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Guest Post: A Twenty Something Speaks
Guest Post: A Twenty Something Speaks
By
Steak
(As much as anyone else, I am guilty of complaining that “the younger generation” is absent from the developing collapse dialogue. More than once I have said that if permanent change is to be made, first the young must become involved, then change needs to be embraced by the average Jane and Joe. But when the young raise their voices in anger or protest, such as the On Wall Street contingent, my tendency is to complain about the methods they use or the process they follow. This is patently unfair of me and hypocritical to boot.
With this thought in mind I present the following from Steak, a ZH Veteran by any measure with more time in than me, who many know from the playlists he drops into the comment section from time to time. Please take a few moments and read what he has to say.)
Cognitive Dissonance
12/04/2011
To my peers:
Being born in 1984 offers a special perspective on where society is at present, as well as where it might be going. We are digital natives who also remember the old ways. Our first years of elementary school were characterized by paper encyclopedias, library card filing systems, and Apple II computers. We reached our teenage years just in time for AOL Instant Messenger to become a dominant force in our social lives, and we weren’t just pioneers on Facebook, we were on THE Facebook.
Having a foot planted on each side of distinct historical eras defines us. While the question of generational divides along technological lines is a commonly explored theme, the great divide unique to us is economic.
Those before us only knew and only expect an ever increasing level of prosperity. Those after us only know the turmoil of collapse. The older ones are attached to a world that never truly existed, and the younger ones have trouble imagining any sort of better world. All the while we children of 1983/84 grew up in the last parabolic push of the most prosperous era in human history. It was enough that we can remember in vivid detail how it was, but it did not last so long in our lives that we have some fundamental expectation for it to persist.
At least where I grew up, the idyllic childhood in the bubble years was disrupted by a sign that perhaps things were worse than appeared on the surface. Around the time my cohort was starting middle school, many of us had new kids in our classes. Atlanta being a popular place for refugee resettlement, in the mid 90’s there was a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet republics. We gave them shit as ‘ruskies’ and ‘commies’, but they came along early enough that by high school we were all just part of the same groups.
They were hard, all of them. Where they came from there was hunger, deeply ingrained organized crime, and ethnic hatreds. Their parents were PhDs who had to work for the mafia just to make ends meet. There was a deep appreciation on their part that America was a place, still in those last few years, where if one followed the rules there was a shot at a comfortable life.
It all seemed so dramatic. We were just kids, and those were stories from distant lands. We didn’t know they were describing the violence of collapse. They didn’t know they were only the first victims of a wave that would follow them here and one day sweep the world. Looking back, those things are clear both to us and to them.
Being born 1983/84 put us in a unique position on the day of the inflection point of our time. By September 2001 we were seniors in high school and all around 18. Sure there was talk about how the government would respond, but on that day and in the following months the real question was how WE would respond. Go to college or go to war? In May of 2002 Eminem spoke directly to us when he said:
Fuckin' assassins hijackin' Amtracks crashing,
All this terror America demands action,
Next thing you know you've got Uncle Sam's ass askin'
To join the army or what you'll do for there Navy.
You just a baby,
Gettin' recruited at eighteen,
You're on a plane now,
Eating their food and their baked beans.
I'm 28,
They gonna take you 'fore they take me
Some decided to fight, some were horribly injured, and others died. I can’t commend or condemn how any of my friends decided they would respond to the attack, it was a deeply personal decision for everyone. But that was where we broke with the past. Our parents, as they were conditioned in their lifetime of prosperity, waited for someone to do something……and we realized that someone was us.
For those of us who went to college, we once again found ourselves at an interesting and unique intersection in history. As a member of the class of 2006, we had the incredible luck of entering the work force and gaining critical experience in the last year before the financial collapse. Five years later many of us are moving up to management positions, or at least have substantial resumes. This puts real decision making authority at our fingertips.
There is a responsibility to those older and younger than us, since we are a bridge between eras. It is our responsibility to tell those older than us that the world they have known all their lives is dead, and they fight for it at the expense of future generations. At the same time we must make sure their knowledge does not retire when they do. Our responsibility to those younger is to show them, not tell, but show them that a better future is possible through what we can create.
So far we are handling these responsibilities well. A decade of war has made our peers the most skilled, adaptable, and combat proven fighting force the country has seen since World War Two. 1980's baby Mark Zuckerberg helped found the social media industry, where people in their 20's are making fortunes working at the bleeding edge of technology and social interaction. And most dramatic of all, our peers are at the vanguard of revolutions all over the world from Tahrir to Wall Street.
A source of great strength is that we see the world for what it is, but have also seen what it can be. The way we engage the world is fundamentally driven by an understanding of two great waves sweeping the world. One is collapse, a collapse that began in earnest in 1991 and since then has been deferred and delayed, but not deterred. The second wave is technology. It has the potential to organize us to defend against forces that would tear apart our societies, our families, and our faith in others. Technology has the potential to give all access to pillars of free living including health, energy, and information. And it is on us to fulfill that potential.
By any quantifiable measure of wealth or opportunity, we will be the first generation of Americans to have less than our parents. Yet there is no room for self-pity. There is no room for wishing times were not so hard or that our burdens were someone else's. The coming conflagration and its fallout are ours to engage and overcome. Others wait for leaders to deliberate and decide, but we do not have that luxury. For us there is no hope. There is no fate. All there is are the things we create.
12/04/2011
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Get some professional help.Enroll in NGF and BDGF trials.
Freddie,
No, your wrong,Blacks, Hispanics, Independents did,young people did, and women did.
Boomers were a SMALL minority of his vote.
So, FUCK you too.
Well said Sequitur. Boomers have a lot to answer for. Preboomers too. My kids are Steaks age and I am seeing SS as a huge ponzi scheme that leaves them with nothing but a bill.
Damn you you beat me to it, and did a better job to boot. (salutes)
Tackling what you wrote from back to front, I would first say that rather than "consumption is freedom, my mantra would be "creation is freedom". Government does indeed limit the abiiity of entrepreneurial people to create, which sucks because our government on most levels is not a viable avenue for most to redress their greivances.
There are a multitude of avenues by which people can reduce their dependance on government and economic opression. Those include supporting local products, maintaining healthy lifestyles, not doing business with TBTF institutions, and being more engaged with your community. Little technological advances go a long way here. Weight watchers apps, online shared calendars, and online banking are just a few.
Alternative economies are also possible. Look to Greece and selected states in the US where people are putting alternative economies in place that will be more insulated from the shock coming when defecits are forced closed.
Government will continue to opress, and our best chance isn't trying to change government, rather to adapt around it.
The biggest issue I have with this piece is the go it alone attitude. I appreciate the perspective. I have kids now entering their college years and i think the best approach to the impending changes will involve collaboration between all generations. The biggest hurdle is agreeing to what is at the root of the collapse and acting accordingly across gnerational and socioecnomic fronts. It isn't just a single generation that is waking up to what is going on now, it is all generations. And all of us must see the same forest, the same trees, and work towards the same solutions. Technology is a tool, not a goal, and is certainly no panacea. In fact, the speed at which the decline is happening is due to the speed of technology. They is little time for reflection, much less discussion.
Not being Kumbaya, here. But reasons and solution involve all of us 18-80 years of age, regardless of what we think "reality" is.
I almost puked in disgust.
"Government will continue to opress, and our best chance isn't trying to change government, rather to adapt around it."
What if the founding fathers of America said that?????
You literally make a mockery of the sacrifice of others before you!
They engaged in *revolutionary war* and *bled* for a real reason. They realized their predicament fully.
You REPLACE the oppressive government with something that works.
In this day and age it might mean innovating and making the old obsolete....but the old is still *gone* and *destroyed*.
Or it might mean resetting things back to what worked...and making improvements so this mess does not happen again.
Your viewpoint is a cop out. Weak and lacking morals.
It's sneaking around hoping you won't get caught. Passive.
Government dictates to *you*...then you are forced to "adapt".
Got balls? Washington DC does. Now what are you going to do about it?
Hobbes rubbing his chin. A cartoon tiger unsure of what to do. Sums it up.
I guess Calvin pissing on the US Captol building would be too strong for ya.
Until there is a majority screaming for change, what exactly do you suggest they do about it?
Investigate your local government/police force.
If they are not doing right, expose them and get change happening.
If they are reasonable, get them on your side. I call this process "creeping sanity"
Secure your local rights first.
But be ready if things "get hot".
No hiding. Get out there, get known. Stake your claim.
But don't fight for soft communist "consensus" ideals. Don't get tricked into that crap.
Look to the original champions of individual rights. Intelligent men and women have described all this before.
Go up against the cops, perhaps all by yourself?!
Seriously, now.
Frankly, until there's a majority screaming for change, you might as well douse yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire, for all the good that will do.
I inform every one I can, but spend the vast majority of my efforts making sure me and mine are going to be safe and secure. Until the collective pulls it's head out it's ass, why bother.
Look at the Tea Party. That to me is a clear sign that electoral success, even on a large scale, is inadequate to effect any meaningful change on the country. The Tea Party has the benefit of "support" from one of the two political parties and a very clear message of "cut government" as well. But at the end of the day government proflagracy continues at record levels.
And since you went all Colonial with it, resistance to the crown was gradual and came in stages. For a long time resistance to the crown came in the form of building institutions that existed outside of that power structure. When time came to throw off bonds, Patriots did not try to convince the king but rather replaced him with things they created.
"But at the end of the day government proflagracy continues at record levels."
This is because of what is called baseline budgeting. Its an accounting method adopted by those in government to to assure that the government spending levels always grow.
Year after year.
No matter what the real economy is doing.
Its unsustainable isn't it?
To your point...there are not enough TP leaning people there yet to make the changes needed. But there will be at some point in the future.
At that instant you will be asked to look within yourself and at those around you. This will be your chance to step forward...its being done (the fiscal sanity) on your behalf not on the behalf of those in the middle of their career or whose productive life is mostly behind them, which is the bulk of who the TP is.
Think about it.
Theres not a lot of young people in the TP, so it must be about you and your generation not us. It would have been much easier for us to just "go along to get along" or just to walk away and say good luck with that.
But we didn't ;-)
Steak, (and I have to run, since ... well, and I'm very sensitive to this issue, but Mrs_Meat has a certain red meat to be grilled, sorry).
You've fallen into a trap.
Gotta think through the "Patriots" (OT: Winnaz v. Colts today!) vs. population vs. ...
TP has no decisive traction into the US political processes today. Demoz and Our Dear President have decisive political traction.
No whining allowed yet.
- Ned
They *made* the king's men "adapt". At the point of a bayonet.
It was not all bloodless like you make it out to be. Quite the opposite.
When the day comes again, will *you* be ready to do what's needed?
"There are your enemies, the RedCoats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow."
http://bit.ly/rGCwMe
Look at a recent example (tame really):
http://youtu.be/sUUoIxeppO0
You are an absolute idiot.
Again, go fuck yourself. And good luck getting that pension, social security, etc. If I was Steak's generation I'd leave the country before I'd pay you a dime.
CD and Steak,
Just to add my thanks as well...
I left University in 1980, during recession in the UK, it took me over two years to find a job. I can relate to what's going on now and my feelings are with these young people who may wonder if they are employable or ever going to be employed. Also, because of the structure in the UK at the time, I didn't leave with the yoke of a multi thousand debt to pay back.
David C
Consider yourself very lucky; I know plenty of grads from 2001, 2002, 2003, who still haven't been able to find jobs. The ones who were able to find jobs mostly haven't established a good hold on the market. Except if they worked for government (and we all know what will happen to government sooner or later....).
Especially in engineering and IT, the situation has been absolutely dreadful. Like another poster pointed out, there was a short-term pick-up in hiring in the 2004-2006 timeframe, but in IT/Engineering, most of that hiring was done of foreign nationals. The 2000-2004 grads were mostly neglected, their resumes not even receiving the 'time of day'.
pits:
Ya gotta' figure out why this could possibly be: a) too easy to sit on their asses? b) too stupid to take their education and apply it to the real world? c) I give you "falling into a government 'job." d) what?
I'm not talking about a liberal arts education of <really specialized studies> that no one would wish to talk to, let alone could add economic value.
I'm talking about the supposedly hard-headed engineers/scientists who were "mostly neglected". At this point, I wouldn't talk to them--evident losers.
WTF?
- Ned
Ned,
Hiring in the IT sector fell off a cliff between 2000 and 2004, and even by 2007 it was only up to levels last seen in 1995, before the Internet boom took off. The positions that did open up were often front-loaded saw that you would need 30+ years professional experience in order to get something that was little more than entry level, though in practice such positions were either filled by H1B visa applicants (who worked cheap and could be sent home before they could legally emigrate) or were short term 2-3 month gigs that they would bring contractors in on, rather than full time work. When the economy went south in 2008, so did many IT jobs that were just beginning to gain steam again.
BTW, most engineers require extensive mathematics, physics and increasingly computer science courses in order to graduate, and the trend is now moving towards a minimum requirement of a masters for just about every career outside of IT (and that's heading that way). About 80% of all STEM placements are in the private sector, though NSF/NIST, Ag, Defense, EPA, FDA and the NSA do hire a bunch of the remainder (the NSA hires probably 35% of all mathematics PhDs that don't go back into Education).
Back in the early 1980s, when I received my BA in Physics, of 150 students that started in the program, 12 graduated. Unless you have actually completed a STEM degree, then you're speaking from ignorance about how demanding and rigorous a sector it is, which is why it is so frustrating to hear how difficult it is for STEM people to get a decent job in the sector.
UC Berkeley and Cornell's Engineering and CS programs have published reports showing less than 40% employment rates of their grads. And those are Ivy league schools.
Imagine just how much worse it is for graduates from StateU engineering programs.
Poor kids, after beating out the 1 in 10 odds of even getting into Berkeley in the first place, and then actually surviving in engineering for 4 years -- still only have less than a 4 in 10 chance of finding a job when they graduate.
Excessive numbers of foreign nationals imported into the industry, as well as outsourcing/offshoring are largely to blame.
Most of them sent out hundreds, sometimes even thousands of applications for positions in their field, which employers were routinely claiming difficulty in filling, and didn't even receive the courtesy of a response from the employers. Of course, it became quite evident later that the employers had no intention of filling the jobs with top quality domestic graduates, but rather, intended to give them all to foreigners on the H-1B visa program.
And no, none of them are 'losers' by any stretch of the imagination. Industry was whining and complaining for years that they couldn't hire talented people in technology. We got the training, and applied to the jobs. Only to find out that these 'industry' people, including Bill Gates, were simply lying.
Great stuff, Steak!
College/University graduate employment throughout most of the past decade has been dismal. Far from 'moving up' or being in management, most college/university grads are darn lucky if they even have a menial job, and a very large number of them are unemployed right now, never able to even get the slightest bit of a foothold into the job market.
I graduated from high school in 1980, and I haven't met an engineering grad since '95 that could have passed my high school physics class.
The best one was a girl from India with a masters in EE (Arizona, I think) that didn't know how to hook-up an ammeter in a circuit.
duo, If you haven't met an engineering grad (presumably college grad) who knows physics, then your professional and social life must be limited to them BA-Engineering kinda' schools that the Ivory League fosters.
Ya gotta read Feynman on Brazil's (and through my personal experience India's) ways of doing college education. e.g.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=feynman&sts=t&x=29&y=15
OTOH, I'd bet that the "incompetent engineers you are seeing would kvetch at you with: <sniff> "Well, Old Chap, you know that "duo", well, he doesn't do Lunch very well. <Sigh>"
- Ned
{Engineering on the "Continent" wouldn't be in such deep sneakers if your point of view were more prevalent; it ain't}
Lunch? Really? You go to work to have lunch?
But I see what you're saying. In America we tend to value individual achievement, whereas in other cultures they stress collective cooperation. I remember an instructor in community college (one of the finest I ever had) that had a class with a group of Iranian foreign exchange students. At the outset of one of the exams, they all got together and started to collectively work through the exam questions. The instructor had to explain to them that the each much take the test on their own.
But I sympathize with Duo's experience as well. A lot of people today, maby even with college degrees, are dumber than people I know who never even graduated from high school. However, don't assume that's the be all and end all of the younger generation. Smart people will figure things out and contribute productively to the group. They always have. We need to find some place else to put dumb people where they won't have so much influence, since putting them into positions of management or politics hasn't worked out so well. I know more menial laborers who are highly intelligent than I do people in higher stations in life who are basically stupid. Perhaps we should rectify this?
I am Chumbawamba.
Maybe because the HR folks wherever you work insist on hiring the cheapest candidates, or insist on using bullshit tests of 'soft skills', instead of looking for real engineers?
Why the fuck would a girl from India be hired as an engineer in America anyways, if not for affirmative action, or some sort of cost saving measure?
I know people and programmers in IT. The major corps and universities IT Depts load up with Indians and other non-Americans. They get control of the technology and make sure no Americans get hired.
Dude,from a professional,you need professional help.
This country is being actively subverted in order to destroy it.
People everywhere need to expose these activities so we can out the bad companies/actors.
They need to be deprived of their wealth.
Globalism is abhorrent to thinking individuals everywhere.
It should be that way for the masses as well.
We will get there. Thankfully globalism is it's own worst enemy.
For most that is the case. Where folks my age got lucky is graduating between 04 and 06 during an "improving" economy...a much better position than folks graduating earlier or later in the decade.
Do it Steak!
^^^THIS^^^
GO, GO, GO!
thanks CD and thanks ZH :D
Thanks for stepping up, Steak. As a youngish 63 year old, I value your comments. Each generation has its plateau, and its level of comprehension. It's not the thoughts about it that matter all that much; it's about not thinking about it at all that destroys any generation. Yours will do fine.
Steak, I wish you and your generation the best of luck. Watch out for the power hungry of your generation, as they will take control and screw it up for everyone...while touting the best intentions. As a "Cold War Baby" I thought we would change the world. We would stop the proliferation of nukes, we would educate everyone. We would rid the world of pollution. There would be no more poverty. We tried and we failed. I apologize for that.
Thank you Steak for adding your voice to the discussion.
beautifully well and right on the money.
http://expose2.wordpress.com
Well, he does prove, again, the ignorance and self-absobtion of these children raised on the liberal idols of gold stars for everyone and children knowing best what they need to learn.
Steak, there are so many well intentioned utterances of ignorance in this piece that I beg of you to save it. Put it in your pocket for the day you really grow up, you will know the day because you will be sitting down, probably on a park bench or a curb, completely confused and disillusioned. On that day, I promise you will be embarrassed and disgusted with the "wisdom" and ego displayed in what you read.
There is however one thing that must be said now, it can not wait. You, your "generation", though it has fought well and nobly in the war. However, let me tell you a few facts there sport.
First of all, the Vietnam, Vets suffered 10x! the blood your brothers have; in the same period of time. The Korean Vets suffered horribly more than your generation; do you know the military was so gutted at the outbreak of Korea that the Marines who island hopped in WWII, and had to take tanks off the displays in front of state side bases?
Second, do not confuse your generations military prowess with technology.
Thirdly, it is DISGUSTING, DISHONORABLE and a display of deep ignorance to try and associate yourselves with the WWII vets and bypass all the other shoulders upon which you stand. There have been millions of men and women, some who served in official wars and combat, and some who simply died training - keeping alive the skills and spirit which you try to wear like a Caesar's crown. Like wise, I remind you who this war is being fought against; the only fear they invoke is through their brutal ritual of beheading.
As for your belief of standing astride the changes of technology you point to. I was born in the late 60's, and you in no way have any real experience or knowledge of what the world was like before the technology revolution. None. But thank you for claiming such, doing so made clear to your elders how ignorant you truly are.
I could go on. But quite frankly I've already wasted too much time on the ignorant blather of a soft, selfish and ignorant child. I recommend you remain silent for another decade and learn the truth of the world and it's history; you were deceived in your education - you received a mild form of a 1984 education. Because, if you ever encounter someone like myself and blather such BS, you will be so verbally beaten and embarrass that your girl will soon dump you as she will realize she is not with a man but rather a Holden Caulfield.
AMDG
Night-night Knight. Is the PTSD kicking in again? Calm down and swallow your meds.
Born in the late 60's, shut the fuck up.
With all due respect: fuck you HCSKnight. And I say that as someone who was also born in the same era as you, and has dear relatives who served in Viet Nam, Korea and WWII.
Our generation had opportunities to turn things around, many times over. We had the choice to stand up for liberty and constitutional government, but instead chose empire, and to turn a blind eye to corruption at every level. So did the generation before, and after us. They are not exempt for merely having the right reasons but still doing the wrong things.
Now the bill has come due, and Steak's generation gets to pay the bill for the previous generations dreams of empire? I hope they do the right thing and repudiate the odious debt we, our parents, and our grandparents have criminally attempted to foist on them.
F u Low. I served, and had family & friends who served in all of them.
Btw, it's the children of the "greatest generation", not ours you idiot, that voted for all the programs and policies that set this debt ball and Socialist/nanny state in motion.
You're just as dumb as Lamb Chop.
Exactly. I wrote more below, but to all boomers who are reading this: go fuck yourselves. I hope all of you who didn't save for your golden years die off, and quickly, before you snooker even more resources, you fat fucking pigs.
Boomers: handed the young a country with $100 trillion in debt, no energy policy, and a broken government filled with charlatan boomer politicians who are stealing every last dollar. All of it punted to future generations.
I hope the young rise up en masse, raise a righteous middle finger, and shout with one voice, "fuck you" to the trillions upon trillions in debt amassed by the boomers, who were too fat, lazy, stupid, and incompetent to stop this fucking train wreck. And you dare call out the young generation? Go fuck yourself. It's the adults who are to blame. Period.
Suckquiter,
It's the adults who are to blame. Period.
When you grow up,(and become an ADULT)move out of Mommy's house,and do it the hard way as most Boomers did, then you might understand.
What you have not lived you cannot grasp,nor understand.
Since you have such a BONER for the BOOMERS, why haven't you done what your blaming us for?
March your chickenshit punk ass to D.C. and start cleaning house.(you speak like WE should just DO it it), what's stopping you??, don't want to get shot down in the street like dope peddling bitch?.Yep, didn't think so................................
Sooner or later your pussy ass will get it, the Boomers, are not your problem,not the cause of our problems.
Never where.
True but the young in a majority voted for the islamic. It only made it 10X worse. 50%+ of baby boomers voted for him and even about 44%+ of seniors. Dumb old fkks
When it all falls apart - the baby boomers and seniors better be armed. It is gonna get very ugly. A lot of fkkks wanted hope and change. We are gonna get change at about 2340 fps.
Please stop with your comments. You provide no insight and are pretty useless in the community. Care to contribute something other than 3-4 comments on each thread about "the muslim"?
The fact that you still think there is any difference between the left and right shows you don't really understand what's going on.
Let me get this straight. You hate all boomers? is this correct?
Just you remember to kick the 'boomers' when they are down. Treat with extreme prejudice.