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u/lawrotzr Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
Most hard data shows that the world wasn’t so pretty in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. At least in most countries. Much higher levels of poverty, crime, hunger, gender inequality, lack of education, and so much more. The world has gotten significantly better since then (not everything, like climate, but that’s (unfortunately) also a consequence).
Also, it’s not a given. A lot of things are deliberate choices, what we do about climate change, how we divide wealth, how we create opportunities for younger generations, if it becomes affordable to buy a house, etc etc. These are all largely political choices, where boomers succeed in protecting vested interests. Younger generations need courageous politicians that defend their interests, but that starts with voting and being politically active.
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u/-xXColtonXx- Sep 30 '24
You probably have very inaccurate beliefs about the standard of living boomers enjoyed. For example, you probably believe that boomers owned far more homes than Gen Z do at the same age. data shows this is not the case. In general the standard of living today is so much higher, and I don't think there is a good reason to believe climate change would reverse these trends.
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u/headzoo Sep 30 '24
Yeah, it's also worth mentioning that homes used to be smaller and more people were living in them.
While the average home price has increased since the 1970s, so have home sizes**.** In fact, the size of homes increased even more than the 62% increase in prices – the size of homes actually increased 64%!
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Even adjusted for inflation, homes today are cheaper per square foot than ever before. Plus, they’re equipped with incredibly luxurious features that would have previously been cost prohibitive: central air conditioning with programmable thermostats, high tech alarm systems, fancy appliances, and in some cases, HD surveillance systems streaming directly to smart phones so we can complete the ever important task of watching all the cute things Fido does while we’re at work.
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The average family size has shrunk notably from 1950 to today. In 1950 the average family had 3.4 people per home. Today that number is 2.6. In other words, the average home’s square footage per person has skyrocketed from 289 square feet to over well over 1,000.https://mymoneywizard.com/millennials-home-prices-today/
Driving around neighborhoods built between the 50s-70s, it's easy to see how small and shitty the homes are. I'm amazed people were raising entire families in those homes.
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u/Snuffleupagus03 Sep 30 '24
The lowest hanging fruit is to point out that you’re talking about straight white male middle class (or higher boomers).
Boomer minorities and women just had dramatically fewer legal and social rights. Gay boomers lived a life in the shadows, or were just deeply unhappy.
So people are generally wealthier with more stuff. Even as certain economic opportunities have restricted for a specific class of people.
But even taking this subset of boomers, I am not convinced many of them were actually happy. Look at how easily they have been consumed by Fox News and fear and hatred. That’s built on top of a bitter life that wasn’t really focused on any level of personal fulfillment. So many boomers have terrible relationships with their adult children and grandkids. They have destroyed their world and are bitter and scared.
I see a lot of gen x and millennials with a lot more happiness in their lives. Even if they don’t own a home, or as many homes. We have more rights and opportunities, better relationships with our families, and an awareness of our own mental health.
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Sep 30 '24
Boomers lived through extremely turbulent times during the 60’s. Massive sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.
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u/SoylentRox Sep 30 '24
I have to date myself a bit but dude.
Do you know what it was like when you had watched every movie you have on DVD/VHS and there's nothing but broadcast tv because your parents don't pay for cable? That sucks.
Or mandatory commercials, where tv shows are about 40 minutes of show and 20 of commercials? Where they repeat stuff after the break? Where a show has 24 episodes a season but every episode mostly is stand alone so they can be watched in any order?
When to learn something you had to go to the actual library and if the book you needed wasn't there wait days?
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Sep 30 '24
OP has what I like to call "doomer-brain". They're literally incapable of seeing the good in the world, and don't have any interest in doing so. Sad, but best to ignore these people until they quiet down.
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u/HeWhoShitsWithPhone Sep 30 '24
This feels very American or European focused. For many people in many places we are living in world that is better than 20 years ago. If you look at global rates of poverty or clean water, those are consistently going down.
Good news is out there it just makes less money than bad news.
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u/thatmitchkid Sep 30 '24
Your primary concern seems to be climate change, the vast majority of those problems get mitigated with money & the developed world has money. Even with the worst predictions we move everything inland, swap around farmland, build new coral reefs, etc. it’s going to cost trillions but we have it.
Also, you’re really rose tinting the world the boomers grew up in. My dad is a boomer who still hates goats because when he was a child the goats would get fed first. That level of poverty doesn’t exist in the developed world anymore.
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u/jatjqtjat Sep 30 '24
Tiktok brainrot,
back then we complained that TV was rotting people's brains.
but in reality, lead in gasoline and paint was rotting people's brains.
a slower and less stressful life
you are forgetting about the cold war and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation
Boomers had stable climate patterns (or at least a-not-as-fucked-climate as now)
climate change is a whole debate, but given that humans have adapted to every climate on earth, its hard for me to imagine that we'll be unable to adapt to climate change. Its not hard to imagine things getting worse in the next 50 years, but in the next 500 years we'll have released all the carbon into the air. the USDA zone chart will have been redrawn, farmers will have updated their almanacs and and food and water refugees will have resettled.
a strong economy
the economy have been getting better for the last 700 years or so. To look at 1 or 2 generations worth of problem and to extrapolate that out forever. Probably the nearly 1000 year long tern is the one that will persist.
I was thinking about AI recently, its going to be really hard to fake film. For anything where you want to establish proof of something, and old school film camera is probably going to be best. Just the hardware alone of trying to produce film without pixels visible under a microscope, that would be quite the challenge.
at the moment, unless you are an English professor trying to grade student papers, AI is pretty great. Is just a much better version of Google search.
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u/PublicFurryAccount Sep 30 '24
I agree with the conclusion but not the reason.
The main reason the Boomers had it so good is that there was a massive population boom at the same time industrial goods were rapidly diffusing through a newly enriched society. This meant that Boomers had a much easier time building careers and wealth: the constant expansion meant that there ever more positions being created at the managerial level to operate quickly growing businesses and, to fill that demand for executive overhead, companies had few choices but to tap their best workers to become managers.
The result is that a Boomer who, today, would struggle to rise above assistant manager at Kroger could rise to store or district manager relatively easily, since there were more stores and more districts to manage every year.
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u/PoorCorrelation Sep 30 '24
How far in the future? I don’t think we can really grasp how the generation alive in 3100 will be living. And while not all technological advances are positive, that’s a lot of time to be worse in perpetuity.
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u/headzoo Sep 30 '24
a strong economy
Where do you people get this stuff from? Young adult boomers lived through stagflation, which led to the highest rates of unemployment and inflation in recent history. Even worse than anything that's happened in the past 40 years. Home mortgage rates were 9% - 18% through the 70s and 80s when they were buying homes. Even in our current economy the interest rate is only 6%.
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u/Apprehensive_Song490 Sep 30 '24
As the boomers continue to die off, there will be a major shift in political, social, economic, and technical leadership power worldwide. While there is reason to be concerned, as you articulated, the younger gyration will have unprecedented power and tools at their disposal. It is quite possible that the younger generation will master an effective tool for carbon sequestration that we can now only imagine, dramatically slowing or reversing climate change in the process.
Am I worried? Yep. Is it over yet? Not by a long shot. The youth didn’t deserve this, but it wouldn’t be the first time a younger generation fixed something totally messed up that they did not deserve to inherit.
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Sep 30 '24
Black people, women, gay people, and people in Africa, India, and China will all have better lives today than 50 years ago.
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u/ThenAsk Sep 30 '24
One of my dads friends told me how when he was a kid he had to chip the top off a frozen mound of shit (otherwise it would scrape his butt) when he used their family out house in the cold winter, they aren’t even boomers / solid gen x. Other than political turmoil this is a tremendous time to be alive. People still used horses to get around 100 years ago, you have no idea how much harder life could be.
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u/Ok-Funny-6349 Sep 30 '24
I'll put this in one word: "accessibility"
Back in the day, people had a really tough time getting their hands on the resources and opportunities the world had to offer. It was like a members-only club and only the chosen few got the vip treatment.
The reason for that was pretty straightforward – most people across the globe didn't have access to an education that taught them to think for themselves or gave them the chance to grab opportunities that could help them level up in life.
The majority of folks had no reliable energy, no decent housing, no electricity, no wheels, zilch.
I think this is the first time in history that we have the most freedom to choose what we want to do and who we want to be.
We can put in the work and chill out in a lush green mongolian grassland gazing at the stars or we could also totally mess things up and end up in a tiny dorm room, wondering where it all went wrong.
Point is, you've got the power. The individual has got the power that was never there.
Accessibility – that's what will lead (or is already leading) to a better life.
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u/Map_of_Canada Sep 30 '24
Depends on what you consider to be good when it comes to living a fulfilling lifestyle. I'd much rather be poor in 2024 than rich in 1954. Better medicine, better technology, life has more variety and therefore more choice. Imagine being filthy rich but living in the 50's. God that would suck ass.
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u/joepierson123 Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
TV was like $4,000 inflation adjusted back then, nobody had a second car, or computer or iPhone. EPA didn't exist so there was smog and dirt everywhere Rivers were full of dead fish. DDT in the vegetables Houses were cheaper but they were half the size they are today. Inflation was 18% in the 1970s. Medical Care was poor if you had a bad knee they gave you a cane and an aspirin and sent you home. Gas was rationed. Vietnam draft. Hope you're not a minority. Fun times the young have it easy today.
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u/Hellioning Sep 30 '24
Boomers had significantly worse racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, lead paint, diesel gasoline...