
Against Generations (2015) - pepys
https://aeon.co/essays/generational-labels-are-lazy-useless-and-just-plain-wrong
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untothebreach
I mostly agree with this. As someone born in 1983, I am usually grouped in
with the "Millenials" (Back in my day we were "Generation Y!"). But when I see
what the stereotypical characteristics of a "Millenial" are, I don't see
myself. Neither do I see myself in the stereotypical characteristics of
Generation X, which I only bring up because I am among the "older" of the
Millenials. The comparison to horoscopes that TFA makes is apt, in my opinion.

~~~
cwe
Born in '83 as well. I consider us to be members of the Oregon Trail
Generation: [http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-
generat...](http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/)

EDIT: to add some commentary, as one of the older Millennials, I've seen the
media go from talking about "Millennials joining the work force" about a
decade ago now, to "These wacky high school/college Millennials" now. As
technology and society advance at an increasingly rate, it make less and less
sense to group together such a wide age range.

A generation used to span roughly 20 years, right? These days it should
probably be a decade or less. In which case, it probably shouldn't be used as
a catch-all at all anymore. Maybe just stick with "People born in n decade".

~~~
CapitalistCartr
It has for a long time. I'm technically part of the Baby Boom, but when people
talk about "The Baby Boomers" they mean the first ten years. Its always
obvious. Those of us in the second ten years are not similar. I find people
group well by decade, starting in mid-decade: 1945-55, 1955-65, 1965-75, etc.

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ex3xu
This article resonates with me -- anecdotally I think it's fairly well-
understood among educated people that in modern times, variations within a
population exceed variations between populations, rendering broad-scale
generalizations like the ones disparaged by this article to merit all the
pejoratives cited.

This article I think is part of a greater trend -- in a historical context,
the very concept of identity is undergoing a shift, from the sort of old-world
understanding where who you are is determined by your age, race, gender,
nationality, sexual orientation, class indicators, and various other easily
condensible physical characteristics, to a more mature understanding of
identity based on choices, desires, connections with other human beings,
aptitude, and opportunities -- particularly how we spend our time and money.
More and more, life is becoming about freedom of choice -- no more arranged
marriages, mandatory lifelong religious indoctrination, army service, etc.
with most of the remaining limitations resulting from what I see as the final
hurdle -- a lack of class mobility. If anyone knows any academics who have
covered this idea of the shift towards complex, multifaceted identity, I'd be
grateful for a reference.

In fact I would go so far as to say that our current cultural and journalistic
inclination towards these kinds of generalizations based on generational,
racial, and gender-based lines, is quite toxic and serves to implicitly
reinforce these tribalistic distinctions and impede social progress at scale.

In fact this unintended consequence is one of my primary complaints about the
cultural adoption of logical positivism, and why I've been gravitating more
and more towards a philosophical platform based on existentialism as expounded
by Frankl. Watching election coverage in the US, with their constant Nielsen-
style characterizations of Black voters this and Millenials that, detracts and
distracts from the objective values and platforms of the candidates. I
definitely agree with the article's point about confirming preconceived
prejudices, and look forward to the point where we can focus as a society more
on objective, aspirational values rather than subjective generalizations and
the status quo. I'm reminded of David Foster Wallace's quote -- "Sometimes
words that seem to express really invoke."

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maxxxxx
The generations thing is the same nonsense as "liberal/conservative". It's a
lazy way of trying to understand dynamics in society.

~~~
Houshalter
Both refer to actual clusters in people-space. Saying someone is liberal gives
you a lot of information about them. Saying they are 30 or whatever also gives
you a lot of information. They are meaningful categories.

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everyone
This frequent referral to this or that generation seems to be a US phenomenon
as far as I've encountered it anyway.

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PaulHoule
Often it is a "diffusion of innovation" kind of thing. For instance maybe 5%
of the hipsters had it, and 15% of boomers and 35% of X, and 65% of
millennials.

Just for instance most of the heroes of the boomers were people like Jimi
Hendrix who were just a little bit too old to be boomers.

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gue5t
I clicked on this because I thought it said "generators" and hoped to read
some in-depth thoughts on async/await and coroutines.

You can read mainstream opinion-pieces in physical newspapers; please make HN
a venue to read great technical content and not just a replacement for the
workplace bulletin board. There are many of the latter and barely any of the
former.

~~~
untothebreach
Just to give you an idea of why you might be getting downvotes, the HN
guidelines say:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence,

> the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

