billw
The Tattooed One
Truth hurts.
Won't somebody think of "young people"? (Edit: and No, older people aren't "to blame")
- Thread starter Jelly
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Truth hurts.
Billy_wizz
Established Member
Mostly small manufacturers who's selling price is set by cheap mass produced/imported competition most people want there better quality but only if they match the cheap prices alot are based around sawmilling and fencing!
billw
The Tattooed One
The truth is the world is a very different place to what many members on here will have experienced. The era of parents having grown up in the devastation of two world wars has gone, the younger generations have no concept of the Berlin Wall, communism, the Cuba missile crisis, none of the Cold War era. They've often not even known life without mobile phones, the internet, a globalised economy.
It's worrying that a large segment of the population wants thing to go backwards, not forwards. Kids glued to phones? NORMAL. Multiculturalism? NORMAL. Economic hardships due to recessions and crises? NORMAL. Stop trying to make the world go back to what's comfortable for you. Yes, bank branches are closing - so what! Who the hell needs them exactly? The older generations who panic about fraudsters? As if fraud and scams are new. My mum got wound up by the fact NSI wanted her bank account details to pay her premium bond winnings into because they were going to stop cheques CHEQUES! Wow, I'm nearly 50 and I think cheques belong in a museum.
It's a shame that the older generations shape the world into their comfort zone and not into the world that's best for their kids and grandkids. That's the truth.
Nigel Burden
Established Member
Nigel Burden
Established Member
That's the way it's always been throughout history, and will always be.
Nigel.
No wonder, have you ever had to sit in a primary school chair for a parents evening
Long time ago Droogs.
Nigel.
billw
The Tattooed One
I don't think the world changed fast enough for this to matter until the last century. Now the pace of acceleration is so rapid that it's way more noticeable than ever before. Struggling to see that in the 17th century there were jokes about "when I was a lad".
Will it always be that way? Only if we persist in seeing older as wiser with no pushback. If older people were truly wise, they'd stop thinking the past was the way forward.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
17C was one of the most turbulent periods in British history - most of the country bemoaning how things were, in between riots, land expropriation, clearances, enclosures, assassinations, transportations as slaves, revolutions (Levellers, Diggers) huge mobs of the dispossessed roaming the country and being persecuted or transported as slaves. Witch burnings. Not to mention the plague (two years 15% of the population dead), Fire of London, regicide, Cromwells massacres in Ireland, the African slave trade expanding as the supply of British and Irish slaves diminished
It was all go, never a dull moment!
It was the violent birth of capitalism as we now know it.
Read all about it Verso
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billw
The Tattooed One
I wouldn't classify those as progress, then again in the 23rd century most of what we do now won't be classed as progress either.
And from what you've described I'm pretty sure people weren't going to reminisce about the good old days.
Well it seems it was all go because we look at the historically important bits. I suspect, like 99% of human history it was just dull life as normal for most people.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
They certainly were going to reminisce- the loss of the commons (England), clearances of the Highlands (Scotland), the violent purges in Ireland, were all fresh in peoples' memories of a relatively peaceful previous existence.
The death rate from the plague alone was equivalent to 9 million covid deaths today i.e. 90 times higher.
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billw
The Tattooed One
OK well does that put into perspective the reminiscing these days about being able to speak to your bank manager in person whilst writing a cheque, or buying sweets by the quarter-pound, or family Sunday dinners, or "everyone being white" (as my mum likes to point out). There hasn't been any chronic devastation post-WW2, it's just a load of people who think Britain still has a bloody empire and runs the world.
RobinBHM
Established Member
Bah....it wasn't like that in my day
davedevelopment
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A lot of my thinking boils down to a mixture of selfishness and lack of faith in other people. Any day of the week, I'd back myself to make my small bubble of the world better for my kids and grandkids to follow on with, rather than successive governments to make the whole world better. Sad, but true.
I think it boils down to what do you consider "better"? That answer changes depending on the person. Clearly there are some who think it's "better" if we all worked 8 hours down the pit then had a scrub up in the tin bath, put on our flat caps and go down the pub for a pint of mild and a bag of pork scratchings. Then die of COPD at 40.
rafezetter
Troll Hunter
My counterpoint to your last point would be "if only the youth would pay attention to the lessons of thier forefathers".
The whole "doomed to repeated them" thing
oh and read more bloody history so that they don't go on a rampage pulling down statues of people they think are the sole reason for slavery in the 16th & 17th centuries when the black people themselves have a lot to answer for in that regard (and the arabs and pretty much everyone else - oh and the christians advocated it as well, go check for yourself - have they ransacked any churches? nope.)
One of the reasons why the youth get such a bad rap is simply because they almost ALWAYS fail to take all aspects into account - one of the reasons why a lot of society is shaped by thier elders is because they have learned (mostly from bad experiences) that the situation is far more nuanced than most youth is capable of grasping.
Take Greta Thunberg for example - she is just a mouthpiece for those doing the talking, OLDER PEOPLE, she may have started on her own, when no-one was listening, in an "outraged precocious child" kind of way, but once she started getting traction, you think she's writing all those long speechs by herself? Get real, she's getting help, a LOT of it, from older, more experienced sources.
Youthful exuberance only gets you so far, after that you need wiser, more experienced hands - ignore those and your failure is certain.
Here's a question - whom is the youngest world leader today (not including any Dalai Lama style resurrected 5 yr olds)
nvm found it - youngest of someplace important is Austria 34.5 yrs old (ruled by germany mostly IMHO), North Korea (nutter) 38 and NZ's Jacinda Ardern at 40.
While 40 isn't considered "old" by modern standards now, it's plenty of time to get some mileage under your belt (or skirt in her case
) The majority of western people under the age of 30 really don't have much of a clue about anything - they THINK they do, but they don't.Whomever mentioned it about the asians being serious about their future and subjects studied, he's right 100% - they don't study "art history" because an "art history" degree is a fast way to poverty and starvation.
They don't study what they like, they study what will get them ahead. This is the fundamental reason behind Asias explosive growth economies.
Western "art history" or "classical literature of the 1500's" or "abstract dance" or "the life and times of someone we've never heard of" is also the reason why western society is struggling to keep up . (and also why until not very long ago working class northern men would refer to "that lot in oxbridge" as "a bunch of ponces").
Can't expect to stay in the game if you don't understand the rules of how to win and too much ground has been given already to the bleating voices of those whom want to study "art history" on the taxpayers penny that has led to an almost complete annihiliation of trade apprenticships and places to learn the trades.)
The YOUTH did that, not the old, and only now 20 odd years later are they realising thier monumental mistake.
Give the world to the young to control? no thanks.
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doctor Bob
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You do know kids are supposed to be rebels and annoy their elders.
rafezetter
Troll Hunter
If that's for me Dr Bob, sure I'm not saying they shouldn't be independant "free spirits", but they can't have it both ways - if they want to be young and free and rebellious, fine, just don't be surprised when you wake up at 35 with nothing to show for it but some interesting tattoos, then complain to almost everyone who will listen how they can't get a house "because of the older generation", or the 35 yr old asian landlord whom now has 5 houses because he kept his head down, worked hard and was clever with his life choices.
The asians policy of "study hard in a field that will actually get you a job, then work hard, no pulling a sick day ever, be reliable, punctual, and most importantly value that job (or both jobs or all three in some cases), regardless of whether you like it or not" seems to be working for them pretty well.
you'll find it hard to argue with that reality.
I'm not saying that's ALL it comes down to, but that's a big portion of it - if you want a house in the south which is essentially "the posh part of town", you'll have to work harder for it than the person next to you - if you can't (or won't), then have a transferable skill (like the asians) where you can work almost anywhere, and move north where it's cheaper. It's not a hard equation to solve.
It's not exactly been a secret that housing in the south has always been more expensive, yes the prices have outstripped wages by a ridiculous margin in the last 20 years, but that too, isn't "new" information - everyone in their 30's complaining about this situation has had access to this information and could have changed thier "life choices" to suit, but clearly many just didn't bother paying this rather vital information any attention** until they were nose to nose with it, by which time it was far too late.
too busy with beer pong / clubmed holidays / gap year(s) "to find myself" / clubbing it / other self indulgent BS and generally pissing it against the wall.
I don't care how you cut this cake, they "the youth", CANNOT wheadle out of the fact all the information was there for them to act on, if they so chose, and some of the blame rests squarely on thier own shoulders.
This is yet another reason why "the youth" (western youth anyway) as a collective whole cannot be trusted with the future - they are far too shortsighted.
The asians policy of "study hard in a field that will actually get you a job, then work hard, no pulling a sick day ever, be reliable, punctual, and most importantly value that job (or both jobs or all three in some cases), regardless of whether you like it or not" seems to be working for them pretty well.
you'll find it hard to argue with that reality.
I'm not saying that's ALL it comes down to, but that's a big portion of it - if you want a house in the south which is essentially "the posh part of town", you'll have to work harder for it than the person next to you - if you can't (or won't), then have a transferable skill (like the asians) where you can work almost anywhere, and move north where it's cheaper. It's not a hard equation to solve.
It's not exactly been a secret that housing in the south has always been more expensive, yes the prices have outstripped wages by a ridiculous margin in the last 20 years, but that too, isn't "new" information - everyone in their 30's complaining about this situation has had access to this information and could have changed thier "life choices" to suit, but clearly many just didn't bother paying this rather vital information any attention** until they were nose to nose with it, by which time it was far too late.
too busy with beer pong / clubmed holidays / gap year(s) "to find myself" / clubbing it / other self indulgent BS and generally pissing it against the wall.
I don't care how you cut this cake, they "the youth", CANNOT wheadle out of the fact all the information was there for them to act on, if they so chose, and some of the blame rests squarely on thier own shoulders.
This is yet another reason why "the youth" (western youth anyway) as a collective whole cannot be trusted with the future - they are far too shortsighted.
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@doctor Bob I am glad we have someone someone older and wiser to guide us like rafezetter. The stories he has told of us how how he paid of his mortgage at 25, bought several more properties to let out, retired at 40 to live in a Spanish villa and writes books just for fun. They really make me feel better about the world and how if you just put in a little work you too can have it all like he does. We should all follow his lead so we can be happy and contented like he is.
