
Why Millennials Shouldn't Be Scared of Automation - floown
https://medium.com/@Floown/millennials-the-natural-fit-for-automation-deb07d19fe15#.ijwww3qwt
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dalke
That's an ahistorical list of traits, starting with "Scared of Automation" /
"the incoming trend of automation", because it could be applied almost without
change to any American generation in the last 150 years.

To start, consider "the incoming trend of automation". Phil Ochs in the 1960s
wrote "Automation Song", concerning workers who lost their jobs due to
automation. The chorus is:

    
    
       Oh, the wages were low and the hours were long
       And the labor was all I could bear.
       Now they've got new machines for to take my place
       And you tell me it's not mine to share.
    

Yes, the specific details are different now than they were 5, 10, 50, or 100
years ago, but the principles are the same now as it was for the Baby Boomers
or for John Henry.

"Whether millennials are actually interested in it or not, our lives are
completely engulfed in technology"

The Baby Boomers were also 'completely engulfed in technology'. It was the Jet
Age, the time of plastics, and new inventions in TV, home construction, frozen
food and synthetic fabrics.

Their parents grew up surrounded by electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles,
radio, etc, with food from farms tilled by tractors and fertilized with
synthetic fertilizers.

"TRAITS: not scared of technological developments, are early adopters, quick
to see the use of a new product"

Traits which could equally be applied to the youngest generation since the
1800s.

"gamers 4 life"

Pong. Video arcades. "Pac-Man Fever" was a hit song in 1982. The video game
crash of 1983. The Game & Watch games. Tetris. Generation X hasn't stopped
gaming either.

"TRAITS: used to competition"

Other popular forms of gaming competition include bowling, pinball, billiards,
pickup games of soccer/football, etc., golf, tennis, and bridge.

"red bull slurpers"

Well, yes, this is more a Millennial brand. Before then there was Jolt Cola,
Mt. Dew, NoDoz, and other branded ways to get a caffeine fix.

"okay with on-demand energy boosts, no problem with chaotic information and
schedules, love fast-paced projects"

Of course, the generation before the 1970s could get amphetamine for an even
more potent stimulant. That may have been useful in the hectic high-paced
modern era of the 1960s, what with the information explosion in every field
and the excitement of fast-paced "Moon shot" projects.

Then there's all the fast-paced projects during WWII. Many of the physicists
out of the Manhattan project talk about how exhilarating it was - a feeling
echoed in the other projects of the time.

"social network addicts"

Yes, the newest ways of social networking are much more powerful than the old
ones.

"walking personal brands"

Hasn't personal branding and perception been a thing in popular culture since
at least "How To Make Friends and Influence People"? The Zoot Suit Riots are
an example from the 1940s of what happens when personal branding collides with
the rest of the culture.

"Millennials have this thing called #wanderlust"

As compared to all Baby Boomers who wanted to go "On the Road" and "look for
America", or join the Peace Corp and help in Africa, or travel the hippie
trail from Europe to India?

Or the interwar expat Americas like Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound,
and Ernest Hemingway?

Or the popular travel writings of Mark Twain ("The Innocents Abroad", "A Tramp
Abroad", "Following the Equator")?

