From my blog. Boomers are associated with the fading past and with reactionary politics. Not necessarily fairly.

Boomers Invented the Internet, but…

As we all know, it was a Baby Boomer who invented the Internet. Al Gore, to be precise. Ha ha, I jest. But in all seriousness, it actually was a Boomer who invented the World Wide Web. Well, an Englishman the same age as the American Boomer generation. That was when the Internet skyrocketed into public awareness and use (it had been around for decades already in academia and government) and the Boomer generation was still relatively young, and was involved in the grunt work of technology research and development.

Now it's younger generations who are on the leading edge of technology development and the Boomer pioneers are for the most part resting on their laurels. Steve Jobs has been deified and Bill Gates is busy spending his billions on humanitarian projects. Meanwhile, the Millennial generation has taken over Internet culture and formed a hivemind that is whimsical and heartwarming (doggy memes, anyone?), and also unforgiving in its enforcement of social norms (fear the hashtag). Generation X has been ghosted, and Boomers? - well, their cultural reputation on the Internet has not survived in very good shape.

For proof of this last assertion, all you have to do is get on Facebook and join "a group where we all pretend to be boomers." It's easy to do, trust me - I applied and got accepted right away. Here you will encounter the Millennial stereotype of what a Baby Boomer is - basically an old white Christian who supports President Trump, is hopelessly out of touch with modern values and, on top of that, embarrassingly clueless about how the Internet works. Boomers are always posting "MAGA" and "God bless America," misinterpreting what they see younger people doing online, and going to church and to potlucks.

As for posting memes, well Boomers probably shouldn't even try. Their memes are dated in style, atrocious in design, and express antiquated values. They should just stick to GIFs of the minions from Despicable Me, inexplicably a Boomer obsession. The idea of a Boomer meme is something you will also find on the subreddit TheRightCantMeme, where a lame meme by the political right is implicitly associated with the Boomer generation.

This stereotyping, of course, is unfair to the legions of Boomers who are on the political left. Not to mention those who are very savvy to the ways of the Internet. Perhaps these Boomers are not on Facebook so much; my guess is they are on Twitter instead. But this association, by a younger generation, between the Baby Boomers and the reactionary politics of Trump supporters (who are not all Baby Boomers, is my point) clearly marks the Boomer outlook as a fading thing of the past. The Internet - and thank you for it, Mr. Gore - belongs to a new generation.

Do  the archetypes have anything to do with our civilization's double source?

The civic values are rationality, masculinity and togetherness or "cooperative freedom", which looks a lot like Ancient Greek values, or to be more precise Aristotelian values, since this is the philosophy which exerted greatest influence on the modern West through Thomistic Catholicism. The word "civic" is derived from "citizen" and citizenship was the focus of Aristotelian ethics. Its main point was to raise brave citizens ready to die for the free polis, the way GIs died for democracy during WW2 and Republicans during the American Revolution. 

Then the prophetic archetype is about personal righteousness and spirituality, which is just what the Bible preached. All 2Ts, including the Boomers' one, featured a renewed interest in Christianity. The Puritans made it clear they want to build a new Israel and reject the culture and political system of Europe because it was too Roman. Criticism of Western civilization was also a part of later 2Ts including Romanticism. Hippies weren't fond of Christianity, but they still respected Jesus as a prophet of peace. For millennials Jesus is not really relevant.

Both sources were in fact one-sided and lacked the other dimension. Greeko-Roman society after death of its early prophetic currents like Pythagoreanism was so civic-minded that it had to import its spirituality from Syria, Egypt, eventually from Israel. Israel as a prophetic nation was a spiritual superpower, but technologically and politically it was feckless. We don't know any ancient Israelite inventors, and of course they never were a major political player.

(reposting from my blog: http://stevebarrera.com/subreddit-of-the...somememes/)

In this social era one of the roles of young adult Millennials is to clean up the culture after a long period of decadence and degradation called the Unraveling (I'm talking "turnings" theory here). I submit that an excellent example of this phenomenon is the subreddit wholesomememes. Here you will find only happy and affirming thoughts, positivity and love. It's the Internet's biggest safe space.

I also submit that the subreddit acts as a forging ground of an emerging values consensus for the new order of the ages. If it fits into this subreddit, its acceptable values. That means that inclusivity is in, and religious moralism is out. All the weird culture that our society has generated over the past decades is in - as long as it serves to boost the esteem of others and bring us all together.

They have it on Twitter, too, if you like that.
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I'm wondering what this forum thinks about the idea that anything that is fit for the wholesomememes subreddit is an accetable value in the next saeculum's value consensus (if that's even a thing).

For discussion purposes only I am enclosing a roughly four-minute video on the subject. And while there is not a lot you can elaborate on in four minutes we can branch the discussion out and elaborate on the pros and cons here.  Once I posted a question as to whether the Millennials will be as successful as Boomers were in using their sheer force of numbers to set social, political and economic trends within the society. That poster who responded didn't seem to think so, but they do seem to be off to a very good start although I am sure the jury will be out for quite a while on this one. I do believe that they have pretty much dethroned the Boomers culturally although not yet politically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uiq5BzaLCrA

It is easy to misunderstand and misinterpret history even with the tool of generational theory. Some of us thought that September 11, 2001 was the start of a Crisis and expected to see rationing, exhortations to buy war bonds, calls to reduce consumer spending, mass enlistments even of prominent people in the Armed Services, and large numbers of people trying to do public duty in war plants. Things did not so work; we instead got a speculative boom that, like others, turned investments into garbage.  We did not have anything like a Crisis era until Americans had cause to fear an economic meltdown as severe as the one that started the Great Depression.  Speculative booms going bust are the financial panics (1857, 1929, 2008) that portend calamity. Four years after the Panic of 1857 the USA was in the Civil War. Within three years of the Great Market Crash of 1929, Germany would go from a benign-but-shaky Weimar Republic to one of the most brutal and aggressive tyrannies ever known. 

So something was different in 2008. Americans were scared of things spiraling into consummate danger with a combination of political chaos in an era of atomic weapons seemingly everywhere. So the chief of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission told the President and Congress what was going to happen, and everybody seemed to go along. Americans elected Barack Obama in a near-landslide, and by the spring of 2009 the hemorrhage of securities prices was over/ The recovery had begun

Obama did everything well in stewardship of the economy -- well enough to allow the sorts of people who lost enough that they could not afford to buy the political process to buy the political process. By 2010 the right-wing economic interests had the funds with which to fund an onslaught upon anything not fully in line with pure plutocracy. Obama's party lost the House of Representatives in 2010. He got re-elected in 2012 despite the vehement efforts of the Right, but the Right won the Senate in 2014 and got the Presidency in 2016 with a political neophyte with despotic tendencies. Meanwhile the Right got control of many state legislatures, a telling marker of which was that Michigan became a Right-to-Work (or as I am tempted to call it, "Duty to Starve") state, demonstrating the increasing power of Big Business over all else in America.

OK. Trump is certifiably awful as President. He is the most immoral person to have ever held the office. He does not understand the Constitutional limits upon the Presidency. Oblivious to the normal methods of getting one's pet legislation enacted and appointments confirmed, he turns to the use of brute partisanship.

In 2018 he loses the House of Representatives, and it can hold him accountable for gross misconduct. 

Here we are.

EPA to Unveil Plan to Take Away California’s Authority on Car Emissions

The Trump administration will announce it is rescinding California’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles on Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter, a move sure to set off a legal battle with the most populous state.


The Environmental Protection Agency intends to announce it will revoke the so-called waiver underpinning California’s power to set vehicle greenhouse gas standards separately from the Trump administration’s broader rule to ease federal vehicle-efficiency standards, which is expected in the weeks ahead, the people said. The people asked to not be identified discussing plans prior to announcement.



Among those invited to the agency’s headquarters for the announcement are free-market groups that have championed the Trump administration’s rollback of automobile fuel economy and emissions standards adopted during the Obama administration. Plans for the announcement are still being developed and could change, one of the people said.


The move is almost certain to spark a lengthy legal battle over California’s regulatory powers that could throw the critical standards into uncertainty for years.



“California will continue its advance toward a cleaner future. We’re prepared to defend the standards that make that promise a reality,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
The procedural move would allow the attacks on California to proceed while the Trump administration continues to finalize federal fuel economy and emissions regulations for new autos after the 2020 model year. The plan also leaves intact California’s power to regulate smog-forming pollutants from autos and other sources.
The measures need approval from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review before they can take effect.
The EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment but the agency’s administrator, Andrew Wheeler, told the National Automobile Dealers Association, “We will be moving forward with one national standard very soon.”
“We will be taking joint action with the Department of Transportation to bring clarity to the proper -- and improper -- scope and use of the Clean Air Act preemption waiver,” he said in prepared remarks delivered Tuesday.
Dan Becker, director of the Center for Auto Safety’s Safe Climate Campaign, said the move is an attack on states’ authority to set their own air pollution standards that he called a centerpiece of the Clean Air Act.
“It is hypocritical for the administration to encourage states to block some of their people from going to the polls, but then forbid states from protecting their people from auto pollution,” Becker said in a statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang#Policies

There never was an American politician whose views were as similar to mine. Humanity First is the most beautiful election slogan I ever heard.

I like the UBI idea or "freedom dividend" in general, but alcoholics and drug addicts should be exempt from receiving it. Same for people with a history of violent crime or support for terrorist groups, and diagnosed psychopaths.

I also like it that he has some neocon-like views on foreign policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang#Policies
Yang called Iran a "destabilizing force in the region". He has backed a more aggressive policy toward Russia: "Russia is our biggest geopolitical threat, because they've been hacking our democracy successfully

He also wants to create "a department focused on regulating the addictive nature of media" - another good point.

Do you think he would be a 4T or 1T leader?

This article is a year old, but I only just recently encountered it. I thought it was a provocative commentary about the state of the U.S. government. It discusses partisanship in Congress and it’s effect on the functioning of government. As we all know, the shift in increasing partisanship to the point of paralyzing the institution is generally traced to the Gingrich revolution in the early 90s and the rise of the Boomer generation in government.
 
What I particularly wonder is – is the pattern the same in other 4Ts? Were the Congresses of the Great Power Saeculum 4T and the Civil War Saeculum 4T also basically powerless? Is it not until the 1T that the institution becomes energized and can legislate again?
 
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/artic...YBvgnln9M8
 Reproduced in its entirety for educational purposes

Congress Is Weak Because Its Members Want It to Be Weak
There’s a constitutional crisis, but it’s not the one you think

• JUN, 2018 
  
  

I recently have been enjoying the indie rock band Vampire Weekend. The two founders are early wave Millennials. Thought I would start a thread for indie rock from this generation and start with this particular band.

To me, the songs of Vampire Weekend are all Millennial anthems. They perfectly capture the zeitgeist of their generation – anxious, questioning, dissatisfied with adult life after being raised with high expectations.

Quote:

And the stone walls of Harmony Hall bear witness
Anybody with a worried mind could never forgive the sight
Of wicked snakes inside a place you thought was dignified
I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die

There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.