Comments on: What do You Believe to be Your Generation’s Greatest Challenge? http://weakonomics.com/2008/09/22/what-do-you-believe-to-be-your-generation%e2%80%99s-greatest-challenge/ Everything That's Wrong With You And Your Money Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:41:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: the ginger avenger http://weakonomics.com/2008/09/22/what-do-you-believe-to-be-your-generation%e2%80%99s-greatest-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-1334 the ginger avenger Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:11:51 +0000 http://weakonomics.com/2008/09/22/what-do-you-believe-to-be-your-generation%e2%80%99s-greatest-challenge/#comment-1334 As a fellow Gen-Y-er/Millenial, I definitely agree with you a certain extent, but I also feel like the bigger issue here is getting people of our generation to give a poop about what's going on around us. Rather than gawking mindlessly at facebook, myspace, and the latest celebrity gossip, why aren't we interacting with each other and trying to forge a better community and future? For a world that HAS become so flat and interconnected, why are the biggest connections being passed over and why is there no sense of community on a global or even a local level? For a generation, who for the first time HAS THE ENTIRE WORLD at our disposal through the click of a mouse, why are we now a generation of apathy and lethargy? Our generation is ambitious, sure, but only in a material way. We want bigger cars, bigger homes, more stuff, more friends, more superficiality. Intellectual achievement and simple awareness of the world around us has been thrown by the wayside in lieu of having more friends on social networking sites, wearing the trendiest clothes, and being as plugged in as possible. People of our generation and those who are younger simply have less room/mental capacity to care about what's going on in the world, which leads to apathy, which leads to ignorance, which leads to hate. Without getting political, Bush remarked after 9/11 that we were attacked by evil. Nobody would disagree that 9/11 was an evil, heinous act, but by instantly labeling our attackers as evil, he instilled a blind hatred in all of us that was, and still is, based on ignorance. And we embrace it because we don't know any better. I fall victim to certain aspects of the culture I've just described (very, very minimally), but I'm very aware of it, and try to get others to notice it as well. I don't think anyone would disagree that certain fundamental changes need to occur regarding our economy, energy, the environment, etc. The movers and shakers who pushed progress through the Cold War will soon age out of the workforce and educational systems. So, my rhetorical question is: if we're not willing to step up and make these changes, who will? I feel like getting people to care will lend itself to a vast number of solutions, including those to various problems you mentioned. And your notion at the end - about being partners - I believe is a great first step. 18 kudos for that. *Incidentally, I just did a quick search of the top 100 sites in the US courtesy of Alexa - it's authenticity is clearly debatable - but general themes would be similar. The approximate ratio of Social Networking : Porn : News Sites is 2 : 1.8 : 1. Hooray? For every time someone logs onto a news source website, two others log on to get news on their friends or to get nude with their "friends." As a fellow Gen-Y-er/Millenial, I definitely agree with you a certain extent, but I also feel like the bigger issue here is getting people of our generation to give a poop about what’s going on around us. Rather than gawking mindlessly at facebook, myspace, and the latest celebrity gossip, why aren’t we interacting with each other and trying to forge a better community and future? For a world that HAS become so flat and interconnected, why are the biggest connections being passed over and why is there no sense of community on a global or even a local level? For a generation, who for the first time HAS THE ENTIRE WORLD at our disposal through the click of a mouse, why are we now a generation of apathy and lethargy?

Our generation is ambitious, sure, but only in a material way. We want bigger cars, bigger homes, more stuff, more friends, more superficiality. Intellectual achievement and simple awareness of the world around us has been thrown by the wayside in lieu of having more friends on social networking sites, wearing the trendiest clothes, and being as plugged in as possible. People of our generation and those who are younger simply have less room/mental capacity to care about what’s going on in the world, which leads to apathy, which leads to ignorance, which leads to hate. Without getting political, Bush remarked after 9/11 that we were attacked by evil. Nobody would disagree that 9/11 was an evil, heinous act, but by instantly labeling our attackers as evil, he instilled a blind hatred in all of us that was, and still is, based on ignorance. And we embrace it because we don’t know any better.

I fall victim to certain aspects of the culture I’ve just described (very, very minimally), but I’m very aware of it, and try to get others to notice it as well. I don’t think anyone would disagree that certain fundamental changes need to occur regarding our economy, energy, the environment, etc. The movers and shakers who pushed progress through the Cold War will soon age out of the workforce and educational systems. So, my rhetorical question is: if we’re not willing to step up and make these changes, who will? I feel like getting people to care will lend itself to a vast number of solutions, including those to various problems you mentioned. And your notion at the end – about being partners – I believe is a great first step. 18 kudos for that.

*Incidentally, I just did a quick search of the top 100 sites in the US courtesy of Alexa – it’s authenticity is clearly debatable – but general themes would be similar. The approximate ratio of Social Networking : Porn : News Sites is 2 : 1.8 : 1. Hooray? For every time someone logs onto a news source website, two others log on to get news on their friends or to get nude with their “friends.”

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