necessarily Nazism to argue that if every person’s mind was a library, idiocracy and risk of displacement would become less likely to occur on every level. Think of Hal from A Space Odyssey
Your mechanic can fix his own car the same way your locksmith can unlock his own van, and your tech support guy will probably learn to fix his own computer. If you can do all of those things, even if you don’t become a valuable person in society, at least you’ll be better at taking care of yourself and less likely to be a burden to your group.
In saying that, if I was an old 60-70yr old man, I would consider re-educating myself in a field not so hot for the younglings, you know, the usual work like the trades, engineering, computing, and big data are big money for many young people these days, so it makes sense, if you’re older to get into something less physical like painting, gardening, landscaping, digger operator, software UI development, accounting, systems engineering, matchmaking, etc, something that is either boring or niche enough that many avoid it while simultaneously needing it. Remember boredom is the weakness of the younglings lol
And yet they will still have, compared to the average beyond their age group, significantly higher lead content in their blood.
I’d bet significant money that the ones who are able to fill technical and intellectual roles are the ones who were lucky enough to avoid the worst of the toxic air.
There’s a reason boomers are almost universally fucking dumb.
I vape so its not like I’m against it or anything but do you really trust that the coils are safe? Especially when all the pre-made coils are coming from China? I mean look at the baby formula fiasco from a few years ago or the lead paint in Children’s toys. Not trying to fear monger but it’s not far fetched at all that there could be safety concerns with a lot of vaping stuff.
That’s primarily because boomer politicians replaced effective literacy programs with programs that allow those with learning disabilities and other intellectual impairments to navigate the world. This means that many gen Z and younger millennials were robbed of quality education that enables self-directed study and critical analysis of text. Primarily so that connected education product companies could make a profit.
The two are inextricably linked. Deep computer literacy requires regular literacy as well as the ability to learn and analyze independently. Both of the latter, when dealing with computers, rely on the former. There’s a literacy crisis in the US with significant downstream impacts that’s largely been ignored because the cause is profitable.
I’m not sure that we’re on the same page or set of definitions. Of course not every skill depends on linguistic literacy.
Take skateboarding, for example. Yes, there could be some theory, potentially (I’m clearly not a skater) but much of the skill is in learning how to physically operate the board as an extension of one’s body. This is a “natural” sort of skill that meshes well with our evolved neurobiology (ie perception, motor function, physical coordination, etc.)
Now, let’s look at written language. It is NOT a “natural” sort of skill. It MUST be taught and learned with effort because our neurobiology has not evolved to account for the sorts of tasks involved. Writing is an abstract thing that requires abstract thinking to really understand - the word “lion” is not literally a lion, which is not a simple task to grasp for an untrained brain.
Next, computing. A computer and what it does is incredibly abstract. A bunch of pieces of specially-shaped stone, use an invisible force to represent presence and absence (the concept of “zero” is only in recorded use for the last 3800 years or so and ancient greeks didn’t even have a symbol for it). By performing ever more complex mathematics on these stones, we can create tools that people can use to perform abstract, and in some cases, physical work. And these interactions are nearly all performed based upon instructions that people write in text-based languages that don’t even match up with natural languages.
Even if not, technically illiterate people can actually read a button or menu item.
And this is part of the origin of the issue inflicted upon younger people. In the US, literacy programs were largely replaced by programs literally designed to help people that are illiterate take care of their basic needs in a society that depends on written language.
Another way of putting it is: An illiterate person can press a button on a touchscreen to order a hamburger, because either there is a symbol of a hamburger, or, they were taught to recognize the shape of the word “hamburger”. But, they might not actually know what the price actually means or, they may mistakenly order a plane ticket to Bamberg, Germany, because the words look alike. If they have a computer and an error dialog box pops up, will they know how to figure out how to fix it? Will they install “anti-virus” software that opens in a popup because it looks similar?
How about if they want to learn how to write a resume? How will they do that? What about figuring out how to write a mod for Minecraft? Or Enterprise software? These are all things that are dependent on linguistic literacy. Reduction in the general population’s literacy makes people easier marks for cons and significantly reduces their ability to learn new things as well as effectively operate computers for anything but games and scams.
ETA: I’m far from an expert and would really recommend looking into what LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame is saying about this problem.
Damn, you know one guy who doesn’t fit the mold? Crazy to think there are outliers. Who would have thunk? I am absolutely flabbergasted. Shocking, to say the least.
I always find it funny: the internet is a lot softer and more inclusive than it ever used to be. Explicit sexism, racism, homophobia/transphobia, etc. are treated with zero tolerance most places. But straight up ageism? That’s the last truly accepted form of bigotry. Because getting pissed at a group of people who will be dead soon for not fixing all the world’s problems is easy when you’re young. When Gen Z gets to be 40 and there are no more Boomers but nothing is still being done to address the world’s myriad problems, I like to think there will be some self-reflection on the nature of the world in which they live and the innate difficulty of addressing complex problems driven by societal inertia. But we both know there won’t be and they’ll probably pivot to hating Gen X and Millennials. Or maybe they’ll go the other direction and blame young people.
Misandry seems to fly pretty often on the internet too.
Most specifically towards CIS white men. Even though I’m not that specific subset, I feel bad for them. Racism, bigotry and etc are tolerated when it’s directed at them and they can’t even defend themselves. Anytime they try to, they get met with whataboutism. Most of them are just flipping burgers. Just very tiny portion of CIS white men are iconic powerful people.
I can answer your question: When the Boomers are gone the Millenials will be called “Boomers” and blamed instead.
I dropped into a European Discord server a while back and got called a Boomer when I mentioned my age (40). I’m a Millennial. Apparently the server was full of 16-19yr old kids so I wasn’t made to feel very welcome. Not been back since.
But Millenials will most likely take the hit when Boomers are gone except the term “Boomer” is now just a generic insult against people in middle age+.
Gen X is the new Silent Generation because everyone forgot they even fucking existed. I remember when you guys were supposed to burn down cities and bring about full anarchy in the United States because you enjoyed grunge music and flannel. Turns out all of you were just chewed up and spit out by capitalism like the rest of us.
Seems likely. I’ve seen plenty of people say “Oh, this old-ass Boomer thinks [whatever shitty opinion here].” And this is in direct reference to people in their late forties/early fifties. And if you correct them and say “that person is Gen X - they’re the child of Baby Boomers,” they’ll pivot to “well, Boomer is a mindset, not age group.” But it does seem more likely to be an insult for old people or people who appear to be out of touch in some capacity.
Yeah, people who grew up with boomers as parents, teachers, bosses, weird aunts, etc. Find the ultra- reductiveness to be very silly. The labeling of the entire post war generation as incompetent neocons has never fit well except in the minds of people whose only knowledge of history comes from tiktok. Where do they think their anti- establishment ideas came from? Do they think the hippies and civil rights activists were millennials or something?
Most people of any generation don’t know anything about Computers besides the most basic things. Too many people asked me to burn CDs for them because it was too difficult, I was like 11yo when people asked me…
I don’t judge the previous generations for being poisoned. It is just going to be microplastics for us and we don’t even really know what it can do to us.
I don’t think you know your generations, the boomers were the creators of the internet and tech but didn’t know that had it so good and think everyone else does. Their parents were the ones that didn’t get tech so much. The gen x just goes along with everyone because they’ve never had any power and probably never will, they’re being skipped. Millennials are gen x extreme but have more numbers, and gen z is fucked. This isn’t a generational thing but a power and status thing. The people who have power and money have been fucking over the ones that don’t since this country began.
the boomers were the creators of the internet and tech
No, a very tiny number of them were. The vast majority can just about connect to their own wifi assuming the guide was printed and not a QR code.
Gen Z grew up with tech just basically works, and hides all the complicated stuff behind 17 submenus and automatic installs. I know plenty of gen Z who literally don’t know what a file path is.
Millenials and Gen X are the generations who needed to know tech if they wanted to use it. Unlike tech savvy boomers, there’s a lot of them, since computers were consumer products by then. And unlike gen Z, nothing was simple or automatic and there were no guides. You learned how to learn, or you didn’t get to use a PC for anything other than solitaire.
I guess I’m biased, I have a lot of boomer relatives and parents of friends that are still working in tech. In my world, it’s a lot of them.
No, a very tiny number of them were.
The following might be true, I also know a lot of younger people in every generation that don’t know tech. I mean most humans don’t want to know that stuff unless they have to. Maybe that’s confirming that Gen x and Millennials had to know.
Gen Z grew up with tech just basically works, and hides all the complicated stuff behind 17 submenus and automatic installs. I know plenty of gen Z who literally don’t know what a file path is.
Now that’s the truth if I’ve ever seen it. I’m right at the old edge of Gen Z, and some people just three to five years younger than me have trouble finding that file they downloaded.
Now, I’m not judging for that. If you don’t grow up using a PC, how would you know the ins and outs?
But what really gets me if someone needs to use a PC for Uni or work, and still doesn’t make any effort to learn after a year or two of using one.
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