Defeated and trapped. Young look on in despair at The Kingdom of the Boomers

lisyloo

Housing is definitely harder.
Food is definitely cheaper and probably motoring too (depending on exactly which era you are comparing to).
There are a lot more opportunities these days for women especially, but also more opportunities to travel, go to uni etc.

Some things are better some are worse, some are cheaper some are more expensive.

I have to say if I had a choice I'd rather be born in my generation (60's) and not be young now, but it's not certainly not all worse.
I had very little in the 70's and 80's in terms of personal possessions - but I think we were happier.

BobQ

Seabee42 wrote: »

Whether it was easier or not should largely be irrelevant. If it is a recognised problem that needs fixing what can we do? I like many am not convinced with our current education system or all the 2 1s from university from people who would never have even got into any college even polytechnics but how do you wind back that clock?

With so many going the state cost had to change hence student fees. For those who go is it better that a degree is now average? Should we ration places again?

NB I am not a baby boomer I think about 8% went to university when I was there and that did include me. But for many years I could not afford a house and in fact this was not possible until the 90s crash.

Sadly with everything being propped up and not allowed to crash this has removed the same opportunity.

It is easy to say "what are we going to do about it?" but the solutions are all unpalatable.

I think we need to make it easier for the best students to get to university and incentivise them to do the subjects we need by free or subsidised tuition fees (based on ability not social background). We also need to have some recognition that a good degree from a good university in an academic subject is more meaningful as a measure of potential than a degree in a non-academic subject from an average institution. We also need to raise educational standards.

Another thing that has changed is that when university places were less easily obtained, employers took on more people with a good basic education (A levels) and trained them with the expectation that they would stay with them for many years. These days there is an assumption that everyone jumps around from job to job and so employers do minimal training and rely on public qualifications. Unfortunately the latter are increasingly evidence of little more than an extended education, rather than the ability to solve problems.

Sibley

Don't care. I'm happy house prices are rising.

Percy1983

BobQ wrote: »

It is easy to say "what are we going to do about it?" but the solutions are all unpalatable.

I think we need to make it easier for the best students to get to university and incentivise them to do the subjects we need by free or subsidised tuition fees (based on ability not social background). We also need to have some recognition that a good degree from a good university in an academic subject is more meaningful as a measure of potential than a degree in a non-academic subject from an average institution. We also need to raise educational standards.

Another thing that has changed is that when university places were less easily obtained, employers took on more people with a good basic education (A levels) and trained them with the expectation that they would stay with them for many years. These days there is an assumption that everyone jumps around from job to job and so employers do minimal training and rely on public qualifications. Unfortunately the latter are increasingly evidence of little more than an extended education, rather than the ability to solve problems.

I have to agree, in an old job I used to work with a lot of graduates, many of them where great but I will say many where the thickest clever people I have ever met.

I will say its funny you mention problem solving skills as they are the main asset which have got me where I am in my career to date and what has separated me from many of my peers, with that my capacity to memorise things isn't the best which I will say many exams these days are basically just memory tests, remember said facts or formulas and recall them for the exam, I have to learn how/why things work for it to stick which gives me an edge when you have to reverse engineer a problem.

I am not saying either is right or wrong, but I do think they general exam system doesn't really test much more than memory these days.

ruggedtoast

Sibley wrote: »

Don't care. I'm happy house prices are rising.

Do you have no compassion for the young and unfortunate?

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Do you have no compassion for the young and unfortunate?

there are no young and unfortunate

we all live in one of the richest societies that has ever lived and to be young is very heaven

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

there are no young and unfortunate

we all live in one of the richest societies that has ever lived and to be young is very heaven

That pretty well sums it up.

Almost everyone in Britain can afford to have instant access to the entire sum of human knowledge (plus pictures of cats and of people having sex) via something about the size of a cigarette packet in their pocket. To someone in the 1970s that would be the stuff of fantasy. To someone in the 1870s that would be the stuff of madness or magic.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

That pretty well sums it up.

Almost everyone in Britain can afford to have instant access to the entire sum of human knowledge (plus pictures of cats and of people having sex) via something about the size of a cigarette packet in their pocket. To someone in the 1970s that would be the stuff of fantasy. To someone in the 1870s that would be the stuff of madness or magic.

By that logic someone with a pair of google glasses and a monthly subscription to Jugz.com should transcend to nirvana.

I think there is more to life than owning a smartphone. I am not especially sure owning a smartphone even does make people happier. In the 1870s people could buy opium, drunk laudnum, collude with a lady of the evening without being arrested, settle a grievance with a pistol duel like men, bare knuckle fight, go on a sea voyage fighting pirates with cutlasses and make their fortunes exploring darkest Africa while experiencing the thrilling certainty that logic and reason would create a perfect world.

Or they could be looking at Facebook on a smartphone here. I know which one sounds better to me.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

By that logic someone with a pair of google glasses and a monthly subscription to Jugz.com should transcend to nirvana.

I think there is more to life than owning a smartphone. I am not especially sure owning a smartphone even does make people happier. In the 1870s people could buy opium, drunk laudnum, collude with a lady of the evening without being arrested, settle a grievance with a pistol duel like men, bare knuckle fight, go on a sea voyage fighting pirates with cutlasses and make their fortunes exploring darkest Africa while experiencing the thrilling certainty that logic and reason would create a perfect world.

Or they could be looking at Facebook on a smartphone here. I know which one sounds better to me.

yes indeed;
in the 1870s the UK had one of the richest peoples that the world had every known
and to be young was very heaven

just like today for the young.

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

By that logic someone with a pair of google glasses and a monthly subscription to Jugz.com should transcend to nirvana.

I think there is more to life than owning a smartphone. I am not especially sure owning a smartphone even does make people happier. In the 1870s people could buy opium, drunk laudnum, collude with a lady of the evening without being arrested, settle a grievance with a pistol duel like men, bare knuckle fight, go on a sea voyage fighting pirates with cutlasses and make their fortunes exploring darkest Africa while experiencing the thrilling certainty that logic and reason would create a perfect world.

Or they could be looking at Facebook on a smartphone here. I know which one sounds better to me.

Which one? Don't just leave us hanging!

BTW, some of those things are wrong. Let's not worry about that though.