It's really so sad and frustrating for those under the age of 45. Millennials were raised during a time of prosperity and possibilities, only to find out it was all a sham by the selfish, stupid and mostly older generations. Now Millennials, Gen Z and Gen A will reap the outcomes of all that while those who caused it will die off before things get even worse. I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
as a genXer we were promised and viewed all that could be done and was being done. then they voted in Reagan and was all stripped away. any glimpse of prosperity during the 90s was GenX optimism that was destroyed in 2000 when it was all stolen from everyone again. GenX doesn't do anything anymore because we were told to shut up as we grew up in the 80s and then had it stolen again in the 2000 election.
I feel like you're doing Gen X a huge disservice here. Like there's a chunk of history you're not familiar with.
Gen X was the first generation to go to college only to come out saddled with debt and only "mcjobs" to show for it. We graduated into NAFTA and globalisation.
There were some hardcore protests, movements, and mobilisations around the issues that matter... Economy, environment, women's rights, employee rights, animal welfare rights, etc.
It has very obviously continued to deteriorate, but I'll admit there was optimism because we did see some gains and some promise... I can't remember the last time I felt any optimism about this world.
People are selfish and stupid no matter the age. My city is full of people driving gas guzzlers, traveling all the time, and ordering UberEats for every meal. They are all under 45. Then gen Z are particular bad and refuse to use public transit.
It's not about age. It's about class/wealthy. The poor use far fewer resources than the wealthy do. Rich young people are living in 5000sq ft homes by themselves and burning through natural gas and oil. They aren't living in 500sq ft apartment like ordinary folks.
I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
Not all of us were apathetic; there were many who tried to fight for what was considered really progressive ideas at the time, like fighting for equal rights and against climate change, but there weren't enough of us. We're a smaller generation anyway, didn't have a good way to make our voices heard since the internet was still in its infancy, and were turned into a punchline by the media. And everybody believed it. Slacker, freeloader, tree-hugger, JFC it's no wonder why nobody took us seriously. I mean, frick, in the 90s everyone got their news from four network channels and a few cable channels on tv, so America believed the hype and largely wrote us off.
We tried, man. We did the absolute best we could with a shitty situation, and it stings to think about how we weren't able to accomplish more in our youth. Please don't write us off as a useless apathetic generation, we've already been through that before. Besides, you're probably thinking of our parents, the Boomer generation (born 1945-1965). They aren't entirely to blame for the country's problems, but they held (still do in many ways) most of the power and chose to throw their support behind rich wealthy conservative assholes, and we're still feeling the affects of their decisions. Again, they don't deserve all the blame, but the sheer amount of Boomer shit contributions to society dwarfs what the worst of Gen X ever did.
I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
@Ganondorf While growing up, GenX was vastly outnumbered by Greatest Generation, Silent Generation & Boomers. The stereotype is that they cynically opted out but I think a lot of that was because there were limited democratic options available and it was deeply frustrating to many.
It's really so sad and frustrating for those under the age of 45. Millennials were raised during a time of prosperity and possibilities, only to find out it was all a sham by the selfish, stupid and mostly older generations.
I share your frustration. The US is still the wealthiest country on earth by a large margin, with many possibilities if we can convince ourselves to share it equitably. We could make our systemic incentives virtuous rather than destructive. We don't need to squeeze everyone and reward bad actors to have abundance.
Just don't believe this is anything new. Back in time, people used to seriously believe in faeries, trolls, deamons, angels and other supernatural phenomena.
That's how you could lead people to carry holy wars and consider serfdom and slavery as natural order of things.
Back in the 80's, I remember a report from an ethnologist going to Nepal and meeting people who seriously believed that Russians had goat feet.
If anything, the internet has revealed the credulity of the general population, and provides means to fight and contain superstitions of various kinds.
When did we fail going forward? As humanity, I mean.
There have always been people who opposed progress for various reasons, and sometimes their reasons were understandable and even forgivable. Nobody can care about everything at once in equal measure and sometimes the safest default is "let's not rock the boat when things seem to be going well."
There's one current obstacle to progress that I have a harder time forgiving, though. Every time there's discussion of the possibility of doing some research into geoengineering as a means to counteract climate change a whole pile of people come out with "but that will only encourage more burning of fossil fuels" and "haven't you seen Snowpiercer?" counterarguments. It's wearying. The same people usually love the "we've passed an irreversible tipping point" articles that go on about how doomed we all are and how futile any further attempts to reverse climate change are.
If they really think we're doomed and nothing more can be done, then get out of the way of the people who are still trying to come up with solutions. A generation ago the same problem prevented nuclear power from being a useful solution.
What's sad is nuclear power is still a useful solution. It's not a perfect solution. Not by a long shot. But as far as non-renewable power sources go, nuclear is by far the most efficient. Yet today the US has virtually no nuclear power development going on.
As long as all the air-conditioning is chugging along, most people won't even notice. Thank god the texan electric grid is stable enough to never cut out.
Wait..
My power just went out again. It has failed 3 times in the last 2 weeks. I'm in Houston. The storm that blew through took me out for 3 1/2 day. A week later another storm downed us for 3 hours and now I'm typing this in my powerless house once again. I heard a pop this time so I'm assuming it's a transformer. Centex says it will be back in a few hours. The only reason I'm still in this sh*t hole state is because my husband's parents are here. Thank God I have an appt with a generator company tomorrow. Eff this state in the A
When I work at military facilities in the US, they use wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) which adds the heating effect of direct sunlight.
We use it to prevent heat stroke. DoD has a system of colored flags that index to the WBGT. Red and black flags indicate that folks working outside need to take breaks at some increased frequency.
Basically you put two old-style thermometers next to each other. One has a conventional ‘dry’ bulb. The other has damp gauze or something similar wrapped around the bulb.
In low humidity conditions, the wet bulb thermometer will read considerably cooler as the evaporating water cools the thermometer
At 100% humidity the two thermometers will read the same, as no water will be evaporating.