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[Zrk2]

I think what you guys are getting at is that people rely more and more on computers, but don't realize that a computer can only do grunt work. You still have to do the actual thinking. For example a computer can spell check an essay, but it can't write one. A calculator can do calculations, but it can't solve a problem. People rely far too much on the abilities of modern technology, and thus neglect to actually develop their own capabilities.

[dei]

I think what you guys are getting at is that people rely more and more on computers, but don't realize that a computer can only do grunt work. You still have to do the actual thinking. For example a computer can spell check an essay, but it can't write one. A calculator can do calculations, but it can't solve a problem. People rely far too much on the abilities of modern technology, and thus neglect to actually develop their own capabilities.

You have pointed out reasons why that despite my being a nerd I hate new technology. Thank you very much logical person on the internet.

[alway]

I think what you guys are getting at is that people rely more and more on computers, but don't realize that a computer can only do grunt work. You still have to do the actual thinking. For example a computer can spell check an essay, but it can't write one. A calculator can do calculations, but it can't solve a problem.

I beg to differ.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Essays are just a matter of time; it's a variation on the NLP problem (similar to that to which IBM's Watson was applied for Jeopardy), with the variation being it descends into details regarding related things. Actually, thinking machines will be solving most problems more effectively than humans without the lifetimes of us younger generations.

I also don't buy into that 'youths are gettin stupider' horsecrap either. People have been saying that about every generation since language was invented, and I don't really see the regression yet.

Our generation reads news articles and talks to people across the world; go back a couple generations, and the past-times were getting drugged out of your mind at hippie-fests while thinking about how deep the lyrics to the song were in relation to the color blue. See? We can make silly over-generalizing comments about youth culture too!

[Heron TSG]

I think what you guys are getting at is that people rely more and more on computers, but don't realize that a computer can only do grunt work. You still have to do the actual thinking. For example a computer can spell check an essay, but it can't write one. A calculator can do calculations, but it can't solve a problem. People rely far too much on the abilities of modern technology, and thus neglect to actually develop their own capabilities.

Well, I'm in a college class that involves making technology to generate such things as essays and music. My essay generator can only spit out mildly coherent sentences, but I've made some pretty alright music with some programs I've written. That's an ability of modern technology, to allow for more capabilities.

[Lightningfalcon]

From reading previous post I guess I'm part of generation Z. 
Where I live, we have three major installations, none of which I'll name due to privacy reasons.  But due to those installations we have a very large number of engineers, and teenagers who grow up wanting to become engineers.  So I can't really say how my generation is doing.   

[Slayerhero90]

I hope generation AA is better.

[freeformschooler]

I... I... have no idea! I find it hard to relate to my current generation (people born in the late 80s, 90's, early 00's - today's young adults and preteens). Most of my friends, even the ones I meet for coffee, are quite a bit older than I. Their generation (Y? X? People from the 70's and 80's, today's "full adults") is struggling with the economic crisis in America, and I find it unsettling how many have to take antidepressants, but overall I think they're doing okay. Pretty cool people to hang out with.

[Lightningfalcon]

I hope generation AA is better.

Do we really want to imagine what they'll be like? 

[Slayerhero90]

Better can include dead or non-existant, if necesarry.

[LordBucket]

The only things I enjoy of this generation are the video games of nineteen-ninety-four to two-thousand-and-eight,
the music that doesn't sound like the horrid bastard child of a sleazy ghetto brothel and an ecstacy-laden rave,
and the pornography that has women which are actually attractive

Popular culture, fashion and entertainment...it's probably worth an entire thread of its own. To my eyes some things have definitely improved, but there's been some sheer stupidity in every decade. I look at pictures of myself from when I was a kid and the clothes look absolutely dorky to my eyes. But I remember thinking the same during the 90s when guys starting thinking it was "cool" to wear waistbands halfway down their thighs so you could watch their underwear while they tripped over themselves because their shorts went down to their knees. Then there was that ridiculous "inverted dress" thing that was in style when I was teenager. I don't even remember what those things were called, but trust me when I say the current generation should feel pretty good about not keeping those.

Cartoons are better now than they were when I was a kid. Not only in production quality, but content as well. Even if someone were to feel some kind of misplaced nostalgia for Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry, the shows were simple minded trash. Now there are shows like Powerpuff Girls, and of course, ponies. There have been cartoons like the Justice League, which intelligently addressed some very interesting questions. Compare Justice League Unlimited in the 2000s to Superfriends from the 70s and 80s...same exact franchise and characters, yeah...sorry, but it got way better.

music that doesn't sound like the horrid bastard child of a sleazy ghetto brothel and an ecstacy-laden rave

Mixed feelings on this one. To be fair, there's always been generic, mass produced "popular" music during my lifetime. You have Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, but we had Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. It's not that different. Before this silly gungnam style thing, there was the silly macarena thing and before that there was the silly hot, hot hot thing. But like you say, some genres are just...bad. I think that trend started in the 90s when people started trying to take rap seriously for some strange reason. At the time, rap was basically black men speaking in a monotone about beating and raping women with a drumbeat simple enough to tap with your fingers.

Look at an older artist like Metallica or Aerosmith, whether or not you like the music, I think most people would agree that they at least know how to play their instruments. Some of the music of the 90s and 2000s is kind of like a musical version of "modern art" that looks like somebody threw a splotch mustard on canvas and tried to sell it.

At some point it's not a matter of just nostalgia. Yes, I realize we had cheap, mass produced music in the 80s too, but some of things people do now and call music or art...somebody just needs to slap them and tell them they're being silly.

women which are actually attractive

Mixed feelings on this one too. Personally, I look at a legendary sex symbol like say...Marilyn Monroe, and I just kind of think, "huh? What?" She doesn't look physically attractive to me. But if you watch any of her movies, she was adorable. I understand why people found her personality attractive. In the 80s, "the look" of women was a lot more innocent than it is now, and occasionally it was downright silly. But that was ok. Maybe they looked silly, but they were cute silly. Sometime during the late 90s / early 2000s women's fashion started to head into slutty territory, and we started seeing more mainstream women with tramp stamps, "fuck me heels" and this whole "clubbing" look and so forth.

I'd say that women's fashion has a generally sexier look now than it used to. I mean...at one time this would have been considered sexy:



To me that looks just as silly as it probably does to you. But a lot of the things I see girls wearing now inspires a reaction of "yeah, that might be sexy...but if she offered I'd say no because she looks dangerously unclean." Tatoos are a big one. It was not socially acceptable for girls to have tattoos when I was a kid, but now I see teenagers wearing great big arrows pointing permanently at their butthole, and when I see something like that my initial reaction is generally to wonder how many dozens of guys have used it as a landing beacon.

I remember an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzi was talking about how there are some girls everybody wants to date, and some girls everybody wants to marry...and they're not the same girls. "Fuck me, I'm not marriage material" seems to be a popular look these days.

[Aklyon]

LordBucket, unless you watch Boomerang more than cartoon network, the Powerpuff girls hasn't be on (random appearances not counting) for years. Also, although you've been right on some things like JLU, are you really going to say the likes of Regular Show are any less simpleminded than Tom&Jerry?

[fqllve]

There's also plenty of good music being made today by plenty of talented musicians. Off the top of my head, Andrew Bird, Six Organs of Admittance, John Gomm, and Jack Rose. And those are only musicians who I think are noteworthy for their technical ability and for playing their own music (which isn't weird post-rock nonsense whatever stuff). If we include classical musicians (Xuefei Yang, best classical guitarist since Bream?) or merely adequate musicians I could name a whole ton of bands, a two or three dozen, at least, many of which I don't actually listen to.

Also: mainstream pop? Is it ever good? I could go through history and the vast majority of pop acts are uninspired, over produced, and ultimately forgettable (or you wish you could forget them). I think part of the problem is that for modern music, the most mainstream of pop is all most people get to hear, as the more obscure bands haven't had much time to achieve prominence, and I think there's also a historical selection bias. Most of the bad acts from past decades have been forgotten, we only really hear about the noteworthy stuff and we only really remember the noteworthy stuff.

I think music is in a fine state, despite the fact that modern music is only a small part of what I listen to.

[RedKing]

Cartoons are better now than they were when I was a kid. Not only in production quality, but content as well. Even if someone were to feel some kind of misplaced nostalgia for Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry, the shows were simple minded trash.

.....

You. Me. Pistols at ten paces. 
Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones produced some of the finest animated shorts known to man. The later stuff post-Jones was bad (oh 1970's Hanna-Barbera, Y U SUCK SO HARD?) but the golden age stuff is timeless. My kids love it.


Seriously, you're sounding like a crotchety old fart and I've got you beat by a year. "Kids these days with their hippity-bippety noise! And the clothes they wear! Dagnabbit!"

Let's not forget the late 60's and 1970's, when casual sex was no big thing until AIDS showed up on the scene and everybody went "OH SHIT".
Let's not forget the 1970's and 1980's, when pop music consisted largely of fugly men with big hair singing falsetto high notes over a bank of Yamaha synthesizers. (Which I totally dig, btw...80's synth-pop and New Wave is a guilty pleasure of mine)
Let's not forget a period of time (late 70's/early 80's) when it was fashionable to appear androgynous (the whole "glam" look).
And do I really need to bring up disco? (Which is also a guilty pleasure.)

And as to the "musical version of modern art"...Laurie Bush, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Dead Kennedys, Talking Heads, Devo...these were all folks that were seen at various times as less music and more performance art. And they're all awesome.


I think there's some been some fantastic popular music over the last decade (MUSE, The Killers, The White Stripes, Audioslave, etc.)
Even the bubblegum pop is catchy at times (and c'mon, the 80's were LOADED with bubblegum pop and boy bands...Tiffany? Debbie Gibson? Menudo? New Kids on the Block?). I have to confess yet another guilty pleasure in liking Katy Perry, for example.

As to dress habits and tattoos....meh. Not a big fan of tramp stamps, but I don't automatically assume that having one makes a woman "unclean", as you put it. You see moral decay, I see people who are growing up in a culture where everything moves faster, and so they don't have time to waste in "courtship" if what they're really looking for is sex. I find that kind of refreshing, to be honest.

[SalmonGod]

I think modern music is actually doing wonderfully, thanks mainly to the internet.  We have more variety now than ever in history, because  quality production tools are easily obtainable, self-publishing is easy, and a fan base can be spread out all over the world.  Previously, musicians had to build up a local act, get a publisher's attention, and convince them that their albums would sell enough to make a significant return on investment.  This meant there just wasn't much outside the mainstream, because there just wasn't infrastructure for it.  Now there are independent artists who get by devoting themselves to their craft with just a couple thousand dedicated fans spread out across the globe, after scrapping together the necessary tools on a part time income.

[RedKing]

I'm also a bit of an odd bird in that I'm GenX, but I grew up raised by my grandparents, and so I absorbed a LOT of Greatest Generation material too. I have a fine appreciation of Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby, and absolutely marvel at the skill of satirists like Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg. I'm hard pressed to think of ANY modern satirist that gets away with as much scathing social commentary as those two did (in the midst of the 1950's no less).

I've always admired that generation for the absolute volumes of shit they dealt with. They were the generation before "first-world problems" became a thing. They typically came from big families because their parents realistically didn't expect them all to survive to adulthood. My grandfather admitted once that he enlisted in 1942 not so much because of Pearl Harbor as because "it was hot food, a place to sleep, and some money to send home".

As far as relationships go, if I admire Gen Y for being blatantly up front and in the moment about what they want, I admire the Greatest Generation for their commitment and patience. There were a lot of "sweethearts" left behind that waited for four years or more and married the men that came home. And many of them stayed married for life, which is exceedingly rare these days. It was a generation that really lacked the selfishness that their kids pioneered.

Personally, I feel like Gen Y has the potential to be a generation like this...they're just lacking that galvanizing event. If the current economic woes are analogous to the Great Depression, then who knows? A massive war with China/aliens/zombies might be the analog for WWII (and the subconscious desire for that kind of rallying point might explain the popularity of alien invasions/zombie apocalypse/tech crash in pop culture).