patrick.net

SoftShell says

The vast majority of "an entire generation" have something to look forward to after death. Dan doesn't. His post demonstrates how he 'vents'...

Whether or not you look forward to something after death is irrelevant. Anticipating your fictitious afterlife doesn't make it real.

Furthermore, wanting to leave the world a better place than you found it is not "venting". It's being a decent person whole life was worth living. That's something you conservatives will never understand.

SoftShell says

News flash: With the millennial driven destruction of the definition of Marriage, we are all Bastards.

Ah, more conservative bigotry... A fine example of how conservatives make the world a worse place simply with their existence.

Given the current US rank in math skills by country, the blame remains in clear view.

marcus says

Did the boomers prevent it ? No. They didn't stop it from happening. But we are talking about an age demographic.

Why don't we pick on say men ? IT was men that fucked us over. Can't you see all the ways that men failed us in recent decades ?

No, wait....it was the caucasions that fucked us over. They had their moment in the sun, and they totally failed. Look at what is happening to our economy, to the middle class, to the environment, our culture.

IT's the fault of the white man !!!

thunderlips11 says

I'm embarrassed for the Boomers, because when it's suggested they bear some responsibility for the current situation, get entirely:

Yes, just about every individual boomer you try to pin it on is going to act the same way you do when I ask you to take some responsibility for the way the white man has ruined this country. AS a voting block white men are more likely to be right wing idiots than boomers are.

IF your going to tell me that it's not about that and that an American born in 1950 or 1956 is more likely to be self centered, selfish or narcissist than someone born in 1935, 1942 or 1975, than all I can say is, fuck off you incredibly stupid prick.

No. I watch "morning joe". I like to see the libbys get slapped around on their own network.

Dan8267 says

How about you? Still watching Fox News? That's even less educational or informative than Honey Boo Boo.

This response highlights your blind spot.
We never "leave the world". Our atoms merely are redistributed. Therefore, the world is 'never left' but always a 'work in progress'.

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, wanting to leave the world a better place than you found it is not "venting".

no bigotry, just a simple fact.
people born out of wedlock are by definition a "bastard".
Since 'marriage' has been redefined too many times to count, at this point we just have to assume the word is meaningless, heretofore weddings are meaningless with the byproduct that you, I, everyone born on this earth, are bastards.
Hell, it's just a word, don't get all uppity about it!

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

News flash: With the millennial driven destruction of the definition of Marriage, we are all Bastards.

Ah, more conservative bigotry..

thunderlips11 says

I'm embarrassed for the Boomers, because when it's suggested they bear some responsibility for the current situation, get entirely:

How does a group admit it bears responsibility ? IT doesn't. So you are suggesting that individuals in the group admit to what ?

thunderlips11 says

And start denying sociological terms that have been used forever to describe demographics like it's some kind of weird fad.

Just because a demographic group is talked about a lot for some specific reasons, in this case, it's size doesn't give it, other special properties that disaggregate it from the continuum of ages (times of birth)

Why isn't it people that are born between 1930 and 1950 where the most responsibility lies ? Because the baby boom is bigger ?

You aren't going to see how stupid you are in this, are you ?
Kind of committed at this point, to making a fool of yourself ?

SoftShell says

We never "leave the world". Our atoms merely are redistributed.

We are not our atoms, but the sentient machines they build. The actual atoms that comprise your body are constantly being exchanged with other atoms in the environment.

As for your sentience, that is created by the operation of your brain and ceases when the brain stops functioning. This is a scientific fact whether or not you are intelligent or mature enough to accept it.

SoftShell says

no bigotry, just a simple fact.

people born out of wedlock are by definition a "bastard".

And people born in wedlock are by definition a "floppidygoop". Words are whatever we define them to be. Nomenclature carries no meaning or weight.

What’s a bastard? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. Oh, be some other name. What’s in a name? That person which we call a bastard by any other name would be as sweet a person. So SoftShell would, were he not SoftShell called, retain that dear bigotry which he owes without that title. Bastard is the rose, and SoftShell it's thorn.

SoftShell says

Hell, it's just a word, don't get all uppity about it!

Since when is demanding equal rights under laws, including the thousands of rights associated with marriage such as equal taxation, "getting uppity about a word"? Methinks you missed entirely the point of the marriage equality movement.

Call it Crazy says

marcus says

AS a voting block white men are more likely to be right wing idiots than boomers are.

Because they have to use their intelligence to make up for all the black idiots that vote Democrat.

Ah, the ugly head of racism rears again.

Scientific studies have shown a strong negative relation between racism and intelligence.

Call it Crazy says

Racism or fact?

Racism.

I think Dan in his mind blames entire generation of people as a group. It's some sort of collective though, void of individualism, but whatever floats his boat these days.

Some days he makes more sense than others.

SoftShell says

The vast majority of "an entire generation" have something to look forward to after death. Dan doesn't. His post demonstrates how he 'vents'...

FortWayne says

Tell me again why Gen X and the Millennials are "too privileged"?

Most boomers I know worked hard their entire life to make a better life for their children. Not sure where you are getting all this hatred toward an entire generation of people.

marcus says

That's good. Like this isn't all about your emotional issues. DO you always blame others for when things don't go the way you had hoped ? I don't care if 100 boomers have written books saying what slackers your generation is. Are you that emotionally crippled that it then hinders your ability to use reason ? You then want to do a big "I know you are but what am I?"

Your Pop-Psych mind tricks won't work on me.

Frankly, the denial of responsibility can just be as Easily Pop-Psych'd the other way: Boomers have forever lived in the shadow of the Greatest, and therefore have an inferiority complex which prohibits them from admitting flaws or faults.

I don't believe that, but there's some Pop Psych back at you.

marcus says

Why isn't it people that are born between 1930 and 1950 where the most responsibility lies ? Because the baby boom is bigger ?

Because they were much Smaller in size than the Babyboom - not many people born during the Depression and the war. That's not to say they didn't have a hand in it, either. They sure as hell did.

Gen X did as well.

The debate is not "Only the boomers are to blame" the debate is "Boomers have a share of the blame."

Many (but not all) Boomers think they bear absolutely none of the blame, which I find utterly untenable given their disproportionate weight in society.

It is completely unfair to blame an entire generation for social ills and to generalize about them and demonize them. In fact it is even less logical than racism/sexism.

FortWayne says

I think Dan in his mind blames entire generation of people as a group.

As usual, you are wrong. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. As the only person with read access to my mind, I can assure you that I do not blame an entire generation, any generation, of people as a group. In fact, I do not blame every member of any group for the actions of the group as a whole.

You are making the same damn, disingenuous Straw Man argument that Blurtman has made. I strongly suspect that you are doing this to distract from the legitimate criticism of the Boomers and to poison the well.

My position has always been that although one clearly cannot judge an individual on the actions of a group, one can and should judge a group based on the actions of that collective. The two implications are independent. If you can't see why, then you are simply bad at math and logic and should refrain from discussion on this topic. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp.

thunderlips11 says

Your Pop-Psych mind tricks won't work on me.

These aren't the Boomers you are looking for.

dublin hillz says

It is completely unfair to blame an entire generation for social ills and to generalize about them and demonize them. In fact it is even less logical than racism/sexism.

Which nobody is doing.

I just want the boomers to realize that their generation as a group bears some responsibility.

Boomers are getting really defensive and insist on accepting no responsibility, masking their defensiveness with "Demographics is nonsense" bullshit - while at the same time pointing the finger at Silents and Greatests (!!!)

Popping a Psych is the same as popping a zit.

dublin hillz says

It is completely unfair to blame an entire generation for social ills and to generalize about them and demonize them.

Yes, and that is precisely why no one is doing that.

However, it is equally ridiculous to take legitimate, evidence-backed criticism of a generation and dismiss it as irrational bashing of every person in that generation.

Throughout this thread, the people opposing the idea that the Boomers have done more bad than good
1. Have never addressed any of the specific charges levied against the Boomers.
2. Have never submitted any evidence to refute or even mitigate the complaints against the Boomers.
3. Have not made a case that Boomers have done more good than bad.

In short, the opposition has only attempted to make baseless personal attacks against the people proposing that Boomers have done more bad than good. That alone should tell you which side is true.

Dan8267 says

Ah, the ugly head of racism rears again.

Ahh, the guy with lights on and nobody home says that making generalizations about age groups is cool, but making generalizations about racial groups is very bad,

The only reason for making the assertions about white men as a group, was that you might learn how stupid you are to make your assertions about an 18 years age window for time of birth.

Why don't you write me a few thousand words in an attempt to obfuscate the fact that you're making a fool out of yourself in this discussion.

Dan8267 says

Throughout this thread, the people opposing the idea that the Boomers have done more bad than good

1. Have never addressed any of the specific charges levied against the Boomers.

2. Have never submitted any evidence to refute or even mitigate the complaints against the Boomers.

3. Have not made a case that Boomers have done more good than bad.

That's because they shouldn't have to. TL calls them a dominant voting block. What does that mean ? Maybe it means if you were comparing that 18 year voting block to a **younger group, you would have to compare it to a twenty five year window to get the same number of votes ?

OF course if you compare it to an older group the difference in birth rate is less, and the voting rate more than offsets in, but then at some point those older folks are dying.

**Also what is a younger group ?

Do I compare 1946 - 1964 to sat 1964 - 1989 ?

Or do I do a complete analysis comparing all these groups adjusted in length for birth rate ?

1946 - 1964 vs.
1947 - 1965 vs.
1948 - 1966 vs.
1949 - 1968 vs
etc
etc
etc.

I honestly don't know what dominant voting block TL refers to even means. More than any other 18 year age groups ? How many of those group defined by age range by age and number of voters are there ? Well infinite in a way, but lets say we we never break these down into increments more than as I started to do above.

Accounting for the fact that there are more people in that 18 year group than any other 18 year group, there still must be at least 40 SIMILAR SIZED GROUPS (in terms of votes) with the youngest now being age 21 - 48 and the oldest now being age 61 - 92.

The boomers are just one of these 40 groups, that happen to now be between approximately 50 and 68.

But you have this obsessive focus on baby boomers and demonizing them. If you truly can't see how stupid this is, I can't help you. Why do I have to supply evidence disproving something that doesn't even begin to make sense ?

humanity says

Ahh, the guy with lights on and nobody home says that making generalizations about age groups is cool, but making generalizations about racial groups is very bad,

Making generations that are true is always valid even if they are about race. For example, a race may be more genetically disposed to a certain disease. What is not good is making false generalization. For example, stating that people with dark skin are genetically less intelligent than people with lighter skin without any evidence to back it up.

Do you think I won't make a politically incorrect, but truthful statement. Well, I call your bluff.

Damn, bitch, did I just demonstrate how wrong you are about me? Yep.

Now we can argue about why per capita homicide rates are much higher for African Americans than caucasian Americans, but that the rates differ the way they do is an indisputable fact.

So honey, I do put the truth before any political or social agenda. Just because everyone else you've ever talked to puts their agenda before the truth doesn't mean I do. Yes, I'm unusual in that I'm willing to abandon any idea that's proven false. I'm married to no idea whatsoever. This is why I don't buy into the typical bullshit that you humans relentlessly cling to like the concept of an afterlife or free will. Evidence, reasoning, and facts are everything.

Please submit your apology below.

humanity says

That's because they shouldn't have to.

Oh contraire, anyone who wants to make the case that an argument is incorrect does have to follow up with evidence and reasoning supporting their opposition. Otherwise their contradiction carries no weight.

An extremely conservative guess as to when the votes of the baby boomers finally exceeded the votes of those older than them, is that it happened after 2005.

My best guess would be about 2008 or 2009 - it could even be a couple years after that.

Dan8267 says

Oh contraire, anyone who wants to make the case that an argument is incorrect does have to follow up with evidence and reasoning supporting their opposition. Otherwise their contradiction carries no weight.

OH, okay. Then I would like to assert that you are a child molester. Please provide evidence and reasoning supporting your opposition. Otherwise your contradiction carries no weight.

Here's the deal. Sociologists and Demographers make productive, reality-based characterizations of "age-period-cohorts" using statistics like opinion polling, comparing membership of organizations by age group over time, attitudes towards savings, crime rates, church attendance, etc. With peer review. At Universities around the World, from Oxford to Eastern Ohio, to research centers like the Pew Charitable Trusts. It's not some pseudoscientific fad, it's been covered in Sociology 101 textbooks forever.

While there is disagreement about specific influences, their universal conclusion is that conditions people of a certain period cohort experience in Youth (the political environment, affluence or lack thereof, parenting standards, etc.) shape much of a cohort's behavior throughout their lives.

We know that disproportionate age cohorts ("Youth Bulge") are correlated with Crime. Not just in the USA - but also in the UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden, even Argentina and the Middle East. The Crime Rate rises when a large, unbalanced youth cohort reaches peak "Crime Age" - the late teens through early 30s. It falls when they exit their young adulthood. That's a behavior.

On the same tack, we do know that age cohort, wealth, and family stability effects the birth rate - that's also a behavior. Poor people having lots of kids, and the opposite, increasingly well-off people having fewer kids, a behavior.

Obviously there is something to age cohorts. It's been advanced that it explains the boom and now decline in joining individualistic religions (Fundamentalist, Charismatic, Evangelical, New Age Spiritual) that emphasized "Personal Relationships with Jesus" or "Channelling your Chakras" between the 70s and 90s and the decline of mainline churches. That trend is now changing - why? Younger people whose grew up in those churches are choosing atheism, or joining those old, mainline churches their Jesus Freak parents left.

Maybe we should just consider 10 or so different age groups with the number of voters roughly equivalent, based on recent voting percentages per age group. The current age ranges would look something like this:

age 21 - 48, age 26 - 51, age 31 - 54, age 36 - 57, age 41 - 61, age 46 - 65, age 51 - 69, age 56 - 77, age 61 - 86, age 66 - 100.

Is there one of these that's clearly the most selfish, or the most spoiled in certain ways, perhaps the most entitled or the most narcissistic ?

If so, did it change real suddenly ? Are you sure which one is the worst ? Perhaps it didn't change suddenly and people were getting worse for a while, and then they suddenly started getting better ? Or perhaps withint this range there are ups and downs based in part on external factors such as the state of the economy.

Is age really the determining factor ? Or are there confounding variables, such as the amount of money in politics ? And if so, which age groups were reponsible for the cause behind those variables ?

humanity says

Is there one of these that's clearly the most selfish, or the most spoiled in certain ways, perhaps the most entitled or the most narcissistic ?

Not enough data. Age-Period-Cohort studies look at a specific group in a specific time.

It's a long-observed fact that older generations are substantially more conservative, both how they identify themselves, and how they vote.

But that doesn't explain why Depression Survivors are substantially more thrifty than the general population. You have to look at the effects of institutions and conditions when they were in their formative years. That doesn't mean there is no such thing as a spendthrift Depression Survivor, but generally speaking, and when you measure their spending habits and attitudes, there's a difference between how they handle money and how other generations treat money.

It explains why many boomers, who experienced a period of high inflation in their formative years, have a fear of inflation that seems disproportionate to the trends of the post-war period. Some people have advanced this is also the reason why boomers aren't afraid to pursue personal and political borrow-and-spend strategies - because your money might be worth less tomorrow, so you'd better get it today.

It might even explain how credit card usage and private debt exploded when it did, too.

humanity says

OH, okay. Then I would like to assert that you are a child molester. Please provide evidence and reasoning supporting your opposition. Otherwise your contradiction carries no weight.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
- Christopher Hitchens

http://www.youtube.com/embed/rrMyCyZx1zY

You're going to have triple your IQ to be able to construct an argument that even challenges me.

thunderlips11 says

Here's the deal. Sociologists and Demographers make productive, reality-based characterizations of "age-period-cohorts" using statistics like opinion polling, comparing membership of organizations by age group over time, attitudes towards savings, crime rates, church attendance, etc. With peer review.

Exactly. And the statistical attitudes of generations and how they behave, vote, and legislate are both a legitimate and an important subject matter. Those who seek to suppress such discussion are vile.

For example, here is a generational graph of acceptance of marriage equality. It shows a remarkable and important trend.

To say that we cannot draw any conclusions from this graph or that we are bigots for trying to do so is disingenuous, wrong, and quite frankly worthy of ridicule. Any mature, reasonable, adult human being can clearly see a marked difference among the generations, and if that person is moral, an improvement from each generation to the next.

Dan8267 says

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

- Christopher Hitchens

Exactly. Thank you for making your own argument.

Your claims about that one particular 18 year age cohort have no more merit than my claim that you are a child molester.

The one sure way to tell Dan is losing an argument is when he resorts to saying saying how samrt he thinks he is, as if that's an argument.

Dan8267 says

You're going to have triple your IQ to be able to construct an argument that even challenges me.

Who argues like this ?

thunderlips11 says

marcus says

Why isn't it people that are born between 1930 and 1950 where the most responsibility lies ? Because the baby boom is bigger ?

Because they were much Smaller in size than the Babyboom - not many people born during the Depression and the war.

Actually it was only about 25% more births happening on average per year over the boomer interval, which is very easy to verify.

So okay make it 1925 - 1950. This is a much different group than the boomers with maybe a 3 or 4 year overlap depending on how you define the boomers.

So this group has (or had) as many people in it as the boomers (actually significantly more), BUT 20 to 50% more of them have been voting for a long time now. THey dominate the FUCK out of the boomers when it comes to voting. So how can you blame boomers for our politics ? The boomers gave us Clinton. GWB wouldn't have even been close if not for the votes of those older than the boomers.

Even if you go back to the Carter Reagan election, Carter carried the vote at least up to at least 31 year olds. Boomers were between 16 and 34 at the time. Do you have any idea how much more influence the people born from 1925 - 1950 had in that election and every election since, all the way up almost to Obama ?

Are you ready to pull your head out of your ass yet ?

your definition of "we" is too narrow.
The "sentient machine" does not exist without the atoms. To exclude the atoms that comprise the sentient being is to exclude the very building blocks of creation.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

We never "leave the world". Our atoms merely are redistributed.

We are not our atoms, but the sentient machines they build. The actual atoms that comprise your body are constantly being exchanged with other atoms in the environment.

As for your sentience, that is created by the operation of your brain and ceases when the brain stops functioning. This is a scientific fact whether or not you are intelligent or mature enough to accept it

and when some millennial fuck comes along and changes those definitions that hordes of humans made life-altering decisions based on, then we are all bastards, borne of the unwed couple, until some gen xyz'er comes along and changes the definition of 'bastard'...

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

no bigotry, just a simple fact.


people born out of wedlock are by definition a "bastard".

And people born in wedlock are by definition a "floppidygoop". Words are whatever we define them to be.

marcus says

Actually it was only about 25% more births happening on average per year over the boomer interval, which is very easy to verify.

Let's verify it.
http://youtu.be/2wN0O06IkNk?t=1m10s

You see the huge gaps on both sides of the boomers, right? I think the graph is pretty poorly titled though. The late 60s, 70s, 80s, and most of the 90s were nowhere near worse than the Great Depression. It's better explained by "increased education and more affluence = lower birth rate"

I'll respond to the next bit shortly.

since the word 'marriage' is a compilation of letters for which the meaning mutates every 4 DNCyears, it becomes impossible to associate any kind of 'movement' with it other then the daily smoked kielbasa expelled out of nancy pelosi's ass.

Dan8267 says

Methinks you missed entirely the point of the marriage equality movement.

SoftShell says

smoked kielbasa expelled out of nancy pelosi's ass.

Howard should have a special: Pelosi Butt Bongo and feature that as the closing.

Okay, back to my response to Marcus...

nothing remarkable here....just history repeating itself....

Dan8267 says

For example, here is a generational graph of acceptance of marriage equality. It shows a remarkable and important trend.