[galacticsurfer]

I am just reading Millenials Rising from year 2000. They say that millenials are hardworking, disciplined team players for whom parents and society have sacrificed everything. They were nice clean clothes, etc. It sounds something like the 50s but with high tech. This is as opposed to Xers who went it alone and listened to grunge music and went criminal or free agent at best.

Before I saw below article linked at LATOC I was thinking of a comparison to book of Job for millenials. What if all this support is taken away. What happens to all that positive attitude and hard work and teamwork? This article seems to be the answer. A sharp rise in violent crime, the first in 10 years as the government is now spending all that money going previously to millenial watching and coddling into antiterrorism measures and war fighting.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/0 ... _violence/

I wonder if teamwork and discipline and the racial tolerance they are famed for in their Millenials Rising book could deteriorate so quickly to a radical attitude similar to their parents in the 1960s(only in oppositie direction- to the right) riots where kids used to getting everything(in this case in exchange for hard work and good grades) find that they have no jobs and no future for all that slave work to get straight As, etc. Millenials could be a very pliable force for an evil dictator type as in Hitler's time as they like to take orders and conform readily. Will they be somebody's Stormtroops, private army to sweep away democracy in exchange for job and group security/identity?

America seems the best place for such radicalism nowadays as Europe has already experienced such madness before and has learned its lessons quite well(Germany and Italy in WWII and France under Napoleon). Americans believe they are the center of the world and they cannot really be evil having brought democracy to Europe and Asia in WWII and being only superpower. Perhaps a coming financial crisis due to housing bubble bursting and due to PO will pit USA against China under similarly nationalistic leaders with only a veneer of democracy as many claim now is actually the case allthough courts and opposition party- however toothless still exist(maybe all those nasty blogs and forums spreading antigovt. propaganda and perhaps even the whole internet could be shut down).

[pup55]

Good post, Galacticsurfer...

I think this whole thing about the disciplined team players etc. of the millenial generation is accurate, but it will not necessarily work in their favor.

Reason: they will be loathe to rise up and overthrow the system if things get too far out of whack.

When young, the boomer generation was known for rising up and changing the system when it was broken: re: civil rights, earth day, Vietnam, and women's rights. This went so far as to have some of them take a rubber bullet or tear gas for the cause. This was not necessarily a radical few students doing this uprising, Sit-ins were quite common on college campuses and a lot of kids were politically active at some level.

In fact, a lot of the problems in the country started when this generation got old and stopped taking to the streets, with a few notable exceptions such as Cindy Sheehan.

Nowadays, you would be hard pressed to organize a group of young people to protest anything. There are plenty of opportunities: The social security issue, stolen elections, Iraq, student debt situation, minumum wage, had any of these things occurred during the 60's there would already be wall-to-wall campus protests. At the very least, you would think that the raising of the drinking age to 21 (which means the kids in Iraq being considered old enough to go over and get shot at but not yet be eligible to have a beer at the PX) would be a target of this. But, it's not.

So the effect of this is that the millenials will continue to be exploited, work quietly within the system, etc. and these injustices will continue on. Maybe theirs is a better way, but I wonder.

[Tyler_JC]

Considering that the Xers did absolutely nothing to improve society, the Millenials can't be expected to believe in their ability to change anything.

And frankly, they see no reason to.

Infotainment gives them a sense that the world is basically perfect. There are problems, sure, but these problems don't become the focus of their lives.

As a side note, I find this sentence rather disturbing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his article seems to be the answer. A sharp rise in violent crime, the first in 10 years as the government is now spending all that money going previously to millenial watching and coddling into antiterrorism measures and war fighting.

[mgibbons19]

That's a Struass and Howe book, and it's important to understand the larger context they are using. Millies Rising fits into generational/cycle theory very specifically. It's not just that they are team players, but that when TSHTF, their team-orientedness is what drives them as foot soldiers. According to SnH, they would never rise up against authority like the boomers. It's not in their nature as a group (not necessarily as individuals).

There's a lot of current writing about the millies and how self-centered they are right now, and that vein squares off directly against the SnH crowd. The only thing is to wait and see. If SnH are right, the next 20 years are going to be very rocky indeed, and the roles Millies play will be something like "The Greatest Generation" in WW2. The other SnH outcome is something akin to the Civil War where the two dutiful sides lined up against each other and blasted away until the last man was gone.

Boomers would never fight like this, Xers would never fight like this. Boomers are too ideological, without total war experience (which is why as elders they get their societies into shit like this). Xers are too 'free-agentish', but if total war happens, expect them to be frighteningly calculating and pragmatic (SnH contend that Truman dropping the bombs fits into the Xer profile).

So, there's a little bit on generational/cycle theory. Personally I think we will need to wait another 10 or 20 years to see what the Millies really are like. Face it, Xers at 40 aren't much like the media steretypes of them at 20.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('galacticsurfer', '
')I wonder if teamwork and discipline and the racial tolerance they are famed for in their Millenials Rising book could deteriorate so quickly to a radical attitude similar to their parents in the 1960s(only in oppositie direction- to the right) riots where kids used to getting everything(in this case in exchange for hard work and good grades) find that they have no jobs and no future for all that slave work to get straight As, etc. Millenials could be a very pliable force for an evil dictator type as in Hitler's time as they like to take orders and conform readily. Will they be somebody's Stormtroops, private army to sweep away democracy in exchange for job and group security/identity?

[vision-master]

Sounds like the "pleasantville" generation from doing a research on the net. The everything is happy generation.

[greenworm]

So who fought the battle of seattle or did that not happen, the late 90's saw the biggest surge in activism since the 60's and it was global or do you just believe the news. As for the new generation, they grew up on Britney Spears and oversexed television, so it is safe to say they won't rise up against anything except if their laptop or television gets taken away. I think teamplayer is a term that means one can't think outside the box and is more than happy to do whatever the boss dictates because they are a follower not a leader. I really hope we don't have a generation of these since peak jobs will follow peak oil. There are undercurrents of the x'ers still prominent in today's generation, they are not all rap listening shake your booty bubble heads. For instance, punk rock has become extremely mainstream, checkout the latest video for rise against riseagainst

This band is no doubt an offshoot of the punk rock scene that grew to prominence in the 80's (x'ers), and survived in the 90's. Their video is food for thought and ironically isn't aired on mtv. There are actually hardcore bands from the mid nineties that discuss issues of peak oil and corruption in their lyrics long before this web site came into existence. I must admit, however, that these are folks in the minority, extreme minority. I personally believe with the advent of the internet and the path laid down by the x'ers (not the grunge folks, lets face it whatever the radio plays is what the sheeple will listen to) is brewing an interesting convergence. Rage against the machine and atari teenage riot along with their forefathers dead kennedys and exploited are more radical and less packaged then the present dissenting music, but like Doly said, this could change in a big way.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', ' ')Xers are too 'free-agentish', but if total war happens, expect them to be frighteningly calculating and pragmatic (SnH contend that Truman dropping the bombs fits into the Xer profile).

[galacticsurfer]

Thanks for all the answers. Any millenials out there(under 24s apparently) to say what they think?

There are a couple of negative possibilities for the government to use the millenials when the time comes:

1) WWIII soldiers and rosie riveters(or female soldiers)-see Iraq and slowly sliding into this war already

2) internal security in case of massive clampdown post peak or whatever economic crisis

On the other hand a civil war type situation or a dissolving country could occur with regions in America(like in 1860) or particular sides using millenials as private armies as in Gemany/Italy in fascist/Nazi times to suppress internal enemies(Brown shirts/black shirts).

That is the bad side of discipline and hard work/team work and good attitude. The group accepts the leader and gets stuff done. I don't think that Germans/Japanese believed they were evil in WWII. Afterwards they were the losers and the propaganda drilled this idea into them so that now they are reluctant to even shoot one bullet in another country in a peacekeeping force. They had a similar generation like we ahve growing up now everywhere. Conformist, positive. Good kids with teamwork. Things went wrong and they accepted the solutions given to them by their parents and authorities. They really had no choice. The Germans and Japanese and Italians were boxed in by earlier colonial powers who had taken all the good stuff first(In India nad Africa,etc.) Some Germans/Japanese/Italians were evil sadists just as anywhere nowadays. In Iraq this evil tendency is coming out in US soldiers under stress. We all have it in us.

I just think that America is the only country capable of and willing to start and fight WWIII thinking that they are right from the beginning("Our oil/American Way of Life"). All the other big economic powers have been "neutered" psychologically(Brits and French decide to go along on a case by case basis as followers or to sit it out). China is up and coming and believes in itself too so it is the only other power who will not let itself be shoved around and is building its military accordingly. The Russiabns remain in background support role to other antiamerican opposition. The Persiand and Arabs are too small to fight USA alone so "terrorism and nukes" is only solution along with ties to China and possibly Russia.

The only rational solution to a Post Peak oil meltdown is of course powerdown. The milennials would be the hands that take on this work by the millions. They would be perfect for this. Millions of dutifulaa nts building a new world where we could all live in harmony with the environment and one another.

Maybe this beutiful idealistic solution will have to wait until(like Germany and Japan post WWII) USA is destroyed and humiliated by China or by terrorists or by a civil war as I just do not think that the boomers and the Xers will massively accept powerdown and its consequences in their lives. They are too rooted in the current reality of debt, consumption, suburbia, obesity, American dominance in world culture, economics and military.

Millenials are good kids but they have even less choices than young Xers 10 years ago who got rich on Internet bubble. The next bubble is a giant war build up like under FDR and Hitler and Stalin parallel to each other. Its already happening in China, Russia, USA etc.

[mgibbons19]

If you're turned on by this stuff, you should look into other SnH books. I first found them with 13th Gen, which eerily caught how I felt about the world circa 1995 (I'm a core Xer).

But for the Peak Oil crowd, The Fourth Turning is the one to read. SnH think there is going to be a season of crisis. Previous crises included WW2, The Civil War, or the Revolution of 1776. Coming through and out of the crisis, it is the Millies who do the grunt work. So, if this turns out to be an energy crisis, then yes, the Millies will be the ones rebuilding the railroads, the energy efficient homes, the walkable neighborhoods, the nuke plants, whatever.

Also look at

History Unfolding

Xenakakis' Generational Dynamics

IIRC the first guy is a history prof at a military school somewhere, and the second guy is an old trader or something. He's more doomerific, thinking that the next crisis will necessarily involve total war with China. I don't know if I agree with him, but it's interesting reading at the least.

[Itch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hey say that millenials are hardworking, disciplined team players for whom parents and society have sacrificed everything. They were nice clean clothes, etc.

[mgibbons19]

Great points, and I too am skeptical about lumping people together. No I am not, I am Sociologist, who am I kidding?

Seriously though, you have to think about it like an average with standard deviations and all that. Of course there are people who don't fit the model. In fact few people will fit the model perfectly. People who are extremely different from the model are simply statistically less likely.

I like them most for historical cycles idea. It works for me.

[galacticsurfer]

I know the idea of people behaving all the same due to birth time smacks of astrology which by the way I trust a lot more as I know it better than this genertional concept. However I think this fills in a big hole which also astrologists talk about-mainly the outer planets for a long aspect - like for me in the mid 60s which brought radicalism.

Anyway it is sort of obvious that people get socialized in a certain era and that the "average" expected behaviour shifts over time. A single mother in 1950s was not "normal" or acceptable morally to the great expanse of the population. Everybody accepted union work in the 50s and college was above average. Now a degree you can wipe your butt with for all it's worth and every second idiot has an MBA. Heavy debt is normal. In earlier days it was immoral. So people grow up with a certain radar for what is normal, moral, average, accepted and ok. I mean is it ok to be gay or marry a black girl(for a white guy) if you are 80, 60 , 40, 20 years old? Take a survey and say what are people's attitudes on average in such age groups to hard work, money, spiritual fulfillment, etc. The people react according to majority rules in their childhood and youth. I came of age under Reagan and believed money was good and tech great, etc. This does not change my personality. Like I am pisces, so maybe I am better at music and moody, ok, like most pisces, but that says nothing about my attitudes to the big societal things like work, marriage, institutional religion, war, patriotism. These things are controlled more by generational mechanism.

Since I am talking about it I should throw in standard 20 year conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn which is supposed to control the societal direction. This always happens around zero years(1900,1920,1940,1960,1980,2000,2020). From astrological point of view this discovery of Strauss and Howe is pretty stupid as it was always obvious to astrologers. Uranus takes 84 years to go around the sun(so 80 year cycle covered too). Uranus meets or opposes Saturn every 22 and 42 years, about. I mean, people will say coincidence, like with superstition. The same could be said of Generational Theory. Gee - Shit Happens-or in other words everything is chaotic. However there are chaotic attractors as explained in Generational Dynamics(like the seasons attract certain weather- heat or snow- although daily weather may be completely unpredictable).

So average acceptable behaviour in a society shifts over time. We talk about the pendulum swinging to the right or left in politics. Now it looks to be shifting left in November elections for example. The idea of predicting the future in Fourth Turning is just to take the Average Joe(who does not really exist, but who everybody thinks he himself is- that is a normal average Joe Public). So we are lemmings following what we feel from others. If you can predict where this middle will go over time you can predcit the future pretty accurately. Big history is a stereotype of peoples at a certain time. From a micro view it seems to be BS but it works for the big picture just like average weather works for seasonal predictions as it is based on chaotic attractors in systems. Human society is a chaotic system. We all seem to be single dots but like photons we make a sine wave flowing along.

So generational theory predicts that "winter" occurs 60-80 years after the last one. A"year" lasts a lifetime of 80 years(Uranus orbital time). The 4 generations(20 year saturn/Jupiter cycles) have an "average personality type" which occupy their places in winter typically. We are now in winter and storms and snow are certain until the coldest point sometime in January, February when things start to get better slowly. I am guessing with everybody else that housing bust, PO, debt, etc. will bring a depression leading to WWIII. Spring will come when we dig ourselves out and build up a powerdown society.

kids born afterwards will be in a society without cars and suburbs perhaps and with a "few" less people than today but more sustainable. Millenials will gradually take over from Xers who will in the next 10-15 years take over from boomers. The Millenials' own kids born post war will rebel against the simplistic materialist slant of Powerdown Age around 2040-2060 in a new spiritual awakening which will cherish simplicity of land and perhaps horse farming. etc. over huge windmills and massive amounts of nano solar cells painted on every house and piece of clothing and will again form free love religious type communes as typically occur every 80 years. Then the new Xers will exploit some technology cynically and be negative generally 2060-2080 and then in 2080 a new crisis phase will start up till 2100.