and the 12pound hardees thickburger

the technology culture
 

People are also more distracted by material things than they used to be. The proliferation of technological aids and toys has contributed to a level mindlessness that was not characteristic of previous generations. Although the standard of living is higher now the standard of personal and spiritual development is gradually lessening. There is a principle one can't get around, which is that personal struggle produces character. The difficulties of getting through the day without pleasurable distractions from technological devices used to force people to do more with less in order to get through the day.

I meet kids now that strike me as utterly empty-headed. If they even want an education, it is for making money more efficiently. I am not often very impressed by the character of kids in the internet age.

I came up in the 70's and 80's. My family did not have cable tv, internet, a car for me, or a phone for me. I had no tv of my own for most of my childhood, and when I did it was a small black and white that was fun to watch for maybe 30 minutes a week. My point is not that we were a happy family, because we weren't, but that we had a deeper sense of character than later generations seem to display.

All in all I think technlogy is a good thing and it has made life better, but people are way too enamored of pop culture and they are paying more of a price for it than they realize. They think life is about all this stuff that basically has been put forth to make money from them. We did self-enriching activities like music and sports when I was a kid, we did not sit around rapping on cellphones. It's a different culture and I wonder about it.

Every generation says this about the later generations. My only fear is that the feeling of entitlements will win out and we will become more like Europe. Looking at all of Europe, one can maybe count on one hand new companies that have been formed and have had a global impact. The barriers to starting a company there are enormous. Looking at the US, there are Apple Computer, Microsoft, Walmart... the list is long and new ones are being formed daily. Some succeed, some don't. My grandfather's company was a great and well known success and still employs thousands. My dad's company failed and he spent his later years underemployed- washing buildings, selling things (legal things), what ever it took to support 7 kids and pay the mortgage without drawing unemployment. My mom had to go back to work as a public school teacher to help. Yet they still put us all through college and they were so frugal that when my mom died there was an estate worth over $2,000,000.

Even in aviation things are mixed. Salaries are often less as free market now drives the wages, but at least we don't have the government deciding which airlines succeed and which fail. There are also more aviation jobs out there. Also, people can actually afford to fly now.

Again, a bunch of hooey. The car purchased in the 1970s cost more when adjusted for inflation, cost more to operate, and did not last as long. The engines RARELY lasted 100,000 miles, now it's a given. The tires lasted about 10,000-20,000, now they often last over 50,000. Your chances of surviving a crash in a car are MUCH better today than back then. EVERY car I have purchased since 1991 has lasted over 150,000 miles, and would have lasted longer but I traded them in. Of the four cars I have owned since then, 2 JEEPS and an Acura, the only two things I replaced were a water pump and an alternator. Yeah, my 64 Dodge Dart was easy and fun to work on, but given the choice of reliable transportation I'll stick with my car of today.
And while you're complaining about jobs moving overseas, please tell me where your cloths were made. If you fly, do you buy the cheapest shirts and publications bag, or American made ones? (Personally, when it comes to my publications bag, flying shirts and work shoes, I go with quality. Underwear, t-shirts and socks, I go cheap). The workers who have their jobs moved overseas don't just stop working- they find new jobs. Usually they are better jobs than the mindless and hard manufacturing jobs they had.
People lived at home then because they could and their parents let them. Most people I knew chose NOT to live at home, but it meant paying someone rent and getting a job. Jobs were available, just not the jobs people really wanted.
The alternative is the government getting involved in the job market and the economy. You DON'T want that. I remember visiting Spain on R&R several times in the mid 1990's. Unemployment was over 25% thanks to government interference in the markets. That's worse than in the US during the depression. No thanks.

old people are not stupid
 

Of course every generation says my generation was better in some way because the known is easier to understand and appreciate than the newer, unknown culture is. But that does not mean they are wrong, although they may be overlook a few things. Old people are not as stupid as they seem (just kidding). The present generation has better opportunities for education, wealth, health, happiness, comfort, and security. However the present media-saturated culture tends to produce a type of person who very is pop-culture oriented and does not think originally or individually. Pop culture generally swings to the commercial and the mediocre; this is what makes it pop culture. People who are saturated with it- as more are now than ever before- know less about better ways of living.

There is a parallel thing, that technology brings a higher level of comfort and standard of living. As silly as it may sound, I have to say that this is a formula for satiation and complacency. If people who are not stirred to ask deeper questions as with say, a world war or a vietnam veteran, do not now to ask about deeper meaning and deeper enrichment of the self than they otherwise would. I am not for going backwards in lifestyle, I embrace innovations and recently got a palm pilot which I have no idea how to turn on, but I think there is a loss as technology insulates us more and more from the natural world.

I agree. Much of what the "greatest generation" contributed had much to do with the work they had to do... making it through a depression; nothing like fighting in a war to help you figure out what is important.
Things are easier today than they have ever been (unless you are in Iraqistan); yet we complain about how hard things are.

Well my philosophy is, deal constructively with trouble and grow from challenges it presents, but don't seek it out as it will find you.

This is an article about baby boomers delaying retirement. Another perspective on this issue.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19173780/

I have a few theories on this. On the idea that this generation is lazier- Capitalism has made things easier for us through advances in lifestyles. That is what capitalism does, it creates things to make life easier for us and sells those things, so naturally we have all gotten used to things being easier. So we're not really lazier, just a little more spoiled. Also, I think that the booming housing market since the 80's is indirectly contributing to the downfall of the family. In other countries, people aren't building new communities at the rate that we are here. In most of Europe, people stay with the parents, or families live in houses for generations and don't have to worry about a mortgage payment as much as we do here. So because every new family has a mortgage payment to worry about, most families have 2 working parents, which in turn makes it harder to raise a child properly. And I also think that capitalism has a natural lifespan, and we might be reaching near the end of it. It all starts out even stevens, and then as everybody says, you need money to make money in capitalism. The huge gap in the high class and the middle class isn't bush's fault, it isn't clinton's fault, it's nobody's fault. it's just the natural cycle of 2.25 centuries of free market and asset building working. the more money you have, the more money you can make by not having to take out loans to start new businesses, paying cash for everything and not having interest payments to worry about, and just controlling an ever growing portion of the nation's wealth. I'm not saying that nobody has a chance anymore, because anybody can make it. I just think it's a little tougher now for the little guys. I'm no economist, but that is what I believe.