I think it is a growing trend in that the population is getting older and most people, at some point in their lives, seem to shut themselves down to new ideas and be content with what they already know (hint: anyone complaining about the a younger generation is in this group). So aging population means less receptiveness to new ideas, you know, just as we are coming up with new ideas at the highest rate in human history and those new ideas are being rapidly adopted by young people. Old people (and I might be one) must feel really uneasy all the time.
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That is a vicious feedback loop.
I am not a doctor. I have gut issues, and one of my dearest friends has crohns. We talk about blood tests and nutrition a bit 
Are things like sweet potato fries an option? (Nutritious, and high in calories) Or pates and mousses (again, lots of iron, lots of calories)? Pecans or walnuts?
I can get you a recipe for something called āYum Sauceā that is easy to make, nutritious, and calorically dense. You will want to put it on everything.
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I donāt feel uneasy, but with being at work for 8 hours + lunch + commute, I got so little time and energy to deal with new and interesting unless it is required for my job. So damn new fangled kids and their new fangled ways, oh look a cloud maybe I can shout at it.
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Reminds me of a report I heard recently (Radiolab?) about how private school students feel way more empowered to engage faculty and administrators. It just wouldnāt even have occurred to me to walk into someoneās office and make demands.
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Dude welcome to my life.
Iām a uni-administrator, and this is just a public school, but they walk in all the time. As do their parents.
Literally parents call to complain about things that happen in class, its insane.
I said it upthread, but Iāll say it again, its not the kids, its the parents, and its getting worse.
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Sheās not a big fan of sauce or gravy in general, but itās something I could try. Mostly we go with lots of butter, cheese, and carbs. If she didnāt have this very specific problem, Iād be delighted with her nutritional choices; she loves tofu and veggies and doesnāt eat fast food. Instead Iām like āCome on, have a frappucino, those things have 9 million calories!ā
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I canāt take those anymoreā¦ I had some wisdom teeth pulled after the upper which had grown out a bit much basically killed the lower one. I had to live on nutrition shakes and soup for a few days. Frappucinoās taste like coffee flavored nutrition shakes. Bleah.
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My wifeās experience teaching high school (in Texas, mind you) is that, yes you may give them a failing grade, but they will not fail the class. Virtually infinite retries, each successively lowering the bar until they pass. They will reach the next grade level, ready or not. How are you going to blame the kids though? Many of their parents treat public education as day care and hang every result around the teachersā necks and āseeminglyā make no effort to foster any attitude of personal responsibility (unintentional dog whistle) about learning/performing well in school.
I think this rant is overblown, but myself (a low 30ās person and technically a millenial), do see some truth in the rise of the offend-a-gentsia. Whether this is perceived due to increased voice or actual is hard to say. And I think a lot of that is well intentioned in trying to make society a better place (vs. just whining or jumping on the complaint bandwagon) and the push back to the cultural changes being attempted is mostly growing pains, but the rise of āIām offended and therefore you must changeā as a general concept is disquieting in a world where weāre supposed to be able to tolerate some difference in opinion. Please, tell someone why they are wrong, not just that you are offended, which is mostly useless.
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Totally agree. I think thereās a fuzzy line to be drawn between folks that have grown up online vs those that have not. Maybe not really growing up, but finding their way online. Itās a huge influence. Whatever the age, the internet and all that it entails is a driver for all sorts of change.
While I understand the frustration and even sympathize, Iām also amused by memories of a Newsweek article saying much the same thing about Gen X
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Ummm, itās āplebe.ā
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Pleebs (like me) can spell it any way we want
Especially on a phone with aggressive autocorrect.
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Millennial labeling is all about marketing. Itās a bit of shorthand that is just accurate enough to advertise widgets, but not specific enough for human interaction. And it never ends.
If I believe in generational labels, then my parents must have spent their youth in a haze of drugs and sex. Then, suddenly, they owned property and voted for Reagan. Now they canāt use a computer properly and wonāt retire. If only some of those things were remotely true, what a different life I would be leading now.
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There already is a millenial rant generator. Itās called thinkpiecebot
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Says you, language nazi! (j/k)!
Excellent!
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That is awesome sauce ā¦ isnāt that what the millennials call it when something is radical (dude)?
In 1800 it was basically maths, law, philosophy, divinity, classics and medicine. Newton was Lucasian professor of mathematics because physics didnāt exist as a subject. Most of what was taught was therefore effectively vocational.
Geology became important at the start of the 19th century because the aristocracy woke up to the implications of coal or iron ore on their estates and would pay big money to anyone who could prospect for it reliably. Chemistry became important later in the 19th century owing to the demand for better explosives, dyes, paints and the first artificial fibres. Physics got to be big because the industrial revolution led to things like electric motors which were developed by practical mechanics, and the need was seen to get a theoretical foundation to build better machinery.
Itās very hard to point to any area of pure knowledge that forms a significant part of university curricula, and I think it has always been that way. The pyramid with the researchers and the theoreticians at the top and the technicians and skilled people at the bottom is nothing new. Nor is it new that the people at the bottom of that pyramid may be paid more and have better job security than the ones nearer the top.
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