...so far. Wait till everything is run by the generation that grew up on Ritalin and gaming.
The Shallowest Generation
21–30 of 54 posts
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#22The problem's not that they're a shallow generation. Actually, I think the Baby Boomers were a very idealistic generation, and this (paradoxically) has led to the corrupt leadership. The civil rights activists, hippies, and leftists (with a few exceptions) didn't swing around to become the yuppies, sellouts, and corrupt political figures. Different people did. My father's pretty similar to me in worldview, ethics, an…
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we ca…
Neocons are an altogether strange phenomenon. Neocons aren't conservative or liberal, so much as they're opportunistic authoritarians. In the 1960s, when they were young and believed the Left stood a decent chance of overthrowing the US government, they were communists. They weren't the same people as the hippies or civil rights activists; they were the ones mobbing and beating up returned veterans in San Francisco. In the 1980s and '90s, when their generation and the conservative movement were firmly in power, they swung from the authoritarian left to the authoritarian right, which really aren't very far apart.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#23Is it just me, or does the author use a lot of unintentionally funny analogies? Anyway, I'm going to chip in on the issue of CEO pay. Many, including the author, are outraged that they're paid 500 times the wage of the average worker. But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who a) has proven himself (5mm b) is willing to work 80 hours per week c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circu…
But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who
a) has proven himself (5mm b) is willing to work 80 hours per week
c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances
I'm not convinced that B and C are good things. Sometimes, it's necessary to work 80 hours per week, but doing that for years on end is unhealthy and counterproductive. Most of the long hours in upper-tier corporate result not from any benefit to those extra hours worked, but rather from oneupmanship.
As for C, consider this. In a corporate environment, where one is working to enrich other people, putting work ahead of family and friends is, generally, a very bad decision. After all, the probability of becoming CEO is very small, and a person who laid up 70 hours per week only plateau at the VP level is just a loser who made bad choices and wasted his life. The only difference between the CEO and that moron is that the CEO won the lottery while the also-ran lost.
Following the lottery analogy, you wouldn't take financial advice from a crackhead who bought twenty Powerball tickets every night, and happened to win $200 million. So, do you really think it's a good thing for large companies to be governed by those who wasted their lives in a relatively pointless quest for power?
So why would somebody who's already rich be willing to do this? Money.
Status. The status, in this case, comes from the money.
Ask instead - why did it take 500 times the average worker's salary to convince him to take the job?
It doesn't. People would gladly take the job for 10x. If you haven't figured it out, corporate compensation is the result of a fellatio daisy chain. The board is staffed by executives of other companies, who allow the CEO to raise his pay, because he is on their boards and will vote in their favor if they do so for him.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#24The problem's not that they're a shallow generation. Actually, I think the Baby Boomers were a very idealistic generation, and this (paradoxically) has led to the corrupt leadership. The civil rights activists, hippies, and leftists (with a few exceptions) didn't swing around to become the yuppies, sellouts, and corrupt political figures. Different people did. My father's pretty similar to me in worldview, ethics, an…
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we ca…
isn't "orthodox neocon" an oxymoron? How can you have a long-standing standard for a completely new phenomenon?
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#25Is it just me, or does the author use a lot of unintentionally funny analogies? Anyway, I'm going to chip in on the issue of CEO pay. Many, including the author, are outraged that they're paid 500 times the wage of the average worker. But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who a) has proven himself (5mm b) is willing to work 80 hours per week c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circu…
But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who a) has proven himself (5mm b) is willing to work 80 hours per week c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances I'm not convinced that B and C are good things. Sometimes, it's necessary to work 80 hours per week, but doing that for years on end is unhealthy and counterproductive. Most of the long hours in upper-tier corporate result not…
"fellatio daisy chain"
If I could up-vote you more I would.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#26'The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that killed 72 million people', is one of the greatest opening sentences I have ever read.
Almost as good as 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way'
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#27He clearly states his bias: "Our Government bureaucracy, which contributes nothing to the advancement of our society, now is a larger portion of GDP than manufacturing."
Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power, plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#28Interesting article, but the author's selective memory and faulty logic continually undermines the point he's trying to make. My favorite was this gem: "Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin; and built the Interstate highway system. The Baby Boom generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage backed securities; the fast food drive thru window; discovered t…
"dramatic reductions in global poverty", lmfao. Quote me wrong.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we ca…
isn't "orthodox neocon" an oxymoron? How can you have a long-standing standard for a completely new phenomenon?
They've been around since Reagan. And most of their principles and the key people appeared during Nixon's administration.
Re: The Shallowest Generation
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we ca…
How'd that work out? > Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. And the Soviets later revealed that there were Communists in the US govt and that they were trying to "influence" Hollywood. > Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead. Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "c…
I think it's fairly well documented that in amongst the hippies doing drugs were some key people involved in the creation of the computer, software, networking and internet industries.