Plus, it's not like the climate will just snap back into place when the boomers are finally too old for their skeleton talons to cling to power. That shit is going to take generations of sacrifice to roll back, if it doesn't topple civilization first.
The whole ethos of the majority of baby boomers seems to have been to raze the forest they got to enjoy behind them (as opposed to planting trees whose shade they'd never sit in like most generations aspire to), and they seem to be having remarkable success in that.
It's not about a magic cure that'll fix everything over night.
It's about repairing decades of harm done by a generational mindset that valued wealth acquisition and material possession above every other facet of society. We won't fix that trauma in one, two, or three generations but it will get better and better with time and distance to boomerism.
The values of wealth accumulation and materialism are not at all limited to or even expressed mostly strongly by the Baby Boomer generation.
The line of thinking that capitalism dies with boomers or that Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, or whatever comes next will not fully embrace capitalism and will move towards socialism or some other non-competitive society seems pretty naive.
Humans are a competitive species. Most people want to win. I doubt this mindset dies with boomers.
Humans are a co-operative species, same goes for our ape and monkey cousins.
It is this instinctual nature of working together that enabled us to take down bigger prey, settle new lands, and become the dominant species on the planet.
I don’t disagree. That said, would suggest that externally we are cooperative, but internally we are competitive. Even in ape families, there exists a hierarchy generally ruled by the biggest, strongest male.
Which brings us back to the point at hand. Will humans come together to solve climate change? Or will humans continue to try to win at all costs?
I can see either as a possibility. But I don’t see boomers dying as a catalyst.
The rich are very concerned about the fact that all statistical evidence pointing to younger generations being starkly more socially minded than boomers. Don't forget that Millennials have lived through a major economic crisis. Just like the Great Depression, that generally makes people realize that Capitalism is bullshit.
The wealthy are funding massive propaganda campaigns as a result. They are unfortunately making some in roads with young men. But overall I don't think it will be enough.
Don't forget that Millennials have lived through a major economic crisis.
Yes, yes we have.
I’ll be very interested to see how the younger generations age. Anecdotally, I’ve witnessed numerous people go from progressive socialists, to centrist capitalists as they age. Not saying that will continue, only saying this as I’ve seen similar studies that show younger people are more progressive than older folks every 5 years for the past 3 decades. It’s not a terribly new concept, and I’m hopeful that it remains true.
I agree! A change of the mindset is generational change at best. In many cases flawed ideologies and poor educational standards are just beeing continued. Yet I want to be one of the naive and think that there will be a new way of thinking and noticeable political change. For the better or the worse.., who knows?!
The next most conservative generation is Gen X. All few dozen of us. Expect those with power to retain it with massive use of wealth to constrain the rules of democracy, rather than numbers of voters.
It will solve the problem of their voting habits. They have lead us down this insane path because they are a narcissistic generation. Things won't be perfect, but we might, just might, start turning things around. If we still can.
Because that's how it works, right? When your house is flooded because of a burst pipe, when you replace the pipe then your house is magically unflooded right? I mean of course no reasonable person thinks that, but that seems to be the understanding you're suggesting. Meanwhile you're trying to say that if we do repair the pipe and the house is still flooded, rightly acknowledging that the pipe is 100% the cause of the flood is somehow..... wrong?
The facts are that boomers fucked the world up, heavily, and did everything they could to hold onto power and rob the next generation (at least) of their deserved place in the driver's seat of society, and cleaning up the messes and lessons left over by the boomers will take generations to clean up. The fact that boomer built long-term systemic problem without simple solutions does not mean that the boomers are not entirely at fault or that we aren't entirely better off without them.
I dunno, I feel like if I lived through the Black Death and I was there when—at the end of the suffering, surrounded by death—the last plague rat died, I’d take it as a win…