Trophy Generation

I realize the majority of posters on this site don't fall into this category, but I am interested to hear any opinions that some older and wiser people have on this article. (I am 18)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html

Originally Posted by mm84321

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I realize the majority of posters on this site don't fall into this category, but I am interested to hear any opinions that some older and wiser people have on this article. (I am 18)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html

Born after 1980? That's everyone under 30 right? Then the majority of SW&D is in this category...

What generation has ever had anything good to say about the generation below it? Also, if what the article says is true, who is to blame? We didn't raise ourselves.

I love watching them interact with some of the grumpy old timers at work. It's riveting.

I loathe the term "millenial".

Eh. As a Gen X, I can tell you I heard how lousy my generation was and the future is bleak, blah, blah blah. I chalked it up to "grumpy old timers." I listened to people that were (or still actually are) flower children talk about the older folks not understanding things in their youth and how they changed the world, blah, blah, blah.

Seems to me, every generation seems to think it's the greatest, full of ideas never thought before, will transform the world, blah, blah, blah and preceeding generations seem to feel this is the worse generation coming up, woe the future, blah, blah, blah.

It's just the human condition.

I was going to say, "didn't the WSJ do an article like this years ago already?"

Then I noticed the article posted is from 2008.

is there an "old news" smiley?

Kids today are so ******* lazy they can't even bother to post up-to-date news articles.

Originally Posted by Douglas

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Kids today are so ******* lazy they can't even bother to post up-to-date news articles.

Good one Douglas and Justin, love your new avatar.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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Eh. As a Gen X, I can tell you I heard how lousy my generation was and the future is bleak, blah, blah blah. I chalked it up to "grumpy old timers." I listened to people that were (or still actually are) flower children talk about the older folks not understanding things in their youth and how they changed the world, blah, blah, blah.

Seems to me, every generation seems to think it's the greatest, full of ideas never thought before, will transform the world, blah, blah, blah and preceeding generations seem to feel this is the worse generation coming up, woe the future, blah, blah, blah.

It's just the human condition.



Waaay back in the late 90s, I attended a high school graduation for the class that followed mine, which, coincidentally, would be the first year of the group this article profiles. At the start of his speech, the valedictorian read a diatribe on how terrible the current generation was, how they'd amount to nothing, and how they were going to ruin the world when they took over. Then he annonced that what he'd just read was written about their parents' generation (roughly the hippies, though mostly at the tail end).

His point was that, as Pio says, every generation seems like a bunch of screw-ups to those that preceded it. However, this has yet to be true; no generation has completely ruined the world. Part of the problem is that these generations are always judged while they're kids, and kids are idiots. Another part of the problem is that people fear change, and each generation brings change.

The reality is that every generation has idiots and geniuses, and bad news gets more press than good news. I mean, would this thread have existed if someone had written an article about how wonderful the younger generation is?

Due to the Flynn effect, isn't every generation in the modern era, as a general rule, at least smarter than the one that preceded it?

Originally Posted by bluemagic

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Due to the Flynn effect, isn't every generation in the modern era, as a general rule, at least smarter than the one that preceded it?

I'm not smart enough to answer this.

Originally Posted by bluemagic

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Due to the Flynn effect, isn't every generation in the modern era, as a general rule, at least smarter than the one that preceded it?

Yes, but not within a generation. So, though a person is smarter than his/her parents, he/she just cannot think that they are more competitive.