mrt144":p59ws9uz said:
JGfromtheNW":p59ws9uz said:
Very interesting and well thought out post, mrt144. I think you're spot-on on the vast majority of your points, and the situations with the NFL and Harley are microcosms of society today.
mrt144":p59ws9uz said:
This nostalgia works well so long as new generations similarly lap it up but this is where both the NFL and Harley are running into issues - younger generations, especially with Harley, view them as dentist weekend pirate cosplay whether they're even bike enthusiasts or not. For many younger fans of the NFL watching Ricardo Lockette be on death's door after that hit doesn't conjur up feelings of "OH MAN, THE NFL IS WAR! YAH!" it merely reinforces all the real negative impacts that the game itself has on the participants.
The bolded section had me in stitches - mainly because it's totally true. Younger generations look at Harley riders and fans who think NFL players should still be trying to paralyze each other and "just shut up and do their jobs" and they want NOTHING to do with it. It's seen as little more than toxic masculinity and false bravado. It probably sucks to be on the receiving end of such comments, but it's true.
Pulling on this thread a bit more and stepping back from the specific argument put forth to a broader view - one of my perceptions is that like older generations previously through history, there are two disbeliefs going on among the Boomers+:
1. That what they consider to be the natural status quo attained over the course of decades of their lives (6+ now) is in fact not a natural status quo but an cumulative outcome of action and reaction.
2. That younger generations reject older generational values empirically. On a personal level, the amount of fealty my Boomer parents had towards their careers left a terrible taste in my mouth and questioning the existential value of placing career highly in my life. Materialism as well. This is a strong under current among many of my peers that a lot of the life lessons and imperatives to a good life are a rejection of what previous generations hold.
Now there is a compelling argument to be made that a lot of our perception and values were forged in a time of increasing decadence so our values are overtly influenced by that. Even within that context though you can see there are adoptions and rejections of decadance that diverges from previous generations. For all the accusations of millenials being careless with money and prioritizing irrational things, the reality is that as an entire cohort millenials aren't drunk sailors on shore leave. Are food fads involving avocado ridiculous? Yes. Is rejecting a brand because of the obnoxious image it purposefully conveys ridiculous? No.
A keen example of this is seen in the rise of video games and the perception of who plays video games. For many folks, if you identify one of your main hobbies as video or computer games, there's is an instant placing of you into a schema of who plays video games and what their lives are like - socially isolated and addicted. Yet when you broaden the scope of video games to include things like Farmville or anything like that, it appears that video games have a broad appeal across every spectrum and stripe of society and in fact the bare essence is that humans like games, period. The medium has changed and early adopters of media in that medium set the tone, yet society as a whole has adopted them as one of many forms of entertainment for all to enjoy.
Then when you dig a little deeper you realize that as time has progressed, video games have leveraged the possibility of connecting with other people via the internet to play together into flourishing social communities. And in fact new entries into video game media are often time fostered as community improvement projects for the specific games. Not only do video games have the potential to unite folks of all walks together due to the infrastructure and connectivity advantages, they also can foster new ventures in creativity and cooperation.
And now, at the stage we're at with video game development, we have entire conventions like Penny Arcade Expo which is dedicated to all things gaming that attracts tens of thousands of attendees each year and generates significant economic activity.
But there will always be a contingent of people that place video games in the negative context formed around the time of their first stab into the greater consciousness of society and who are unwilling to adjust their schema to the changing reality around them. Again, I invoke Principal Skinner.
The social interactive Video game brings a different kind of social interaction, faceless, you have heard the term keyboard warrior etc. Good and bad, cyber bullying another. Now take that same group and put them physically together and they are a much different personality group versus the behind the monitor personality.
I see evolution to the degree we don't go to games, we have a casket or room or something where we are an avatar and virtually there at some point and charged for access, the rich and famous will be able to attend games physically but normal people won't be able to afford it. That goes for multiple forms of entertainment, think of the movie Avatar but on a society level, not being transported into a real body but that may happen also but to a environment as a character of some sort and being able to physically interact.
You could argue that homes and apartments will go away and that we will have a form of chamber we get in and out of where we rest and are in a huge warehouse of sorts, pay to procreate and have to be selected. They are already doing genetic mutation and selection. Same goes for the forth coming anti ageing pill or whatever they say they have developed to a point, money will get them as well, that is something that the general public won't be able to afford. If 600 dollars for a epi pen sounds high what do you think a regression or anti aging drug is going to cost.
All you have to do is look back at your life and really see how fast things have changed, when I was in Junior High school it was Pong and Atari and or Sega Genesis. Look where we are now and that's been only 40 or so years, the evolution of cars from hulking metal basic models that you drove from point A to B and hoped the radio being just AM then worked to what we have now.
Many will see as they get older the technology age is flying still at warp speed, what you thought you knew becomes old stuff very fast and it keeps diverging and diversifying faster then anyone could learn it as a whole. IBM punch card computer was the first computer I operated in 1974, Microfilm was used a lot for information storage. Again look at things now.
We like to be in a comfort zone with our surroundings with things we trust and know, delving into the unknown as a career, curiosity, knowledge or a challenge. The problem as you get older is the things around you change faster and faster and you eventually have a comfort zone that continues to shrink, skills taught are no longer relevant because they are inclusive in the new technology, you become very specialized in what you do in a field.
The younger people are taught how to operate and use the new technology that was built by what they see as old information since they don't have to know it, just how to use it and operate the troubleshoot procedures etc. They work on ideas that have been made available by the development of the tools they have now.
Take hand writing cursive, many schools are not teaching it anymore because everyone keyboards and prints or emails etc information. My and past generations had to know how, that's how we communicated in writing, letters, reports, etc.
The bigger issue is as you get older the world around you is eroding, pollution, lack of space, place that are pristine, everywhere is more crowded people are in a hurry to get everything done fast and get someplace fast. We're really running a big race all day and have less down time then ever before. That's the change a lot of us see getting older.
The advances are wonderful in many aspects, but you don't really see the cost until you can look back a bit. Wondering what it's going to cost to keep going forward at this pace.
We need to focus on repercussions as well as the benefits of things more. Not just profit and loss. But social and world impact and what will be lost there as well.
