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Lord Jade Cross

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Given how things are going, it will be a miracle if we somehow manage to avoid becoming a fascist country. It only takes a small but determined band of operatives to totally change the course of history. 

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AspieAlly613

I think that the changes I'm seeing are largely good ones.

 

The younger generation has access to way more information than the older generation did, and it shows.

 

The demands for a well-respected job are higher now, but that's because we are a more innovative society now.  Following procedures isn't enough any more.  Enough people are understanding how the procedures would change with a change in technology that more jobs require that deeper level of understanding.

 

A side effect of this is that an 18-year-old worker no longer does the same work as a 50-year-old worker with the extra decades of understanding, so will be paid less.  If that necessitates a lifestyle where children, parents, and grandparents live together then it will just be a reversion to a lifestyle that a number of people prefer.

 

True, getting a college degree does not secure you an elite job, but that's because it is no longer only the elite who go to college.

 

There remains the problem that our education system is still procedure-based rather than understanding-based, but there are effort to change that.  Unfortunately, those efforts have largely been unsuccessful thus far and that's the only worrisome part for me.

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EmotionalAndroid

I genuinely believe that everything will work out fine. Change is coming, and I think we are already starting to see it. People are shifting to more mindful lifestyles, being more open-minded, and all the hate that has been stirred up by certain politicians is revealing just how much love there is to balance it. People are standing up to oppressive and discriminatory behaviors and we're working toward a different way of living that may not be how things "used to be," but will hopefully be more sustainable.

 

One should never destroy the positivity, eagerness and passion that young people have. It is something we should all keep. It's very possible to see positivity in everything, though it is hard. Granted, I have lived a very sheltered life. I am just now going out and trying to get housing to live independently. It is difficult, and I find myself complaining and wishing I could afford more. When I do complain, I feel bad about the situation and I find my whole view of the world changes to be really negative. But when I catch myself doing that and try to feel genuine gratitude for all I have, everything seems so much brighter. I try to accept that this is how things are right now. Things will change. Getting upset or sad about it won't change anything. I'm trying to see the positives in everything, and that shift in perspective is really important to help one live a happier life.

 

And hey, "In the long run the pessimist may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip." - Daniel L. Reardon

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40 years ago I finished a 4 year college degree without any student loans. I doubt this is possible today unless one's parents are rich. Global warming has existed for hundreds of years but back then nobody noticed it. None of the ice was retreating. The earth had hundreds of thousands of species it lacks today. The ocean wasn't filled with plastic. Labor unions were being eroded by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher but for the moment American workers didn't have to compete with third world workers and third world wages. Of course the internet and personal computers didn't really exist but TV didn't exist for my parents. TV rapidly went from being a public education system to a desolate wasteland of brainless entertainment saturated with mass marketing every 15 minutes. Computers were originally designed to help engineers and scientists solve complex mathematical problems. Now they are social media platforms often broadcasting hatred and bigotry to a world wide audience TV could never hope to achieve. Is this progress or what?  I've often thought mine is the last generation whose members will be better off than their parents were. I've often summed it up as follows. Our descendants will look back at us and think : We have nothing. You had everything. How could have just thrown it all away?

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RoseGoesToYale
41 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

will they face the same or worse situation that we, the older generation are facing? Are they doomed to be slapped across the face with the reality that a degree is not a garantied job later in life as it so often was sold to us?  Will they end up like us, stuck in shitty jobs to barely make ends meet month after month? 

Worse, yes, and even more so.

 

I'm a 23 year old with a Pessimism Sociology degree, and the only thing I've gotten out of that is some perspective on why this mess happened. There was a time when a college degree was a genuine leg up in the world, but after WWII and the GI bill, suddenly everybody saw college degrees as a leg up. But it balanced out back then because starting work straight out of high school was still considered a legitimate career path, and trades and apprenticeship were still celebrated and taught in schools. Today, if a student wants to start working after high school, they're seen as a failure, and the school thinks it failed the student. Money that could be used to teach trade skills all gets diverted to college prep, so things like shop classes and cosmetology got the axe. College is now the only option offered to high school students for when they graduate, and to openly state you have no desire to attend college would essentially lead to social ostracision and a few trips to the school counselor.

 

In North America, colleges are a business, even public ones, and their main goal is to get as many students in and graduated as humanly possible so they can get more revenue from tuition, which schools use to keep their facilities state-of-the-art and competitive with other schools. The College Board, the company that puts out the SAT, is also a business and makes a killing off of study materials alone. These businesses need customers, and they advertise aggressively, not just through flyers and ads, but through their alumni. The advertising preys upon the naiveté of youth, but also the naiveté of my parents generation. "It worked for us, so it'll work for you!" Granted, they couldn't have predicted the 2008 recession.

 

Right now the market is literally flooded with college degrees, but in my generation specifically, the degrees are devalued for a few reasons: 1) lots of humanities/arts degrees, which, unlike the opinion of some very hardened individuals, were chosen based on ability as well as interest, which I firmly believe is caused by 2) gatekeeping of capable students out of STEM due to difficult and irrelevant major entry math classes, which are difficult because 3) the American school system lags behind the rest of the western world, and 4) because it lags behind, colleges have to spend time and resources re-teaching students basic reading, writing, and arithmetic that they never learned in high school, which shaves 1-2 years off from students being able to take field-relevant classes. The result is little more than what a high school degree used to be. What's worse, colleges let in students who have no career ambitions and no idea what they want to do (like me), and we change majors several times and never get the intensive education necessary to legitimize the earning of a degree. Schools compensate for this by shaving off credit hour requirements for majors/minors, in addition to the grade coddling and babying (a subject for another time).

 

I should never have gone to college. Many, many times I considered dropping out and going to trade school, but I faced a war on two fronts. My dad put money into a college fund since I was a baby so I could go to school tuition-free, and I felt like dropping out would be letting him down, and my stepdad works for the university I attended, and his job specifically focuses on student retention. I'm one of the lucky ones who will never have to pay student loans, but I'm still stuck in the same boat as my fellow graduates... companies don't want to hire us because they know our degrees didn't include relevant practical training and their cost risk of training us is too great. With advent of social media, getting an entry level or gopher job through local connections has pretty much become extinct. Couple that with the stereotypes of my generation... that we're lazy, entitled, egocentric, job security-allergic... we're walking business liabilities.

 

To make matters worse (yeah, I know), now colleges are starting to aggressively market graduate school as more and more higher paying positions require master's degrees, and they're being insidious about it by convincing students that it's free, when it is SO NOT!!! This needs to be stopped, now! If you're a middle-of-the-way student and you aren't lucky enough to secure grants/scholarships, your loans will be so high you need a telescope to see them. Plus working a full-time job while in grad school is... just how...

 

The way I see this going, in 30 years, my contemporaries will have been barred from upwardly mobile jobs, there will be a severe shortage of skilled and blue-collar workers, across all fields. Bear in mind American infrastructure is already failing, without a pool of skilled construction workers to pull from, draw your own conclusions. The generation behind me is still being herded into college by the thousands. It's almost to the point of indoctrination... I saw dozens of elementary and middle school field trip groups to my university. Automation is taking the place of more and more minimum wage jobs, so the pinch of available jobs gets tighter. My generation can't afford mortgages, so what's going to happen to all those 2B2B houses in suburbia? Go to Zillow, type in "Detroit", and tell me what you find. By the time my generation gets that old, companies will finally invest in training again because there won't be anyone left, but in younger, more energetic workers, so we will still be screwed. Things are going to get worse before they get better.

 

I don't know if there's a solution. It's like I've said before... Titanic at 2:17am on April 15th, 1912. The ship is going to go down. It's every (hu)man for themself. The lights are about to go out and the stern is about to break. I might be somewhere in the water, I can swim, and I don't know if I'll make it into a lifeboat yet, but I know my generation is still on that ship. What I can work toward is making sure every person who gets on the next ship has a life jacket, a safety drill, and a lifeboat seat with their name on it. (Sorry for the doom and gloom, it's a very raw subject for me right now, and it's pitched a lot of my peers into depression and anxiety)

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AspieAlly613

@RoseGoesToYale, to what extent do you think that the following proposed change would fix the problem, if it could be enforced:

 

Universities should no longer charge a fixed tuition up front.  They should find out your SSN and charge 8% of your income (1% for each semester) which would be paid in pre-tax dollars, be tax exempt, and withheld like regular taxes.

 

College affordability wouldn't be as much of an issue because you wouldn't pay until you started earning.

 

They would be incentivized to steer students toward jobs that people would be willing to pay you to do.

 

 

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RoseGoesToYale
7 minutes ago, AspieAlly613 said:

Universities should no longer charge a fixed tuition up front.  They should find out your SSN and charge 8% of your income (1% for each semester) which would be paid in pre-tax dollars, be tax exempt, and withheld like regular taxes.

 

College affordability wouldn't be as much of an issue because you wouldn't pay until you started earning.

 

They would be incentivized to steer students toward jobs that people would be willing to pay you to do.

It could be a start. I personally believe college needs to be tuition free and publicly or state funded, because as long as colleges charge tuition, they are in competition with other tuition-charging colleges and can be blinded to academics by the need to remain competitive. The way we view college and college culture needs to drastically change... they way they are now is much closer to a court-side stadium experience than institutions of higher learning. Their facilities are way too extravagant and require way too much money to upkeep. Things like dining halls, rec centers, swimming pools, game rooms, and all athletics need to be eliminated, as these things make up huge amounts of tuition, whether you use the amenities or not. Instead, the communities surrounding the colleges should find ways to encourage eating and leisure spending within those communities, instead of just piping money back into the school. Colleges need to be solely focused on education and preparedness for life in the working world. (Having them teach practical skills like cooking, cleaning, sewing, auto repair, computer repair, and how to do taxes seriously needs to happen)

 

That said, it still doesn't address the shaky educational foundations that students are carrying into these colleges. Those lucky enough to go to private school, even for a few years, get a college-ready foundation. I went to a Lutheran school from 5th to 8th grade, before going back to the public school system, into a poor and essentially racially segregated school, but those four years did it. The bar for writing is set so low to allow even the most struggling students to get Bs. My stepdad was a humanities professor before he went into admin, and one night when I was still in high school I found a pile of essays he was grading. I asked if I could read a few, since I wanted to see what college essays were like. I skimmed through three of them, I couldn't believe my eyes at how bad they were, and I said to him "Your students can't write." And he said to me, gravely serious, "I know."

 

I know incredibly smart, eager, and curious people my age who cannot write to save their lives or perform a basic math equation, and it's not their fault. A lot of college is built on writing (for humanities/arts) and math (everything else). Colleges have already had to steeply lower their expectations because of the failings of the public school system. If they didn't, their graduation rates would be low enough to strip the schools of funding and accreditation. A lot of these students have gotten easy As in high school, because if public schools gave out grades that truly reflected student performance, many students wouldn't even graduate high school, and the schools would get D and F grades. (I feel like I'm rambling on here... I have a lot of information about education in the United States, it's my most passionate subject, so I could go on forever)

 

Suffice it to say, we would first somehow have to repair the already broken grade school system in order to prepare students for college-level learning, and then repair the college system to provide college-level, career-relevant academic study without breaking the banks of private citizens.

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Not worried. In fact at this rate we will blow each other up sky high or become a nazi-ish nightmare. 

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RoseGoesToYale
33 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

the resonse was that parents would raise hell and threathen to sue if their child is not passed.....

Omg, this is the most hilarious part of it all... so many journalists say kids today are coddled, but the parents are coddled too! Schools are so terrified that parents are going to sue them that teachers and administration bend to their every demand and spoil the students. In the past, the teacher would call up the parents and say "Little Johnny has been slacking in social studies.", and Little Johnny would go home and be grounded until he brought his grades up. Now the parents automatically assume it's the teacher's fault. Teachers are actually scared of parents coming into their classrooms unannounced or calling them at all hours to yell at them, and that is just not adult behavior. It's verbal abuse and harassment, and it's the teachers that need to be protected.

 

Like, what happened here? I'm at a loss...

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It's hard to say to be honest. I figure there's going to be a lot of difficulties ahead. There's upsides and advantages that older generations didn't have, but there's a lot of downsides too. I'd figure that there's more downsides to be honest. I can't elaborate in depth as I'd write a few walls, but I can summarize it in short.

 

Tech addiction facilitating what can't be facilitated, politics, and the fact that the market is utterly rigged to near perfection against them, and the coming years of being handed the keys to an environmentally destabilized and resource dwindling world.

 

Without any inkling of humor, I honestly suspect that the latest generation is one that's potentially going to be plagued with phenomenally high suicide rates and dysfunctions. Or, the opposite may be true, just like a kid that comes out of dysfunctional family. They may go the opposite way and try in earnest to shape something profoundly better for the next generations to come along, using the knowledge of the failings of previous generations as ammunition of what not to do.

 

I'm not much of an optimist when it comes to people, so suicide generation it is then. 

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Dreamsexual

.

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Bruce Wayne

I'm 19 and I'm probably more positive and optimistic than most people of my age. However, I see the change coming. I mean, look at some determined young people. Look at people like Greta Thunberg. Look at the young LGBTQ+ people who are not afraid to come out and show the world that they are people like everyone else. And youngsters care more about our environment than the previous generations did. It's our generation that finally has to deal with problems like deforestation, climate change, homophobia etc. Sure, there are bigots among young people as well (I have met a lot of them) but ultimately more young people are respectful and willing to change the world in a positive way than in previous generations. 

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Great points, SR!  I work with a lot of young people and I think the most positive thing about your generation is how progressive the vast majority seem to be with LGBT, rights of marginalized peoples, environmental issues, etc.

 

My worry, though, is not just about tech addiction, but what I see is a shallow knowledge of / lack of depth in both tech use and traditional skills, like reading (my bias, being a librarian). Too many teachers have the attitude that all young people are great with the internet, but I see a LOT of poor habits and lack of desire / ability to dig deep and cross-reference what they find. People cheated or took short cuts in my generation as well, but it wasn't so easy to pull up 'answers' within seconds and find / pay for papers. At the extreme, my worry is that people of the future won't be any better at sorting and demanding 'real news' than all age groups are at the moment. 

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Duke Memphis

I think that nearly everything hinges on my generation. We have the technology to make things better thanks to previous generations, but I'm not sure we collectively have a push in the right direction.

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The problem that each generation faces is to find solutions to the previous generation's solutions.

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16 hours ago, Jade Cross said:

Not just lowered standards, they give away the grades for free. One day that, to this day, has not stopped astounding me was a day near my  high school graduation where I had to attend the principals office to get papers sign so that I was cleared to graduate. While waiting, the secretary came with a stack of over 30 students, all who were failing multiple classes and the principals words were: "change the grandes to C+ and pass them". I could not believe my ears.

 

I also witnessed what you mention of people my age (back then) who could not adequately write an essay, use critical thinking, etc to save their lives at a college level. It honestly scared me to see that. Even worse, I dealth with incompetent superiors who had the same lack of skill in even writting. 

 

I was an teacher assitant for a bit as well and often helped grade the homeworks. When I saw too many errors (and marked them) often, those excersizes I marked as incorrect got written over and placed as correct. When I asked why, (well I didnt need to verbally say it, my face said it all), the resonse was that parents would raise hell and threathen to sue if their child is not passed.....*clap, clap, clap* And I had a talk with some of the parents (before I got pulled aside and instructed not to question them either). If the children alone arent trouble already, the parents level of intellect leaves much to say.

That would never have happened at the school I went to.  It was a private school, and they wouldn't even let you repeat the year.  If you couldn't hack it, you were promptly kicked out.

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SorryNotSorry
16 hours ago, Ardoise said:

The problem that each generation faces is to find solutions to the previous generation's solutions.

Conversely, the next generation of scam artists will need to concoct new fast ones to pull as the rest of us wise up to the old ones.

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In answer to the thread title, hope.

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Grumpy Alien
On 5/19/2019 at 9:48 PM, AspieAlly613 said:

I think that the changes I'm seeing are largely good ones.

 

The younger generation has access to way more information than the older generation did, and it shows.

 

The demands for a well-respected job are higher now, but that's because we are a more innovative society now.  Following procedures isn't enough any more.  Enough people are understanding how the procedures would change with a change in technology that more jobs require that deeper level of understanding.

 

A side effect of this is that an 18-year-old worker no longer does the same work as a 50-year-old worker with the extra decades of understanding, so will be paid less.  If that necessitates a lifestyle where children, parents, and grandparents live together then it will just be a reversion to a lifestyle that a number of people prefer.

 

True, getting a college degree does not secure you an elite job, but that's because it is no longer only the elite who go to college.

 

There remains the problem that our education system is still procedure-based rather than understanding-based, but there are effort to change that.  Unfortunately, those efforts have largely been unsuccessful thus far and that's the only worrisome part for me.

I agree with all of this. Change isn’t inherently bad and it certainly isn’t something you can prevent.

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Squirrel Combat

Well, I sure regret squandering my 20s trying to live the normal, sedentary life everyone else does.

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CelesteAdAstra

Sometimes: "Wow, I love how resourceful and accepting everyone is becoming! Many great new ideas, we're totally moving in the right direction. I hope future generations can inspire and create a better world where we care for the environment and don't judge others because we secretly fear something about them that we don't understand."

 

Other times: "Uh-oh."

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kiaroskuro

This reminds of a tweet I saw recently. Someone claimed - I'm paraphrasing - that we Millennials have reason to be embarrassed, because Generation X was a lot wiser/smarter, while Generation Z is a lot more politically involved. As for the latter, yeah, could be.

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AspieAlly613

I wouldn't say that it's fair for us to be embarrassed.  The younger generation has, thankfully, been raised in an environment where it's REALLY easy to get information.  

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.diva plavalaguna.

I feel a bit jealous. It is already starting in some places that the classes coming after mine are getting all sorts of new opportunities that mine never had. Getting their free tuition, getting new programs to get them into activities from a young age (sports, arts, music). And it's being done in areas of poverty or essentially "the 'hood" and yeah I'm just jealous because I never saw any of that in my 'hood growing up. People are waking up about mental illness and that conversation is starting to be had more and more. So maybe some issues don't get swept under the rug. It's obviously a long way from perfect, but I just...notice this. Maybe it's mainly in my city, since that's where most of my focus goes. But it's happening. They also just seem really driven? And talented? So many 15-19 year olds with such immensely good work (I guess I'm talking about music and art) and it's like, wow. They have more access to resources, or maybe it's that they got the resources earlier and thus could practice sooner (like me getting computer addicted at 13 versus my parents who probably never saw a computer until adulthood). 

 

That's all pretty stupid and limited, but it is what comes to my mind. I also sometimes think how much it will suck to die so young, if the world is ending so soon... (not claiming any truth to that, but things feel a bit ominous). 

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12 hours ago, .diva plavalaguna. said:

I feel a bit jealous. It is already starting in some places that the classes coming after mine are getting all sorts of new opportunities that mine never had. Getting their free tuition, getting new programs to get them into activities from a young age (sports, arts, music). And it's being done in areas of poverty or essentially "the 'hood" and yeah I'm just jealous because I never saw any of that in my 'hood growing up. People are waking up about mental illness and that conversation is starting to be had more and more. So maybe some issues don't get swept under the rug. It's obviously a long way from perfect, but I just...notice this.

I guess they will say about the same when they're in your shoes...

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.diva plavalaguna.
4 hours ago, Homer said:

I guess they will say about the same when they're in your shoes...

And that would be fine. I can feel sad for myself and be happy that they will hopefully have gotten something more beneficial than those before them.

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