"Millennials and Zoomers Are Soft"

What language are you all speaking?

American.

Kind of pointless on an online forum.

STEM does not mean one has to apply engineering/science principles to every single thing.

You have been around how long and never ran into “Star Wars”?

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Long enough to been brought up with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

And yes, I ran into one Star Wars movie, my guess is that it was the third one. None of my three friends were there.

I was raised being beaten pretty much daily. I’m sure it affected me negatively, but not NEARLY as much as the verbal abuse. I can still hear that today, but I don’t have any real scars from the beatings.

The only time I ever swatted my kid’s butt was when he was reaching for a hot stove. I didn’t feel like there was time to wait for him to grow up so I could explain why that was not a good idea.

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agreed

I can’t help but hear an “as God intended” at the end of this statement, haha. (No offense intended.)

As some of you know, we have a big forested property in the mountains of New England. I spent last weekend camping there with a mixed-age group, which probably ranged from very late 20’s to mid-60’s. There were sixteen of us, with two other women in the group, so thirteen men. It’s an annual shooting thing. My husband’s family is from the Boston area, so they are mostly from there. Suburban people, though locals come by to hang out as well. The younger guys are mostly attached to my husband’s nephew. Some of them have been around for a long time now; since they were very young adults playing lumberjack and running the excavator up there.

So. Here they come with (pretty serious looking to me) guns and clay pigeons and other targets, some homemade and some fairly ingenious. They tend to come from the tech school that both my husband and nephew attended. They are high school shop teachers and electricians at Ivy League Universities and defense contractor workers and HVAC guys. All solid, all well-mannered, all gainfully and well employed. I’ve met some of the wives (summer camping, lol) and they seem delightful as well. Just clean, healthy people. A couple of the guys are ex-military, most not. My husband spent 3 weeks several years ago canoeing the Yukon River with three of the guys who were with us last weekend - the nephew and two of his guys.

Anyway, my point is that I don’t see them as soft at all. I see them as competent, and if ever “it all went down,” I’d be pleased for these guys and their families to collect with us here. We would thrive.

My own sons are also millennials and Z’s. They are softer than the above crowd in many ways due to my influence, which has created a more bookish sort of man, or at least 2/3 of them are, but I would not label them “soft” in the sense that they are incompetent or lacking skill or drive. One is an analyst, one a 911 dispatcher, and the last a butcher.

I honestly can’t say that I’ve noticed much difference over time to the types of people I encounter. “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” (I don’t mean that religiously, but more in the sense that nothing changes.)

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https://www.science.org/content/article/early-humans-domesticated-themselves-new-genetic-evidence-suggests

Obviously this is clipped out of context, but I think it’s interesting you think this.

I spend a whole lot of my STEM life trying to make sense of “maybe”s and other ambiguities, and building arguments (and products) on top of a bunch of uncertainties.

Though most of that does (or at least could) come with confidence intervals, if anyone asks.

For that matter, most of medicine is pretty much built on educated guesswork. But yeah there are definitely some “less rigorous” branches of medicine. Maybe even “medicine” depending on where you land.

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I think he likes to pretend he only is aware of Greek and Roman references and the like, and has no concept of any American pop culture references from the last 50 years because it makes him seemed wiser and more sophisticated.

Thanks for sharing this. Both of these show me that what I’m dealing with at home is something else entirely.

This all makes sense to me, and is basically effective with one of my kids (he’s 3). We had an issue with touching the stove knobs and another with unlocking the front door and going outside. Both had to be dealt with quickly and appropriately.

The other kid (5) doesn’t function at all the same way. Does not respond at all to escalation of consequences. Just becomes more animalistic and feral in her response. Restraint and isolation — and time — are the only effective ways to deal with it. We’re working with professionals, and still struggling.

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Man, sorry to hear. That has to be extremely frustrating.

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I chalk it up to unrealized religious trauma. Which I am sure will be a triggering phrase. (Coincidentally, the word “trauma” seems to cause a rise in a lot of folks who like to call others snowflakes and the like). Sucks to confront stuff one has clung so hard to. I’ve been there.

Let’s be real though, anyone looking to the KJV as the end all be all translation of the arbitrarily decided 66 books of the Bible (why were the Apochrypha and other similar texts left out?) does not understand the text of the Bible or it’s history or historical context. It’s pretty unanimously regarded by biblical scholars to be the translation most in error to primary sources of the Biblical text that have so far been found. Not to mention other facts about King James himself no one likes to talk about.

Also, in some some denominations of Christian you will quite literally get shamed for reading anything other than the Bible and be told you’re going to hell because you played Dungeons and Dragons (google “Judgement House D&D scenes” - a judgement house is basically a messed up church version of a haunted house where they try to convince you to be saved by scaring the crap out of you). My wife’s aunt seriously believes her son committed suicide because he played D&D. I wish I was making that up because it sounds like fiction.
My wife couldn’t tell anyone her mom let her read Harry Potter because “it promotes witchcraft” and is “from the devil”.

So not being aware of pop culture or other literature references is by design. One might came across something that actually makes one think. Or scarier yet, question what one has been told to believe. Which is the softer/easier track? Following that which one has been told to follow blindly or constantly questioning what is being presented? The former is the much easier path.

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I hope it all works out. There is not a one size fits all solution, that’s for sure.

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I know that Sith is from Star Wars but I have no idea what they were talking about when referring to it.

Does anyone remember this NYC boomer-parent PSA? Lol.

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:rofl:

We used to day that while we were in the woods partying.

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It’s interesting that other than the news anchor, all the other ones are geriatric, not parents of young children.

But you can interpret that several ways.

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Well, that sounds like a rockin’ good time.

Ironically “You gotta fight,” by the Beastie Boys is playing right now. But yeah, wood parties were great. It was all wooden pallet bonfires, go carts, and I’ll censor the rest.

Kind of glad I’m too old for that shit anymore.

Your vices need to evolve.

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