Walter S

Who's angry? It doesn't bother me as much as interests me. There's no good and bad here. But there is fit and not fit and the resulting impact on health and resilience. Physics dictates things like that.

Roody

And a couple observations:

1. This whole thread was angry and ugly until three of our saner members--who all happen to be female--got people to take a deep breath and think about the child. Sadly, women are very under-represented on bikeforums.net, including LCF.
2. Why the absence of millennial people on this thread, and on bikeforums.net in general? Could it be that they find stereotyping threads like this one to be off-putting? BF is not going to be around very long if they don't attract young people to the fold.

Yellowbeard

A third observation: this thread was absolutely ridiculous from the start.

cooker

You say it like it's a bad thing BTW I'd be thrilled to join in seriously on any 'more appropriate' thread you wish to start.

Roody

Well there you have it.

I-Like-To-Bike

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn't start any thread in which you would be thrilled to join.

highrpm

I love the "get of my lawn" feel of this thread!

My boys range in age from 5 to 12. The older ones do not deliver papers, this is true. But they are online with their friends, making gaming videos on Youtube. Some of them are making money on this. A few of these guys are trying to see if they can money on elance or other small jobs sites. These kids aren't even teenagers yet.

My point is that the kids today seem very very bright to me. They were all born with access to the world's knowledge at their fingertips. They seem inquisitive and know that every question can be answered easily by Siri or Google.

I compare myself at their age and marvel at how quickly even my 5 year old is grasping seemingly difficult concepts and vocabulary.

I look at these kids and marvel at how much more they will accomplish, and more efficiently, in their lifetime than we ever did in ours.

wolfchild

Why ??...Because all the millennials are on Facebook and Instagram posting their selfies and looking at other peoples selfies... Millennialls are more interested in the latest fashion trends then transportational cycling.

rockmom

Here's the thing, we were relatively clueless about the primary cause of death for almost all of human history. Until we could effectively communicate with each other over distances and record those converstaions, we just caught infection after infection then died of it. Over millennia, our immune systems made valiant efforts and evolution lead to the survivors have marginally more resistance to the most common infectious agents. But recording our observations and then sharing them widely via the printing press allowed us to make real progress in the avoidance of morbidity and mortality. Not breaking a sweat, but sitting in a lab with others endelessly repeating experiments, writing down the results, and then sending out those results and the ideas they spawned for others to critic and duplicate and argue over let us overcome bacteria and viruses in just a few short generations.

Simply breaking a sweat isn't going to solve the big issues facing us in the coming decades. For example, antibiotic resistance isn't going to be overcome with physical strength or speed. It will be countered by the computer programmers, biochemists, microbiologists, and immunologists who will find new antibiotics or new ways to use old ones. They will undoubtedly spend lots of time staring at computer screens with models of organisms and compounds doing battle. They'll be using social media and email to interact with other people working on similar projects around the world. And tablets, and smartphones, and assorted devices will be used to make it all happen faster and easier than ever before.

I hope those programmers and scientists are or will be leading balanced lives that include breaking a sweat. But their contributions are going to come from the tedious, annoying, indoor work they did, rather than how fast or far they could bike.

Also, shorter and fatter women have more children so expect humanity to get shorter and fatter due to natural selection for bit.

gerv 

And not likely to speed up any influx if they can't increase the page load speed, stop treating occasional visitors as intruders (ever try to share posts with non-BF friends?) and, most especially if trolls and bickering can't be controlled (LCF being an excellent example of the latter...)

rockmom

Finished reading the thread and see it mostly took a turn toward the reasonable. Feel free to ignore my rant about infectious diseases and scientific progress.

bovine

It always struck me that people who fetishize end of the world scenarios seem to suck at life as it is in an information society, working menial jobs at menial wages. They seem to yearn for some sort of zombie apocalypse scenario in which they imagine they would excel with their guns, knives, etc. It's sort of pathetic, considering the fact that such a scenario playing out is extremely unlikely and even if it were to happen, they would probably still suck at life or run afoul of a quasi-governmental body that, in drastic times, would lack the scruples our current regime has in regards to eliminating anti-social ne'er do wells.

That said, I do enjoy being able to fix many of the things in my life and outdoor survival activities, but I enjoy them intrinsically, not as a means to survive a hoped for apocalypse.

Anywho, to the OP question, kids today are just fine. Thanks to regulation at least, they're not the lead-infused sociopathic dullards that their parents are. They have hurdles that their parents didn't have to face, but they are adapting well on the whole.

Roody

Not at all. Your "rant" brought up some important points and can easily be extended to other areas besides medical research. For example, I hope the people who design bike facilities in the future will be bicyclists, but i also hope they understand design, engineering, risk analysis, and other skills that require computer use.

The millennial generation will use their abilities most to dig out from the messes created by their elders. Global warming, intolerance, racism, overpopulation...the list goes on and on. I'm really ashamed of the problems we've passed on to them through our own childishness.

I-Like-To-Bike

Ya think thread discussions that have the aroma of "How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin" like this geek-a-thon: https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...n-cycling.html will speed up an influx of people interested in bicycling or living car free?

or,

Spacey thread discussions that alternate between ranting about the values of the Good Old Days and The Kids are Alright like these: https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...ium-wimps.html and https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...h-england.html

Hypno Toad

Nailed it!

I get such a laugh listen to my generation (Gen X) complain about the Millennials, the irony is the Boomer complained about Gen X being so lazy and disrespectful when I was a kid. Change the calendar a coupe decades the problem children are now complain about kids these days. A never ending cycle.

My millennial daughter doesn't own a car, she bikes everywhere, year-round, in Minneapolis (even when it -20F). But at 10 years old, I remember carrying her on my back to get off a mountain. It's called growing up, most people do it; but, there are the 65-year-old-children (read Boomers) out there that still whine about everything.

Hypno Toad

Do you know any Millennials? Most of my daughters friends left Facebook years ago, since their collective parents and grandparents (Gen Xers & Boomers) are all on Facebook. My 23-year-old daughter gets mad at mom and dad for not putting away phones when we're out together. She is nothing like the poster-child of the Millennials, but maybe we are just like the Boomer, making up stories about the new generation since we are insecure about them moving in the work-force and making us look dumb.

BTW - the selfie generation is just as much Gen X as it is Millennials. My 46-year-old wife is a total pain in the a$$ about getting selfies everywhere.... (grumbling)

cooker

I enjoyed the one on streetcars.

cooker

Most of the commuter cyclists on my routes are 20 somethings.

Roody

You're absolutely right about it being a cycle. That's why it's so funny when people like the OP don't seem to be aware of this.

And believe me, the Boomers' parents (The Greatest Generation) complained just as much about their kids, and probably more. And us boomer kids said "don't trust anybody over 30." A new term was even coined--"the generation gap"--the subject of many documentaries and magazine articles in the late '60s and early '70s. This was the origin of what we now call the Culture Wars.

Hypno Toad

I'd say that the Greatest Generation had the greatest reason to complain, those Boomers are a serious bunch of wimps. LOL

Roody

Maybe. It didn't seem that way at the time.

Hypno Toad

Just stirring it up, you know how the Gen Xers are - no respect for their elders.

MZilliox

The children are wimps for sure, but check out the adults lately, all kinds of sissy goin on these days. This culture is far too protective of individual "feelings". Its pretty pathetic really.
Adults are so wussy they don't handle their kids any more. they simply give them an audio visual distraction. so bad behavior is gifted with positive reinforcement. Great concept for raising our next generation of soft, electronics needing, no imagination having, skinny jean wearing teenagers with lame ugly haircuts.

they are also soft as butter because kids are no longer allowed to play. a fallen log used to be a playground, now its a hazard. riding my bike around the neighborhood was an every day affair, now its too unsafe. i got injured more in one day as a kid 30 years ago than the average teen gets injured in their entire childhood now.

yes, kids have gotten soft, but so have adults. they refuse to let kids be kids, so instead they become something rather less.

MZilliox

you don't have to worry about the next gen in the workforce unless you are in technology and computers. those coming into other fields are not prepared as well. other than the fact owners like to hire inexperience because you don't have to pay for it, the next generation is less educated, less inspired, less trained, less tough, and less willing to work. I am just one generation above them being 35, but I work with kids, and my wife is in the medical field. the generation getting ready to take on jobs now is not ready. luckily culture requires less efficiency at work as we have now moved into the world of social media and forums. its perfectly acceptable to be doing this at work, posting on bike forums, or facebook, or nhl.com, or whatever your poison. efficiency has taken a back seat to the idea of the 40 hour work week.

MZilliox

while this may be true, I would propose that social cooperation is decreasing within the species. we promote a me first attitude in humans in the western world. we value individual prowess. community is decreasing. the group is no longer being put ahead of the individual. this is changing with our modern world. we no longer need help (or so we think).