[ExI] Meta question again

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace



 

 

>…Someone said that this is the first generation in a long time where the kids will not be better off than the parents.  bill w

 

 

I hear that contention a lot and think it so far beyond absurd, it is difficult to even know where to start.  

 

The new generation is waaaaaaay better off than any other, anywhere or anywhen you wish to compare.  Sheesh: they have allllll this bandwidth, access to alllll these free sites with aaaanything they want, all the information they care to gobble down, free wi-fi in plenty of places.  So their houses may not be as big compared to previous generations (but we don’t need as much space as we used to) and their cars might not be as fast (what’s the big hurry?  Where do you really need to go?  Why?  Do you really need to go anywhere anyway?  Can’t you just Skype ‘em rather than hauling your carbon-based butt all the way over there?)  What is it that this new generation is missing?  I am drawing a blank.

 

When I hear this contention of the next generation being less well-off than their parents, I need to remind them that plenty of parents my age didn’t even have a computer when we were teenagers.  I got my first one that I personally owned when I was 23.  Before that we had to use the ones over at the high school or the University-owned mainframe, punch cards and such (not kidding, my young friends.)  In those days, computers were terrrrrible!  Lousy pieces of junk!  But ooooh we loved them, the cool stuff you could.  Motorized algebra!  Oh wicked cool was this.  It was geek heaven.

 

And that’s another thing: back then, geeks were disdained, ignored or worse, rejected from polite society.  I was a geek before geek was chic.

 

I say to young people, LOOK AT WHAT YOU GUYS HAVE now, and look at all the cool stuff completely unique to your fortunate generation: a whole bunch of it is FREEEEE free free, my favorite word, free.  You can go online anywhere you want, find all kinds of free free free cool games, data and software, and ya just can’t get any cheaper than free.

 

I ask you, PokemonGo players, look at yourselves and lives, then compare please.  There were free things when I was a teen: you could go hiking the woods free (which I did) if you didn’t mind the risk you would stumble upon some doper’s plantation and get killed (which I didn’t (being teenage and indestructible in those benighted times of pleasant but dangerous ignorance.))  You could go to the public library and browse the pornography section free, over in the bound periodicals, such as National Geographic, Miss August 1957, and such hotties until the librarian caught us panting and censored those issues with a pair of scissors.  Later the whole game was over when NG got all politically correct and stopped publishing those kinds of photos in about 1958.  That kind of fun was all free.  Note, I only read National Geographic for the articles you know, only the National and the Geo parts, ignored the graphic, always.  

 

But think about it, and think of all the free stuff you yourself have taken off the internet, including those of you on this list even older than I am (both of you) think of all the YouTubes and various cool interesting informative sites, even the non-graphic ones, and compare aaallll that cool free stuff that to the free stuff from the mid Jurassic of my own misspent youth: a dangerous walk in the woods vs Google Earth and PokemonGo.  National Geographic vs… well, graphic.  Compare the local gathering with the intellectual discussions online we can now join anytime and anywhere we want on any topic which catches our interest.  Think about it.  Dope and alcohol vs now: a world of pleasant fantasy which requires no chemicals, legal jeopardy, no transportation, no cost and no health risk!  

 

And you young people didn’t even think of that, did ya?   BillW, you started me on this rant, and you are one of those from the old days.  No excuses, pal.  I sentence you to entertain yourself with old National Geographics, after the spinster librarian with the scissors has already gotten hold of it!  

 

Oh what a time to be alive, oh my, oh freaking my, what a cool time to live is this.  

 

Now tell me who here thinks this generation is not better off than their parents, waaaay better off, better even compared to their older siblings.

 

spike 

 

 

 

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