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Boomers Riding Off Into The Sunset
#1
Now that we are well into the 4th Turning, what started as a trickle is becoming an outgoing flood tide.

A 1945 Aquarian I've been working with turned in his spurs a couple weeks ago. With him, much tribal knowledge of certain embedded systems and very legacy code. He did his best to document contextual stuff that you can't get from reading normal specs, code reviews, readmes and in line comments. I joked to him, be sure not to give anyone your number, because otherwise you'll be getting some consulting gigs when you are supposed to be out in the tules duck hunting.

That was a lighter moment.

Last fall, there was some darkness. A 1944 cohort who worked for me a few years ago, then for other managers since, had gone out on disability to fight cancer. Over the holidays I saw the obituary. Ugh ...

Just today, I was going through an old issue of my college alumni mag (I had some of the paper version around in "stuff" I'm downsizing). There was a short article by a guy from the Class of '66. He was sharing his journey and his current perspective. It was good writing - the dude was an English major who'd become a prof, then went into journalism and doing a PR start up. He had a blog. Prompted by the article I looked at his blog for the first time in years. Seeing the entries suddenly stop a couple years back, I suspected the worst. My fears were confirmed when I searched him on our alumni site. He passed not long after the last blog entry.

Most people imagine that the tech industry I've been caught up in now for 30 years is a bunch of Uber riding, iPhone jockey Millennials. Sure there are companies, especially start ups, where there are many Millies. But this biz was loaded with Boomers for many years. At the larger firms there are still many Boomers. There is a never ending stream of retirements, plus, the more maudlin outcomes of illness and death.

I've stopped having lots of anger toward Boom as I age. That's a bit remarkable given how Boom were the Grey Ceiling hindering me until I was too old to be the young up and comer. For all the venom thrown their way by us Xers and increasingly, Millies, there is a lot of good in the Boom cohorts. There is so much experience and knowledge. Given the horrendous lack of Knowledge Management in most American business environments, we are going to really miss that experience and knowledge. Not everything is an iPhone ap. Even some of the stuff running the cloud is the province of Boom. Beyond the newer whiz bang, there are still many mainframes running substantial parts of the world. Keeping it all afloat is not going to be a picnic.

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#2
I like Boomers a lot more now that they are getting older.  I used to dislike them when I was young, but maybe it's really that I just don't like middle-aged people.  Now that I am one myself, I know it can be a rough time; the perks of youth have fled and the responsibilities have piled on.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy--or sometimes an asshole who descends into a destructive middle age crisis (I know a few people who have).  But get a little older and you can mellow out and enjoy life again.

But anyway, because of all the abuse they are getting lately from some of the younger males on these forums, I want to use this thread as an opportunity to say I appreciate the older Boomers here and enjoy reading their posts, which are generally intelligent and articulate.  Some of their detractors, in contrast, spout incoherent, typo-ridden messes, and others are glib and insulting without saying much of any value.
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#3
I disagree.  I for one think most of the Boomers, especially the ones on this board, can and should be eaten by bears.

Value-added.  Wink
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#4
(03-10-2017, 10:32 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I disagree.  I for one think most of the Boomers, especially the ones on this board, can and should be eaten by bears.

Value-added.  Wink

I disagree.  They'd likely give the bears indigestion and that would be unfair to the bears.  The bears dindu nuffin!!! Big Grin
It really is all mathematics.

Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of UN/NATO/WTO/TPP/NAFTA/CAFTA Globalism.
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#5
(03-11-2017, 12:32 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:
(03-10-2017, 10:32 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I disagree.  I for one think most of the Boomers, especially the ones on this board, can and should be eaten by bears.

Value-added.  Wink

I disagree.  They'd likely give the bears indigestion and that would be unfair to the bears.  The bears dindu nuffin!!! Big Grin

Well, apparently they helped steal the election, giving the great and good on national television what I assume, judging from their facial expressions, is a severe case of the same.  So, I'd say, fair is fair, and the Boomers should indeed be fed to the bears.
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#6
(03-10-2017, 10:32 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I disagree.  I for one think most of the Boomers, especially the ones on this board, can and should be eaten by bears.

Value-added.  Wink

Naw. Most of us aren't that bad. Some of us had the potential to be horrible narcissists when we were kids, but such a reality as a crappy job that required extreme deference to the customer or boss exorcised us of that potential.

The world will be far better once the extreme narcissists are off the scene, and that, I regret to say, means that the not-so-bad among us will be gone, too.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#7
(03-12-2017, 04:15 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(03-10-2017, 10:32 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I disagree.  I for one think most of the Boomers, especially the ones on this board, can and should be eaten by bears.

Value-added.  Wink

Naw. Most of us aren't that bad. Some of us had the potential to be horrible narcissists when we were kids, but such a reality as a crappy job that required extreme deference to the customer or boss exorcised us of that potential.

The world will be far better once the extreme narcissists are off the scene, and that, I regret to say, means that the not-so-bad among us will be gone, too.

Good and bad are relative terms. As for being narcissists when you all were kids....I take it to mean that many if not most boomers are still children.

On your last sentence...perhaps, but I for one won't miss the boomers though I may miss particular boomers. Much like I don't miss the GIs though I do miss particular GIs.
It really is all mathematics.

Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of UN/NATO/WTO/TPP/NAFTA/CAFTA Globalism.
Reply
#8
From our side, the taste and smell of biological byproduct and spleen vented on us by X is not going to go away with "well, some of them were utterly indispensable".

Like beaten children, the scars from the generational wars remain. We can only enjoy you getting yours, and that gets old fast, and does not remove the hurt and pain that remain.

The Internet has accelerated The Bad Family Dinner to a species extinction level event.
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#9
Dog, the whole country is just one big, sometimes happy, dysfunctional family. But its gonna be okay now. Daddy's in charge.
It really is all mathematics.

Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of UN/NATO/WTO/TPP/NAFTA/CAFTA Globalism.
Reply
#10
(03-12-2017, 02:35 PM)Bad Dog Wrote: From our side, the taste and smell of biological byproduct and spleen vented on us by X is not going to go away with "well, some of them were utterly indispensable".

Like beaten children, the scars from the generational wars remain. We can only enjoy you getting yours, and that gets old fast, and does not remove the hurt and pain that remain.

The Internet has accelerated The Bad Family Dinner to a species extinction level event.

? "Our Side" ?

1. I'm assuming "biological byproduct" = shit/farts, right?
2. Which definition of "X" is being used?
---Value Added Cool
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#11
(03-12-2017, 02:41 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Dog, the whole country is just one big, sometimes happy, dysfunctional family.  But its gonna be okay now.  Daddy's in charge.

That is an abusive "daddy".
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#12
(03-12-2017, 06:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(03-12-2017, 02:41 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Dog, the whole country is just one big, sometimes happy, dysfunctional family.  But its gonna be okay now.  Daddy's in charge.

That is an abusive "daddy".

Not really.  The Regressive Leftists want to be punished.  They crave it.  Almost in an S&M way.  That's why they are acting like toddlers.  Considering most of us Late Xers have Speshul Snowflake younger siblings (please note I don't but I know a lot who do, like my BF for example has a ton of sisters and well lets not go there---it would ruin my night to think about them) we'll enjoy it.

Its just like dealing with a screaming five year old in the grocery store...
It really is all mathematics.

Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of UN/NATO/WTO/TPP/NAFTA/CAFTA Globalism.
Reply
#13
(03-12-2017, 02:35 PM)Bad Dog Wrote: From our side, the taste and smell of biological byproduct and spleen vented on us by X is not going to go away with "well, some of them were utterly indispensable".

That is just fine with me because as always X will do the necessary damage control.  This is what nomad generations do: damage control.  For my own part, it would be "well, they all weren't completely useless".
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.   -- Ludwig von Mises
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#14
(03-10-2017, 10:22 PM)gabrielle Wrote: I like Boomers a lot more now that they are getting older.  I used to dislike them when I was young, but maybe it's really that I just don't like middle-aged people.  Now that I am one myself, I know it can be a rough time; the perks of youth have fled and the responsibilities have piled on.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy--or sometimes an asshole who descends into a destructive middle age crisis (I know a few people who have).  But get a little older and you can mellow out and enjoy life again.

But anyway, because of all the abuse they are getting lately from some of the younger males on these forums, I want to use this thread as an opportunity to say I appreciate the older Boomers here and enjoy reading their posts, which are generally intelligent and articulate.  Some of their detractors, in contrast, spout incoherent, typo-ridden messes, and others are glib and insulting without saying much of any value.

I think the Mid-Life phase has a tendency of making assholes out of many people, now that Xers are in that stage of life I'm finding myself liking them less. I'm sure we Millennials will go through a similar asshole phase in the 1T.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
Reply
#15
(03-10-2017, 04:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Now that we are well into the 4th Turning, what started as a trickle is becoming an outgoing flood tide.

A 1945 Aquarian I've been working with turned in his spurs a couple weeks ago. With him, much tribal knowledge of certain embedded systems and very legacy code. He did his best to document contextual stuff that you can't get from reading normal specs, code reviews, readmes and in line comments. I joked to him, be sure not to give anyone your number, because otherwise you'll be getting some consulting gigs when you are supposed to be out in the tules duck hunting.

That was a lighter moment.

Last fall, there was some darkness. A 1944 cohort who worked for me a few years ago, then for other managers since, had gone out on disability to fight cancer. Over the holidays I saw the obituary. Ugh ...

Just today, I was going through an old issue of my college alumni mag (I had some of the paper version around in "stuff" I'm downsizing). There was a short article by a guy from the Class of '66. He was sharing his journey and his current perspective. It was good writing - the dude was an English major who'd become a prof, then went into journalism and doing a PR start up. He had a blog. Prompted by the article I looked at his blog for the first time in years. Seeing the entries suddenly stop a couple years back, I suspected the worst. My fears were confirmed when I searched him on our alumni site. He passed not long after the last blog entry.

Most people imagine that the tech industry I've been caught up in now for 30 years is a bunch of Uber riding, iPhone jockey Millennials. Sure there are companies, especially start ups, where there are many Millies. But this biz was loaded with Boomers for many years. At the larger firms there are still many Boomers. There is a never ending stream of retirements, plus, the more maudlin outcomes of illness and death.

I've stopped having lots of anger toward Boom as I age. That's a bit remarkable given how Boom were the Grey Ceiling hindering me until I was too old to be the young up and comer. For all the venom thrown their way by us Xers and increasingly, Millies, there is a lot of good in the Boom cohorts. There is so much experience and knowledge. Given the horrendous lack of Knowledge Management in most American business environments, we are going to really miss that experience and knowledge. Not everything is an iPhone ap. Even some of the stuff running the cloud is the province of Boom. Beyond the newer whiz bang, there are still many mainframes running substantial parts of the world. Keeping it all afloat is not going to be a picnic.

Does anyone on this forum feel that Trump has any chance of becoming this era's so-called grey champion, that one who will be remember long after the hippie and yuppie have been relegated to the dustbin of history? Any chance it can still be Bernie Sanders, although he probably won't become President?
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#16
(03-10-2017, 10:22 PM)gabrielle Wrote: I like Boomers a lot more now that they are getting older.  I used to dislike them when I was young, but maybe it's really that I just don't like middle-aged people.  Now that I am one myself, I know it can be a rough time; the perks of youth have fled and the responsibilities have piled on.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy--or sometimes an asshole who descends into a destructive middle age crisis (I know a few people who have).  But get a little older and you can mellow out and enjoy life again.

But anyway, because of all the abuse they are getting lately from some of the younger males on these forums, I want to use this thread as an opportunity to say I appreciate the older Boomers here and enjoy reading their posts, which are generally intelligent and articulate.  Some of their detractors, in contrast, spout incoherent, typo-ridden messes, and others are glib and insulting without saying much of any value.

I can't help in many ways feel as though we might have a better, or at least a kinder, gentler world today had the Boomer stuck with their youthful idealism throughout their lives? Does society's recipe not allow for that? As a Boomer cusper myself, I have had much disdain for the road most, or at least a significant portion, of my generation travelled. Seemed to be thm who caused much of our current malaise. When you try to build a life on rocky planes you will inevitably get unstable bridges. That is where we're at today, not only due to crumbling physical infrastructre, but that applied to the society as well. If we could remove the rocks, imagine what could happen. Yet, it will take effort, yet it will be well worth it.
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#17
Quote:Does anyone on this forum feel that Trump has any chance of becoming this era's so-called grey champion, that one who will be remember long after the hippie and yuppie have been relegated to the dustbin of history? Any chance it can still be Bernie Sanders, although he probably won't become President?

A number of people have raised that (first) responsibility.  Not really sure how Bernie Sanders would be it, unless you're using "grey champion" in the sense Hawthorne did, and not in the Lincoln/FDR type role a lot of people use it for.
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#18
(03-14-2017, 11:57 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:
(03-10-2017, 10:22 PM)gabrielle Wrote: I like Boomers a lot more now that they are getting older.  I used to dislike them when I was young, but maybe it's really that I just don't like middle-aged people.  Now that I am one myself, I know it can be a rough time; the perks of youth have fled and the responsibilities have piled on.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy--or sometimes an asshole who descends into a destructive middle age crisis (I know a few people who have).  But get a little older and you can mellow out and enjoy life again.

But anyway, because of all the abuse they are getting lately from some of the younger males on these forums, I want to use this thread as an opportunity to say I appreciate the older Boomers here and enjoy reading their posts, which are generally intelligent and articulate.  Some of their detractors, in contrast, spout incoherent, typo-ridden messes, and others are glib and insulting without saying much of any value.

I can't help in many ways feel as though we might have a better, or at least a kinder, gentler world today had the Boomer stuck with their youthful idealism throughout their lives? Does society's recipe not allow for that? As a Boomer cusper myself, I have had much disdain for the road most, or at least a significant portion, of my generation travelled. Seemed to be thm who caused much of our current malaise. When you try to build a life on rocky planes you will inevitably get unstable bridges. That is where we're at today, not only due to crumbling physical infrastructre, but that applied to the society as well. If we could remove the rocks, imagine what could happen. Yet, it will take effort, yet it will be well worth it.

The fault with Boomer idealism in the 1960s was its poor connection to reality. Adjust it some to make pragmatic and logical appeals to people who want a better world for themselves and their children, and it might establish some lofty purposes. No "Peace-Love-Dope" stuff, though.

The Right-Wing Boomers have dominated recent history, and they show everything that can be wrong with an Idealist generation -- the sorts of people who believe that their exploitation is some lofty, noble purpose. See the loud Transcendental proponents of slavery not as as a necessary evil but instead as a marvelous way of doing things.

People who believe that no human suffering is in excess so long as the right people reap the benefits are likely to end up sidelined, disgraced, or even killed. I can imagine an insular, irrational, inequitable, and corrupt leadership that disgraces itself in some military or ecological disaster being overthrown in a revolution that insists upon reason, equity, purity, and community as in the French Revolution.

Was the regeneracy of the 1930s anything like the 'Gay Nineties'? Not in the least. America is not in the mood for an Awakening, and won't be for at least thirty years. But we can have a better America, one in which more people have a chance, and one more ready to meet any clear and present danger.  We can still also have America becoming an Evil Empire that the rest of the world must overthrow if there is to be any semblance of a good future as was so with the Axis Powers.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#19
(03-14-2017, 11:52 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:
(03-10-2017, 04:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Now that we are well into the 4th Turning, what started as a trickle is becoming an outgoing flood tide.

A 1945 Aquarian I've been working with turned in his spurs a couple weeks ago. With him, much tribal knowledge of certain embedded systems and very legacy code. He did his best to document contextual stuff that you can't get from reading normal specs, code reviews, readmes and in line comments. I joked to him, be sure not to give anyone your number, because otherwise you'll be getting some consulting gigs when you are supposed to be out in the tules duck hunting.

That was a lighter moment.

Last fall, there was some darkness. A 1944 cohort who worked for me a few years ago, then for other managers since, had gone out on disability to fight cancer. Over the holidays I saw the obituary. Ugh ...

Just today, I was going through an old issue of my college alumni mag (I had some of the paper version around in "stuff" I'm downsizing). There was a short article by a guy from the Class of '66. He was sharing his journey and his current perspective. It was good writing - the dude was an English major who'd become a prof, then went into journalism and doing a PR start up. He had a blog. Prompted by the article I looked at his blog for the first time in years. Seeing the entries suddenly stop a couple years back, I suspected the worst. My fears were confirmed when I searched him on our alumni site. He passed not long after the last blog entry.

Most people imagine that the tech industry I've been caught up in now for 30 years is a bunch of Uber riding, iPhone jockey Millennials. Sure there are companies, especially start ups, where there are many Millies. But this biz was loaded with Boomers for many years. At the larger firms there are still many Boomers. There is a never ending stream of retirements, plus, the more maudlin outcomes of illness and death.

I've stopped having lots of anger toward Boom as I age. That's a bit remarkable given how Boom were the Grey Ceiling hindering me until I was too old to be the young up and comer. For all the venom thrown their way by us Xers and increasingly, Millies, there is a lot of good in the Boom cohorts. There is so much experience and knowledge. Given the horrendous lack of Knowledge Management in most American business environments, we are going to really miss that experience and knowledge. Not everything is an iPhone ap. Even some of the stuff running the cloud is the province of Boom. Beyond the newer whiz bang, there are still many mainframes running substantial parts of the world. Keeping it all afloat is not going to be a picnic.

Does anyone on this forum feel that Trump has any chance of becoming this era's so-called grey champion, that one who will be remember long after the hippie and yuppie have been relegated to the dustbin of history? Any chance it can still be Bernie Sanders, although he probably won't become President?

Yes.  I have a thread about it.  Long story short I concluded that Trump was the Jacksonian Tradition GC somtime around March of last year.  He will be remembered not only long after the hippies and yuppies have passed but probably after X is long passed the scene.  Just like people still talk about Lincoln
It really is all mathematics.

Turn on to Daddy, Tune in to Nationalism, Drop out of UN/NATO/WTO/TPP/NAFTA/CAFTA Globalism.
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#20
(03-14-2017, 12:21 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:
Quote:Does anyone on this forum feel that Trump has any chance of becoming this era's so-called grey champion, that one who will be remember long after the hippie and yuppie have been relegated to the dustbin of history? Any chance it can still be Bernie Sanders, although he probably won't become President?

A number of people have raised that (first) responsibility.  Not really sure how Bernie Sanders would be it, unless you're using "grey champion" in the sense Hawthorne did, and not in the Lincoln/FDR type role a lot of people use it for.

I've been thinking of Sanders as a Hawthorne style GC for some time, now. He's technically on the Silent side of the War Baby cusp, but his persona is pure Elder Prophet.

Trump, of course, is Edmund Andros. Big Grin

Oh God, does this mean the next Prophets will consider us Millennials a bunch of bores like Franklin considered Cotton Mather?
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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