

Net Generation: spoiled, narcissistic layabouts? - alienasia
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12853955

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Tangurena
The "older" generation always complains about the younger ones. And that has
gone on since the days of Plato and Aristotle. _Why! Back in my day, we walked
15 miles to school, and it was uphill both ways!_ Don't worry, in 10-20 years,
the "facebooker generation" will be whining about the new kids of that era.

And perhaps one of the best satires of this eternal trend is a skit called The
Four Yorkshiremen. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch>

_Why! Back in my day, we didn't have any of those new fangled programming
languages like C and assembly, we programmed in ones and zeros. And we were
too poor to have zeros so we carved them out of potatoes. And we liked it!_

People slowly get more ethical/moral as they age - slowly enough that the
change isn't noticable - instead they think that they were always "this way."
If your older self could meet your younger self, your older self would
probably complain about the lazy good-for-nothing younger self as well. People
grow up. Our civilization won't burst into flames because the young punks are
here - in 20 years, those young punks will be "the establishment" and
complaining about the newer punks.

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prospero
Baby Boomers: stodgy, ponderous dinosaurs?

Haberdashers: mad as hatters?

Ducks: bent on world domination?

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jderick
Maybe spoiled, narcissistic, layabout parents have the same kind of kids?

------
ahoyhere
Allegedly Socrates, attributed to Plato:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority;
they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before
company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize
their teachers."

(the source of the quote may be contentious, but with a little cursory
searching I was able to find it being attributed to Socrates (via Plato) as
far back as the late 1800s, so... it's still surely not new.)

