Not the 80’s, but the early-mid 90’s were rife with evidence of the U.S.’s decline.
Rodney King beatings, the highway of death in Iraq, the rise to prominence of Fox News, the mass destruction of the ‘93 floods, all those communities destroyed by the shift to zero tolerance policies, and the deevoludtion of national political debate into contentious identity politics by 24-hour news channels.
In the 80’s you had Bhopal and 3-mile island, too. And the savings and loan crisis, I think.
Probably "Millennials" hating that you're too young to claim their tag, and "Zoomers" hating that you're too old to claim theirs. Whatever. We are the mid-90s (even 90s) babies, and that's a cool name even if a little longer.
Millennials, anecdotally, do get really mad at you if you bring up being part of the Zillenial cusp. I had a whole group of them freak out on me for it once and insist that no, I was a millennial only. It was weird.
lol, yep, things have only became worse over time through my whole life, and I just got laid off from a sick job I scored during the Covid chaos, so i'm job searching on top of all of that
Yeah it's not like our ancestors went through two world wars in a period of 20 years along with the first Global economic depression or anything like that, and the realization that Humanity can now wipe itself off the planet.
No it's definitely us that lives through the most interesting time
Oh 100% I agree. We do live in trying times. But we also live in probably the best time to be alive at least if you live in the western world.
I just want to bring some context from the past because when you look at history we're doing quite a bit better than we used to.
While the no Kings protest didn't really achieve a whole lot mobilizing up to 10 million people is a huge achievement and not one that many organizations could have dreamed of doing 50 years ago.
Oh I didn't say that. The world could be a lot better.
Only that we generally live in the best time historically wise. Most of us have a roof over our heads and steady food in our bellies which is not historically how things have been.
It's foolish to try and look back in history for a better time because there is none. It is up to us to create a better future going forward.
Yeah sorry, it may be better in some ways but a large amount of powerful people want us back in serfdom/slavery, instead of actually improving life. 90s was peak, it's downhill from there.
I know quite a few minorities that would disagree with you. Also I think a lot of people in poverty probably have a better now with the institutions and systems we have then they were in the 90s when after they had been gutted by the Reagan Administration and not restored by the Bush Administration or the Clinton administration.
Most of us have a roof over our heads and steady food in our bellies which is not historically how things have been.
I don't have the outright stats to say so definitively, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is true for the smallest percent of the US population since the Great Depression. The average American has less than $300 in their bank account. Credit card debt is increasing as fast as it ever has, and people are defaulting on that debt at the highest rates of all time. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck (at least 60% of the population), and there is not a single county in the country where a person making the median wage in that county can afford the median cost of a home in that same county. We lost more money during the 2008 recession than during the Great Depression, and most people never recovered even though the economy recovered that money in about a year - 90% of it went to the wealthy, who had also lost the least. The homelessness crisis has become so bad that it's called the homelessness epidemic, and the homeless population is also increasing at the fastest rate that it ever has. Wealth disparity is worse in the US today than during the French Revolution, where the price of a loaf of bread hit an all-time high of a day's wage for the average worker.
The average American is one medical emergency away from going bankrupt, and diseases that we had thought were on the verge of eradication are making a comeback while we continue to ignore the ongoing COVID pandemic that we still don't know how it truly affects us. COVID has been found in everything from the brain to the testicles and is linked to infertility and a million other issues that will cripple the size of the workforce in the years to come due to Long COVID symptoms preventing people from working.
These are hard times made by weak, greedy men who refuse to hand over the reins and want to make things even worse.
Things have always been worse if you weren't a straight, white, able-bodied man, but I think it's been a long time since it was this bad for such a large swath of the population on the basic metrics of food, shelter, and financial security - at least in the US.
I think things are getting worse for white people exactly the way you say. I think for minorities though it's kind of always been this bad or even worse made by people being far more racist.
Things are still pretty systemically racist but there has been somewhat of a correction and that probably does result in things being a bit better for some minorities.
Ultimately I think that means that We live in better times today because they're more accepting than we did Even 20 years ago.
As far as getting by I think things have been like this for a really really long time and people were patient and sold a crock of shit and with covid it's forcing a lot of these things to come to a head.
Not only that Trump himself is a governmental crisis and when there's chaos in the government there's absolutely chaos in society. Simmering tensions tend to get exposed.
Just have to vote for Dems and there's a decent chance 9/11 wouldn't have happened, so no Afghanistan, Iraq wouldn't have happened, pandemic would've been handled better and the pandemic response plan wouldn't have been axed, and we wouldn't have bombed Iran. Not to mention women would still have health care.
The problem is the Democratic Party isn't a working class/labor party. The Democratic Party's primarily purpose is to occupy space on the political spectrum and prevent the rise of a true workers party. There will never be a time to walk away, abandon a clearly irredeemably broken edifice, and build something new. It will always be the most important election of your life, and you will always be a traitor to your nation for daring to suggest it's time to scrap the morbidly obese old man, fused into his couch, sucking up all the oxygen out of the room on the left side of the political spectrum.
In the rare cases a Democrat I vote for wins they’re either hamstrung by Republicans winning everywhere else or have a stroke and turn into Republicans.
Where do you get that idea? The Trump admin has only been in place for five months. The strike the US just carried out took years of planning. Trump's attack on Iran was just a continuation of Biden admin policy.
All the evidence I've seen my whole adult life is that the Democrats, or at least the Democratic leadership structure, are just as bloodthirsty and warmongering as the Republican leadership.
We don't actually know that Dems wouldn't have been pushing an Iraq war. Ultimately the real push for the war came from the Israeli leadership, and the Israelis control both the Democratic and Republican parties. Israel ultimately decides US Middle East policy, not the American citizens. What party you vote for has very little impact on it. That's the conclusion you reach if you look at the actual evidence, not just the vibes that each party likes to portray. The Dems like to portray themselves as some 1960s peace-nicks, but both parties let Israel control their entire Middle East policy. Israel wanted to invade Iraq, and that was going to happen regardless of what party was in power.
Maybe the Dems would have handled the Iraq war a little more competently, but Saddam had been a villain in the US media for years. People were talking about invading Iraq while the bodies at ground zero hadn't even cooled off.
Gore supported invading Iraq. The majority of Democrats in the US Senate supported Iraq. What evidence do you have that a Democratic president wouldn't have invaded Iraq? I think the only case is vibes-based.
Militaries work on plans for everything. I would be surprised if they didn't have a plan to invade nearly every country on Earth. It's what the military does. The decision is made by the politicians. Vastly different things that you're trying to hammer together.
Israelis control both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Thank you for showing me you're nuts. No point in real discussion, this will be my only reply.
But to address
Most damning of all? Al Gore supported military intervention in Iraq.
That reads nearly like an academic discussion on the topic and that he was actually focused on WMDs. Sounds like he wouldn't have done it without people/nations researching and agreeing that Saddma Hussein had WMDs (or was trying to make them), which would have lead to international cooperation and support. Not quite to the point of wanting UN agreement (because vetos) but he keeps discussing the UN. And sounds like if he didn't have both the domestic and international agreement, it wouldn't have happened. This is just another thing you're trying to hammer together. I thought this part was cool "the president is publicly taunting Democrats with the political consequences of a 'no' vote", he was obviously not a fan of Bush's browbeating - which along with Bush's lies is how the Iraq war went through. And the whole thing is just ripping Bush's administration and approach apart.
That you keep trying to hammer different things together shows me you either can't separate them yourself, or that you're discussing in bad faith. So ciao.
Heh, I don't think that's as old as you're expecting; I'm 35 and I, too, installed Limewire on the family computer (and probably downloaded so much malware…).
Don't forget Columbine. People always leave that out, but as far as historical milestones that shaped how awful American society has become, it was a big one.
It's hard to even explain to people that there was a time when it used to be a very shocking thing to hear about.
"Back in my day, parents didn't have to send their kids off to school every morning pretending everything was normal, but internally struggling with anxiety they might never see them again."
I'm so fucking over this shit yall. Don't forget the corporate takeover and surveillance dystopia created by quite possibly the biggest dork losers that are alive. What the actual fuck? Need a genocide. Check. Civil rights collapse? Check. Financial meltdown? Check. Pandemic that kills millions? Check. Collapse of the dollar for shitcoin scams? Check pending. Terrorist attacks that convince your country for 20 years of wars? Check. No more war excuses, and need more? No worries, we'll just recycle the same one from 25 years ago because y'all couldn't do shit about it then either. They have nukes so we have to attack.
Now, go be a good citizen and participate in some blind nationalism and virtue signaling with your pledge of allegiance to an inanimate object while simultaneously and intentionally starving brown kids by the thousands.
Let‘s convince Iran of the existence of space jews so when they get a nuke, they light up the atmosphere and kill all the powergrids and servers forever. Peace, out!
Everyone's always quick to declare the beginning of World War 3, to pass every event through that lens. Inadvertently, it provides cover for the fact that Cold War 2 already started.
Cold War 2 is not so much the superpowers vying against each other, but desperately attempting to retrench their power over the global south and their own citizens. The adversarial stance is largely political theatre to manifest the narrative of great powers locked in competition, while in reality Moscow and Washington meet in private to decide the fate of Ukraine and Iran. (I’m also counting China here)
There was a bit of a moment after the USSR dissolved where the US was just kinda spinning its wheels without any clear purpose. We still had all the institutions for weapons manufacturing, intelligence gathering, financial strong-arming -- they were still doing their thing, but without an overall narrative to give a unified sense of purpose.
You can almost imagine 9/11 being somewhat of a relief -- like, oh thank god a clear external enemy, now we don't have to struggle justifying our continued existence. And, of course, now our leaders can't agree on weather we're in existential conflict with Russia or China or both. This go round, we are the crumbling gerontocracy.
I don't really understand the age focus on this one. People older than millenials have also experienced all that plus some extra shit which millenials haven't. We are all in this together (except for the billionaires and their dictator friends), regardless of age.
I just joined the Bundeswehr (the german army) a couple of weeks before 9/11. I still remember that I thought "You idiot really have managed to join the military right at the beginning of WWIII..."
Well, there have been plenty of potential Covids, that were nipped in the bud, because we had more competent leadership that heeded scientists, and systems in place to catch them early. It's just that when Covid hit we...didn't.
Y2K is the perfect example of a crisis averted. There was a major problem that would've crashed computer systems all over the world, potentially bringing down power grids, financial institutions, hospital networks, etc. But the problem was identified well ahead of time and programmers and engineers spent like a full year working to ensure that the problem was fixed and wouldn'timpact anything, so it never became A Problem like the media said it was.
Probably not better if you were born in 1900. You were born in an European Monarchy. Life is not exactly free, but stable and prosperous.
Some psycho stabs a queen, and all of a sudden all of Europe and a lot of the rest of the world is at war. Most of Europe is razed to the ground and millions of soldiers return with heavy PTSD.
The monarchy is done, you got a completely new system in Europe and a communist revolution in Eastern Europe/Russia.
Times such, but stability returns for a few years until the Great Depression hits and boom, we got Nazis, holocaust, and yet another world war, which is ended by a literal science fiction weapon that can raze whole cities to the ground at the press of a button.
And now your country is occuped by a foreign army, while everything has to be rebuilt.
Seriously, the phase from 1955-2000 was an anomaly. That was pretty much the most peaceful time in world history. Before that, constant wars, pagues, starvation and general horrors were the norm, not the exception.
And even with that, you are glossing over the Spanish Flu. The "peaceful" time since the '50s included numerous massive wars, not least of which was the Vietnam war.
The idea that every time period has its own chaos is the whole point of the song We Didn't Start the Fire, written in 1989.
I have a much lesser ww3 vibe than when the Ukraine thing started. It hasn't even crossed my mind but it keeps popping up everywhere. Perhaps I'm missing something crucial here.
For me, the crucial bit here is political ideology vs. religion. Russia invading Ukraine is purely political in my opinion, whereas the Israel/Iran conflict can't really be separated from religion. Might be spitballing here, but religious fanatics might be more extremist (willing to escalate war to defend their beliefs) than political fanatics. I also think USA's historical defense of Israel is in play here, whereas USA's involvement with Ukraine hasn't really been a thing.
Yep I've got anxiety and I honestly thought something awful would happen. For about 6 weeks I was taking a rucksack with clothing, food and wind up radio wherever i went.
Or friends. Nobody's going to war over Iran. Suggesting this is WW3 is quite the stretch. America bombs places. It's just what we do. Dropping bombs on poor brown countries is as American as apple pie, and it crosses the aisle.
I was having computer science class and I remember seeing the news... Felt so unreal to see something like that in America. Went home, watched news for the entire day.
Then I read a lot about 9/11 the following years. I think it changed the perception about America in a lot of people.
Amen. As a millennial I've lost count of the times I've heard that WW3 is starting. Every time shit pops off in the Middle East (almost always thanks to the good ol' US of A) the media starts handwringing and people start panicking.
But even if we do end up in a world war, the world won't stop turning. People with bombs raining down on them still need to go to work and cook dinner and pay their bills.
War has always been a reality for someone somewhere in the world. But if/when it's our turn, we're so self-centered we think that it's the actual apocalypse.
All we can do is keep working to make life better for each other. Even though shit is pretty bleak for everyone with late stage capitalism and climate change, it's not nearly the worst thing any group of people have ever experienced.
So you can give up, or you can embrace radical nihilism and choose to cling to any scrap of joy you can find while working to make things better, even if it's just the tiniest bit.
In the grand scheme of human history, western civilization as we know it is a tiny blip. It's incredible that we're here to witness this moment. If nothing else, let sheer curiosity and spite drive you to keep going.
The people that make the news for this kind of crap are also the ones who report it to you in that sensational way to get those reactions. Some of those who work forces...
We kinda attacked a decent percentage of the world after that, and have barely had time to catch our breath since the "end" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
You're expecting old farts in charge to be always rational about everything. They need to let their rotting brains to slip up once, and we're all fucked.
Man, don't pick a Millennial vs Gen X fight. Most of Gen X got just as fucked as we did and pretending otherwise is some ageist bullshit
Boomers ruined the economy and sold Gen X and Millennials the American Dream. We both figured out it was a lie too late. Gen Z is the first generation to see the truth from an early age and I won't be hearing any trashtalk about how they're lazy because of it, either
Sure, more of Gen X benefitted from the boomer economy than Millennials but that doesn't mean they owe us something. We're on the same team.
My daughter was in kindergarten and saw a man fall to his death on 9-11. Its stuck with her. Nothing was done to those assholes who allowed this to happen.
When my daughter was old enough I told her about the first death I saw. I was six years old and at a small dirt race track that operated for a few years. A photographer was crossing the track at the end of the night and I was looking right at him when a orange race car hit him at a fairly high speed. I was only about ten to twenty yards from him. I remember he was twitching and I remember all the blood on the track after they took him away. My mother of course was storing it all up for her vile daily gossip the next day. She dismissed my distress and told me it happens. Most people never see a person die. It affected me deeply and I was denied my distress by my parents. I'm thankful I could explain to my daughter that what she saw should upset her. Seeing something like that at a young age sticks with you.
It's amazing to me the strides in medicine that have helped reduce the deaths associated with HIV in such a short time. I remember that shit was like a 1 to 2 year mortality rate, and people are now able to live much much longer.
AFAIK drugs can control HIV and prevent AIDS, so people aren't dying from it if they're treated, and I think they can also make it much less contagious. It's really amazing.
Oh shut up already, voting systems all over the place have been messed up for ages (Electoral college? First past the post?), proper blank voting (obviously) denied or defanged, opportunities to create alternatives denied years ago, usually by existing parties which are often so entrenched and converging to the right anyway that simplifying to "you can't complain if you didn't vote" sounds like the moralising of a first year uni student discovering PolSci.
I vote against shitty candidates and in local elections. I'm under no illusion about its effect and fully respect election boycott and those who refuse to vote.
If you're not happy about the results of an election, the first to blame are those who voted for the shitty candidate and their policies, not those who said thanks, but none of the above.
Voting for government is not "who do you think should be in charge" it's "these are your options now". Your time to change those options is way way before the election.
Not voting is voting "ehh, just whoever everyone else thinks."
Abstaining isn't the big brain move you think it is.
You're completely failing to see that people refusing to vote are not people who "don't give enough of a fuck". Sure, there are apathetic people out there, but it's a gross simplification to think only people who care vote. Or that people who vote care. For many, that's their one and only participation in participative democracy.
Would you argue that Alan Moore, who wrote Watchmen, V for Vendetta and other cult and politically relevant graphic novels, does not "give enough of a fuck to use his voice"?
Oh, Alan Moore, you mean the guy who recently realized he was playing into apathy causes and nihilism his entire fucking life and is now highly encouraging people to vote against the neocons of the modern age because he realized it’s the only political tool and voice for the proletariat? That guy?
Yeah, he has said as much about himself. Fictive idealized realities with fictive idealized outcomes are not a standard for building a worldview or plan.
Isnt it wild that the nothing ever happens chud has gone from /pol/ to mainstream. Its always so jarring to see people post the exact same stuff open nazi's post.
Not saying you're a nazi or anything, just rambling about how memes spread through communities.
Look at what happened to the 👌 sign. You can now get into legal trouble in some EU countries for doing this gesture, even though many militaries use it as the "all right" sign with the hand beside the face. It‘s absurd
I can't remember why but I didn't go to school that day. I remember finding out because I was arguing with my brother about what movie to watch, then complaining to my mom, and her freaking out going "You're complaing about this when there's a national crisis going on?!"
Yeah, pretty much. We burned up the middle class trying to bomb Iraq because of Bin-Laden. Billionaires won't spend their money, poor people don't have money to spend, not sure where republicans think the cash is going to come from for this crusade.
Jokes on you, meme. I'd dropped out of high school and was working full time at Spencer's by then. I got to see the second plane hit on a bank of TV's at RadioShack on my way back from getting a pack of cigarettes from the news stand by the Sbarro.
Hey US history, and for me it was just a teacher walking into the class, going to the closet, grab ing his coat, and going "A plane just crashed into the WTC," and leaving. Like, dude, how are you going to do that.
Roe v Wade will never change, calm down libs. The climate isn't changing, calm down libs. Project 2025 isn't real, calm down libs. Our economy will get better, calm down libs. Our government will follow the law, not break every law so fast the courts can't keep up, calm down libs. Maybe, just maybe, instead of just acting so blaise and dismissive over Liberal thoughts and opinions, and attempting to perpetuate this stupid game of "owning the libs" you actually listen and think critically. Liberals may not have all the answers, and maybe their beliefs don't fully align with yours, but this country used to operate on a few core ethics and beliefs, but saying "calm down libs" like it's a goddamn video game and keeping score is just putting us further into a shithole. So use your head, come up with some formal argument and supporting statements, and stop playing the fucking game and use your brain to fix the machine instead (or at the very least, step aside, drop the pompoms and stop playing cheerleader for the people who keep fucking shit up).
You seem to think I'm a conservative when it's really the absolute opposite. This is where "vote blue no matter who" gets us. It gets us the absolute worst neo-conservative candidates running as liberals. Kamala decided to move further right and it lost her the election and instead of blaming the politicians y'all seem to think you need to blame everyone else instead of the DNC for running genocide supporting candidates because they're deepthroating AIPAC money like it's a national sport.
It's sort of like a pre-emptive exaggeration. It's definitely possible WWIII starts with this. Ukraine, Trade War, Iran, then Taiwan and India-Pakistan. There is a non-zero chance it will escalate without stopping.
But by making fun of this "hysterical overreaction" now you prevent any serious anti-war opposition from gaining ground. At least that is what the psychological effect of this is: calming down the libs.
I mean, I doubt many people thought that a failed and then successful attempt on Ferdinand would result in thousands of men playing with new killing machines against dated formation ranks but it ended up there regardless (WW2 was gonna happen, and everyone knew it, it was just a matter of when)
I don't know enough history of WWI but it certainly feels like this to me. Like the climate wars have started, but everyone is being gaslit into thinking it's just this or that reason or bad guy.
You can just feel this tension in the zeitgeist, like "oooh these liberal cucks don't want us to nuuuuke someone, oh no, they'd really get soooo maaaad about nuking a little, would really be a shaaaaame hahaha"
Like if you'd make a referendum on whether or not to sell a few nukes to Ukraine, it would totally go through.
The long and short of WW1 was a bunch of inbred cousin monarchs were bickering about territories during the height of colonialism, and factioned up. One thought another country killed one of their Dukes, they denied it, were attacked anyhow, and then a barfight turned into a brawl, with the peons of each country being run into grinding machines (automatic machine guns were brand new and at the time old school block and line formations were still the normal way to group up and fight. So yeah, hundreds killed in seconds). After a few hundred thousand were dead from all over the world, the inbred officers realized war strategy had to change, and no one really knew wtf to do for awhile. More died, disease spread and killed even more, and eventually almost all blame fell to Germany (which was new and formed from various countries), and Germany got kinda punished unfairly, resulting in WW2 as Germans felt like they were punished so unfairly everyone else should pay. Very short version. Also Israel was formed at this time based on a whole shitload of reasons, that can be summed up with the British being narcissistic and doing whatever they thought was best while ignoring the political/religious minefield of their actions.
A $20,000 house bought with a job delivering mail, that requires no degree, while also having 3 kids, would disagree with you. Oh yeah, I bet those pensions were really hard on them to retire with. Poor babies.
It's not really incorrect, it's just that it's only the START of the "Millennial" generation, not the whole thing.
Most people generally consider 1980 as the start (so most 1980 babies are 19 years old on Jan 1, 2000) of the Millennial generation. I've seen it as early as 79, and as late as 83 as the start year. No idea why sources vary on this, or why they pick those years instead of 1980. Anyone born in that range might also be called a Xennial, so it's sort of like if one thing considers you a Millennial, but you have strong Gen X energy, then you can be a Xennial if you feel like it. But No Xennial would want that because we don't fuck with Gen X like that.
I prefer calling the Xennials the "Oregon Trail" generation, as it implies we all risked having dysentery to survive.
Some millennials are over 40. Doesn't change the point but let's be factual here
Fuck I'm old :((((((
I'm here with you on that. We got to see Biff in back to the future and now we get to see a Biff Larper as president.
All Biff and no hoverboard? Bogus!
Fake Biff and fake hoverboards!
totally not not-heinous
Considering Biff was based on Trump in the 80s...
They almost nailed it...
He wasn't quite evil and stupid enough.
Oh shut up.
—GenX
I envy gen x. Last generation to be home owners.
Not all of us.
I'm 43. Look at me go.
I was trying to think of some shit going down in the 80s.
All I can think of is Chernobyl melt down in 86.
Challenger explosion, televised straight into so many classrooms
Wow. Looking into this for a few minutes I now realise I've been completely naive to this for most of my life. It's an awful but fascinating disaster.
Not the 80’s, but the early-mid 90’s were rife with evidence of the U.S.’s decline.
Rodney King beatings, the highway of death in Iraq, the rise to prominence of Fox News, the mass destruction of the ‘93 floods, all those communities destroyed by the shift to zero tolerance policies, and the deevoludtion of national political debate into contentious identity politics by 24-hour news channels.
In the 80’s you had Bhopal and 3-mile island, too. And the savings and loan crisis, I think.
Mutually Assured Destruction was pretty big at the time. The rot really started to set in with Reagan.
Yeah, you can change high-school to college, and 40 to 45 for me, but the point doesn't really change.
you boomer
This isn't about them.
Jokes on you. I watched 9/11 in elementary school.
I was in my geography lesson, so I don’t identify either.
5th grade. I remember pre-9/11 I wasn't really scared of much, cause you know, there wasn't a lot to be scared of.
Watching it on live TV and everything devolved very quickly.
I think we're called Zillennials?
Probably "Millennials" hating that you're too young to claim their tag, and "Zoomers" hating that you're too old to claim theirs. Whatever. We are the mid-90s (even 90s) babies, and that's a cool name even if a little longer.
Millennials, anecdotally, do get really mad at you if you bring up being part of the Zillenial cusp. I had a whole group of them freak out on me for it once and insist that no, I was a millennial only. It was weird.
I'm honestly probably pre-cusp, but my siblings were cusp and Gen Z, so I track more as an old Zillennial.
Xennials?
Edit: oh, no, it's in the other direction.
This is why I don’t believe people who say things can get better.
lol, yep, things have only became worse over time through my whole life, and I just got laid off from a sick job I scored during the Covid chaos, so i'm job searching on top of all of that
Certainly job search got worst during and after COVID. Especially people recently graduating finding out stems are not very easy to get into
They certainly can - post-WWII was certainly an improvement for most people - but there's no guarantee that they will.
Yeah it's not like our ancestors went through two world wars in a period of 20 years along with the first Global economic depression or anything like that, and the realization that Humanity can now wipe itself off the planet.
No it's definitely us that lives through the most interesting time
It doesn’t have to be the most interesting time. Just an interesting time.
Still sucks and we’ve got climate collapse to worry about in addition to nukes. And PFAS. And microplastics.
Oh 100% I agree. We do live in trying times. But we also live in probably the best time to be alive at least if you live in the western world.
I just want to bring some context from the past because when you look at history we're doing quite a bit better than we used to.
While the no Kings protest didn't really achieve a whole lot mobilizing up to 10 million people is a huge achievement and not one that many organizations could have dreamed of doing 50 years ago.
Yes, this shitty world is definitely the best we could reasonably hope for.
Oh I didn't say that. The world could be a lot better.
Only that we generally live in the best time historically wise. Most of us have a roof over our heads and steady food in our bellies which is not historically how things have been.
It's foolish to try and look back in history for a better time because there is none. It is up to us to create a better future going forward.
Yeah sorry, it may be better in some ways but a large amount of powerful people want us back in serfdom/slavery, instead of actually improving life. 90s was peak, it's downhill from there.
I know quite a few minorities that would disagree with you. Also I think a lot of people in poverty probably have a better now with the institutions and systems we have then they were in the 90s when after they had been gutted by the Reagan Administration and not restored by the Bush Administration or the Clinton administration.
I don't have the outright stats to say so definitively, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is true for the smallest percent of the US population since the Great Depression. The average American has less than $300 in their bank account. Credit card debt is increasing as fast as it ever has, and people are defaulting on that debt at the highest rates of all time. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck (at least 60% of the population), and there is not a single county in the country where a person making the median wage in that county can afford the median cost of a home in that same county. We lost more money during the 2008 recession than during the Great Depression, and most people never recovered even though the economy recovered that money in about a year - 90% of it went to the wealthy, who had also lost the least. The homelessness crisis has become so bad that it's called the homelessness epidemic, and the homeless population is also increasing at the fastest rate that it ever has. Wealth disparity is worse in the US today than during the French Revolution, where the price of a loaf of bread hit an all-time high of a day's wage for the average worker.
The average American is one medical emergency away from going bankrupt, and diseases that we had thought were on the verge of eradication are making a comeback while we continue to ignore the ongoing COVID pandemic that we still don't know how it truly affects us. COVID has been found in everything from the brain to the testicles and is linked to infertility and a million other issues that will cripple the size of the workforce in the years to come due to Long COVID symptoms preventing people from working.
These are hard times made by weak, greedy men who refuse to hand over the reins and want to make things even worse.
Things have always been worse if you weren't a straight, white, able-bodied man, but I think it's been a long time since it was this bad for such a large swath of the population on the basic metrics of food, shelter, and financial security - at least in the US.
I think things are getting worse for white people exactly the way you say. I think for minorities though it's kind of always been this bad or even worse made by people being far more racist.
Things are still pretty systemically racist but there has been somewhat of a correction and that probably does result in things being a bit better for some minorities.
Ultimately I think that means that We live in better times today because they're more accepting than we did Even 20 years ago.
As far as getting by I think things have been like this for a really really long time and people were patient and sold a crock of shit and with covid it's forcing a lot of these things to come to a head.
Not only that Trump himself is a governmental crisis and when there's chaos in the government there's absolutely chaos in society. Simmering tensions tend to get exposed.
But we won’t. We could have been creating a better world for the past 30 years and we didn’t.
And now it’s too late to prevent the Ross Ice shelf and all of Greenland from falling into the sea.
True irreparable harm has been done to the world through climate change.
But I see a second wave of people's revolutions coming. Hopefully it'll be in time to react to the changes of the world.
Even in Hopeless times we must have hope comrade.
Is this what the Romans felt at the end? Walls falling, raiders raiding, terrible leaders-- it's not looking good.
Just have to vote for Dems and there's a decent chance 9/11 wouldn't have happened, so no Afghanistan, Iraq wouldn't have happened, pandemic would've been handled better and the pandemic response plan wouldn't have been axed, and we wouldn't have bombed Iran. Not to mention women would still have health care.
I’ve been voting D for years and it still didn’t help.
The problem is the Democratic Party isn't a working class/labor party. The Democratic Party's primarily purpose is to occupy space on the political spectrum and prevent the rise of a true workers party. There will never be a time to walk away, abandon a clearly irredeemably broken edifice, and build something new. It will always be the most important election of your life, and you will always be a traitor to your nation for daring to suggest it's time to scrap the morbidly obese old man, fused into his couch, sucking up all the oxygen out of the room on the left side of the political spectrum.
No, the entire structure of our government is unable to deal with the world it exists in.
Winning is binary, so me voting doesn’t make Trump any less the president.
I’ve been trying to do that too and people are too stupid to convince and I’m bad at it.
In the rare cases a Democrat I vote for wins they’re either hamstrung by Republicans winning everywhere else or have a stroke and turn into Republicans.
So we're back to 1. More GOP wins means it would have been even worse and 2. Convince your fellow voter and non voter to vote.
Seriously what is the purpose of your moaning.
Iraq War resolution vote in the Senate.
Dem President wouldn't have been pounding the war path, with lies, and pretty much the entire nation pushing their representatives for it.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-israeli-militaries-jointly-drilled-iran-strike-during-biden-administration-report/
Where do you get that idea? The Trump admin has only been in place for five months. The strike the US just carried out took years of planning. Trump's attack on Iran was just a continuation of Biden admin policy.
All the evidence I've seen my whole adult life is that the Democrats, or at least the Democratic leadership structure, are just as bloodthirsty and warmongering as the Republican leadership.
We don't actually know that Dems wouldn't have been pushing an Iraq war. Ultimately the real push for the war came from the Israeli leadership, and the Israelis control both the Democratic and Republican parties. Israel ultimately decides US Middle East policy, not the American citizens. What party you vote for has very little impact on it. That's the conclusion you reach if you look at the actual evidence, not just the vibes that each party likes to portray. The Dems like to portray themselves as some 1960s peace-nicks, but both parties let Israel control their entire Middle East policy. Israel wanted to invade Iraq, and that was going to happen regardless of what party was in power.
Maybe the Dems would have handled the Iraq war a little more competently, but Saddam had been a villain in the US media for years. People were talking about invading Iraq while the bodies at ground zero hadn't even cooled off.
Most damning of all? Al Gore supported military intervention in Iraq. He just wanted a more international effort than what Bush did.
Gore supported invading Iraq. The majority of Democrats in the US Senate supported Iraq. What evidence do you have that a Democratic president wouldn't have invaded Iraq? I think the only case is vibes-based.
Militaries work on plans for everything. I would be surprised if they didn't have a plan to invade nearly every country on Earth. It's what the military does. The decision is made by the politicians. Vastly different things that you're trying to hammer together.
Thank you for showing me you're nuts. No point in real discussion, this will be my only reply.
But to address
That reads nearly like an academic discussion on the topic and that he was actually focused on WMDs. Sounds like he wouldn't have done it without people/nations researching and agreeing that Saddma Hussein had WMDs (or was trying to make them), which would have lead to international cooperation and support. Not quite to the point of wanting UN agreement (because vetos) but he keeps discussing the UN. And sounds like if he didn't have both the domestic and international agreement, it wouldn't have happened. This is just another thing you're trying to hammer together. I thought this part was cool "the president is publicly taunting Democrats with the political consequences of a 'no' vote", he was obviously not a fan of Bush's browbeating - which along with Bush's lies is how the Iraq war went through. And the whole thing is just ripping Bush's administration and approach apart.
That you keep trying to hammer different things together shows me you either can't separate them yourself, or that you're discussing in bad faith. So ciao.
Also the middle-eastern millenials getting bombed, occupied, and bombed again during each of these.
Am I numb or am I exhausted? Maybe I'll find out after another nap.
I’m 42 and this is deep.
Aye gather round elder Millennials, our watch has begun
Back in ye day we hath this magical place called “limewire” it could brick your mothers gateway computer without a moments notice.
Heh, I don't think that's as old as you're expecting; I'm 35 and I, too, installed Limewire on the family computer (and probably downloaded so much malware…).
28 and also downloaded some Linkin Park that was actually George W. Bush on the good ol limewire. Admittedly I was probably the tail end of that.
Nice; that's the most early 2000s sentence I've heard in a long time.
Don't forget Columbine. People always leave that out, but as far as historical milestones that shaped how awful American society has become, it was a big one.
My high school experience started with Columbine freshman year and ended with 9/11 senior year. Life has been so crazy.
Now we get one every week!
It is insane how common it's become.
It's hard to even explain to people that there was a time when it used to be a very shocking thing to hear about.
"Back in my day, parents didn't have to send their kids off to school every morning pretending everything was normal, but internally struggling with anxiety they might never see them again."
We had some copycats here in Germany and of course Counterstrike or some other game was to blame. Not the very real weapons the people were shot with.
And Marylin Manson.
I'm so fucking over this shit yall. Don't forget the corporate takeover and surveillance dystopia created by quite possibly the biggest dork losers that are alive. What the actual fuck? Need a genocide. Check. Civil rights collapse? Check. Financial meltdown? Check. Pandemic that kills millions? Check. Collapse of the dollar for shitcoin scams? Check pending. Terrorist attacks that convince your country for 20 years of wars? Check. No more war excuses, and need more? No worries, we'll just recycle the same one from 25 years ago because y'all couldn't do shit about it then either. They have nukes so we have to attack.
Now, go be a good citizen and participate in some blind nationalism and virtue signaling with your pledge of allegiance to an inanimate object while simultaneously and intentionally starving brown kids by the thousands.
Can't a giant EMP come and save us? I'm so tired.
Let‘s convince Iran of the existence of space jews so when they get a nuke, they light up the atmosphere and kill all the powergrids and servers forever. Peace, out!
Everyone's always quick to declare the beginning of World War 3, to pass every event through that lens. Inadvertently, it provides cover for the fact that Cold War 2 already started.
The Cold War never ended
I don't think anyone is seriously "declaring" WW3. It's just an acknowledgement that there's a lot of unrest in many different regions.
A global conflict in 2025 would be very different to WW2.
Cyber attacks could decimate a country's ability to make war.
I fear at this point the two are not even incompatible.
Cold War 2 is not so much the superpowers vying against each other, but desperately attempting to retrench their power over the global south and their own citizens. The adversarial stance is largely political theatre to manifest the narrative of great powers locked in competition, while in reality Moscow and Washington meet in private to decide the fate of Ukraine and Iran. (I’m also counting China here)
Did the Cold War ever really end? I feel like the names of the players may have changed, but the board is still there and the pieces are still moving.
There was a bit of a moment after the USSR dissolved where the US was just kinda spinning its wheels without any clear purpose. We still had all the institutions for weapons manufacturing, intelligence gathering, financial strong-arming -- they were still doing their thing, but without an overall narrative to give a unified sense of purpose.
You can almost imagine 9/11 being somewhat of a relief -- like, oh thank god a clear external enemy, now we don't have to struggle justifying our continued existence. And, of course, now our leaders can't agree on weather we're in existential conflict with Russia or China or both. This go round, we are the crumbling gerontocracy.
I don't really understand the age focus on this one. People older than millenials have also experienced all that plus some extra shit which millenials haven't. We are all in this together (except for the billionaires and their dictator friends), regardless of age.
Watching your mom die is a bit more shocking at 12 than it is when you are 40
These are millennials having main character syndrome about watching stuff on tv.
Meanwhile there are actual war zones in which all age groups are getting physically wiped out.
They actually are losing their moms at any age . Not just watching stuff on tv.
What pain olympics are you trying to win, dude?
Projecting confession so in right now.
The circle of life. We're about due for a depression and a war. Humans are so predictable it is mind numbing
We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world’s been turning. No we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.
I just joined the Bundeswehr (the german army) a couple of weeks before 9/11. I still remember that I thought "You idiot really have managed to join the military right at the beginning of WWIII..."
You forgot Y2K. That was wild.
Ah, yes, the one crisis we managed to avert during our lifetime...
It's not the only one. Ozone Hole has been recovering since the 80s thanks to people who actually listened to scientists.
Well, there have been plenty of potential Covids, that were nipped in the bud, because we had more competent leadership that heeded scientists, and systems in place to catch them early. It's just that when Covid hit we...didn't.
The dangers were very much real, we just took them seriously and fixed the problem so it didn't have an impact.
Y2K is the perfect example of a crisis averted. There was a major problem that would've crashed computer systems all over the world, potentially bringing down power grids, financial institutions, hospital networks, etc. But the problem was identified well ahead of time and programmers and engineers spent like a full year working to ensure that the problem was fixed and wouldn'timpact anything, so it never became A Problem like the media said it was.
Probably not better if you were born in 1900. You were born in an European Monarchy. Life is not exactly free, but stable and prosperous.
Some psycho stabs a queen, and all of a sudden all of Europe and a lot of the rest of the world is at war. Most of Europe is razed to the ground and millions of soldiers return with heavy PTSD.
The monarchy is done, you got a completely new system in Europe and a communist revolution in Eastern Europe/Russia.
Times such, but stability returns for a few years until the Great Depression hits and boom, we got Nazis, holocaust, and yet another world war, which is ended by a literal science fiction weapon that can raze whole cities to the ground at the press of a button.
And now your country is occuped by a foreign army, while everything has to be rebuilt.
Seriously, the phase from 1955-2000 was an anomaly. That was pretty much the most peaceful time in world history. Before that, constant wars, pagues, starvation and general horrors were the norm, not the exception.
And even with that, you are glossing over the Spanish Flu. The "peaceful" time since the '50s included numerous massive wars, not least of which was the Vietnam war.
The idea that every time period has its own chaos is the whole point of the song We Didn't Start the Fire, written in 1989.
Everyone glosses over the Spanish Flu ;)
At least the wars since the 50s have not been on European or US soil. Well, except of the wars that were actually on European soil.
But yeah, it's totally true that constant chaos is constant.
I have a much lesser ww3 vibe than when the Ukraine thing started. It hasn't even crossed my mind but it keeps popping up everywhere. Perhaps I'm missing something crucial here.
For me, the crucial bit here is political ideology vs. religion. Russia invading Ukraine is purely political in my opinion, whereas the Israel/Iran conflict can't really be separated from religion. Might be spitballing here, but religious fanatics might be more extremist (willing to escalate war to defend their beliefs) than political fanatics. I also think USA's historical defense of Israel is in play here, whereas USA's involvement with Ukraine hasn't really been a thing.
Yep I've got anxiety and I honestly thought something awful would happen. For about 6 weeks I was taking a rucksack with clothing, food and wind up radio wherever i went.
Or friends. Nobody's going to war over Iran. Suggesting this is WW3 is quite the stretch. America bombs places. It's just what we do. Dropping bombs on poor brown countries is as American as apple pie, and it crosses the aisle.
We watched the second plane hit live on a shitty CRT in my Geography class. Shit was insane. I'm so damn tired...
I was having computer science class and I remember seeing the news... Felt so unreal to see something like that in America. Went home, watched news for the entire day.
Then I read a lot about 9/11 the following years. I think it changed the perception about America in a lot of people.
WW3 ain't coming, and if it was there's nothing you could do about it anyway.
Dead people don't buy oil, financial services, adverts, housing, or plastic tat from China.
Unhappy people buy lots of it, or at least go into debt trying.
The goal of the world is to keep you miserable and spending.
Amen. As a millennial I've lost count of the times I've heard that WW3 is starting. Every time shit pops off in the Middle East (almost always thanks to the good ol' US of A) the media starts handwringing and people start panicking.
But even if we do end up in a world war, the world won't stop turning. People with bombs raining down on them still need to go to work and cook dinner and pay their bills.
War has always been a reality for someone somewhere in the world. But if/when it's our turn, we're so self-centered we think that it's the actual apocalypse.
All we can do is keep working to make life better for each other. Even though shit is pretty bleak for everyone with late stage capitalism and climate change, it's not nearly the worst thing any group of people have ever experienced.
So you can give up, or you can embrace radical nihilism and choose to cling to any scrap of joy you can find while working to make things better, even if it's just the tiniest bit.
In the grand scheme of human history, western civilization as we know it is a tiny blip. It's incredible that we're here to witness this moment. If nothing else, let sheer curiosity and spite drive you to keep going.
The people that make the news for this kind of crap are also the ones who report it to you in that sensational way to get those reactions. Some of those who work forces...
Yeah I feel like if a direct attack on American soil that killed thousands of civilians didn't spark WW3, then nothing will
We kinda attacked a decent percentage of the world after that, and have barely had time to catch our breath since the "end" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
You're expecting old farts in charge to be always rational about everything. They need to let their rotting brains to slip up once, and we're all fucked.
Ah, but we have the benefit of never being able to buy a house, and having the same minimum wage for 16 years.
Three recessions. People always forget the dotcom bubble that was made worse by the market going down after 9/11.
Pre 9/11 you could also get like 10% interest on a savings account.
Gen-Xer who remembers the cold war and also lived through all that other shit: Welp I guess I'm flinging myself back off the fucking wagon.
You got to benefit from the 80s and selling off of all our national assets to prop up our economy for 2 decade's
You lived in the good times and called it "the cold war".
From a millennial give us our stuff back (to the state who gave it to you).
Man, don't pick a Millennial vs Gen X fight. Most of Gen X got just as fucked as we did and pretending otherwise is some ageist bullshit
Boomers ruined the economy and sold Gen X and Millennials the American Dream. We both figured out it was a lie too late. Gen Z is the first generation to see the truth from an early age and I won't be hearing any trashtalk about how they're lazy because of it, either
Sure, more of Gen X benefitted from the boomer economy than Millennials but that doesn't mean they owe us something. We're on the same team.
Dude I'm disabled and can barely afford food, I didn't benefit from shit.
That guy doesn't speak for us.
My daughter was in kindergarten and saw a man fall to his death on 9-11. Its stuck with her. Nothing was done to those assholes who allowed this to happen.
No. You should be able to figure out who I meant now. Right?
Edit: Bless your heart, I guess not.
I was 15 when I watched a guy blow his brains out on a freeway overpass on broadcast TV. That's always stuck with me.
When my daughter was old enough I told her about the first death I saw. I was six years old and at a small dirt race track that operated for a few years. A photographer was crossing the track at the end of the night and I was looking right at him when a orange race car hit him at a fairly high speed. I was only about ten to twenty yards from him. I remember he was twitching and I remember all the blood on the track after they took him away. My mother of course was storing it all up for her vile daily gossip the next day. She dismissed my distress and told me it happens. Most people never see a person die. It affected me deeply and I was denied my distress by my parents. I'm thankful I could explain to my daughter that what she saw should upset her. Seeing something like that at a young age sticks with you.
OJ Simpson murdered his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
One of OJs lawyers was Robert Kardashian, Kim Kardashian's father.
US President Bill Clinton impeached over abusing his power by getting a blowjob in the Oval Office from an intern. Then lying about it.
Y2K. Remember that?
AIDS.
And in my country, a coup, a toxic syndrome, a housing bubble, terrorism, ...
It's amazing to me the strides in medicine that have helped reduce the deaths associated with HIV in such a short time. I remember that shit was like a 1 to 2 year mortality rate, and people are now able to live much much longer.
AFAIK drugs can control HIV and prevent AIDS, so people aren't dying from it if they're treated, and I think they can also make it much less contagious. It's really amazing.
Things are gonna get worse before they get better, so buckle up.
They also become worse before they become the worst
Toss in an exploding space shuttle and the fall of the Berlin wall and you get Gen X.
Born in 83.
Was there for the shuttle, remember the Berlon wall and the first Iraq war pretty well, was a senior in high school for 9/11.
Meanwhile, on 9/11 my sister was at her office working her new job she got after graduating college.
At Enron.
2 exploding space shuttles
One exploded. The other disintegrated.
Need Another Space Agency
Also the Herald of Free Enterprise and Chernobyl.
I love how it only recognizes the "recessions" as those that impact rich people. The metrics are fucked. We've been in a recession since 2008.
Anyone who didn't vote last year can please quit whining.
Oh shut up already, voting systems all over the place have been messed up for ages (Electoral college? First past the post?), proper blank voting (obviously) denied or defanged, opportunities to create alternatives denied years ago, usually by existing parties which are often so entrenched and converging to the right anyway that simplifying to "you can't complain if you didn't vote" sounds like the moralising of a first year uni student discovering PolSci.
I vote against shitty candidates and in local elections. I'm under no illusion about its effect and fully respect election boycott and those who refuse to vote.
If you're not happy about the results of an election, the first to blame are those who voted for the shitty candidate and their policies, not those who said thanks, but none of the above.
Well thanks then. Have the day you voted for.
Voting for government is not "who do you think should be in charge" it's "these are your options now". Your time to change those options is way way before the election.
Not voting is voting "ehh, just whoever everyone else thinks."
Abstaining isn't the big brain move you think it is.
If people don’t give enough of a fuck to use their voice then why should I give a shit what they have to say?
Nothing isn't brave, it’s nothing. If someone decides that they don’t matter then I’m inclined to agree with them.
You're completely failing to see that people refusing to vote are not people who "don't give enough of a fuck". Sure, there are apathetic people out there, but it's a gross simplification to think only people who care vote. Or that people who vote care. For many, that's their one and only participation in participative democracy.
Would you argue that Alan Moore, who wrote Watchmen, V for Vendetta and other cult and politically relevant graphic novels, does not "give enough of a fuck to use his voice"?
Oh, Alan Moore, you mean the guy who recently realized he was playing into apathy causes and nihilism his entire fucking life and is now highly encouraging people to vote against the neocons of the modern age because he realized it’s the only political tool and voice for the proletariat? That guy?
Yeah, he has said as much about himself. Fictive idealized realities with fictive idealized outcomes are not a standard for building a worldview or plan.
OK, I think you missed all the points I made. Never mind.
No, I got what you’re saying, it’s not complex, I simply disagree.
Isnt it wild that the nothing ever happens chud has gone from /pol/ to mainstream. Its always so jarring to see people post the exact same stuff open nazi's post.
Not saying you're a nazi or anything, just rambling about how memes spread through communities.
Look at what happened to the 👌 sign. You can now get into legal trouble in some EU countries for doing this gesture, even though many militaries use it as the "all right" sign with the hand beside the face. It‘s absurd
Wait what
Elementary school for me, I think 2nd grade, but yeah
I was in kindergarten, so i get all of this before i'm even 30.
Ah yes.
Fuck
I can't remember why but I didn't go to school that day. I remember finding out because I was arguing with my brother about what movie to watch, then complaining to my mom, and her freaking out going "You're complaing about this when there's a national crisis going on?!"
I'm 40
What's it like?
Yeah, pretty much. We burned up the middle class trying to bomb Iraq because of Bin-Laden. Billionaires won't spend their money, poor people don't have money to spend, not sure where republicans think the cash is going to come from for this crusade.
And holding the camera is generation x, smiling and nodding like an exhausted parent as though millennials have discovered something new.
Jokes on you, meme. I'd dropped out of high school and was working full time at Spencer's by then. I got to see the second plane hit on a bank of TV's at RadioShack on my way back from getting a pack of cigarettes from the news stand by the Sbarro.
One CircuitCity away from a Bingo
"This is fine"
Our leadership has been trying to benefit the rich for decades, not you. Please resist.
Haha Shartzer
Biology for me. I remember watching the towers collapsing when the teacher turned the TV off and said we should just go about our day normally.
Golgi apparatus. (Was that a person jumping I saw before?) Lysosomes.
Hey US history, and for me it was just a teacher walking into the class, going to the closet, grab ing his coat, and going "A plane just crashed into the WTC," and leaving. Like, dude, how are you going to do that.
What's the other way?
Actually, I was asleep when they struck because I had no classes that day, so I mainly saw replays of the clips right after the event.
Figuratively watched. It’s when you watch figure skaters.
Some of us proto-millenials were already on active duty in the military on 9/11
That shit was insane
Live during jr high but yeah
...and they hardly notice anything because their eyes are glued to TikTok..
The blessed generation.
hello fellow boost user :3
Honestly the only reason I'm on Lemmy
Sorry didn't realise I'd uploaded the uncropped one I've changed it now. Thanks for highlighting it
actually I was sleeping through study hall, but the rest checks out
Millenials in America while dropping bombs wiping out all generations in other countries:
“I had to see that on the tele. Poor me”.
✌️✌️
lol shartzer
That's the girl from the cat videos?
I'd rather getting all out of the way before I'm 30, so I can rule the wastelands.
I guess millennials forgot the 90s where ww3 was just lingering around the corner.
Wrong! I was in geometry class.
WWIII isn't starting, NATO doesn't give a fuck about Iran and Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon either. Calm down libs.
Ok nazi.
This interaction is a certified Lemmy moment
I'm further left than you, you inconsolable shitgibbon.
What do librarians have to do with this?
Roe v Wade will never change, calm down libs. The climate isn't changing, calm down libs. Project 2025 isn't real, calm down libs. Our economy will get better, calm down libs. Our government will follow the law, not break every law so fast the courts can't keep up, calm down libs. Maybe, just maybe, instead of just acting so blaise and dismissive over Liberal thoughts and opinions, and attempting to perpetuate this stupid game of "owning the libs" you actually listen and think critically. Liberals may not have all the answers, and maybe their beliefs don't fully align with yours, but this country used to operate on a few core ethics and beliefs, but saying "calm down libs" like it's a goddamn video game and keeping score is just putting us further into a shithole. So use your head, come up with some formal argument and supporting statements, and stop playing the fucking game and use your brain to fix the machine instead (or at the very least, step aside, drop the pompoms and stop playing cheerleader for the people who keep fucking shit up).
You seem to think I'm a conservative when it's really the absolute opposite. This is where "vote blue no matter who" gets us. It gets us the absolute worst neo-conservative candidates running as liberals. Kamala decided to move further right and it lost her the election and instead of blaming the politicians y'all seem to think you need to blame everyone else instead of the DNC for running genocide supporting candidates because they're deepthroating AIPAC money like it's a national sport.
It's sort of like a pre-emptive exaggeration. It's definitely possible WWIII starts with this. Ukraine, Trade War, Iran, then Taiwan and India-Pakistan. There is a non-zero chance it will escalate without stopping.
But by making fun of this "hysterical overreaction" now you prevent any serious anti-war opposition from gaining ground. At least that is what the psychological effect of this is: calming down the libs.
I mean, I doubt many people thought that a failed and then successful attempt on Ferdinand would result in thousands of men playing with new killing machines against dated formation ranks but it ended up there regardless (WW2 was gonna happen, and everyone knew it, it was just a matter of when)
I don't know enough history of WWI but it certainly feels like this to me. Like the climate wars have started, but everyone is being gaslit into thinking it's just this or that reason or bad guy.
You can just feel this tension in the zeitgeist, like "oooh these liberal cucks don't want us to nuuuuke someone, oh no, they'd really get soooo maaaad about nuking a little, would really be a shaaaaame hahaha"
Like if you'd make a referendum on whether or not to sell a few nukes to Ukraine, it would totally go through.
The long and short of WW1 was a bunch of inbred cousin monarchs were bickering about territories during the height of colonialism, and factioned up. One thought another country killed one of their Dukes, they denied it, were attacked anyhow, and then a barfight turned into a brawl, with the peons of each country being run into grinding machines (automatic machine guns were brand new and at the time old school block and line formations were still the normal way to group up and fight. So yeah, hundreds killed in seconds). After a few hundred thousand were dead from all over the world, the inbred officers realized war strategy had to change, and no one really knew wtf to do for awhile. More died, disease spread and killed even more, and eventually almost all blame fell to Germany (which was new and formed from various countries), and Germany got kinda punished unfairly, resulting in WW2 as Germans felt like they were punished so unfairly everyone else should pay. Very short version. Also Israel was formed at this time based on a whole shitload of reasons, that can be summed up with the British being narcissistic and doing whatever they thought was best while ignoring the political/religious minefield of their actions.
A $20,000 house bought with a job delivering mail, that requires no degree, while also having 3 kids, would disagree with you. Oh yeah, I bet those pensions were really hard on them to retire with. Poor babies.
asdf
I wish I could be so confident with such an incorrect and dishonest statement like you.
It's not really incorrect, it's just that it's only the START of the "Millennial" generation, not the whole thing.
Most people generally consider 1980 as the start (so most 1980 babies are 19 years old on Jan 1, 2000) of the Millennial generation. I've seen it as early as 79, and as late as 83 as the start year. No idea why sources vary on this, or why they pick those years instead of 1980. Anyone born in that range might also be called a Xennial, so it's sort of like if one thing considers you a Millennial, but you have strong Gen X energy, then you can be a Xennial if you feel like it. But No Xennial would want that because we don't fuck with Gen X like that.
I prefer calling the Xennials the "Oregon Trail" generation, as it implies we all risked having dysentery to survive.
Don't feed the trolls.
asdf
Read some Wikipedia you idiot
asdf