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Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

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21–30 of 145 posts

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#21

Watching talks like this is what helps me keep my sanity in the face of climate change and have hope we will do something about it. My take-away phrase of the speech is gonna be "do something". I know my doing something will not even register in the global scheme of things but I'm gonna do it anyway.

...the problem is, I'm not really convinced that we really know of a specific "something" that we can do that wouldn't backfire and make emissions even worse by creating perverse incentives elsewhere in the economy.

The only idea I've heard that would likely help in a meaningful way would be to simply make all domestic oil and natural gas extraction 100% illegal and try to convince some other nations to do the same. That one thing would raise world energy prices enough to curb consumption and would also slow down the economy enough to decrease emissions. (But the economic consequences of doing this would be brutal)

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#22
post #21

Watching talks like this is what helps me keep my sanity in the face of climate change and have hope we will do something about it. My take-away phrase of the speech is gonna be "do something". I know my doing something will not even register in the global scheme of things but I'm gonna do it anyway.

...the problem is, I'm not really convinced that we really know of a specific "something" that we can do that wouldn't backfire and make emissions even worse by creating perverse incentives elsewhere in the economy. The only idea I've heard that would likely help in a meaningful way would be to simply make all domestic oil and natural gas extraction 100% illegal and try to convince some other nations to do the same.…

Technology is the only way. Even slightly curbing economic activity to decrease emissions will not be politically popular enough to be implemented (see: yellow vest protests). Additionally global coordination is required meaning a system where individual countries can cheat to get economic gains will fail.

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#23
post #9

I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on even just over the course of my own lifetime (ap…

I think there are numerous ways in which Tim Cook's generation has failed the next generation (at least in the US). * Wages are flat, * Housing costs are up (in large part due to NIMBYism), * College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. Generally speaking the baby boomers, as a…

It may be that a lot of the issues do not represent any especially egregious failing of any generation, but rather structural changes. The post-war exponential growth that fed unprecedented wealth generation simply could not continue, it has run its course. So while it is tempting to look back a generation or two and see how they had it much easier in a lot of ways, if you look back just a little bit further, it's easy to feel pretty damn lucky to be living today.

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#24
post #9

I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on even just over the course of my own lifetime (ap…

I think there are numerous ways in which Tim Cook's generation has failed the next generation (at least in the US). * Wages are flat, * Housing costs are up (in large part due to NIMBYism), * College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. Generally speaking the baby boomers, as a…

What are you asking for? The world has changed drastically, culture and preferences have changed drastically, and new technological tools make the job and economic landscape entirely different than earlier. That's not Baby Boomers' fault. Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the future well enough? Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in cities more than suburbs. They're not maliciously causing robots and computers to be more reliable than humans at menial repetitive tasks. They're not forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist (and a world of knowledge for self-teaching is available through the internet). And even the global warming thing, our current prosperity--and don't kid yourself, America is pretty freaking prosperous--strongly depended on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades. And it's that prosperity which gives us the bandwidth and resources to think "hey, let's do something about this, either find a way to avoid or prepare or cope".

Yes, it would have been nice if everyone in the previous generation had a crystal ball and selfless motives. But that is not something we are due as a right, nor is it something anyone should reasonably hold against them. They didn't blow up the world, and made it better in better in a bunch of ways, and maybe a bit worse in some ways. On net, that's still like a B+ or higher in my book.

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#25
post #21

Watching talks like this is what helps me keep my sanity in the face of climate change and have hope we will do something about it. My take-away phrase of the speech is gonna be "do something". I know my doing something will not even register in the global scheme of things but I'm gonna do it anyway.

...the problem is, I'm not really convinced that we really know of a specific "something" that we can do that wouldn't backfire and make emissions even worse by creating perverse incentives elsewhere in the economy. The only idea I've heard that would likely help in a meaningful way would be to simply make all domestic oil and natural gas extraction 100% illegal and try to convince some other nations to do the same.…

http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#26
Let's look at it this way.

For whatever reason, people who have a lot of resources are saying burning gasoline and digging for oil is bad.

Maybe they are hinting at something they just can't come out and say? Like, this is killing you, but you would die if we did anything about it?

Or

Hurry up and start engineering in the atmosphere, please, please, please we need it but can't say?

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#27
post #20
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool that you're out here deciding who is and isn't "dead weight."

The free market does that. People who can't generate more revenue than they cost are dead weight in a capitalistic system. It's not common to say that, but the US certainly works that way.

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#28
post #20
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool that you're out here deciding who is and isn't "dead weight."

The free market does that. People who can't generate more revenue than they cost are dead weight in a capitalistic system. It's not common to say that, but the US certainly works that way.

It's not about the definition of "dead weight", people are downvoting you because it's a fairly mean phrase to use to refer to your fellow human beings.

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#29

I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on even just over the course of my own lifetime (ap…

> there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people.

I think he's only presuming to speak on behalf of US residents, which caps at 400 million, and even then only for his generation, which limits the number even more.

In any case, I think one can make observations about a group of people of which one is a member without representing every single member of that group. His generation either did or did not fail current graduates, whether everybody agrees with that or not.

Re: Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’

#30

I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on even just over the course of my own lifetime (ap…

> Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations

Surely - at a bare minimum - it's everyone's responsibility to leave a habitable planet for future generations. Greed now is going to result in a very, very crappy place to live in the future.

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