Can we talk about ageism?

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  • ZodZod Posts: 10,829
    edited May 27
    Actually I've wondered if life expectancy will start to decrease due to food supply and lack of health care.

    I had to change my diet for for health issues, and now I see that 90% of the grocery store is bad for you.  I can't unlearn what I learned :(

    My grandparents lived to the very end of their 80s.  They did a lot of gardening and ate pretty healthy.  Not sure many people do things like that anymore.
  • OnWis97OnWis97 St. Paul, MN Posts: 5,491
    edited May 27
    shecky said:
    static111 said:
    shecky said:

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-rowe-warns-declining-work-ethic-younger-generatiActor who has presumably never worked a real job in life criticizes others for not working hard enough, lol. Very insightful.  Stick to promoting trades which is actually one of the things I respect him for, being a welder and welding inspector and coming from a trades background.  Playing the political blame game and saying  younger people don’t have work ethic really is not the way to go.  The way I see it is companies are not offering enough to keep the younger generations at the table.  When rent, groceries, gas etc is unaffordable and you are expecting younger people to work for $18 an hour and sacrifice 40 plus hours a week, you are part of the problem.  10 years ago that was a lot of money, the world has moved on.  If companies want more young blood, they need to accommodate.  I sure wish I wouldn’t have had to work as hard as I have to get where I am.  Good on the kids for not accepting the bullshit crumbs that they are being offered.

    Funny that all the younger folks I come across that have good pay and a pathway to advancement have no problem working. It’s almost like employers need to offer more.
    When were wages for young people ever "high enough", or rent, groceries, gas etc. ever "affordable"?

    I left Ohio after high school in 1975 and hitchhiked out to California - "the land of dreams!".  My very first job, making the minimum wage of $2.00 an hour, was working the night shift at a self-service gas station. I was robbed at gunpoint one night, so I quit the next day. I quickly found a better (and safer) job.

    I never went to college but I always could find a job - usually hard, physical work but it "paid the bills". Eventually, one learns skills and gains knowledge so you start getting better jobs, where you not only can "pay the bills" but can save money, too.

    Fast foward fifty years, and I was finally able to retire recently. Monthly, I collect Social Security (which I paid for from each paycheck over the years), a union pension check (which I paid for via union dues from each paycheck) and I also managed to save and invest over the years.

    Besides young people complaining about it, I do get tired of people of my generation complaining that "the government doesn't take care of them"! You receive Social Security based on how much you paid in over the decades, and it never was intended to be a retiree's sole income. It's one's responsibilty to save up money over the decades for one's own retirement.

    Life has never been easy! 
    In the 1970s just about anyone who had a full-time job could buy a house.*  What happened? Shareholder capitalism (and St. Ronald) along with materialism (i.e., the three-car-garage cul-de-sac home replacing the 950-square-foot home in new construction).

    I think the biggest beef people have with the boomers is they're the last generation to secure the American Dream simply by working hard. From the 1980s to the aughts, the cost-of-living outpaced income and most of our labor goes towards filling the pockets of faceless people we'll never meet. Is that entirely the fault of boomers? Not really. As pointed out in the first response, generational labels are almost entirely about generalizations..."latch-key kids" of Gen X, Millennials (or is it Gen Y) being softened by helicopter parents. There's truth in these, but they're not universal.

    *PS and this is the way it ought to be. But most of us like to look down on people too much...
    Post edited by OnWis97 on
    1995 Milwaukee     1998 Alpine, Alpine     2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston     2004 Boston, Boston     2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty)     2011 Alpine, Alpine     
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    2024 Napa, Wrigley, Wrigley
  • OnWis97OnWis97 St. Paul, MN Posts: 5,491
    Zod said:
    Actually I've wondered if life expectancy will start to decrease due to food supply and lack of health care.

    I had to change my diet for for health issues, and now I see that 90% of the grocery store is bad for you.  I can't unlearn what I learned :(

    My grandparents lived to the very end of their 80s.  They did a lot of gardening and ate pretty healthy.  Not sure many people do things like that anymore.
    When you look at our weight/obesity levels over the last few decades, I have to think we'll see a decline. Between that, the cost of healthcare and the general stress of most people living entire lifetimes without economic security, I think it'll go down.

    It's apparently even dropping now for other reasons:
    Why life expectancy in the US is falling - Harvard Health
    1995 Milwaukee     1998 Alpine, Alpine     2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston     2004 Boston, Boston     2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty)     2011 Alpine, Alpine     
    2013 Wrigley     2014 St. Paul     2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley     2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley     2021 Asbury Park     2022 St Louis     2023 Austin, Austin
    2024 Napa, Wrigley, Wrigley
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,215
    My sister suffered from Ageism for her work.  She is a web designer.  She had a very hard time getting work because of her age... She was 42.

    Oh man, that's sad!
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni











  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,215
    Zod said:
    Actually I've wondered if life expectancy will start to decrease due to food supply and lack of health care.

    I had to change my diet for for health issues, and now I see that 90% of the grocery store is bad for you.  I can't unlearn what I learned :(

    My grandparents lived to the very end of their 80s.  They did a lot of gardening and ate pretty healthy.  Not sure many people do things like that anymore.

    I read somewhere that life expectancy is, indeed, lowering a bit.  In this country, having environmental protections being dismantled left and right is not helping.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni











  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,215
    OnWis97 said:
    Zod said:
    Actually I've wondered if life expectancy will start to decrease due to food supply and lack of health care.

    I had to change my diet for for health issues, and now I see that 90% of the grocery store is bad for you.  I can't unlearn what I learned :(

    My grandparents lived to the very end of their 80s.  They did a lot of gardening and ate pretty healthy.  Not sure many people do things like that anymore.
    When you look at our weight/obesity levels over the last few decades, I have to think we'll see a decline. Between that, the cost of healthcare and the general stress of most people living entire lifetimes without economic security, I think it'll go down.

    It's apparently even dropping now for other reasons:
    Why life expectancy in the US is falling - Harvard Health

    So sad.  We could have done so much better.  I remember once hearing that more and more people will live to be centenarians.  No so likely now.  I guess the new radical right must hate life.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni











  • HughFreakingDillonHughFreakingDillon Winnipeg Posts: 39,137
    Labels are just language. A way to describe a group. If the majority of that group did some shitty things or shitty things happened on their watch, so to speak, the entire group gets lumped in. 

    Some people intend to lump the entire group, like when someone says “the left”, others don’t, like when we say “boomers fucked us”. 😂 
    "every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers"




  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,215
    edited May 27
    Labels are just language. A way to describe a group. If the majority of that group did some shitty things or shitty things happened on their watch, so to speak, the entire group gets lumped in. 

    Some people intend to lump the entire group, like when someone says “the left”, others don’t, like when we say “boomers fucked us”. 😂 

    ... or, "All boomers are elitist radical leftist commies."  :lol:
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni











  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,744
    Saw this online and made me think of this thread ….


    hippiemom = goodness
  • tempo_n_groovetempo_n_groove Posts: 40,943
    brianlux said:
    Labels are just language. A way to describe a group. If the majority of that group did some shitty things or shitty things happened on their watch, so to speak, the entire group gets lumped in. 

    Some people intend to lump the entire group, like when someone says “the left”, others don’t, like when we say “boomers fucked us”. 😂 

    ... or, "All boomers are elitist radical leftist commies."  :lol:
    I thought you became more conservative when older?
  • PoncierPoncier Posts: 17,669
    brianlux said:
    Labels are just language. A way to describe a group. If the majority of that group did some shitty things or shitty things happened on their watch, so to speak, the entire group gets lumped in. 

    Some people intend to lump the entire group, like when someone says “the left”, others don’t, like when we say “boomers fucked us”. 😂 

    ... or, "All boomers are elitist radical leftist commies."  :lol:
    I thought you became more conservative when older?
    My theory is folks go through an arc. Start out young, idealistic and liberal. Get to prime earning years and see what the gov't is taking in taxes and turn conservative. Reach retirement age and need the gov't handouts so turn back to liberal.
    This weekend we rock Portland
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