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261 comments

  • The hardship Boomers had was mostly far away and hypothetical. They grew up with the constant threat of nuclear war.

    The old Star Trek episode "Gary Seven" has an interesting take on this. Boomers expected that civilization would end before they got to adulthood. Then it didn't, and they had no idea what to do with themselves.

    Then they come to a time when they're resented by both their parents and their children. The Greatest Generation was horny after the war and literally fucked the Boomers into existence, but realized too late that they didn't actually like having children. Boomers treated their children the way their parents treated them. Gen X sorta puts up with it, but Millennials aren't having it.

    Other than that, capitalism knew by the 1950s that if they push the working class too hard, they'll revolt. Better to back off the money printer a little to make sure we can keep running it for as long as possible. And so the working class could have a reasonably comfy life doing the same trades for their whole working life (provided they were white). Over time, capitalism found that it can keep a working class revolt from happening by dividing the working class against each other; racism and religion works pretty well. Then it was time to overclock the money printer.

    • Boomers expected that civilization would end before they got to adulthood.

      I figured that was our (Gen X) curse. I remember being fairly sure I'd not see age 20, given all the dystopian nightmares that seemed to surround us. Maybe it was all the boomer-created media we were saturated in.

      I seem to recall Douglas Coupland writing on that in much more evocative ways than I could ever muster...but then, even though he coined "Generation X", I think he's one of the very oldest in that generation.

  • i have respect for my grandparents so i dont call them this but when they bring up stuff i just nod becuase its better to let them ramble than sit there and argue with someone who could have a heart attack.

  • I guess it's to be expected. Boomers were raised in pure bliss, spent half their lives relatively stress-free. Everything was easy and cheap. When you live an easy life, you get used to being dumb, uninformed and lazy. The same would have probably happened to all zoomers in the same situation.

    Note that this is mostly specific to North America, Western Europe, Japan and maybe a few other countries. Pretty much everywhere else boomers aren't all that different from zoomers, save for regular intergenerational differences.

    • I guess it’s to be expected. Boomers were raised in pure bliss, spent half their lives relatively stress-free. Everything was easy and cheap. When you live an easy life, you get used to being dumb, uninformed and lazy. The same would have probably happened to all zoomers in the same situation.

      I'm not a boomer, but this isn't quite a fair characterization. Yes, they had cheap college, affordable cars, housing, lots of upward mobility that most of us would love to have today, but they lived through some shit too. Boomers were in their youth when humanity had its closest brush with global nuclear war when the bombers were in the air flying during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They lived everyday with a really good chance the world was going to end in nuclear war. They were the last generation to see a compulsory military draft and many know high school friends that were drafted and died in Vietnam. We think interest rates are bad these days making borrowing expensive. No shit they were having to get mortgages with a minimum of 18% and 19%:

      source

      This says nothing about the many racial and sexual discrimination issues that those groups faced making basic life even harder. In Canada it wasn't until 1964 that a woman could open her own bank account without her husband's consent. In the USA, redlining preventing people of color from buying homes in better areas denying them untold billions of dollars of generational wealth from real estate appreciation.

      Absolutely give the out-of-touch boomers that are dismissive of the problems young people are facing today the shit boomers deserve. They did so much to harvest the benefits of the last century and leave the bill to the younger generations while simultaneously destroying environment for the later generations to thrive the way they did. Just don't forget that each generation has its problems too and there hasn't been a generation yet that has been entirely carefree.

      • Just using the interest rate is an unfair comparison. You have to go get median house prices and median incomes as well to make a proper comparison. Just saying the rate was higher at some point is useless if we don't also compare the prices and incomes because what really matters is affordability. Not saying your whole comment is wrong, just trying to say that this particular part seems to be biased in favor of the Boomers.

        Median home price to median household income ratio This ratio is a key indicator of housing affordability. It measures how many years of the median household's income are needed to purchase the median-priced home. Period Median Household Income Median Home Price Price-to-Income Ratio 1980 $21,000 ~$65,000 ~3.1x 2024 ~$85,000 ~$415,000 ~4.9x Comparison of mortgage payments Even with the high interest rates of the 1980s, the lower home values meant a smaller overall loan and a monthly payment that took up a smaller percentage of the median household income. Here is a side-by-side comparison of a hypothetical mortgage for a median-income household in 1980 and 2024: Mortgage metric Early 1980s 2024 Median income $22,000 $85,000 Median house price $47,000 $415,000 20% down payment $11,000 (50% of annual income) $83,000 (~98% of annual income) Loan amount $36,000 $332,000 Interest rate 13% 7.5% Monthly payment $397 $2,321 Payment as % of gross income

      • In Canada it wasn’t until 1964 that a woman could open her own bank account without her husband’s consent.

        My mother would always remind me that in the United States, this was not lifted until 1974.

    • Eh, this seems to be looking at things with rose-colored glasses. That generation, in the prime of their youth, had to worry about getting drafted into going halfway around the world to fight a war of empire, for instance.

  • I feel like this is also a Gen Z thing. Millennials try so hard with everything all the time, Gen Z probably thinks that's annoying (but maybe cute how naive and stupid we are to still try?). So "Ok Boomer" it is, which makes the exact effort to deal with boomers as boomers make in dealing with everything other than themselves.

  • That is spot on. I have just concluded that it isn't my responsibility to educate my parents. And since they don't listen anyway, I also realized that since that is the case, we have not become closer through the years; but actually the opposite. And that all because they're not willing to accept facts, because they're lazy and entitled.

261 comments