What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, April 25, 2026 00:05
VIEWED: 18057
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1KIKI

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 2:44 AM

Well, OK - that's a well thought-out answer. It does seem to require a lot of work though. I wonder how I can parcel out my time and energy.

HEY - YOU YOUNG FOLK! You got spare energy. How about giving us old folk a hand?

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:14 AM

Quote:
HEY - YOU YOUNG FOLK! You got spare energy. How about giving us old folk a hand?

Since when do young people have spare time or energy? Between the bullshit school hours and busy work, or the corporate drudgerie and overtime?

Ultimately, everyone has to work out what they're going to do about everything for themselves. No one can just pass it off to someone they think has it easier.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:22 AM

Wait till you get old. Then compare your physical energy between being old and young. I didn't used to understand how my parents could be so tired. Now I know - the years take their toll. If you don't have the time and energy now, it isn't going to happen later. Just sayin'.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:29 AM

Quote:
If you don't have the time and energy now, it isn't going to happen later.

That basically goes for everyone of all ages.

Seriously, whatever young people care about this are already doing what they can. Don't expect someone else to do for you what you should be doing for yourself.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:37 AM

Hmmm - did I say I wasn't going to be doing anything? I just pointed out it was going to need some allotting. I think you've misread my posts.
HOWEVER - YOU are the generation with the most to lose. I'll be dead by the time the shit hits the fan in earnest. Maybe you could do some allotting yourself?

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:59 AM

Quote:
Maybe you could do some allotting yourself?

Again with this shaming. Where's your justification for shaming, what makes you think you have the right to shame?

As for death, it's not real picky about ages either. We're all in that race.

You say *I* have the most to lose. Do you have a husband? Do you have children? Do you have a future?

If you really want to go there, fine - YOU have so much more to lose than me or my generation ever will. You have people you have a responsibility to, and that might constrain what you can do for the effort. But don't look to us because you think you're somehow better than us and we haven't been holding up our end of the bargain. Don't look at us because you think you're too old and we're young and have energy we're not using. Hell with that.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 5:30 AM

"Maybe you could do some allotting yourself?"
"Again with this shaming."

It was a suggestion.

"... don't look to us because you think you're somehow better than us and we haven't been holding up our end of the bargain"

FWIW - My generation started the environmental movement. Political pressure got us the EPA. Rivers no longer catch on fire. The Montreal Protocol got signed. Recycling is the norm, not the exception. But obviously we fell far short of what is needed to be done. That was our effort for better or worse. It's on the record. Your record is still to be written. Maybe you are doing more than I realize. I just don't see a concerted effort from your generation. And I fear that without a lot more from all of us, there will be a deadly price to be paid. Statistically, I won't see it, but you will. I don't think it's a slam to point out these pretty evident facts.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 7:56 PM

The childless/jobless young and the childless/retired make natural allies.

BYTE: People of MY generation got their heads cracked protesting the Vietnam war, and attempted to create a "counterculture". After that, everyone went to med and dental and law school. (An acquaintance of mine, looking at the next generation of joggers-around-campus and their focus on the trivial/ personal, muttered May you live a hundred years... under capitalism!.)

Many posts ago, you were crowing about how YOUR generation was so smart they could outsmart the NSA. I asked if you (or your generation) knew the basis of CMOS technology, or could develop a firewall strong enough to keep out the NSA, or could design femto-second data capture circuit. AND... I'm adding now... organize campus actions and analyze economic trends. As I recall, you were rather quiet in reply.

KIKI has racked up a rather impressive list of actions. What have you done?

The older generation is not a waste, despite what you might think. And neither are you. The power that needs to be fought is large and strong and will take a worldwide, multi-generational movement and has no room for such petty divisions. Older people are TIRED people. As time goes on, we will get more and more tired. Eventually, we will be in wheelchairs and dependent. Younger people, IMHO, are stuck online with gaming and Facebook. You seem to be an aficionado yourself. None of us are perfect.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 8:46 PM

NIKI- from the same article that I linked for Geezer in the recession thread, I found this

Quote:
Kraus and Keltner looked deeper into the connection between social class and social class essentialism by testing participants’ belief in a just world, asking them to evaluate such statements as “I feel that people get what they are entitled to have.” The psychologist Melvin Lerner developed just world theory in the 1960s, arguing that we’re motivated to believe that the world is a fair place. The alternative—a universe where bad things happen to good people—is too upsetting. So we engage defense mechanisms such as blaming the victim—“She shouldn’t have dressed that way”—or trusting that positive and negative events will be balanced out by karma, a form of magical thinking.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/do-rich-peopl
e-really-think-they-are-superior-20140106-30cu0.html

Point being- karma isn't going to get us "back to" a decent society (if we ever were one.)

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 9:50 PM

Quote:
BYTE: People of MY generation got their heads cracked protesting the Vietnam war

People of my generation have also been hit by police batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, fire hoses, sound cannons, and microwave pain rays. I've never said one generation is better than any other.

But you both decided to turn this into a generation war thing, instead of encouraging the generations to work together, because it's more important to you that you can claim generational superiority.

I'm sure calling the people you want to recruit selfish young people will totally bring all those selfish young people FLOCKING to your cause.

I can do that too, watch. Why look at that jogger, I'm sure they spend all their time jogging and never once contributed to any cause based on the maybe five minutes we have observed of their lives. That's enough information for us to be judgmental and sneer about all these foolish selfish millenial kids. How dare they come from poorer middle class families and a bad job market and beginner wages and a bigger education/house debt than any other generation has ever seen, why don't they do MORE for society?

We can totally still fight but we like to talk about how we're OLD even though we're NOT and how we have to pass it on to the next generation but they're do-nothing lackwits who think listening to their devil music on their ipods is more important than being good citizens. In our day we listened to devil music on records made by the recording industry and turn tables from GE, and it made us rebels! Look at them, bunch of lackadaisical irresponsible selfish counter-culture stoners having all the promiscuous sex everywhere. They should cut their dirty greasy hair.

Quote:
Many posts ago, you were crowing about how YOUR generation was so smart they could outsmart the NSA. I asked if you (or your generation) knew the basis of CMOS technology, or could develop a firewall strong enough to keep out the NSA, or could design femto-second data capture circuit. AND... I'm adding now... organize campus actions and analyze economic trends. As I recall, you were rather quiet in reply.

Yes to all of those. Then there's the deepnet which even the intelligence agencies can't control, the large scale sometimes spontaneous organization we've observed through social media...

And, you don't even have to go that far to resist. How old is Edward Snowden? Pretty sure he is part of my generation, which has a slight technological advantage which hasn't existed in the past.

Quote:
KIKI has racked up a rather impressive list of actions. What have you done?

Yes, all things she can brag about on the internet, all things that are perfectly within the lines of what the system will allow. Oh, you've written to your senators, oh you've donated to campaigns, oh you've done door to door canvassing with petitions and booklets, oh you've boycotted businesses, oh you've protested wars, oh you've VOTED. Geez, as an ENTIRELY ORGANIC VEGAN with an eye towards self-sufficiency to the point of growing food in a community garden, investing in solar power, and making my own clothes, I suppose I'm just such a corporate WHORE.

Except no. I've done all that and more. I don't brag about it on the internet because it is UNWISE, and because it's not about making me FEEL better or LOOK better to anyone else and it's none of anyone's business but my own, and because I DON'T ANSWER TO YOU.

Furthermore, all that alone won't change ZIP until you're also willing to work OUTSIDE the system.

You want to have a two or three person discussion about how no one else but you guys on the board does anything politically active and demand that we account for ourselves, then fine, but I'm going to get offended on behalf of everyone else here.

All the times people have called me bossy and controlling on this board, I haven't ever questioned the lives or the value of the contr

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