War Room Lounge v82: I have watched alcohol ruin many people. Thanks for your interest Mr. Problems.

[Islam Imamate]

From the Gen-Z suicide thread. Bringing it here to get the lounge's feedback, which are hopefully deeper than the generation is inherently weak, therefore nothing can be done to help them, therefore fuck 'em, therefore I am justified in fucking them over

Something that the topic made me think about was that Gen Z kids have a very different sense of humor compared to other generations. They really lean into Absurdist style humor. Your comment on Church made me think of Kierkegaard and Camus's takes on Absurdity, which admittedly I am only casually familiar with. People more familiar with them, please chime in and correct me.

Absurdism is roughly defined as a conflict occurring when people feel a need for their existence to have deeper meaning when the universe tells them existence is meaningless. When faced with the absurdity of trying to find meaning in a meaningless existence, the main resolutions are:
1. Escape existence (suicide)
2. Believe that meaning can be found in a realm beyond this existence (religion or spirituality)
3. Accept the absurdity (create your own self-fulfillment)

Given this kind of framework, the rise in suicide rates makes complete sense. Religion, while having benefits for community building, often falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Someone who cannot mentally close that gap for solution 2 will have to turn to 3. Next, if you look at the people trying to find their own fulfillment, they might see that the things that brought meaning to previous generations, like education, a career, attaining wealth, owning a home or having a family, are further out of reach compared to previous generations. The combination of an illusion of spirituality being harder to sustain with traditional self fulfillment milestones being out of reach mean that people are going to turn to other forms of community building with low barriers to entry, such as focus on online communities and/or political identities, or suicide unfortunately.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

I generally agree though, and I know this is going to come off defensively so might as well admit that right now, I don't think the reason religion has lost its sway is because it falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Sure that might be true in some cases but are Gen Z folk really applying scientific scrutiny in their day to day lives even when it comes to critiquing religion? I doubt it. I think the deeper reason is that the ambient culture is both materialist and consumerist and neither of those things predisposes one towards religion but rather away from it.

And like you said young people are turning towards other forms of community building that have lower barriers to entry and those tend to reinforce the consumerist and materialist worldview that is already present in the culture around us. Of course high profile negative news stories about religious institutions and religious folks like the Catholic Church sex scandal and Islamist terrorism aren't helping either.

 

[Higus]

I know Gen Z's problem... they didn't have the greatest philosopher of all time VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON tell them the facts of life:


On the real though I think it is a bit of a breakdown in families being localized.

Just anecdotal I know but:
- I live in Utah, folks in Washington
- Coworker close to my age lives here and family is in Montana
- Friend that manages a bar I worked at lives in WA and his family is in Hawaii

The list keeps going like that. There's another aspect too that the younger generations (I think I'm technically a millenial) are very anti-capitalist yaddayaddayadda kumbayah and such... but will STILL sell motherfuckers down the river to get ahead which aids in creating that hopeless feeling.

Case in point, the bar I worked at from August 2017 til about August 2018. I helped a younger (22 year old) roommate of mine get a job there as a bartender. She then proceeds to get an in with the owner and goes behind my back (3 years bar experience), the bar manager (4 years experience) and the manager (20 years experience) and essentially pushed the three of us out.

The population migration from rural to urban areas is a good point. If you're young, there is a good chance that you will have to leave the community you grew up in to find a career, thus isolating yourself from the support system you had when you were younger. That's got to have an affect on a society when taken to the extremes.

 

[Gregolian]

Because that irony would be fucking delicious.

Like pickles are.

FUCK you guys that hate pickles, they're delicious you fucking heathens.

 

[Jack V Savage]

From the Gen-Z suicide thread. Bringing it here to get the lounge's feedback, which are hopefully deeper than the generation is inherently weak, therefore nothing can be done to help them, therefore fuck 'em, therefore I am justified in fucking them over

Something that the topic made me think about was that Gen Z kids have a very different sense of humor compared to other generations. They really lean into Absurdist style humor. Your comment on Church made me think of Kierkegaard and Camus's takes on Absurdity, which admittedly I am only casually familiar with. People more familiar with them, please chime in and correct me.

Absurdism is roughly defined as a conflict occurring when people feel a need for their existence to have deeper meaning when the universe tells them existence is meaningless. When faced with the absurdity of trying to find meaning in a meaningless existence, the main resolutions are:
1. Escape existence (suicide)
2. Believe that meaning can be found in a realm beyond this existence (religion or spirituality)
3. Accept the absurdity (create your own self-fulfillment)

Given this kind of framework, the rise in suicide rates makes complete sense. Religion, while having benefits for community building, often falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Someone who cannot mentally close that gap for solution 2 will have to turn to 3. Next, if you look at the people trying to find their own fulfillment, they might see that the things that brought meaning to previous generations, like education, a career, attaining wealth, owning a home or having a family, are further out of reach compared to previous generations. The combination of an illusion of spirituality being harder to sustain with traditional self fulfillment milestones being out of reach mean that people are going to turn to other forms of community building with low barriers to entry, such as focus on online communities and/or political identities, or suicide unfortunately.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

I think you and kafir (and Greg) have had very interesting comments on the issue, and I've enjoyed reading the posts, but I'm inherently skeptical of attempts to characterize a generation based on observation.

 

[Gregolian]

The population migration from rural to urban areas is a good point. If you're young, there is a good chance that you will have to leave the community you grew up in to find a career, thus isolating yourself from the support system you had when you were younger. That's got to have an affect on a society when taken to the extremes.

There's an aspect too that moving AWAY is better for you too. I miss my folks tremendously as after I moved out my relationship with my parents improved dramatically.

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/rhubarb/move-away-start-over.html
There was another article I read before I moved that highlighted how people in your new place of living often legitimately have your best interests in mind when they offer it rather than just fluff.

BUT, my friends out here ACTUALLY want me to succeed. The people back home SAID they did but there were never offers of help to help me move or find a second job and shit minus a couple guys.

And surprise surprise... those guys all moved TO my hometown from someplace else. And another commonality with those guys that offered me second jobs and such.... were veterans.

 

[Falsedawn]

Like pickles are.

FUCK you guys that hate pickles, they're delicious you fucking heathens.

Dill only.

Sweet pickles are a fucking abomination.

 

[Gregolian]

Dill only.

Sweet pickles are a fucking abomination.

Sweet pickles aren't pickles IMO.

My favorite are pickles that are basically dill but had red pepper thrown in before closing up the jar. MMMMMM, tang and spice.

 

[Higus]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.


my brother lives 1 block away from Saugus High where the shooting is and my parents are there now watching my nephew. called them and they're fine and aware.



luckily its just one dumb (and murdering scumbag) kid, otherwise i'd be heading there now.

Whoa, I thought you were talking about Saugus MA (town on the Boston North Shore) for a second.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I know Gen Z's problem... they didn't have the greatest philosopher of all time VINCENT KENNEDY MCMAHON tell them the facts of life:


On the real though I think it is a bit of a breakdown in families being localized.

Just anecdotal I know but:
- I live in Utah, folks in Washington
- Coworker close to my age lives here and family is in Montana
- Friend that manages a bar I worked at lives in WA and his family is in Hawaii

The list keeps going like that.

Well said. On paper this has incredible benefits because our economy is more efficient. Before if you wanted the best person for the job you were really limited as to your actual pool of candidates but nowadays its hardly uncommon for people to move across the country for work and with the internet its easier than ever for employers to connect with prospective employees. But something is lost when we focus only on that kind of efficiency to the detriment of the support networks that give us meaning and make us resilient in tough times and I think Gen Z is experiencing that worse than any generation. Even if they are not working yet their parents have likely moved for work and so they are cut off from extended family growing up.

There's another aspect too that the younger generations (I think I'm technically a millenial) are very anti-capitalist yaddayaddayadda kumbayah and such... but will STILL sell motherfuckers down the river to get ahead which aids in creating that hopeless feeling.

Case in point, the bar I worked at from August 2017 til about August 2018. I helped a younger (22 year old) roommate of mine get a job there as a bartender. She then proceeds to get an in with the owner and goes behind my back (3 years bar experience), the bar manager (4 years experience) and the manager (20 years experience) and essentially pushed the three of us out.

Its the CV culture we have. Even though at the surface we all agree that arrogance is bad and we shouldn't use people as a means to an end in practice we actively encourage both things. We encourage young people to try and pad out their resume to give an inflated sense of their accomplishments and to engage in social interactions primarily for the purpose of "networking" which, let's be honest, is about getting to know people who can do more for you than you can for them. I think a non-negligible amount of discontent is related to the tension between the values we explicitly espouse like humility and selflessness and the reality of what values are actually rewarded by the incentive structure in society. This is natural to an extent and I figure any society struggles with that but something about Gen Z suggests to me that they're having a harder time reconciling the two.

 

[Gregolian]

@Anung Un Rama

Our talk about Danny Boy led me down a weird rabbit hole.

I never realized that Ireland has two separate national anthems. One from like pre 1980 that is still used sometimes and then Ireland's Call. And it changed because an Irish rugby player had to retire because of injuries sustained in an IRA car bombing and how the IRA used the original anthem all the time.

The original one (A Soldier's Song (English) or Amhrán na bhFiann)


And the current one used most of the time:


But Ireland's Call it's really only the chorus used.

Well said. On paper this has incredible benefits because our economy is more efficient. Before if you wanted the best person for the job you were really limited as to your actual pool of candidates but nowadays its hardly uncommon for people to move across the country for work and with the internet its easier than ever for employers to connect with prospective employees. But something is lost when we focus only on that kind of efficiency to the detriment of the support networks that give us meaning and make us resilient in tough times and I think Gen Z is experiencing that worse than any generation. Even if they are not working yet their parents have likely moved for work and so they are cut off from extended family growing up.

My mom didn't but she stopped working when she married my dad. My dad moved everywhere for work. Grew up in Minneapolis (remembers the end of WWII) but worked/lived in:
- India
- South Africa
- Lebanon
- Israel
- Libya
- In and out of the Persian Gulf
- Washington obviously
- And was working for a Japanese company when he meet my mom.

There's honestly a part of me a bit jealous of my dad's work history and how much traveling he got to do because of it and how many parts of the world he got to see.

Its the CV culture we have. Even though at the surface we all agree that arrogance is bad and we shouldn't use people as a means to an end in practice we actively encourage both things. We encourage young people to try and pad out their resume to give an inflated sense of their accomplishments and to engage in social interactions primarily for the purpose of "networking" which, let's be honest, is about getting to know people who can do more for you than you can for them. I think a non-negligible amount of discontent is related to the tension between the values we explicitly espouse like humility and selflessness and the reality of what values are actually rewarded by the incentive structure in society. This is natural to an extent and I figure any society struggles with that but something about Gen Z suggests to me that they're having a harder time reconciling the two.

To add to the anecdote. Myself and the other two guys that got pushed out (nevermind the entire security staff quit when I left) gave the owner a ton of ideas... he didn't implement them until we all left.

That fuck.

 

[Fawlty]

Only 1 man made it an argument. It was a decent conversation between many of us before that

The line at Starbucks was pleasantly short today. The cups are cutely festive, with red and green text in offset blocky letters reading: "MERRYCOFFEE"

Merrycoffee. I love stuff like this.

 

[Gregolian]

The line at Starbucks was pleasantly short today. The cups are cutely festive, with red and green text in offset blocky letters reading: "MERRYCOFFEE"

Merrycoffee. I love stuff like this.

It's not even fucking Thanksgiving yet.

 

[Fawlty]

It's not even fucking Thanksgiving yet.

Christmas starts the day after Halloween now. I've learned to accept this lol.

 

[Gregolian]

Christmas starts the day after Halloween now. I've learned to accept this lol.

Soon it will start the day after New Years. And that will be the day I move to the woods of like Montana and live in a tent.

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

Christmas starts the day after Halloween now. I've learned to accept this lol.

This got me to thinking are there any Thanksgiving movies besides Planes Trains and Automobiles?

I put that on last year for the wife thinking she'd love it. But I hadn't seen it since I was a kid and didn't realize the gut punch revealed towards the end. So she ended up in tears asking why had her watch it.

ah well

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

It's not even fucking Thanksgiving yet.

The most underrate Holiday.

4 day weekend, eat until your comatose and football all day

 

[Limbo Pete]

The population migration from rural to urban areas is a good point. If you're young, there is a good chance that you will have to leave the community you grew up in to find a career, thus isolating yourself from the support system you had when you were younger. That's got to have an affect on a society when taken to the extremes.

This is a big problem in the Native community and has been for ages

 

[Gregolian]

The most underrate Holiday.

4 day weekend, eat until your comatose and football all day

For me what Thanksgiving is is food, the Apple Cup usually on the Friday after... and it means about 2 weeks until this:


It's probably weird given my dad didn't go to Annapolis but went to King's Point but I always make it a point to watch Army/Navy. I think there's a part of me that knows deep down, for all but maybe 2-3 guys, that's the last football they'll ever play.

This is a big problem in the Native community and has been for ages

This will sound mean but, for some isn't leaving better?

I know in Washington a lot of the reservations are drug and crime cesspools that leave the kids no future unless they leave.

 

[Fawlty]

From the Gen-Z suicide thread. Bringing it here to get the lounge's feedback, which are hopefully deeper than the generation is inherently weak, therefore nothing can be done to help them, therefore fuck 'em, therefore I am justified in fucking them over

Something that the topic made me think about was that Gen Z kids have a very different sense of humor compared to other generations. They really lean into Absurdist style humor. Your comment on Church made me think of Kierkegaard and Camus's takes on Absurdity, which admittedly I am only casually familiar with. People more familiar with them, please chime in and correct me.

Absurdism is roughly defined as a conflict occurring when people feel a need for their existence to have deeper meaning when the universe tells them existence is meaningless. When faced with the absurdity of trying to find meaning in a meaningless existence, the main resolutions are:
1. Escape existence (suicide)
2. Believe that meaning can be found in a realm beyond this existence (religion or spirituality)
3. Accept the absurdity (create your own self-fulfillment)

Given this kind of framework, the rise in suicide rates makes complete sense. Religion, while having benefits for community building, often falls apart under scientific scrutiny. Someone who cannot mentally close that gap for solution 2 will have to turn to 3. Next, if you look at the people trying to find their own fulfillment, they might see that the things that brought meaning to previous generations, like education, a career, attaining wealth, owning a home or having a family, are further out of reach compared to previous generations. The combination of an illusion of spirituality being harder to sustain with traditional self fulfillment milestones being out of reach mean that people are going to turn to other forms of community building with low barriers to entry, such as focus on online communities and/or political identities, or suicide unfortunately.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

I like all the thinking there, but I feel like it's telling a story based on observations, and one that is very limited.

People are probably more sensitive to the quality of their personal relationships than anything listed here, so it makes trying to isolate this stuff very difficult. And while I've felt generation gaps, I don't see them hold up very well to scrutiny. Then technology, with today's perpetual interface, is probably doing more to people psychologically than the broader philosophical stuff too. I can't untangle any of this though.

I also haven't kept up with young people humor so I can't comment on that. I guess it's kinda Spider-Verse-y these days? That does seem absurdist.

 

[Fawlty]

This got me to thinking are there any Thanksgiving movies besides Planes Trains and Automobiles?

I put that on last year for the wife thinking she'd love it. But I hadn't seen it since I was a kid and didn't realize the gut punch revealed towards the end. So she ended up in tears asking why had her watch it.

ah well

Maybe Dutch (w/Ed O'Bundy)?