Live data from Hacker News

Why are so many adults acting just like children?

aeon.co

91–100 of 140 posts

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the implication that those are somehow less worthy ways to spend one's time and money, or that the tendency towards those interests betrays some... divergent cognition or eccentricity. Pick any interest that you think is "proper" for an adult; the person who engages in it either enjoys it, in which case it's indistinguishable from any interest that doesn't meet that criterion, or they don't enjoy it, in…

It’s a generational article, for anyone of a certain age or older, explaining why what we see as “infantalization” serves a purpose and may yield very positive outcomes.

My problem is that it's not challenging its audience's assumption that the activities in question are childish. It tacitly grants that they're childish, and then tries to defend them by looking for a positive side. The corollary is that if that positive side didn't exist the reader would be justified in being outraged at what young people are doing.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#92
I wonder if this ties into the quiet quitting and anti-work sentiment we're seeing post COVID too.

People are stressed, wages lower than we deserve and no sign of changing, competition is now global with benefits going to a fraction of society, economic news which just gets darker.

I don't blame people for regressing and "lying flat".

My escape is watching people fishing and diving on deserted Indonesian islands on YT.

Then I remember I have to cover my kid's £100 per day nursery and private school fees..... I need a heavy blanket.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#93

This article is full of such strange implied absolutisms and "just-so" stories. The silliest and most striking one is probably "Japanese women invented and pioneered emoji". As far as I know the :) symbol was first used by an American man, and there was no specific gendered usage of emoji afterwards.

Emoji and emoticons are not the same.

Thank dog.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#94

I wonder if this ties into the quiet quitting and anti-work sentiment we're seeing post COVID too. People are stressed, wages lower than we deserve and no sign of changing, competition is now global with benefits going to a fraction of society, economic news which just gets darker. I don't blame people for regressing and "lying flat". My escape is watching people fishing and diving on deserted Indonesian islands on Y…

People are working too hard for too little gain. It's a mass burnout all over the society. And now, everyone will have to face another boom bust cycle. At some point, people just stop caring. The society wasn't working for them anyway. It might as well collapse.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#95

I don't even understand why do people become adult in the first place. Sure, your body changes and you begin to understand some more complex things you previously couldn't (and that's fun), but why change anything else? Why be boring and take bullshit seriously?

I believe it's because the children who manage society and business want their workers and citizens to take their bullshit seriously. So they shaped a false and convenient image of what it means to be an "adult", such as putting work above family and personal life.

Yes, attaining a more complex/serious personality is just a social construct.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#97

I've been noticing this for at least a decade now: people don't seem to grow up anymore. When I think of my grandfathers, who were born in 1898 and 1905, respectively, I remember serious men. They were good-humored, but they were adults and they carried their weight in the world. My father, born in 1935, also has that seriousness. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is that men under 70 lack now, but it is d…

This comment reminded me of the 1997 episode of The Simpsons, "Homer's Phobia", the adults thought the best way to ensure Bart would grow up to be a proper man was to send him off to war to kill someone, but lacking a war they go hunting so he can kill a deer instead.

One of my grandfather's did serve in World War One.

Re: Why are so many adults acting just like children?

#100

I think this actually a serious issue and I’m disappointed that the comments are mostly defensive. If I had to pick two things that have led to adults acting like children, it would be: - the lack of any real “coming of age” ritual in Western culture. The closest we get is going to college, which has developed into something deliberately removed from adult reality - the slow removal of cultural rules that indicated a…

What we perceive as the “predominant art” of the Renaissance was funded and hoarded by the rich and powerful, and produced by a scant few individuals.
Post reply on HN