Millennials when old

[Eric the Green]

(05-02-2020, 09:07 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote:

(04-21-2020, 02:45 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Agree with the millennial consensus, not because it is the consensus, but because it is right and just.

Let's see ;P

Points I agree with:
-Cosmopolitanism, aka the "global we". Internet definitely helped with this one.
-Communitarian economics.
-Rationalism, Millennials are definitely less prone to magical thinking than among Boomers, GIs or even Missionaries
-More neat than generation X, since Millennial culture kicked in some toxic subcultures from the 3T died down (this might be partially reversed because of the 90s nostalgia)

Agreed, BUT---

Being prone to "magical thinking" myself, I am glad that some millennials are rediscovering some parts of it. Life is indeed a riddle, a miracle and a mystery. What amuses me is that some chemists think they can reproduce it. A doc I just saw put it a bit better. The building blocks of life, the right molecules and such, can be assembled, but the way to "recreate" life "in the lab" is not to try to make it happen by the chemist's own activities, but to recreate the conditions and then let it happen again on its own. Life is spontaneous and self-creating. That is what makes it alive. It was nor forced by some external cause. Mechanical events are not life, but death. To realize that life is essentially magic, is correct magical thinking.

Realizing this, "magical thinking" becomes a part of science. When millennials don't get caught up in interpreting science facts as dogmatic reduction to mechanistic determinism, and not all millennials do this, then millennials' respect for science can be a relief from other kinds of not-so-magical thinking, like conspiracy theory, in which speculation substitutes for scientific thought and investigation. And boomer tendency to crusading self-righteous ideology, much like the Missionaries in that regard, can be checked by this pro-science millennial outlook as well. Science, because it seeks objectively-verifiable fact, has a tendency to encourage reductionism and devalue the subjective, but if it can be seen in proper perspective, science is the tool we need to substantiate claims about reality that are observable and verifiable, and revival of science among millennials is an expected but welcome trend.

Xer outrageous style and messy behavior had its place, but the millennials seem more balanced and less vulgar, and that is a relief as well.

Quote:Points I have issue with:
-Climate alarmism
-Compromising free speech to protect the "victimized" groups from hearing unpleasant truth e.g. about rampant narcissism and hedonism in the LGBT community
-Overuse of social media and digital gadgets
-Mainstreaming marijuana

You still refer to climate alarmism?

I have hope that you will do some reading on the climate crisis to see what your point of view should really be. If anything, climate change is proceeding worse than the models (which deniers denounce as alarmist speculation) even predicted. It means we need to re-imagine the place and style of technology and commerce in our lives, not just assume that material progress is our most important product; that Earth, our unique cosmic jewel of a home, is a prime value in Herself.

Why not rejoice in narcissism and hedonism sometimes? Love of self and pleasure brings joy to life.

But yeah, the digital world has millennials hypnotized, and this has its negative aspects for sure. So, I type this on my big digital gadget. They have hypnotized all of us to an extent.