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Why are so many adults acting just like children?

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

#111

Post by Dracophoenix »

jononomo wrote: post #67

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…

>> 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 definitely something important.

"Seriousness" or calcified melancholy?

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

#112

Post by em-bee »

AlexandrB wrote: post #81
jl6 wrote: post #40

> In 2020, a Pew study revealed that more than half of 18- to 29-year-old Americans were living with their parents. This is the part I think we all need to be talking about more. It’s a huge root cause of everything else the article discusses. I have come to understand adulthood as being centered on responsibilities, and adult behaviour as handling those responsibilities well. The transition to adulthood is the gradu…

I don't know if this is the root cause. I moved out at 18 and I still think I'm pretty childish compared to my parents now that I'm over 35. Personally, I blame/credit the internet. Internet culture is perpetually stuck in the 16-25 range and I'm "terminally online". However, I think it's also important to distinguish between a facade of seriousness and actual maturity. I know many older (boomer) adults who, while ac…

culture is perpetually stuck in the 16-25 range

i think this is the key. not just internet culture, but culture in general. older generations had to start working in that age range and were generally expected to stop behaving like children. but over the years, the need to work as a teen reduced and childhood got more protected and prolonged. the age range at which we are expected to stop acting like children gradually rose.

i am not saying that we take longer to mature. but that maturity looks different, and allows for more seemingly child-like behavior.

then there is a concept that i believe that the personality that we develop in our late teens and young adult years is the personality we generally keep for the rest of our lives.

so if our young adult years are playful, then we will continue to remain playful.

it's not internet culture that's the cause here, but simply that the internet generation coincides with the time that our society gained the ability to give our children more freedom from economic pressures.

add to that as we get older we gain more autonomy and the financial ability to spend on things of interest, and suddenly it makes sense why we have people in their 30s and 40s or even 50s enjoying computer games, cosplay, being a furry, or build models from lego bricks. it's all about the ability to enjoy what we did enjoy in our childhood and youth.

and those adults that are playing now will continue to play and so the age at which we see this playfulness is going to go up

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

#113

Post by mcphage »

daoist_shaman wrote: post #33

Leaving this here for those who might be interested in the concept of an inner child [0]. I like to think of the inner child in mathematical terms: if I am 40 years old, then it also holds true that I am 6, 10, 16, and 21. At all times, I carry with me the memories (with implicit feelings and attitudes) from each of those distinct years. The person I am today consists of those years strung together. It’s no wonder th…

There's a great short on Disney+ based on this idea—it's about a woman who just turned 21 going out to a club with her sister, but really she's just the 1-year-old, 10-year-old, and 16-year-old versions of herself in a trench coat. It's very cute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Something_(2021_film)

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

#114

Post by the_other »

DavidSharff wrote: post #78
the_other wrote: post #2

I gave up after a paragraph or two. It looked like it was going to moan about people trying to have fun and do some self care. I don’t have time for that. Over time, I’ve come to see many “senior” or “success” behaviours as refined versions of childhood ones. Political sniping, business competitiveness, standard hierarchical power dynamics, etc. These are all “playground tactics” but grown up. I don’t see (many) “suc…

> I gave up after a paragraph or two. It looked like it was going to moan about people trying to have fun and do some self care. I don’t have time for that. The author had quite the opposite conclusion: > The Great Regression isn’t really a regression at all. It’s a sign of resilience in the face of profound adversity. Just as I was fading a few paragraphs in, one of the straw men (IMHO) thrown out caught my eye. How…

Great reply. Thanks. Will ponder and (at least aim to) put this on my reading list.

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

#115

Post by the_other »

nicoburns wrote: post #8
the_other wrote: post #2

I gave up after a paragraph or two. It looked like it was going to moan about people trying to have fun and do some self care. I don’t have time for that. Over time, I’ve come to see many “senior” or “success” behaviours as refined versions of childhood ones. Political sniping, business competitiveness, standard hierarchical power dynamics, etc. These are all “playground tactics” but grown up. I don’t see (many) “suc…

> However, the higher up the power/success ladder you look, the harder these behaviours are to see. I don't have strong evidence for this, but I always feel like this is true until you get right to the very top - the individuals and organisations that are considered leaders in their fields. The difference between those people/organisations and the rest is often exactly that they are supportive, collaborative and doin…

> It's harder to succeed if you don't engage with the "playground tactics", but those who do are the ones pushing society forwards.

And in many cases, some of them are holding us back.

But your point still stands and I'm gonna think on it in coming weeks.

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

#116

Post by the_other »

the_other wrote: post #2

I gave up after a paragraph or two. It looked like it was going to moan about people trying to have fun and do some self care. I don’t have time for that. Over time, I’ve come to see many “senior” or “success” behaviours as refined versions of childhood ones. Political sniping, business competitiveness, standard hierarchical power dynamics, etc. These are all “playground tactics” but grown up. I don’t see (many) “suc…

Thanks to all who've encouraged me to read the rest of the article. I will.

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

#117

Post by scruple »

jl6 wrote: post #40

> In 2020, a Pew study revealed that more than half of 18- to 29-year-old Americans were living with their parents. This is the part I think we all need to be talking about more. It’s a huge root cause of everything else the article discusses. I have come to understand adulthood as being centered on responsibilities, and adult behaviour as handling those responsibilities well. The transition to adulthood is the gradu…

> Either we manage to address the economic issues that make independent living unaffordable. Or we rediscover multigenerational households as a virtue.

I don't think you have one without the other, personally.

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

#118

Post by jononomo »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #111
jononomo wrote: post #67

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…

>> 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 definitely something important. "Seriousness" or calcified melancholy?

It is absolutely not “calcified melancholy”. My father is a deeply religious man, has a degree in chemical engineering from MIT, was a professor of Hematology for 40 years, and was incredibly highly respected by everyone who knew him, and in particular by his church community. He studied Latin as a child, is an avid bird watcher, and has lived an extraordinarily happy, meaningful, and impactful life. His has been a life of service and of joy. I’m afraid that rich lives like his are becoming a thing of the past.

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

#119

Post by Dracophoenix »

jononomo wrote: post #118
Dracophoenix wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 definitely something important. "Seriousness" or calcified melancholy?

It is absolutely not “calcified melancholy”. My father is a deeply religious man, has a degree in chemical engineering from MIT, was a professor of Hematology for 40 years, and was incredibly highly respected by everyone who knew him, and in particular by his church community. He studied Latin as a child, is an avid bird watcher, and has lived an extraordinarily happy, meaningful, and impactful life. His has been a l…

How life sounds like an interesting one. I wonder what drove him. My experience with seriousness is one as a consequence of loss and an obsession with becoming skilled enough to prevent history repeating itself.

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

#120

Post by raydiatian »

hoseja wrote: post #61
raydiatian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, I’m saying “we’re all children”. If you want to complain about adults playing games and wearing bright colours, you also need to complain about adults using armies to take resources and businesses blocking others out of markets. I feel the same, but, this is one of those all or nothing things, and the irony is that our own barbaric origins are holding us back from ‘evolving’ so to speak. We have armies and nucl…

"using armies to take resources and businesses blocking others out of markets" is literally "evolving". Natural selection, baby. It's not pretty. Unipolarity isn't the only solution but it's the most apparent one, and also the most terrifyingly totalitarian one.

I mean I can really only imagine two broad categories for “solutions”

1) Someone demonstrates a bigger stick. At this point a bigger stick is effective counter-nukes, or perhaps the presence of an alien civilization.

2) What you call unipolarity, although I think both are unipolarity. Mass behavioral transcendence towards a higher form of morality. Maybe achieved via BCI, or improving standard of living, or subtle coercions by AI, or looming threat of climate change prompting transformative cooperative efforts.

The latter was omitted for brevity, due to its unlikelihood. Of course it’s not binary, there’s a bit of each in the other.

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