Fourth turning theory is fashy crap written by a play write and a business fund manager (people with no credentials for historical analysis), worshipped by people like Steve Banon.
Accordingly it’s totally subjective, a guessing game.
Truth is: No one can predict what’s going to happen.
Fwiw it’s playwright
It’s predicated on baby boomers not having hard times. There’s no basis in reality. Not unless one were to believe baby boomers are all predominantly white upper middle class. Not to mention one must believe history was all sunshine and rainbows until their generation (millennial/zoomer/whatever) came into existence.
Do they really think people just walked right out of high school into wealth from the career factory? This is basically the privileged upper class. Which is the top percentage of their generation. Guess what? Everyone else had it hard!
So much of current day pop culture “boomer bad” stuff is based on these stupid notions. I wonder how people are going to rationalize when baby boomers are all dead and the class war still exists. I think some younger people are in for some serious cognitive dissonance ahead.
Apart from people parroting these things. Those who actually have those well off parents are admitting their own privilege. The parrots are too entranced to realize they’re worshiping their own oppressors. The upper class. They don’t know they are the cannon fodder in the cycle of hard times, revolution, and renewal.
So you’re just gonna pretend the massively documented body of evidence that as a generation boomers have had access to unprecedented privilege in human history regardless of demographic and have also overwhelmingly implemented or voted in systems that have destroyed that framework doesn’t exist.
Please share this documentation
Most people are referring to the fact that boomers were born into the strongest social safety net in American history and then allowed Regan to gut it for short-term gains. The original aphorism may not be true, but I can’t think of a generation it applies to more.
I mean there is a thing going all the way back to the silent generation who had a taste of the depression and so had some knowledge of truly bad times. Even younger boomers had a decent chance of getting a job that you could raise a family with just a high school degree and older ones could be pretty successful. Having a pension was the usual. Losers who managed fast food could still afford a place of their own and a fixer upper car. I saw these things go away as an Xer but I know its still better than those after me. college loans for me was like a car loan. A very nice car, like luxury care, but still a car. So college was doable even for those whose parents could not help out. It was not long after I graduated that college loans became like mortgages for the millenials. You can have a car loan with no car and get by and you can’t be doing a mortgage with no shelter to show for it. All the while a college degree debased to where its basically the high school minimum needed for any shot. Its that much worse for gen Z and I don’t even want to imagine what gen alpha will have. Thats just economic. Then you take the giant fall back we had with environmental regulations with reagan. There was a lot of environmental consciousness in the 70’s and it essentailly evaporated in the 80’s with yuppies and greed is good. Granted this is mostly a republican effect but who were the reagan democrats? I get that many boomers are great and its not that the generations that follow are individually so great but the way its shaken out it just gets to be a more and more raw deal for each successive generation.
Not all boomers are white.
this is true. not sure what it has to do with my comment but true.
Your comment makes sweeping generalizations about boomers as if they all had it easy. I want to remind people that this really only applied to a select group of specially elevated boomers. A white man could have what you say, good fucking luck if you were a Black woman though.
Not all white men. I specifically pointed out its not the case with all individuals.
Only white men, though. They, as a cohort, definitely had it easy like no one else. Particularly straight able-bodied Christians.
That’s hilarious, do you also say that with your “death to America” hexbear buddies?
Even younger boomers had a decent chance of getting a job that you could raise a family with just a high school degree and older ones could be pretty successful.
Read this very carefully. Do you think this applied to Black people in 1960?
yes. do you believe all black people in 1960 were on welfare? Do you believe no black people in 1960 had decent jobs. Discrimination is about relative opportunity of the time and believe it or not they do not have it better now. Heck we are losing much of what came out of the 60’s.
I believe that Black boomers didn’t have everything handed to them like white boomers, among other oppressed groups.
Times are easy or hard depending on who you are and your place in class society.
Lol of course not, so I’ll repeat myself and say it’s funny how this never comes up in the “death to America” and “such and such is the West’s fault” of the other hexbear posts you comment in. I know you’re being a contrarian teenager right, but that’s the kind of stuff that makes hexbear posters look dumb.
“death to America”
So mad about it that you had to mention it twice unprompted.
I have no idea what you’re even trying to say.
This thread is a circle jerk about how boomers had it easy. I just wanted to remind people that it was only the white ones that had it easy, and in particular, the able-bodied straight Christian men.
There’s plenty of poor boomers. They’re most dead on account of being poor, we’re just left with the rich ones.
It’s true. But I think the point is that more opportunities were available to that generation. For example, both my boomer parents grew up in poverty. Dad was an orphan. They moved to the city with no money and made careers for themselves. Housing was cheap. That’s not possible today without family wealth (in Australia at least). I’m a software engineer with an electrical engineering degree and I’ll never own a house or retire. They bought houses on public service wages without degrees.
BuT LiFe WaS WoRsE BeCaUsE MuH AiDs AnD MuH CoLd WaR
Well AIDS was scary as fuck but Australia didn’t have to worry too much about the cold war. Life in the 80s was generally pretty cruisy.
This. Were it for me, 70s, 80s and 90s on a loop forever and sucks for those countries/people who lose from it, but they have to sort it out themselves.
deleted by creator
MuH AiDs
Literally an attempted genocide on the gay population. I think it’s fair to say life was pretty tough for them.
Repeat after me:
No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times No climate crisis + cheaper housing + no Tiktok = better times
Also where I live there wasn’t any “attempted genocide on gays”.
no Tiktok = better times
This is boomer brainrot for it to make a three-item list of modern problems. People said the same shit about TV and even about books, not that I’d give tiktok much credit as an advanced medium in the same way those were. But it’s just philistine to consider it a great societal evil on par with climate change and the housing market.
Also where I live there wasn’t any “attempted genocide on gays”.
You all may perpetrate one yet considering the direction your country is going in.
Most problems are perpetuated by currently living humans. Those guys suck !
They really do. :|
Stalin had a saying about that.
Appropriately for the meme - also both boomers.
Thanks for this insight, seriously. Because of course, it sounds really scary, and we all know which side of the fence relies most heavily on fear based rhetoric.
The “common sense” logic feels sound, but you’re right that it’s deceptive, and trying to use some “system” to both read the future AND use it to scare everyone into thinking it’s doomsday every week? When you think about it, gee, that HAD to be a fashy business fund manager idea lmao.
Boomers were born on the third base and think they hit a triple
Triples makes it safe. Triples is best
Threesomes are fun
“Then aids ruined everything”
- Frank Reynolds
Gen X ignored again, with which we are okay though.
Here, have a Pepsi.
It’s all I wanted.
You know he’s never going to give it to you.
But you just know that he’s never gonna give you up
Or let you down. Or run around, as a matter of fact.
Not even one.
Pepsi Kona for me please
There ya go.
I was gonna post that but then I was, like, whatever.
Silent as per usual
Exactly the comment I was looking for. Tip of the hat to you.
Only thing that isn’t okay is to mangle your sentence to conform to the obsolete “never end a sentence with a preposition because some old fogey said so hundreds of years ago” rule 😛
I’m ok with ignoring this rule. Most of us do anyway. While we’re at it, can we also put “never split the infinitive” on the chopping block?
Yes, please!
ESL here, what would have been the more natural way?
It’s an invented prescriptionist rule that was imported from studying Latin. You can completely ignore it and you’ll get more natural sounding language.
It’s the “with which we are okay” that sounds a little stilted. Most speakers would probably phrase that part of the sentence as “which we’re okay with.” It’s just because “okay with” is so common that it almost feels like a transitive form of the verb “to be okay,” so splitting apart sounds odd.
Note that there’s already a different transitive verb “okay” which means “approve” or “authorize,” as in “the boss okayed your plan to use the forklift,” implying that the person doing this has authority or control over whether the thing happens. “I’m okay with it” by contrast typically means something like “I have no control over it but it also doesn’t trouble me.” “Unfazed by” (spelled in this way, not related to “phase”) would be a similar expression.
What you wrote was fine. Some people don’t like that sentence structure for stupid reasons
Same here. There’s probably other ways too, but personally I’d probably have gone with “and we’re okay with that” or “and that’s fine/okay with us”. Just flows more like naturally IMO.
BTW, in spite of the tongue in cheek way in which I said it, I meant no personal ill will towards you. Just the rule and its tyranny 😉
We should just revive everyone who contributed to this dumpster fire and make them fix it before they can go back to being dead.
Do we REALLY want zombie Reagan and hundreds of others like that running around again? I dunno about you guys, but I’m so tired of living through Interesting Times ™️ and Unprecedented Events ™️. A zombie apocalypse where they don’t eat our brains, but just fuck up the economy even more doesn’t sound fun.
Make Zombie Reagan take Carter’s former place and build homes (by hand) for poor people.
The holy water that leaks out of the sink will probably burn him out of existence anyway.
Lmao, yeah I can’t imagine why someone would think that reviving them would make them suddenly want to correct their mistakes. They just got a chance to further be shit.
Since we’re just playing necromancer, why not have these zombies live in constant agony wishing for true death and the only way they can achieve it is to undo their legacy work which binds their children.
The fantasy was already pretty high, may as well lean into it
Watergate Part Two: Electric Bungaloo
It’s the 1% against the working class, not generation against generation.
🌍🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀 Always has been
To be fair, us genX did nothing about anything and just felt cool wallowing in our fake cynicism of “why do anything when nothing matters” so we’re probably half as much to blame as the boomers
There’s a certain selection bias to the “Weak Men, Hard Times / Strong Men, Good Times” just so historical analysis. You don’t talk about all the folks that die during good times or bad times. You just point to the old people and your brain slips right past the selection bias that allowed them to live and others to die.
Trying to blame this generation or that is a fool’s errand. What do you tell a population of Gen Xers who were dragged out to the suburbs and raised in these segregated hermitages for twenty years, then plunged into the capitalist meat grinder at the tail end of the post-war boom years? “Hey, you should have all just psychically linked up and formed a socio-economic Voltron to change a century’s old system overnight”? Who can seriously believe that? The deck was stacked against you and yet we still have a litany of Gen Xers who struggled - even died - in their effort to undo the damage of prior generations.
And what do you say to all the children of WW2 refugees who washed up on America’s shores and struggled to carve out a life for themselves in the graveyards of the First Nation’s people? Or the Cold War refugees - the Korean and Vietnamese and Indonesian and Taiwanese and Venezuelan and Cuban and Spanish and Russian and North Africa and… and… and… - who came into the US as children and were promptly indoctrinated to hate their home countries by the white supremacist majordomos of the American imperial class?
Its easy to blame yourself or your neighbors or your generation. Its hard to see the bigger picture and how each of us fit into it. Its hard to know if we’re doing the right thing, or doing enough of the right thing, or who is with us and who is against us given the sheer tsunami of bullshit in our information networks.
We’re playing the game on Hard Mode. And I don’t think anyone who cares enough to question and inquire about their efforts can really be held to blame. It’s the folks who have burned the ability to care out of their souls that hold us back. And that’s not a decision unique to a region or time period.
To be fair, you were directly under thier control when they were in their biological primes so fighting back would have been harder. Also, it’s you parents and all. So don’t sweat it too much
Boomers and Gen X lived in a paradise, destroyed it and now complain that things are shit.
Boomers really more than Gen X
Nah, 80s and 90s were paradise too.
Let’s just go back to those decades and never leave.
The systems that destroyed our society were created by boomers and Regan. They just took time to work.
GenX was also relatively small compared to the boomers.
I wonder if every generation will blame (maybe correctly) previous generations. So long as things are getting worse, the kids kind of have a valid argument. “Why didn’t you fix this before it got to us?”
As a millennial, I’ve been doing what I can short of going full vigilante. But in 30 years, they still wouldn’t be wrong to say “it’s still broke though isn’t it?”
Millennial here too… I blame myself for everything, including climate change. Everything I (can) buy is wrapped in plastic. Everything I (can) consume produces CO2. Every step I take, every breath I make… I’m killing earth.
I have a lot of self hate and can understand anyone who hates my generation. At least it ends with me. Who ever thinks kids are a good Idea must be completely insane.
How about it’s not your fault that there isn’t a alternative to a more eco friendly product, because it’s the politicians fault, we elect politician’s and they have almost all of them a green Policy. But that’s just on paper, they will really never do anything that hurt the economy and corporate profit. We vote on policy and they won’t implement it, the only thing you are responsible for is holding your politicians to account, but yeah keep blaming yourself for the shit that you have no control over and live in apathy
Whoa whoa. Never said I hated myself. That doesn’t solve anything. If anything it makes things worse by stealing focus. More like realizing that this isn’t working. We need to fix the system instead of letting people distract us with plastic straws or playing the blame game
The system can only be fixed by violence. I am no violent guy but billionaires have to die… all of them or we don’t even have to start.
I keep on trying to fix little things, but I don’t think that I can do enough… even remotely compared to the destruction their greed brings.
I’m out… no kids, no blame, it’s more CO2 than anyone can save. And honestly,… it’s the kids of the other people who will die in the climate wars. I simply don’t care any more until real change happens.
Edit: Humanity will prevail. Sooner or later even with a technological state as today or way more advanced… it just will take a few 100 more years for the remaining few to build this solar punk future. I’m just sad I’m living now and not when all this capitalism BS already died ages ago.
Gen Z already has some belief that Millennials did nothing but complain. No/not enough progress was made for all the protesting millennials cried for. It looks like Z is going the X apathetic route.
I am of the opinion we should implement left-wing authoritarian regime worldwide.
The system in question is capitalism. It’s been around longer than any of the named generations. It was tamed a little before the first world war (it enabled the first world war to be a world war). It needs to be more restricted
The systems that destroyed our society were created by boomers and Regan
Which system do you think destroys our society?
Gen X did nothing to improve the dumpster fire that boomers created. All they do is whine about how “powerless” they were
All they do is whine
So just like you?
Boomers and Gen X did exactly the same thing that you’re doing. Nothing. They just let the super rich elite screw the whole world up and now you’re doing the same thing they did. Nothing.
If you want to act high and mighty you’re not going to change the world by complaining on the internet. You have to stop the super rich.
You have to stop the super rich.
If I could, I would use this simple way to stop them: ban all parties that support them, nationalize all their beings and “sweeten up” their coffee if they complain too much.
There’s only one problem: I CAN’T DO NOTHING BECAUSE I’M NOT IN FUCKING POWER
Same as it ever was.
Complaining is a tool. Talking is a tool. Leads to acting and organizing. Guillotines don’t spontaneously form from the aether.
Except for all the people who’s skin shade is slightly darker than vanilla.
Yeah, yeah, 80s and 90s had concentration camps for black people, heard that shit before. Meanwhile no climate crisis, no Trump, no Tiktok, nothing, just some fucking peace.
trump was there, too. biding his time, waiting.
Boomers see the world wildly and in wild ways
I Think You Should Leave is such a gold mine of meme templates.
There’s even an ITYSL meme maker & quote database
Strongman leaders create hard times.
“hard men make good times, good times make soft men, and soft men make me hard” -Richard Rider
This is bullshit. Boomers, genXers and now millenials have been fighting against wild capitalism for decades, and a lot of them died fighting or are rotting in jail right now.
Bickering about what generation is better. My favorite topic. 🙄
You don’t need to give air to a fascist myth
thanks, now my brain will forever connect this myth to gay sex
Dunno, I hear lots of young people say that.
