• DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    Something happened in the Anglosphere that made baby boomers somehow despise their successors. Moreso than the usual grumbling, but not particularly antagonistic contradictions between young and old throughout history.

    I know in Italy there’s a bit more cohesion between young and old, and in Japan there’s a celebration when young people come of age and start taking on responsibilities. Both are imperialist, capitalist nations but at least are semi-normal about that.

    It started with millennials being the media’s favorite whipping boys, and then it just doubled down with gen Z as the respective governments practically conspired to make everyone’s 20s be as horrible and boring as humanly possible.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        Grew up being beaten into little work machines by a generation of fucked up ww2 vets, and now that newer generations are allowed to be people they’re making their (justified, but not our fault) jealousy everyone else’s problem

        • coeliacmccarthy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          5 months ago

          Grew up being beaten into little work machines by a generation of fucked up ww2 vets

          kind of the exact opposite, boomers were raised in front of the TV at the peak of empire with the (later met) expectation that they would have a job that could pay for a house and family

          they will never forgive us for that

          • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            5 months ago

            It’s the intersection of peak material wealth and minimum emotional wealth. An incredible formula for boomer brain. Boomer children were on the forefront of multi-room and multi-bedroom homes being available to nearly everyone, and their parents were like oh cool I never ever have to see my kids

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      I hate to be a crude materialist about this, but it’s really the lead poisoning…that stuff was everywhere, an entire generation mass poisoned by one of the most insidious neurotoxins known to humankind, and the older they get, the more the literal brain damage manifests itself in more destructive and antisocial ways

      I knew about lead poisoning growing up, but a few years ago after looking into the new research on lead exposure, I think the scale and true scope of the catastrophe has never been fully accounted for, imagine a scenario where hundreds of millions of people unknowingly imbibed a substance that would render them into borderline sociopaths with poor impulse control? Well that shit happened and it went on for decades

    • bumpusoot [any]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      As time goes on, I think the capitalist machine just requires more and more sections of the population to “other”, to blame for the failing state of the world. Divert attention away to anyone but the richoids.