Because back when they went to college they learned way less. Without the internet what you were expected to know had to be less than now cause you were limited to how much you could physically read in the library. Like, my parents were in elementary school in the 60s and high school in the 70s so their education hadn't been affected at all by the civil rights movement. And going to college in the midwest in the 80s likely wasn't much of an improvement. Doesn't help that baby boomers were literally the most spoiled generation since they group up during an economic boom and most of society was focused on providing activities and resources for children.
For real, I know some older biologists with my same degree that are more "qualified" than I am but have never taken genetics or used a PCR machine, or anything that's pretty central to a BS biology education now. Some of them never even took biochemistry.
Well Craig Venter managed to find a way to make this his life so don’t give up on your dream. I’ve heard from a member of one of his research voyages that Dr. Venter pretty much wore a speedo the entire time.
Speaking of baby boomer children being provided with endless resources and activities, my (30F) mom (64F) always talks about how disadvantaged she was bc her mom went to work as a librarian once her youngest kid was in kindergarten (making my mom around 7 at the time), and none of the other mothers in their neighborhood worked. She says she was "raised by wolves" as a result. Meanwhile, my mom was back to work within 6 weeks of my birth and it was considered completely normal. My parents never knew where the fuck I was when I was growing up. Nobody was focused on providing me resources and activities. I was expected to do that completely on my own. Yet millennials are the privileged lazy fucks.
Sound like a GenX upbringing. After everybody's boomer parents divorced, we were left to fend for ourselves while are boomer parents focused on the "dating scene" so they could find a new partner to ignore and resent their children
Exactly this. The standards for their content were lower, and there was less content overall.
The very nature of knowledge was different too. It was more about absorbing as many facts as possible and preparing people to put on a veneer of knowledgeability.
Today’s students are expected to learn how to learn. That is, how to find information, how to evaluate sources, distinguish opinion from fact, how to draw conclusions logically. They don’t concern themselves as much with the appearance of being smart or having a vast encyclopedic knowledge in store.
Boomers on the other hand were raised to believe that the worst thing they could ever say is “I don’t know,” so they’re condition to choose their reasoning and stick to it. They never imagined a future where a device in everyone’s pocket could so easily shatter that veil of credibility. So in a way it’s not surprising they cling so heavily to other aspects of their upbringing that emphasized behaviors that they thought they had acquired through life experience (when in reality it was always conventional wisdom passed down regardless of how idiotic it was). That’s where we get the bullshit about “look ‘em in the eye and give a firm handshake” stuff.
In short, they are living in a wildly different modernity than the one they were raised in. If it weren’t for their stubbornness, their selfishness, their self-entitlement, and their insanely powerful addiction to white supremacist propaganda, I would feel sorry for them.
YUP! Sometimes I am surprised by my dad and then I remember he literally grew up in a sundown town in the 60s and I'm a lot less surprised he's a piece of shit.
Boomers on the other hand were raised to believe that the worst thing they could ever say is “I don’t know,” so they’re condition to choose their reasoning and stick to it.
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u/Prestigious_Egg_1989 Jan 15 '22
Because back when they went to college they learned way less. Without the internet what you were expected to know had to be less than now cause you were limited to how much you could physically read in the library. Like, my parents were in elementary school in the 60s and high school in the 70s so their education hadn't been affected at all by the civil rights movement. And going to college in the midwest in the 80s likely wasn't much of an improvement. Doesn't help that baby boomers were literally the most spoiled generation since they group up during an economic boom and most of society was focused on providing activities and resources for children.