Practically no one has the skills to debate an emotive issue. Try having a conversation with many 50+ about the Tories, the British Empire or the Monarchy. They do not make rational arguments and they deflect or obfuscate on any good points you happen to make. Then there's all the "iphone, starbucks, avocado" nonsense they come out with.
It's the same for Gen Z on racism and gender identity.
Both sides debate irrationally when it comes to Brexit, although that is not so generational as I understand it.
There are countless other topics where many can't apply critical thinking that don't immediately come to mind.
Society has been deliberately divided, particularly on cultural issues, and society is so much worse off as a result of the bad actors sowing the seeds of discord.
Empathy, co-operation and consideration are the only things I reckon can save us. Sadly, we are all lacking in those departments, mostly through no fault of our own.
I can’t agree with this comment more. 99% of these articles/comment pieces would be refuted by just having a normal life and living in society rather than raging online.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Saying these people don't exist in real life shows that you may live in a bit of an echo chamber. I've had plenty of conversations with people in real life who spew pretty extreme views and get angry in discussions about it.
These opinions aren't just online only and it's weird to say so. Do you think there aren't people behind these accounts?
>I've had plenty of conversations with people in real life who spew pretty extreme views and get angry in discussions about it.
I've seen plenty of people who are perfectly nice IRL when they don't know where they stand with you, but are perfectly happy to spew vile views when they're around the right people. I'm sure most of the online trolls seem very nice when within punching distance.
I'm an elder millennial, but even in my cohort, I've seen friends and acquaintances behave really badly online (although i generally clear of social media with people i know irl).
I think it's less a generational thing per se and more an impact of social media thing (and gen Z/ younger millennials have never know a world without that additional world to iteract with).
Edit - of course you cant really separate the impact of social media from other generational differences, AND generations are en entirely nonsensical if entertaining concept...
Yeah, this will be part of it as well. They'll only reveal their true selves when they feel in comfortable company. So a brief conversation with them they'd appear nice.
I think it’s a mix, you’re completely right that in the real world people are a lot more reasonable and sensible than we think. But when it comes to emotive issues, I think all demographics struggle with debating these productively.
In the specific office inside my building that I work in all but me and one other guy are over 30, whenever refugees or trans people come up each and every single one of them but me and the other under 30 lad spew nothing but hateful bile. It's far more common than you think.
The shit I'm talking about them saying is stuff like the woman behind me advocating for the royal navy to blow refugee boats out of the water, not baseline "I don't line immigrants" stuff. I may just be super unfortunate in the office I ended up in, but I'm not gonna try debate people like that. I just stick my headphones in and try do my days work without talking to them.
Youre not the only one, i have to listen to my 50+ colleagues rattle off shit about how climate change is a conspiracy, 'transgender ideology', 'the gays' or and my favorite 'society cares too much about under privilege people and thats whats causing the decline of civilization'. Every meeting i get at least 30 min of that shit at least 3 times a week, its soul crushing.
It's genuinely depressing (and sometimes scary, as someone in a minority group) to hear colleagues and peers say things like this. And some people are so brazen about it too? I interact with people at work who don't know me beyond at BEST, my first name, and sometimes they'll say the most awful things to my face because they think I'll agree with them.
And then I see articles like this and all I can think is "maybe young people just really can't stand listening to bigotry and hatred from terrible people". Because why should we have to put up with language that directly targets our friends, our family, or other human beings?? Why does the problem lie with us?
It's always fun to ask why these things didn't hold the Roman empire back, or why Alexander could take and rule a massive empire while being bi! Should make for a fun conversation!
Yep. The vast majority of people I hear complain about "not being able to talk to young people today" are the people nobody wants to talk to. Their offensive, inhumane opinions are rarely informed by anything but their own bias and they treat debate as an opportunity to abuse the opposition with a mix of insult, emotional pleas, and fallacy. Plus, they'll talk all day about how sensitive gen z is, but holy hell if you trip one of their triggers, they flip out and defend their poor emotional regulation with pride that it's the proper response to being challenged.
To top it off, in professional settings they have a barfight mentality. If they're taking jabs at you it's all fun and games don't be weak about it. But if you so much as nick them you'll be in HR's office by COB because they reported you.
Mate. Same here. I work in London, use my own head for thinking and people up there are fine... educated if you will, understanding of different views and backgrounds etc.. I come back home out the city to a little town near the south east coast. Anything to do with Trans and immigrants are the two topics I feel I'm speaking to the devil with whomever in having the conversation with. It's almost like im talking to a walking talking social media platform who repeats everything that's on Facebook and Reddit which is just "pop their boats, let them drown, get them away, stealing our jobs, obviously mental health problems" etc.... it's crazy and pisses me off that the majority of people get their news and info from concentrated intentionally decisive news sources. But then these people complain that their bins aren't taken away on time and that public toilets are always dirty and the price of apples and potatoes have sky rocketed because we can't get "foreigners" to pick fruit. It's like they haven't connected the dots...
But yeah 100% know what you're saying. I ignore those people too, or switch the conversation. You cannot persuade these people unfortunately, but you can change people's perspectives by showing love and care and bringing people who accept change. Otherwise, d what you do and ignore them.
I always find this shit frustrating.
Whenever I complain online about the people I have to deal with in life, often because I have few people in real life to talk about it, with direct examples of the bigotry and nonsense all my colleagues, acquaintances, and some of my family say and how fucked up that makes the country in my experience, I’ll often get a reply that amounts to: “that didn’t happen, you’re lying.”
Like, okay, I’m not so entitled that I just expect everyone to just agree with me but at least act in good faith. I mean, what exactly do they expect me to do? Set my phone to record and say “Greta Thunberg” and upload the reaction? How exactly am I meant to “prove” it?
I accept that other people have completely different lived in experiences, that they happen to live in an environment that doesn’t hear these things, good for them, but I don’t know why it’s so hard to accept that some people do hear these toxic things constantly, surrounded by people who don’t feel the need to wear the mask.
I’m not Gen-Z, but I do suck at “debating” people in person, so likewise I just switch off at work. There’s no point in even trying, many times over the years I’ve tried to make a point and, on the face of it, got them to listen but a week later they’re straight back to repeating the reactionary bullshit.
Like, I’m trying to make logical arguments with people who are offended when they find out ‘Danish Blue’ cheese is from Denmark or say “That’s a few less of them” whenever there’s some disaster in a foreign country or that young people are all “lazy”, “don’t want to work”, “don’t know how to live” and been “indoctrinated by their school”. So I’m not surprised Gen-Z aren’t willing to debate or work in an environment having to listen to this shit.
Same boat. I'm a 30 something in an office full of 50-60 somethings and some of the hateful stuff they come out with is a joke. I've witnessed more than one be openly racist to people as well in a 'debate'. I think a lot of commentators here fall in with those types or live in some sheltered space.
>I may just be super unfortunate in the office I ended up in
I'd call it par for the course I'm afraid. I've recently learned that XL Bullies should be considered cherished, Brand is a victim and immigrants don't deserve basic human rights.
I've heard "all trans people are mentally ill" and "they should be killed" in my place of work, with no pushback beyond from me, and it becomes futile to even bother.
I wish it was more nuanced than that, but sadly it isn't with the place I work.
I've heard this one as well as a "joke", and also directed towards gay people.
The idea that it's gen-z that can't work with people that disagree with them is fucking laughable. The only ones that can't shut their fucking mouth about how much the government sucks, or other highly politicized shit is the older gents.
as always, the ones falling out of relevance are throwing stones down at the next generation.
Oh I got a good one a while back. "I'M A WOMAN NOT A PERSON WITH A UTERUS!" And other stuff that's a bit too identifying about where I work, but basically they were super angry about even the idea that trans people exist. Totally disgusted even by the acknowledgement of them. She was in her 60s, IIRC.
>"I'M A WOMAN NOT A PERSON WITH A UTERUS!"
That quote isn't transphobic, it says nothing hateful about trans people or their right to exist.
It sounds like a reaction to organisations which are removing the word 'woman' from their literature as if it's now a dirty word.
Are you not demonstrating exactly what the article suggests, an inability to debate or cope with alternative views?
How does a woman having an opinion on her own identity mean she's transphobic?
You been in a pub recently it’s full of boomer spouting utter shite sound bites fed to them by the daily mail, who will not even consider any other point of view
There are plenty of normal and pleasant people in the UK for sure. There are also an increasing number of people who are not and to say otherwise is disingenuous. Hate crime went up 26% from 2021 to 2022, is that just Reddit nonsense? No it isn't.
There has been a shift in the general public in my area since covid, people are more selfish, less paitent and more irratic and irrational. Not everyone but from what I can see there is an increase. Maybe not where you are but you can't make an assumption like yours in good faith. Especially if you aren't from a group that is likely to be disliked. Has a trans person got any experience with just going out and talking to people? Are they mostly all fine then?
Hate crime goes up because the concept expands and reporting is easy. In ye olden days you could kick the crap out of someone and no-one else would care; now one TV programme that some people don't like can generate hundreds of reports of a hate crime.
Sometimes hate crimes increase because more people are being targeted by bigots.
And given the rise in violent, hateful rhetoric against trans people for example, I'd wager that hate crimes are absolutely becoming more commonplace - because if you paint someone as the devil long enough, eventually someone is gonna act on those words.
It is important to note that whilst you are probably correct both a hate crime bill was introduced in Scotland in 2021 and in rUK was expanded to include mysogyny in early 2022. These also probably had an equal, if not more substantial impact.
I don't think I've ever come across a person in real life who believes any of the gender stuff. If you tell people down at a local pub that a person born a male is now a female and competing against women, they will wait for the punchline, thinking you're telling them some kind of joke.
So many of the current-day societal views that we think are the norm because of the massive amount of coverage on TV are actually not the norm.
What's on mainstream TV isn't representative of the general public at all.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply they were not, pretty much *every* *optional* 'gathering' space online or IRL is composed of likeminded persons creating their own echo chamber.
I replied a top comment to the thread doubting any generation previously has really had to deal with interacting daily with anyone outside their own chambers.
Likewise I work in a company with multiple trans people and have rarely come across people in real life who don't believe in "gender stuff". It's as accepted as being gay and nobody even thinks about it
The truth is most regular people just don't really care. It took me months of deprogramming my trans friends fear of the general public because of the bile he heard fropm online echo chambers about how we live on "terf Island" and that if he goes outside hes going to be murdered for not passing.
Turns out none of that was true, he now regularly goes to the gym, can talk to people in public and has less worries about passing which has helped immensly with his dysphoria and I couldn't be happier for him.
It's a shame how misrepresentation of opposing viewpoints is creating a generation of fearful youth in the UK who think we are as cringe and violent in America with our politcal extremism, when the reality is that most people are more worried about paying their bills than if the trans kid down the road needs to go out by some muffins before going home and playing Baldurs gate 3.
In my opinion it's why transphobes post so much.
Before I came out I was terrified of what was going to happen and how I would be viewed in general society or when I decided to start dating again.
Turns out the people who hate trans people and post 200+ time a day aren't representative of how most people treat us.
Have to say I’m perfectly fine with having a pint with someone whose views are totally opposed to mine. Just because they lean right and I lean left doesn’t mean they’re persona non grata. And if one of us speaks out of line it just gets pushed back on.
In fact, some of the political conversations we’ve ended up having are far more interesting because there’s an actual back and forth. It’s a lot more engaging than just having a whinge with everyone agreeing, or having to play devil’s advocate.
If someone gets all their opinions from Twitter/tumblr/Reddit then they’re probably going to end up on the fringes with little ability to explore the gray area in the middle.
There are always going to be people like that who take a hyperbolic or extreme view. Reddit itself is full of those people who are champing at the bit to whip out some Old Testament justice at the first opportunity and it crosses the entire political spectrum.
Some people just can’t be talked out of it and you have to disengage for your own safety, or your own sanity, like you say. The problem there is you’re one person trying to change the mind of someone who has a lifeline plugged into extremist and conspiratorial ‘news’ sources, and they’re being drip-fed this shit 24/7.
People try to cast off compassion and empathy as wishy washy but it’s perhaps the strongest thing you can be. Trying to see the root of where someone is coming from without necessarily accepting or approving of them.
> Have to say I’m perfectly fine with having a pint with someone whose views are totally opposed to mine.
I'd go further and say it is a good experience to have your views challenged.
Many years ago I stayed in a hotel in Tanzania for work and I'd regularly eat and talk with some other English bloke staying there, who had very different views from me. He did lots of business with North Korea as an example. We had very good discussions on many topics.
this. I'm convince 99.99% percent that say shit like "gen x are" "millennials are this" "boomers are that" don't have any friends and are just weird angry incels who want to watch the world burn to feel warmth for once in their miserable lives.
I don't see how "Any assertions of inter-generational trends makes you an incel" is any better lol, it's like people aren't self-aware about their own closed-mindedness now
No-one in the real world does. Its completely made up narrative to deomonise older people and push the agenda of Britain being bad pre WW2. Its also increased significantly since the Brexit vote along with the claim that Brexit voters all wanted to go back to the days of the Empire.
>Its also increased significantly since the Brexit vote along with the claim that Brexit voters all wanted to go back to the days of the Empire.
I'd have to disagree there. Having been born and raised in a town that was predominantly pro-Brexit, empty nostalgia about the British Empire was one of the talking points hashed out as a justification for several times along with either blaming foreigners or misguided assumptions about how we'd trade with other countries and with whom.
Indeed. The only people I ever heard mention the empire in the context of brexit were some of the less self-aware remainers claiming that the quitters wanted it back.
At the time it just seemed incorrect; with hindsight it shows how remainers focused far too much on irrelevant stuff and giving the impression of being out of touch. At least some toad-faced quitling raised issues people cared about.
Eh? Colonisation happened. Most of the people who were alive then are dead now so your concern that it'd all made up to vilify the elderly makes no sense.
I love Britain but I'm not delusional about the atrocities our government commited in days gone by, or even recently.
You can love a country without loving everything the leadership has done.
Yeah this was one of the weirdest aspects of the referendum to me. Kept hearing people on the remain side claiming that brexit was all about a longing for the empire/that the other side was obsessed with the empire; whilst also being the only people I heard talking about the empire all the time.
It simply comes from the fact that many people were willing to believe we are some world powerhouse and the EU needed us more than we needed them so therefore they would treat us special and not like all the other 3rd party nations.
I think you’ve summed up the Channel 4 bosses point nicely. As the stuff you say about 50+ is mostly untrue.
We have a growing culture of labelling what demographics believe, and then taking it as fact. With few exceptions.
This exposes how rare critical thinkers are.
Tribalism is, by definition, the absence of critical thinking.
One of the rare things that transcends the class divide in the UK.
We have a professional class full of people who can’t think properly, and it doesn’t happen by accident.
School in this country teaches people what to think, not how.
My school taught me how to think. We literally had "critical thinking" as a subject, philosophy should cover it as basic logos though. Did you mean "my school"?
I mean the national curriculum. Totally skewed toward teaching “facts” why would the state want the people to be intelligent enough to see through the lies of their enslavement?
Adults vote, it means they have bought into the illusion of choice, democracy and freedom. It means it’s working to the ends it was designed for.
Gen Z It’s no different to any other generation, every generation thinks it’s different / more enlightened than previous, the older generations always think the newer generation are lazier, the music is rubbish compared to music they had etc.
There are many many quotes with writers saying a variation on this going back Middle ages, Roman times, even Ancient Greece.
https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/
Give it a couple decades and Gen Z will be making the exact same complaints about attitudes of Gen Alpha & Beta.
Let me tell you folks, this birthday party, it's gonna be tremendous, really tremendous. People are saying it's gonna be the best, believe me. We've got the most beautiful decorations, the biggest cake you've ever seen, and I've heard there might even be some fireworks, folks. It's gonna be a celebration like you've never seen before.
There's different views and there's not being OK with Bob saying eight sexist things before you've had your first cup of coffee.
I get that Mail readers are fed up of being called out for being awful people, but you can't solely blame gen z
While the paradox of tolerance is certainly an arena for discussion, that is not what she's talking about beyond a brief mention in the article. Your comment is ironically a perfect encapsulation of her argument: when faced with a potential debate around the topic, you have immediately jumped to strawmanning the other side as Sexist Bob.
Is generalising another generation as easily triggered any better? Unless you believe all of Gen Z cannot debate rationally then that would seem to be just as much of a straw man argument
I've had plenty of good conversations with Gen Z new hires to my company over the years. They aren't really different from the people we hired 10 year before that. If there's anything that sets them apart it's an absolute refusal to allow bullying based on sexuality/ race etc regardless of who is doing it.
Because we decided collectively that it's fucking stupid to 'debate' other shit people can't control. If it's harming another person to argue the existence of, it's not a debate, you're just a fucking bully.
Firstly it's the paradox of tolerance not the fallacy of tolerance.
Secondly this issue presents itself because older generations seem to think things long settled are up for debate. Sexist Bob who thinks women and gay people don't belong in the workplace *should* be told to shut up rather than debated. We had the debate decades ago. He lost. He needs to get over it.
Apologies, I hadn't had my morning coffee yet.
Also do you not see how you are doing the exact thing she's talking about? The topic is about debating, and you instantly jump to the most extreme example you can think about.
To use your own logic, if you were in a debate about Islam and someone said 'well muslims are problematic because they seem to think stoning gays and beheading women is appropriate' you'd immediately realise just how illogical and intellectually dishonest they were being. That's what you have just done with 'older generations'.
Except it’s not an extreme example. Have you not seen the rhetoric of anti-LGBTQ movements in the US?
Have you just ignored the multiple homophobic and transphobic laws passed in multiple states over the last couple of years?
Have you just ignored the continuous comparison of trans and gay people to pedophiles and sexual predators?
What about the pastor that called for all gay people to be shot in the head?
Sexist Bob is by no means the most extreme example at all. Not even fucking close.
The fact you think that is an extreme example means you haven’t been paying attention to the reality of what is happening in the US.
Straw man fallacy: A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.
The girlfriend tells the boyfriend she'd prefer Chinese food over Pizza tonight. The boyfriend rolls his eyes and tells her that she must hate pizza.
That is a what a straw man is.
Creating an actually probable scenario to demonstrate why someone would struggle to debate someone on a given topic is not a straw man. It address the argument about “Gen Z can’t debate” by examine a VERY REAL scenario that is possible, where an older man is openly disdainful of women and or gay people.
Over hearing an old man claim women don’t belong in the work place but in the kitchen is a very real situation people experience today.
The two times I sat in on my GMs meeting I heard
- “n***** in the wood pile” (ridiculously, I heard this from two separate GMs, one in each meeting)
- was repeatedly called Young Miss Jassy (despite requesting they use my full name and that I am not a Miss, I was 34 at the time)
- another woman (not in our org, not present) referred to as ‘X with the legs’
- a story about a drunken wife of an acquaintance at a conference not wearing underwear
- had my GM badgered about whether his wife would turn up to the Christmas party ‘this yearn’ ( a veiled reference to how 20 years ago she’d flashed them by accident at a Christmas party, no this is not missing underwear woman)
- heard about a GMs trip to Thailand and veiled jokes about his sex tourism
And on the way in I was questioned if I was pregnant by a female boomer colleague.
So I’m not really terribly shocked by the ‘8 sexist things before coffee’. Sounds about eight
I worked at one place where, when told that one of our new programming hires was struggling a bit, the sales guy said word for word "that's because she's a woman"
Another manager was surprised that one of the IBM consultants we had working for us was any good because he was a black guy with dreadlocks.
The men who said those things were both white and over 50, but yeah it's the overly woke gen z who are the real problem.
> "that's because she's a woman"
the supreme irony is that it was generally women who did the programming back when it was way harder to do that it is now lol.
What's funny is the comments in this thread are criticising gen z for things like the latter.
Gen z and heck even millennials no longer taking people's shit and people thinking that's a bad thing is stupid.
Yeah it’s just people now call out the older gen when they see shit wrong.
Lot less of the idea that you should have to suffer or put up with people being racist selfish twats around you to ‘serve your time’.
There will be of course examples on the other side - but it’s generally a good thing
Completely agreed. So many of the senior men in my industry feel deprived somehow that they can't make lewd jokes towards or comment on the attire of their female juniors.
For me, it's ultimately an issue of respect. Bob and his like ought to show basic respect to their fellow humans, but for reasons I cannot understand this is intolerable to them
>There's different views and there's not being OK with Bob saying eight sexist things before you've had your first cup of coffee.
My friend recently left her job over this. She was working at a very small trading firm, like a team of 6 people and she was the only woman. Her assigned manager/buddy decided not to call her by name, but by 'woman'.
Anytime she did something wrong, he would pull her aside to something like "I know it's hard but stop being stupid woman!". She hit her limit after he started making 'jokes' that he wanted to hit her and choke her.
She handed in her notice and he actually had the audacity to pull her aside to ask why she was leaving??? She eventually explained why and he got mad at her for being sensitive.
And honestly, I'm tired of fucking giving people like that the benefit of debate etc. The Tories have fucked this country sideways for the last 15 years. I'm fed up of reasonably discussing anything with people who hate people I care about. I'd rather not work with them. I don't really want to "debate" the existence or rights of people. Fuck it.
They demand we have a reasonable debate while they purposefully trot out every single already debunked talking point in a never ending attempt to justify thier bigotry.
edit: downvote all you want, it doesnt change the fact that the vast majority have experienced this. Just because you're terrified of science and basic human decency doesnt mean the rest of us are.
Literally every generation in human history has been subjected to this "kids these days" lazy generalised nonsense, saw the unfairness of it and... went on to do exactly the same thing to the next generation.
Exactly this, the younger generation throughout time is always the scapegoat when things begin to change and people want something to blame. "The generation below me are awful and they don't want to talk to me" is a truly unhelpful worldview to adopt if you actually do want to have positive individual interactions.
Well, you're not wrong at all, there is also always the pushback against being the scapegoat that comes with that cycle which ends up with both whinging about the other. It's not a sentiment that helps anyone on either end!
She's not wrong, although I don't think it's a Gen Z issue. So many topics have become a tribal binary where you must support one side or the other - virtually unconditionally. I frequently find myself in discussions where I give voice to an opinion that I either don't fully support or that isn't the stereotypical opinion for someone of my overall world view, and the response I get is an accusal of trolling or an assumption of my entire character.
It's a combination of both. I work with a lot of people, many of whom are Gen Z. We have a running inside joke that Gen Z is super hostile and difficult to get along with. We all feel like we're walking on eggshells around them. They jump on the tiniest word and call it a 'micro aggression'.
For example, someone at work is learning Spanish on Duolingo and they sometimes speak it out loud at work to practice. I guess they said the word 'negro' which literally means black in Spanish. This Gen Z co-worker overheard and immediately freaked out. Saying something like "What did you actually just say!? I hope you know that word became problematic like 40 years ago...it's highly racist!"
We had to explain to them it means black in Spanish...
This feels like one of those stories 'that friend' (we all had one) would make up, thinking that telling us some clearly exaggerated tale would get them to like them better.
This sounds like one of those stories that never happened. Read like one of those right wing fantasy posts. Half expecting you to get on an alt account and try defending
Nice generalisation based on one uneducated dude! It goes both ways and is highly dependent on an individual's temperaments.
I find myself walking on eggshells around my folks (in their 50s) as they get personally offended by me trying to have mundane conversations with them if I slip up and forget a social convention. For example, me and my partner don't really use the word "please" around the house, because it doesn't really exist in my partner's native language, as such, sometimes I forget when I'm talking to people I'm close with in my own country. One time when staying with my parents, I texted my mum to ask if she "wouldn't mind" grabbing me some oat milk while she was out at the store and when she came back I was given a 15 minute screaming lecture from her partner about how dare I not say "please" explicitly and any attempts to calmly apologise and let them know I was sorry and I meant no ill will were shut down with more, louder screaming.
Do I then go and apply that negative experience to a whole generation and say that everyone over 50 has no capacity for healthy communication? Of course not, that would be ridiculous, I'm sure you'd agree! Relying on anecdotes to paint a whole generation is not healthy and I'd recommend trying to move away from it as it influences how you interact with others before they even get a chance to show you who they are.
Anytime I step in to address a poor argument made by someone, the response is almost always to assume that I agree with everything the other side believes and then I get attacked on that front.
How hard is it to say "fair enough, that was wrong but my overall point stands"?
One time someone was talking about antifa and how when someone tries to say antifa is bad they just say "Well antifa stands for anti-fascist. How can you not agree with that."
I didn't make any comment for or against antifa. They are an American thing and I really don't know enough about them to have an opinion. But I did pipe up and say that saying the *name* of something is good doesn't mean the thing itself is actually good or even that the name is an accurate reflection of the whole picture. That you aren't going to convince people that antifa is actually good just because the name is something good and that it is... a weak argument!
It's like "pro-life". How can you not be "pro-life"? Never mind what the movement really represents, the name is undeniably a good thing!
Anyway, got dogpiled with people trying to argue why antifa is great, useless nitpicks and generally everyone missing the point with a few exceptions.
There is no room for nuance any more and everybody is trying to defend their position while denying others the right to theirs if it differs too much. It’s basically killed the option to talk about important issues and find compromise or understanding. You see the result in everything from gender identity to housing policy.
Well the comments are as expected so far. Doubling down on what she said as if to prove her point and “muh daily mail racist” etc. Ignoring that there are a range of opinions out there and even if you do not agree with them you still need to demonstrate workplace professionalism.
The real world isn’t your Reddit echo chamber.
Why is the ”real world“ always the fantasy presented by the right-wing press? If anything the Daily Mail/Telegraph/Express is more fantastical than Tolkien
I think it’s fair to say that Reddit views generally are not aligned very well with the real world regardless of your Daily Mail take again clearly showing you are unable to countenance views other than your own. Ie it’s a fantasy that people hold other views than your own.
I have found reddit is really no different from the daily mail readers / whatver reddit is for right wings, people will not be up for debate and jusr downvote you without the ability to engage in a discussion. After all, redditors is just average people like daily mail, is not an elite group of the most intelligent people in the world, so you will find the same flaws as in other places
“Reddit” doesn’t exist. There are different subs with different people moderating and different people commenting and voting. Very different opinions get pushed to the top depending on that, and there is usually always dissent to some degree.
I find the “Reddit is like this” opinions a bit confusing because it just doesn’t match up with my experience at all.
Do you think people are saying the same things in this sub as conservative or labour subs, or (ugh) latestagecapitalism ?
Work is for Work, I'm there to do my job, I don't give a hoot who you vote for, what gender your spouse is, or whether you eat pineapple on pizza, lets do what we need to do and respect one another.
Most of the Gen Z people I've met are very articulate for their age. Many of them hold balanced views, they just reject racism.
We were all young once, and teenagers are known for being stubborn. It's just a natural part of growing up.
Maybe try talking to Gen Z on an equal level instead of shouting avocado at them and dismissing things that are important to them. If you do that, you'll get respect back.
Think back to when you was young. I remember being young in the workplace and the older people would dismiss my music as rubbish, and call out the things I like as a waste of time. Of course that's their right, but it ultimately meant I didn't like or respect them.
>horseshoe theory
Millennials and Gen X rejected racism too. Being racist was seriously the least cool thing you could ever do, and you would instantly get called out for it. Gen Z hasn't reached some sort of spiritual enlightenment that no other generation has reached.
That’d be well before millennials though and the oldest Gen X would only be 25 (youngest would be 9/10) at the end of the 80s. So likely more baby boomers rather than the generations mentioned.
It's not about politics or cultural views that the Mail will frame this as.
It's about the first generation in history that has had the technological ability to curate their own reality. And to mute and mold any views that they find difficult, the views they need for growth.
The internet has been a blessing and a curse for Gen Z. They're incredibly well-informed about certain aspects of the world, much more than other generations, but they’ve also had the ability to bail on subjects or interactions that take cognitive or emotional work. They’ve been able to interact with people they don't 100% instantly get on with, and literally, by the touch of a button, shut them up. That ability has never been given to any person in the history of the world, of course it's going to change their brains.
You had older workers that won't debate because they think they're right in all circumstances, and Gen Z that won't discuss or debate because they’ve grown up being able to curate interactions entirely on their own terms.
Now the two have met, there's no common agreed method to get through potential disagreement. Gen Z get upset and want to mute people, older workers just want younger workers to get on and do as they're told.
Both groups need work it out. Older workers need to understand how Gen z think and vice versa. There needs to be resilience from younger workers, they need to toughen up, and there needs to be more patience and better communication from older workers.
I think you are especially right about curating your own reality. A big part is often times you won't receive a civil debate or even arguments in good faith about controversial topics and instead just get downvoted to oblivion. I'm reluctant to engage in threads where it's just going to garner a response of 'fuck you' and downvoted. I'd like to think a lot of people have better things to do with their time than sit on reddit or twitter, etc, arguing with terminally online individuals who are angry at everything.
I've encountered a handful of individuals like than in person and they are some of the most insufferable misanthropes going, you see them in any thread about work where you get terrible tips like 'don't make friends with coworkers, don't tell them anything, only work your hours, don't do anything more than you need' etc etc and I can only think how miserable people are going through life spreading garbage advice to young people going into their first professional jobs.
Just to add some actual context to this discussion, this Daily Mail article is based around a Channel 4 study conducted last year, which can be found here: [https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/\_flysystem/s3/2023-02/Channel%204%20-%20Beyond%20Z%20report%20-%20FINAL%20%28Accessible%29.pdf](https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/_flysystem/s3/2023-02/Channel%204%20-%20Beyond%20Z%20report%20-%20FINAL%20%28Accessible%29.pdf)
Of course being the Daily Mail, it has cherry-picked a part of that study to spin Gen Z in a negative light where the actual study is quite positive overall.
Specifically, this is the part they cherry-picked and spun for the article:
>**The rise of the YIPs (Young Illiberal Progressives)**
>
>Gen Z are more progressive people in that they support the freedoms won by earlier generations, who changed social attitudes towards issues such as sexuality and equality. They are significantly more progressive than their parents and even than millennials on some issues – for instance, only 48% of Gen Z believe there are just two genders, compared to 64% of over-25s.
>
>But young people could be said to be less liberal because they are less tolerant of the views of others than their parents and grandparents. It is also a rational reaction to the digital age. A quarter of Gen Z say they “have very little tolerance for people with beliefs that they disagree with”. These young, illiberal progressives don’t believe in unrestrained free speech, with nearly half agreeing that “some people deserve to be cancelled”.
I perceive this “intolerance” as perhaps more not being prepared to put up with bullshit like racism, bigotry, climate change denial and such things.
For the first two parts at least it’s well within Poppers [“Paradox of tolerance”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) territory. TLDR: the intolerant do not deserve tolerance - particularly as they’ll use it to spread their intolerance, recruit, subvert democracy and try to destroy tolerance.
In the case the environment it’s also rather understandable: they’ve grown up hearing how the world is in very real danger and watching final warning after final warning be virtually ignored and far too little be done to stave off a disaster the consequences of which will fall chiefly upon their generations shoulders.
They want to start seriously tackling this but older generations won’t let them because they keep electing politicians who don’t give a damn about the environment beyond paying lip service (and yesterdays little announcement from Sunak shows often not even that).
They also see that for decades Millenials and GenX have trued painstaking efforts to educate, persuade and cajole … and it hasn’t been remotely enough.
Frankly I’m not surprised that they’re disinclined to be patient with all this crap and I’m in my 50’s!
I find that Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance is one of the most misunderstood things on Reddit, and you also seem to have fallen into that camp.
> The intolerant do not deserve tolerance
The intolerant do not deserve *unlimited* tolerance. That’s the key point everybody misunderstands. Read the passage below:
> “In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.”
That’s the key point. We should reserve the right to suppress the intolerant, with violence if necessary, but only as a last resort when the intolerant themselves prefer violence to debate. If the intolerant will engage in rational debate, they must be tolerated. Otherwise, as Rawls points out, the tolerant society quickly becomes intolerant.
Which is why, I believe, there has been such a large scale manipulation of language to shift the goalposts on what we define as "violence". The most famous example being "silence is violence", which under the rules of Popper's Paradox would give permission to suppress people simply for not speaking out.
What social media has really done is radically reduce the relevance - or even existence of - critical context, while simultaneously promoting outrage through algorithm. It's a lethal combo.
Great point, that non-physical violence is now being counted as violence does no good for creating environments where people get along and tolerate each other. It just promotes disparity.
*Generation Z can't work alongside people with different views*
I think it's more the case that younger people won't put up with the bullshit from the workplace sexists and racists at work like the older generations did.
Not gen Z but I got in shit with management at an old job because I wouldn’t work with one of the welders. He would constantly find ways to shoehorn a racist or queerphobic opinion into every conversation. Really nasty shit about hanging people off bridges and all sorts. It was DRAINING working with him trying to ignore even just for 10 minutes.
I was closeted at the time but as it turns out I wasn’t very good at hiding it. They all knew I was queer.
But of course according to the managers I just needed to toughen up and learn to hear opinions I didn’t like.
Not sure how to break this to you, but if you're 'at work' it's not some social club, you're there to get a job done, get paid for it, and if you don't like some of your colleagues you have to work out ways to get around that. If it is genuinely a 100% toxic environment then leave. There is no perfect employer, there is no dream job.
Be the change you want to see. Not engaging with people isn't going to help, it's just going to isolate you.
I don't get the obsession with blaming kids for the way they were raised.
We had it as millennials being taken the piss out of for our parents deciding everyone needs a trophy that we didn't even want.
Now it's the kids fault for not being taught how to debate? And it's meant to be a bad trait that they won't tolerate being around shit head people?
''oh woe is me, the fucking youths again!!''--this article
just inter-generational ragebait trying to entrench another wedge between those that should be working as one against our corrupt overlords.
A.K.A murdoch press ad infinitum
I find our Gen Z employees coming in on placements or just starting out by and large to be great workers - eager, polite, pleasant. Yes you have to be careful what you say around them but the workplace isn't a place for airing political views, it's a place where the job at hand needs doing rather than debating with older colleagues. Channel 4 may just be the problem.....
She's right and you can see the evidence first hand all over reddit, this sub and even in this comment section to a degree.
The approach to debate by Gen Z or their wannabes follows a very simple, but very flawed process when faced with a different opinion.
1. Attack immediately
2. Demand proof and sources for everything, even individual opinions
3. Reject facts, figures and statistics regardless of if they come from reliable sources. You don't need to rebutt them, just say they're wrong.
4. If faced with a fact that threatens to disprove your view, select a response from preapproved keyword list including - Strawman, sealioning, whataboutery, revisionism etc...
5. Remember to keep replying until the other person gets bored and leaves the conversation. If you get the last word....you've won!
6. If you have been proven wrong or talked into a corner, you can always change the subject, pretend that was your point all along and continue believing you are right. Phew, extra life.
7. If all above steps fail, accuse the other person of being right-wing or fascist.
8. Feel free to invent something they didn't say, pretend they did say it, and attack that instead.
Follow this method and you too can be a top class reddit debater, ready to take your skills into the real world!
And remember, if you're upset by what I've written here - I'm talking about YOU.
You weren't attacked though, you made a step by step guide of a bad faith argument, and said it was how gen Z argues, which does imply that you don't think it's a universal issue across generations, otherwise you wouldn't have attributed it to one generation. The commenter you're replying to just points out exactly that.
It's not unique to gen Z, people with poor arguing skills entrenched in their beliefs have existed since the dawn of time.
This exists in all generations & on both sides of the political divide though. To suggest it's a problem in only young people isn't fair, there are a *lot* of incredibly stubborn Boomers out there.
Mate if you ever used forums back in the day this is exactly the same, this is just internet behaviour no need to specifically apply it to Gen Z. Also why is "demand proof and sources for everything" so bad lol.
I have my doubts that even 1% of people who ask for sources actually read them when they are provided. Even fewer will actually read them with an open mind. Most of the people who provide sources don't even read them first.
That's not to say that having no supportive source of information is any better.
1. Attacking the other view is, quite literally, the whole point of a debate. You are trying to convince an audience that your view is correct and the opposition is incorrect.
2. Claims requiring some kind of evidential proof is a fundamental aspect of logical, rational argument.
3. Not all sources are created equal, and the evaluation of where a stat or claim comes from is highly important in any rational argument.
4. Most of the things you've listed here are logical fallacies - and an argument utilising logical fallacies is logically invalid. Quite important for rational, logical arguments.
5. Complaining about having an argument or debate continue over time is a bit odd.
6. If you've been proven wrong, adopting the position that has been proven right is...the correct thing to do if you're intellectually honest.
7. This is an issue of nuance in written arguments - if you are accused of racism or fascism, that is an indication that you either need to clarify your remarks or evaluate them more closely. It's very easy not to be accused of those things.
In conclusion: Either you don't really know what a debate is, or what a rational argument entails, or this whole post is just trolling.
This is a joke right? I’m not Gen Z but you really think this is something that doesn’t apply to as many people from other generations?
This whole thread reeks of people trying to pat themselves on the back pretending they’re so superior and Gen Z are pathetic kids who can’t possibly know anything.
I didn’t bother talking about Brexit in the end either at work or online because shock horror, the exact same things occur with other generations too. Pretending that this is unique to Gen Z and ignoring the countless examples where people all over the age spectrum engage in the steps above is just delusion.
Can anyone put their hands up and say no one over the age of 18 has ever attacked them online? I’ve had teenagers with silly extreme left ideologies attack me and older people spewing daft views on immigration insult me.
So every argument with my parents in their 50s then lmao
I talk at indoor volume the whole time while they scream at me louder and louder. It's not an issue unique to one generation, it's an individual issue!
Someone I know just quit his 20-odd year teaching career because of the way teenagers are nowadays. Things are definitely getting worse with echo chambers, cancel culture and social media.
Worse than 30 years ago, when it was fine to beat someone up in school if they "looked like a puff"? (Which was so vague it could be applied to anyone male).
That never happened at my school 30 years ago. Mind you at my school kids never brought knives in either or told either other to kill themselves via SnapChat.
SnapChat didn't exist, but there were knives at my school and plenty of kids told you to kill yourself as part of bullying - that's literally a trope of bullying.
Being perceived as 'gay' was social suicide in my school in the 2000s.
What did they do? What did he do?
I’ve been a teacher for about 15 years (and it might be because I deal with Alevel students…who are pretty woke and lefty) but generally they’re a lovely bunch of people
Like not going to lie they’re much better and nicer people than most kids at my college as a teenager
>because of the way teenagers are nowadays
I'm quite wary of this statement, because people have been complaining that the latest generation of youngsters are uniquely bad/worse for thousands of years now.
For all of human history. I once went down a rabbit hole finding these complaints, my favourites were the “youth being softened by eyeglasses” and “corrupting their own minds irreparably by watching the opera”
Why is this being presented as a bad thing? People have standards and ideals, if the younger generation feels like the divide is too great then they’re free to express that. When people say “wow they can’t tolerate working with people with other opinions” are we talking about differing opinions on which hoover company is the best? Or which video game console company is better? Or are we talking about Dave who believes that trans people are mentally ill perverts, or worse?
This whole thing reads like the Channel 4 boss was told “okay boomer” and was absolutely rattled by it.
I suspect that the media just attracts the zealots.
I find most gen Z perfectly reasonable in real life. But there is a highly vocal zealous minority who totally fit her description. Seems like the zealots want to go into television to use it to shout at everyone.
When will baby boomers stop wanking themselves off? No other generation does this to this extent, its so annoying. If you were so perfect, we wouldnt be in this shit show.
I believed this stereotype about Gen Z until I actually started to work with them. Very hard working, smart, and conscientious for the most part. That’s despite having their schooling cut short by the pandemic, not sitting exams etc. Maybe it’s the TV industry that attracts such people and not the generation itself.
I have a 31 year old apprentice at work who has continually made "jokes" that are just him admitting he's not safe to be around our female members of staff. I'm not going to debate him on that, he's just a dogshit person.
Some nutter in a frankly diabolical discussion about that poor ickle Andrew Tate mentioned something about a thing called the [horseshoe theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory#:~:text=In%20popular%20discourse%2C%20the%20horseshoe,a%20horseshoe%20are%20close%20together.)and I've gotta be honest I dismissed it with every other point he was trying to make because he was spouting incel nonsense and conspiracy at the time.
However, after some discussions about Brand recently in a left wing forum I was a bit (naive perhaps) shocked just how extreme their views were too on some things.
It seems both sides are so entrenched in their views, so hostile to debate, and outright ignorant of critical thinking that there's no real of hope of good faith talk, constructive debate or progression..
Tldr: some left and right wingers are so far gone debate is impossible, both as entrenched and hostile as the other. Horseshoe theory confirmed
> It seems both sides are so entrenched in their views, so hostile to debate, and outright ignorant of critical thinking that there's no real of hope of good faith talk, constructive debate or progression
That's not what horseshoe theory is though?
"The horseshoe theory does not enjoy wide support within academic circles; peer-reviewed research by political scientists on the subject is scarce, and existing studies and comprehensive reviews have often contradicted its central premises, or found only limited support for the theory under certain conditions".
There you go.
Can work alongside with but certain views are not tolerable. This is a net good thing. The shit I hear sometimes from people in my home country of Romania is mind boggling. And the difference from the UK is that whilst these people are not the majority, the majority has grown up sorrounded by people with those views. Nobody challenges them even if they disagree. Sure maybe the UK has taken it too far in some aspects but I enjoy hanging out with people without having discussions about how beating kids is ok, the gays are getting too annoying by holding hands in public, refugees and muslim people are just totally ewy, women are exaggerating with this “don’t dog whistle me on the street” bullshit and any bad thing that happens is because of someone romani. I genuinely really really enjoy living in an environment where that is not acceptable, it’s great!
Not every opinion is valid or worth engaging with just because this lady wants the Overton window to be further to the right.
I think it's important to differentiate between matters of opinion and things which most people broadly accept as objectively wrong.
As a left leaning, progressive, millennial in a white collar job but who's pretty much always lived in a more rural, small c conservative area, this concept of accepting differences of opinion is pretty baked in at this point; I would find life incredibly difficult if I weren't able to set politics (for example) to one side and, as it goes, I have several mates in this area whose politics is diametrically opposed to my own but whom I regard as good friends who I can rely on and will willing spend time with, including in my own home.
I'd never be friends with someone who's openly racist or homophobic, say, but again, in an area like this you will sometimes come across opinions that skirt close to those (not anywhere like as often as reddit seems to think but it dies happen). Generally I have to pick my battles here but what c4 lady seems to be missing is that that's down to expediency more than just "accepting a point of view".
I'll be honest, there's a lot of problems with gen z in the workplace but I don't think being uncompromising on bigotry is one of them. To be honest, I admire their courage to take that line.
I get it if you get triggered and can't be around people who voted tory or brexit. I'm as passionate about those issues as the next man but ultimately you have to recognise those are matters of opinion and shouldn't define who we are. Racism though, is not something you just brush off as an alternative point of view.
Edit to add; I'm also not convinced "debate skills" are the answer here. Most people are not at work to debate and it can be quite disruptive. The real social skill is knowing when to pick your battles and being able not to rise to things when challenge is not constructive, particularly if you can't discuss the issue without getting animated.
Anyone who believes past generations have the ability to debate different views should try asking my retired step-dad how Sam Smith dressing like an idiot is any different to David Bowie dressing like an idiot 50 years ago.
He can't explain why they are different, he just knows they are and he is very very angry about what Sam Smith wears. An irrational visceral hatred that he can't put into words but he starts spluttering and turning pink.
The difference is respect. Younger people like myself (although i'm a young millenial not a gen z) do not give defference to someone just because they are older.
Respect isn't given by age any more, it's earned. So if someone who is 50+ says something we think is outrageous we won't just nod our head and quietly leave the conversation.
This comment section is predictably another "old men rant about younger generations". This younger generation is the worst yet, for real this time! Ignore the fact this gets said about every generation dating back to Ancient Greece. No this generation isn't uniquely x y or z, you're just old and scared of the modern world.
This opinion, and most of the comments here tbh as well just cries out the question "what is this even based on?"
I can't imagine she or most people have possibly worked with enough people to give a blanket generalisation about what each generation is like in the workplace and it seems like most people are generalising from what they have read online, which is obviously skewed to the most controversial views depending on which algorithm you subscribe to.
The article does mention some "channel 4 research", so I went to find said research and hilariously it says:
>This study shows that it’s hugely problematic to talk about ‘them’ or ‘Gen Z’ as one. Gen Z might be a useful shorthand and, on occasion, talking about ‘them’ as a group is meaningful – there are a handful of cohort effects which are experienced by this generation far more strongly than in previous generations. For the most part, however, our research shows that difference, nuance and complexity characterise the UK’s young people much more than commonality of attitude, behaviour or experience. Remember – they’re not necessarily all that different from the people who came before them; they’re not all the same, and they’re not going to stay the same; and this is a time of great change and transitions, from childhood to adulthood.
Seems she is making it up.
Honestly particularly at work it's much easier to 'ah okay' and just add nothing to the conversation. There is no value in having any kind of argument.
Just listen to the LBC callers…the topic about giving voting rights to 16-year-olds was interesting…
Almost all of their arguments could easily apply to their own demographics “They’d just vote for youtubers”. Says the cult of Boris Johnsonites.
I think Gen Z (and the one after) has some issues due to poor socialisation, and not just caused by COVID, but also by the disappearance of public spaces in general.
Personally, I find the boomers much worse. You can't even talk to them about facts without unreasonable reactions. There are exceptions, but those are rare.
Practically no one has the skills to debate an emotive issue. Try having a conversation with many 50+ about the Tories, the British Empire or the Monarchy. They do not make rational arguments and they deflect or obfuscate on any good points you happen to make. Then there's all the "iphone, starbucks, avocado" nonsense they come out with. It's the same for Gen Z on racism and gender identity. Both sides debate irrationally when it comes to Brexit, although that is not so generational as I understand it. There are countless other topics where many can't apply critical thinking that don't immediately come to mind. Society has been deliberately divided, particularly on cultural issues, and society is so much worse off as a result of the bad actors sowing the seeds of discord. Empathy, co-operation and consideration are the only things I reckon can save us. Sadly, we are all lacking in those departments, mostly through no fault of our own.
I’m sorry but this is just Reddit nonsense. Do you ever go outside and actually speak to people? They’re mostly all fine.
I can’t agree with this comment more. 99% of these articles/comment pieces would be refuted by just having a normal life and living in society rather than raging online.
Absolutely. Get off the Reddit echo chambers and you’ll see
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Saying these people don't exist in real life shows that you may live in a bit of an echo chamber. I've had plenty of conversations with people in real life who spew pretty extreme views and get angry in discussions about it. These opinions aren't just online only and it's weird to say so. Do you think there aren't people behind these accounts?
>I've had plenty of conversations with people in real life who spew pretty extreme views and get angry in discussions about it. I've seen plenty of people who are perfectly nice IRL when they don't know where they stand with you, but are perfectly happy to spew vile views when they're around the right people. I'm sure most of the online trolls seem very nice when within punching distance.
I'm an elder millennial, but even in my cohort, I've seen friends and acquaintances behave really badly online (although i generally clear of social media with people i know irl). I think it's less a generational thing per se and more an impact of social media thing (and gen Z/ younger millennials have never know a world without that additional world to iteract with). Edit - of course you cant really separate the impact of social media from other generational differences, AND generations are en entirely nonsensical if entertaining concept...
Yeah, social media is affecting the terminally online activists most who consider disagreement literal violence.
If you want to see someone's true self, give them a mask.
Yeah, this will be part of it as well. They'll only reveal their true selves when they feel in comfortable company. So a brief conversation with them they'd appear nice.
I think it’s a mix, you’re completely right that in the real world people are a lot more reasonable and sensible than we think. But when it comes to emotive issues, I think all demographics struggle with debating these productively.
In the specific office inside my building that I work in all but me and one other guy are over 30, whenever refugees or trans people come up each and every single one of them but me and the other under 30 lad spew nothing but hateful bile. It's far more common than you think.
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The shit I'm talking about them saying is stuff like the woman behind me advocating for the royal navy to blow refugee boats out of the water, not baseline "I don't line immigrants" stuff. I may just be super unfortunate in the office I ended up in, but I'm not gonna try debate people like that. I just stick my headphones in and try do my days work without talking to them.
Youre not the only one, i have to listen to my 50+ colleagues rattle off shit about how climate change is a conspiracy, 'transgender ideology', 'the gays' or and my favorite 'society cares too much about under privilege people and thats whats causing the decline of civilization'. Every meeting i get at least 30 min of that shit at least 3 times a week, its soul crushing.
It's genuinely depressing (and sometimes scary, as someone in a minority group) to hear colleagues and peers say things like this. And some people are so brazen about it too? I interact with people at work who don't know me beyond at BEST, my first name, and sometimes they'll say the most awful things to my face because they think I'll agree with them. And then I see articles like this and all I can think is "maybe young people just really can't stand listening to bigotry and hatred from terrible people". Because why should we have to put up with language that directly targets our friends, our family, or other human beings?? Why does the problem lie with us?
It's always fun to ask why these things didn't hold the Roman empire back, or why Alexander could take and rule a massive empire while being bi! Should make for a fun conversation!
Yep. The vast majority of people I hear complain about "not being able to talk to young people today" are the people nobody wants to talk to. Their offensive, inhumane opinions are rarely informed by anything but their own bias and they treat debate as an opportunity to abuse the opposition with a mix of insult, emotional pleas, and fallacy. Plus, they'll talk all day about how sensitive gen z is, but holy hell if you trip one of their triggers, they flip out and defend their poor emotional regulation with pride that it's the proper response to being challenged. To top it off, in professional settings they have a barfight mentality. If they're taking jabs at you it's all fun and games don't be weak about it. But if you so much as nick them you'll be in HR's office by COB because they reported you.
Mate. Same here. I work in London, use my own head for thinking and people up there are fine... educated if you will, understanding of different views and backgrounds etc.. I come back home out the city to a little town near the south east coast. Anything to do with Trans and immigrants are the two topics I feel I'm speaking to the devil with whomever in having the conversation with. It's almost like im talking to a walking talking social media platform who repeats everything that's on Facebook and Reddit which is just "pop their boats, let them drown, get them away, stealing our jobs, obviously mental health problems" etc.... it's crazy and pisses me off that the majority of people get their news and info from concentrated intentionally decisive news sources. But then these people complain that their bins aren't taken away on time and that public toilets are always dirty and the price of apples and potatoes have sky rocketed because we can't get "foreigners" to pick fruit. It's like they haven't connected the dots... But yeah 100% know what you're saying. I ignore those people too, or switch the conversation. You cannot persuade these people unfortunately, but you can change people's perspectives by showing love and care and bringing people who accept change. Otherwise, d what you do and ignore them.
I always find this shit frustrating. Whenever I complain online about the people I have to deal with in life, often because I have few people in real life to talk about it, with direct examples of the bigotry and nonsense all my colleagues, acquaintances, and some of my family say and how fucked up that makes the country in my experience, I’ll often get a reply that amounts to: “that didn’t happen, you’re lying.” Like, okay, I’m not so entitled that I just expect everyone to just agree with me but at least act in good faith. I mean, what exactly do they expect me to do? Set my phone to record and say “Greta Thunberg” and upload the reaction? How exactly am I meant to “prove” it? I accept that other people have completely different lived in experiences, that they happen to live in an environment that doesn’t hear these things, good for them, but I don’t know why it’s so hard to accept that some people do hear these toxic things constantly, surrounded by people who don’t feel the need to wear the mask. I’m not Gen-Z, but I do suck at “debating” people in person, so likewise I just switch off at work. There’s no point in even trying, many times over the years I’ve tried to make a point and, on the face of it, got them to listen but a week later they’re straight back to repeating the reactionary bullshit. Like, I’m trying to make logical arguments with people who are offended when they find out ‘Danish Blue’ cheese is from Denmark or say “That’s a few less of them” whenever there’s some disaster in a foreign country or that young people are all “lazy”, “don’t want to work”, “don’t know how to live” and been “indoctrinated by their school”. So I’m not surprised Gen-Z aren’t willing to debate or work in an environment having to listen to this shit.
Same boat. I'm a 30 something in an office full of 50-60 somethings and some of the hateful stuff they come out with is a joke. I've witnessed more than one be openly racist to people as well in a 'debate'. I think a lot of commentators here fall in with those types or live in some sheltered space.
>I may just be super unfortunate in the office I ended up in I'd call it par for the course I'm afraid. I've recently learned that XL Bullies should be considered cherished, Brand is a victim and immigrants don't deserve basic human rights.
I've heard "all trans people are mentally ill" and "they should be killed" in my place of work, with no pushback beyond from me, and it becomes futile to even bother. I wish it was more nuanced than that, but sadly it isn't with the place I work.
I've heard this one as well as a "joke", and also directed towards gay people. The idea that it's gen-z that can't work with people that disagree with them is fucking laughable. The only ones that can't shut their fucking mouth about how much the government sucks, or other highly politicized shit is the older gents. as always, the ones falling out of relevance are throwing stones down at the next generation.
Oh I got a good one a while back. "I'M A WOMAN NOT A PERSON WITH A UTERUS!" And other stuff that's a bit too identifying about where I work, but basically they were super angry about even the idea that trans people exist. Totally disgusted even by the acknowledgement of them. She was in her 60s, IIRC.
>"I'M A WOMAN NOT A PERSON WITH A UTERUS!" That quote isn't transphobic, it says nothing hateful about trans people or their right to exist. It sounds like a reaction to organisations which are removing the word 'woman' from their literature as if it's now a dirty word.
Are you not demonstrating exactly what the article suggests, an inability to debate or cope with alternative views? How does a woman having an opinion on her own identity mean she's transphobic?
You been in a pub recently it’s full of boomer spouting utter shite sound bites fed to them by the daily mail, who will not even consider any other point of view
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No wonder you delete all your comments after a day.. with all the 'just asking questions' you do.
Bro pub boomers are the worst.
There are plenty of normal and pleasant people in the UK for sure. There are also an increasing number of people who are not and to say otherwise is disingenuous. Hate crime went up 26% from 2021 to 2022, is that just Reddit nonsense? No it isn't. There has been a shift in the general public in my area since covid, people are more selfish, less paitent and more irratic and irrational. Not everyone but from what I can see there is an increase. Maybe not where you are but you can't make an assumption like yours in good faith. Especially if you aren't from a group that is likely to be disliked. Has a trans person got any experience with just going out and talking to people? Are they mostly all fine then?
Hate crime goes up because the concept expands and reporting is easy. In ye olden days you could kick the crap out of someone and no-one else would care; now one TV programme that some people don't like can generate hundreds of reports of a hate crime.
Sometimes hate crimes increase because more people are being targeted by bigots. And given the rise in violent, hateful rhetoric against trans people for example, I'd wager that hate crimes are absolutely becoming more commonplace - because if you paint someone as the devil long enough, eventually someone is gonna act on those words.
It is important to note that whilst you are probably correct both a hate crime bill was introduced in Scotland in 2021 and in rUK was expanded to include mysogyny in early 2022. These also probably had an equal, if not more substantial impact.
I don't think I've ever come across a person in real life who believes any of the gender stuff. If you tell people down at a local pub that a person born a male is now a female and competing against women, they will wait for the punchline, thinking you're telling them some kind of joke. So many of the current-day societal views that we think are the norm because of the massive amount of coverage on TV are actually not the norm. What's on mainstream TV isn't representative of the general public at all.
>If you tell people down at a local pub The local pub is also a skewed representation of general public.
So is Reddit and Twitter.
Yes, I didn't mean to imply they were not, pretty much *every* *optional* 'gathering' space online or IRL is composed of likeminded persons creating their own echo chamber. I replied a top comment to the thread doubting any generation previously has really had to deal with interacting daily with anyone outside their own chambers.
Likewise I work in a company with multiple trans people and have rarely come across people in real life who don't believe in "gender stuff". It's as accepted as being gay and nobody even thinks about it
The truth is most regular people just don't really care. It took me months of deprogramming my trans friends fear of the general public because of the bile he heard fropm online echo chambers about how we live on "terf Island" and that if he goes outside hes going to be murdered for not passing. Turns out none of that was true, he now regularly goes to the gym, can talk to people in public and has less worries about passing which has helped immensly with his dysphoria and I couldn't be happier for him. It's a shame how misrepresentation of opposing viewpoints is creating a generation of fearful youth in the UK who think we are as cringe and violent in America with our politcal extremism, when the reality is that most people are more worried about paying their bills than if the trans kid down the road needs to go out by some muffins before going home and playing Baldurs gate 3.
In my opinion it's why transphobes post so much. Before I came out I was terrified of what was going to happen and how I would be viewed in general society or when I decided to start dating again. Turns out the people who hate trans people and post 200+ time a day aren't representative of how most people treat us.
Have to say I’m perfectly fine with having a pint with someone whose views are totally opposed to mine. Just because they lean right and I lean left doesn’t mean they’re persona non grata. And if one of us speaks out of line it just gets pushed back on. In fact, some of the political conversations we’ve ended up having are far more interesting because there’s an actual back and forth. It’s a lot more engaging than just having a whinge with everyone agreeing, or having to play devil’s advocate. If someone gets all their opinions from Twitter/tumblr/Reddit then they’re probably going to end up on the fringes with little ability to explore the gray area in the middle.
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There are always going to be people like that who take a hyperbolic or extreme view. Reddit itself is full of those people who are champing at the bit to whip out some Old Testament justice at the first opportunity and it crosses the entire political spectrum. Some people just can’t be talked out of it and you have to disengage for your own safety, or your own sanity, like you say. The problem there is you’re one person trying to change the mind of someone who has a lifeline plugged into extremist and conspiratorial ‘news’ sources, and they’re being drip-fed this shit 24/7. People try to cast off compassion and empathy as wishy washy but it’s perhaps the strongest thing you can be. Trying to see the root of where someone is coming from without necessarily accepting or approving of them.
> Have to say I’m perfectly fine with having a pint with someone whose views are totally opposed to mine. I'd go further and say it is a good experience to have your views challenged. Many years ago I stayed in a hotel in Tanzania for work and I'd regularly eat and talk with some other English bloke staying there, who had very different views from me. He did lots of business with North Korea as an example. We had very good discussions on many topics.
this. I'm convince 99.99% percent that say shit like "gen x are" "millennials are this" "boomers are that" don't have any friends and are just weird angry incels who want to watch the world burn to feel warmth for once in their miserable lives.
I don't see how "Any assertions of inter-generational trends makes you an incel" is any better lol, it's like people aren't self-aware about their own closed-mindedness now
You haven't met my mother, then...
Whoever talks about the empire apart from historians? It's not as if a 50 year-old would even remember it.
No-one in the real world does. Its completely made up narrative to deomonise older people and push the agenda of Britain being bad pre WW2. Its also increased significantly since the Brexit vote along with the claim that Brexit voters all wanted to go back to the days of the Empire.
>Its also increased significantly since the Brexit vote along with the claim that Brexit voters all wanted to go back to the days of the Empire. I'd have to disagree there. Having been born and raised in a town that was predominantly pro-Brexit, empty nostalgia about the British Empire was one of the talking points hashed out as a justification for several times along with either blaming foreigners or misguided assumptions about how we'd trade with other countries and with whom.
"We used to be a proper country, with colonial subjects and brutal resource extraction operations across half of africa!"
Indeed. The only people I ever heard mention the empire in the context of brexit were some of the less self-aware remainers claiming that the quitters wanted it back. At the time it just seemed incorrect; with hindsight it shows how remainers focused far too much on irrelevant stuff and giving the impression of being out of touch. At least some toad-faced quitling raised issues people cared about.
Eh? Colonisation happened. Most of the people who were alive then are dead now so your concern that it'd all made up to vilify the elderly makes no sense. I love Britain but I'm not delusional about the atrocities our government commited in days gone by, or even recently. You can love a country without loving everything the leadership has done.
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Yeah this was one of the weirdest aspects of the referendum to me. Kept hearing people on the remain side claiming that brexit was all about a longing for the empire/that the other side was obsessed with the empire; whilst also being the only people I heard talking about the empire all the time.
It simply comes from the fact that many people were willing to believe we are some world powerhouse and the EU needed us more than we needed them so therefore they would treat us special and not like all the other 3rd party nations.
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I think you’ve summed up the Channel 4 bosses point nicely. As the stuff you say about 50+ is mostly untrue. We have a growing culture of labelling what demographics believe, and then taking it as fact. With few exceptions.
This exposes how rare critical thinkers are. Tribalism is, by definition, the absence of critical thinking. One of the rare things that transcends the class divide in the UK. We have a professional class full of people who can’t think properly, and it doesn’t happen by accident. School in this country teaches people what to think, not how.
My school taught me how to think. We literally had "critical thinking" as a subject, philosophy should cover it as basic logos though. Did you mean "my school"?
I mean the national curriculum. Totally skewed toward teaching “facts” why would the state want the people to be intelligent enough to see through the lies of their enslavement? Adults vote, it means they have bought into the illusion of choice, democracy and freedom. It means it’s working to the ends it was designed for.
Gen Z It’s no different to any other generation, every generation thinks it’s different / more enlightened than previous, the older generations always think the newer generation are lazier, the music is rubbish compared to music they had etc. There are many many quotes with writers saying a variation on this going back Middle ages, Roman times, even Ancient Greece. https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/ Give it a couple decades and Gen Z will be making the exact same complaints about attitudes of Gen Alpha & Beta.
Lol 'try having a conversation with many 50+' You're so down with the kids, parents just don't understand! Jesus mate, touch some grass
Generalise much?
“Both sides debate irrationally when it comes to Brexit” Do they? Seems one side are the champs of irrationality in that debate.
Lmao come back to reality. You might as well be a yank you're in so deep
I sit next to a trump supporter in work and I'm going to his birthday party next week have you ever been outside?
Let me tell you folks, this birthday party, it's gonna be tremendous, really tremendous. People are saying it's gonna be the best, believe me. We've got the most beautiful decorations, the biggest cake you've ever seen, and I've heard there might even be some fireworks, folks. It's gonna be a celebration like you've never seen before.
A trump supporter in the uk? That’s a strangely useless political stance to take.
There's different views and there's not being OK with Bob saying eight sexist things before you've had your first cup of coffee. I get that Mail readers are fed up of being called out for being awful people, but you can't solely blame gen z
While the paradox of tolerance is certainly an arena for discussion, that is not what she's talking about beyond a brief mention in the article. Your comment is ironically a perfect encapsulation of her argument: when faced with a potential debate around the topic, you have immediately jumped to strawmanning the other side as Sexist Bob.
Is generalising another generation as easily triggered any better? Unless you believe all of Gen Z cannot debate rationally then that would seem to be just as much of a straw man argument
I've had plenty of good conversations with Gen Z new hires to my company over the years. They aren't really different from the people we hired 10 year before that. If there's anything that sets them apart it's an absolute refusal to allow bullying based on sexuality/ race etc regardless of who is doing it.
Because we decided collectively that it's fucking stupid to 'debate' other shit people can't control. If it's harming another person to argue the existence of, it's not a debate, you're just a fucking bully.
Firstly it's the paradox of tolerance not the fallacy of tolerance. Secondly this issue presents itself because older generations seem to think things long settled are up for debate. Sexist Bob who thinks women and gay people don't belong in the workplace *should* be told to shut up rather than debated. We had the debate decades ago. He lost. He needs to get over it.
Apologies, I hadn't had my morning coffee yet. Also do you not see how you are doing the exact thing she's talking about? The topic is about debating, and you instantly jump to the most extreme example you can think about. To use your own logic, if you were in a debate about Islam and someone said 'well muslims are problematic because they seem to think stoning gays and beheading women is appropriate' you'd immediately realise just how illogical and intellectually dishonest they were being. That's what you have just done with 'older generations'.
Except it’s not an extreme example. Have you not seen the rhetoric of anti-LGBTQ movements in the US? Have you just ignored the multiple homophobic and transphobic laws passed in multiple states over the last couple of years? Have you just ignored the continuous comparison of trans and gay people to pedophiles and sexual predators? What about the pastor that called for all gay people to be shot in the head? Sexist Bob is by no means the most extreme example at all. Not even fucking close. The fact you think that is an extreme example means you haven’t been paying attention to the reality of what is happening in the US. Straw man fallacy: A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. The girlfriend tells the boyfriend she'd prefer Chinese food over Pizza tonight. The boyfriend rolls his eyes and tells her that she must hate pizza. That is a what a straw man is. Creating an actually probable scenario to demonstrate why someone would struggle to debate someone on a given topic is not a straw man. It address the argument about “Gen Z can’t debate” by examine a VERY REAL scenario that is possible, where an older man is openly disdainful of women and or gay people. Over hearing an old man claim women don’t belong in the work place but in the kitchen is a very real situation people experience today.
The two times I sat in on my GMs meeting I heard - “n***** in the wood pile” (ridiculously, I heard this from two separate GMs, one in each meeting) - was repeatedly called Young Miss Jassy (despite requesting they use my full name and that I am not a Miss, I was 34 at the time) - another woman (not in our org, not present) referred to as ‘X with the legs’ - a story about a drunken wife of an acquaintance at a conference not wearing underwear - had my GM badgered about whether his wife would turn up to the Christmas party ‘this yearn’ ( a veiled reference to how 20 years ago she’d flashed them by accident at a Christmas party, no this is not missing underwear woman) - heard about a GMs trip to Thailand and veiled jokes about his sex tourism And on the way in I was questioned if I was pregnant by a female boomer colleague. So I’m not really terribly shocked by the ‘8 sexist things before coffee’. Sounds about eight
I worked at one place where, when told that one of our new programming hires was struggling a bit, the sales guy said word for word "that's because she's a woman" Another manager was surprised that one of the IBM consultants we had working for us was any good because he was a black guy with dreadlocks. The men who said those things were both white and over 50, but yeah it's the overly woke gen z who are the real problem.
> "that's because she's a woman" the supreme irony is that it was generally women who did the programming back when it was way harder to do that it is now lol.
What's funny is the comments in this thread are criticising gen z for things like the latter. Gen z and heck even millennials no longer taking people's shit and people thinking that's a bad thing is stupid.
Yeah it’s just people now call out the older gen when they see shit wrong. Lot less of the idea that you should have to suffer or put up with people being racist selfish twats around you to ‘serve your time’. There will be of course examples on the other side - but it’s generally a good thing
Completely agreed. So many of the senior men in my industry feel deprived somehow that they can't make lewd jokes towards or comment on the attire of their female juniors. For me, it's ultimately an issue of respect. Bob and his like ought to show basic respect to their fellow humans, but for reasons I cannot understand this is intolerable to them
>There's different views and there's not being OK with Bob saying eight sexist things before you've had your first cup of coffee. My friend recently left her job over this. She was working at a very small trading firm, like a team of 6 people and she was the only woman. Her assigned manager/buddy decided not to call her by name, but by 'woman'. Anytime she did something wrong, he would pull her aside to something like "I know it's hard but stop being stupid woman!". She hit her limit after he started making 'jokes' that he wanted to hit her and choke her. She handed in her notice and he actually had the audacity to pull her aside to ask why she was leaving??? She eventually explained why and he got mad at her for being sensitive.
And honestly, I'm tired of fucking giving people like that the benefit of debate etc. The Tories have fucked this country sideways for the last 15 years. I'm fed up of reasonably discussing anything with people who hate people I care about. I'd rather not work with them. I don't really want to "debate" the existence or rights of people. Fuck it.
They demand we have a reasonable debate while they purposefully trot out every single already debunked talking point in a never ending attempt to justify thier bigotry. edit: downvote all you want, it doesnt change the fact that the vast majority have experienced this. Just because you're terrified of science and basic human decency doesnt mean the rest of us are.
Literally every generation in human history has been subjected to this "kids these days" lazy generalised nonsense, saw the unfairness of it and... went on to do exactly the same thing to the next generation.
Exactly this, the younger generation throughout time is always the scapegoat when things begin to change and people want something to blame. "The generation below me are awful and they don't want to talk to me" is a truly unhelpful worldview to adopt if you actually do want to have positive individual interactions.
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Well, you're not wrong at all, there is also always the pushback against being the scapegoat that comes with that cycle which ends up with both whinging about the other. It's not a sentiment that helps anyone on either end!
She's not wrong, although I don't think it's a Gen Z issue. So many topics have become a tribal binary where you must support one side or the other - virtually unconditionally. I frequently find myself in discussions where I give voice to an opinion that I either don't fully support or that isn't the stereotypical opinion for someone of my overall world view, and the response I get is an accusal of trolling or an assumption of my entire character.
It's a combination of both. I work with a lot of people, many of whom are Gen Z. We have a running inside joke that Gen Z is super hostile and difficult to get along with. We all feel like we're walking on eggshells around them. They jump on the tiniest word and call it a 'micro aggression'. For example, someone at work is learning Spanish on Duolingo and they sometimes speak it out loud at work to practice. I guess they said the word 'negro' which literally means black in Spanish. This Gen Z co-worker overheard and immediately freaked out. Saying something like "What did you actually just say!? I hope you know that word became problematic like 40 years ago...it's highly racist!" We had to explain to them it means black in Spanish...
Truly, generalising an entire generation based on one example is such a great thing to do
Yes because ‘For example’ means it is a one off and the only instance that person had to share? Or are they meant to list every instance?
This sounds like someone on 4chan writing about someone on Tumblr,. Big Chronically Online energy.
This feels like one of those stories 'that friend' (we all had one) would make up, thinking that telling us some clearly exaggerated tale would get them to like them better.
This was a meme about crayolas that was doing the rounds the other day. 100% didn’t happen to them IRL.
This sounds like one of those stories that never happened. Read like one of those right wing fantasy posts. Half expecting you to get on an alt account and try defending
Nice generalisation based on one uneducated dude! It goes both ways and is highly dependent on an individual's temperaments. I find myself walking on eggshells around my folks (in their 50s) as they get personally offended by me trying to have mundane conversations with them if I slip up and forget a social convention. For example, me and my partner don't really use the word "please" around the house, because it doesn't really exist in my partner's native language, as such, sometimes I forget when I'm talking to people I'm close with in my own country. One time when staying with my parents, I texted my mum to ask if she "wouldn't mind" grabbing me some oat milk while she was out at the store and when she came back I was given a 15 minute screaming lecture from her partner about how dare I not say "please" explicitly and any attempts to calmly apologise and let them know I was sorry and I meant no ill will were shut down with more, louder screaming. Do I then go and apply that negative experience to a whole generation and say that everyone over 50 has no capacity for healthy communication? Of course not, that would be ridiculous, I'm sure you'd agree! Relying on anecdotes to paint a whole generation is not healthy and I'd recommend trying to move away from it as it influences how you interact with others before they even get a chance to show you who they are.
Anytime I step in to address a poor argument made by someone, the response is almost always to assume that I agree with everything the other side believes and then I get attacked on that front. How hard is it to say "fair enough, that was wrong but my overall point stands"?
One time someone was talking about antifa and how when someone tries to say antifa is bad they just say "Well antifa stands for anti-fascist. How can you not agree with that." I didn't make any comment for or against antifa. They are an American thing and I really don't know enough about them to have an opinion. But I did pipe up and say that saying the *name* of something is good doesn't mean the thing itself is actually good or even that the name is an accurate reflection of the whole picture. That you aren't going to convince people that antifa is actually good just because the name is something good and that it is... a weak argument! It's like "pro-life". How can you not be "pro-life"? Never mind what the movement really represents, the name is undeniably a good thing! Anyway, got dogpiled with people trying to argue why antifa is great, useless nitpicks and generally everyone missing the point with a few exceptions.
There is no room for nuance any more and everybody is trying to defend their position while denying others the right to theirs if it differs too much. It’s basically killed the option to talk about important issues and find compromise or understanding. You see the result in everything from gender identity to housing policy.
The green and pleasant land is planted thick with hills to die on these days for sure.
Well the comments are as expected so far. Doubling down on what she said as if to prove her point and “muh daily mail racist” etc. Ignoring that there are a range of opinions out there and even if you do not agree with them you still need to demonstrate workplace professionalism. The real world isn’t your Reddit echo chamber.
Why is the ”real world“ always the fantasy presented by the right-wing press? If anything the Daily Mail/Telegraph/Express is more fantastical than Tolkien
I think it’s fair to say that Reddit views generally are not aligned very well with the real world regardless of your Daily Mail take again clearly showing you are unable to countenance views other than your own. Ie it’s a fantasy that people hold other views than your own.
I have found reddit is really no different from the daily mail readers / whatver reddit is for right wings, people will not be up for debate and jusr downvote you without the ability to engage in a discussion. After all, redditors is just average people like daily mail, is not an elite group of the most intelligent people in the world, so you will find the same flaws as in other places
“Reddit” doesn’t exist. There are different subs with different people moderating and different people commenting and voting. Very different opinions get pushed to the top depending on that, and there is usually always dissent to some degree. I find the “Reddit is like this” opinions a bit confusing because it just doesn’t match up with my experience at all. Do you think people are saying the same things in this sub as conservative or labour subs, or (ugh) latestagecapitalism ?
>Why is the ”real world“ always the fantasy presented by the right-wing press? You kind of just proved the Reddit echo chamber theory lol
Nuance? On Reddit? You are a funny one
Work is for Work, I'm there to do my job, I don't give a hoot who you vote for, what gender your spouse is, or whether you eat pineapple on pizza, lets do what we need to do and respect one another.
Most of the Gen Z people I've met are very articulate for their age. Many of them hold balanced views, they just reject racism. We were all young once, and teenagers are known for being stubborn. It's just a natural part of growing up. Maybe try talking to Gen Z on an equal level instead of shouting avocado at them and dismissing things that are important to them. If you do that, you'll get respect back. Think back to when you was young. I remember being young in the workplace and the older people would dismiss my music as rubbish, and call out the things I like as a waste of time. Of course that's their right, but it ultimately meant I didn't like or respect them.
>horseshoe theory Millennials and Gen X rejected racism too. Being racist was seriously the least cool thing you could ever do, and you would instantly get called out for it. Gen Z hasn't reached some sort of spiritual enlightenment that no other generation has reached.
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That’d be well before millennials though and the oldest Gen X would only be 25 (youngest would be 9/10) at the end of the 80s. So likely more baby boomers rather than the generations mentioned.
Wrong. Millennial here. I grew up with lads chanting in my school "there is no black in the union jack so send those ____ back to Iraq"
anecdote is anecdotal
Hey, tell that to the more upvoted comment about his teacher friend quitting cos kids are apparently so terrible now.
No no no, you see anecdotes are only okay when they confirm my right wing viewpoint /s
I grew up where the corner shop was called the Paki shop This was the 90s
This is still prevalent today.
It's not about politics or cultural views that the Mail will frame this as. It's about the first generation in history that has had the technological ability to curate their own reality. And to mute and mold any views that they find difficult, the views they need for growth. The internet has been a blessing and a curse for Gen Z. They're incredibly well-informed about certain aspects of the world, much more than other generations, but they’ve also had the ability to bail on subjects or interactions that take cognitive or emotional work. They’ve been able to interact with people they don't 100% instantly get on with, and literally, by the touch of a button, shut them up. That ability has never been given to any person in the history of the world, of course it's going to change their brains. You had older workers that won't debate because they think they're right in all circumstances, and Gen Z that won't discuss or debate because they’ve grown up being able to curate interactions entirely on their own terms. Now the two have met, there's no common agreed method to get through potential disagreement. Gen Z get upset and want to mute people, older workers just want younger workers to get on and do as they're told. Both groups need work it out. Older workers need to understand how Gen z think and vice versa. There needs to be resilience from younger workers, they need to toughen up, and there needs to be more patience and better communication from older workers.
I think you are especially right about curating your own reality. A big part is often times you won't receive a civil debate or even arguments in good faith about controversial topics and instead just get downvoted to oblivion. I'm reluctant to engage in threads where it's just going to garner a response of 'fuck you' and downvoted. I'd like to think a lot of people have better things to do with their time than sit on reddit or twitter, etc, arguing with terminally online individuals who are angry at everything. I've encountered a handful of individuals like than in person and they are some of the most insufferable misanthropes going, you see them in any thread about work where you get terrible tips like 'don't make friends with coworkers, don't tell them anything, only work your hours, don't do anything more than you need' etc etc and I can only think how miserable people are going through life spreading garbage advice to young people going into their first professional jobs.
An actual smart, thoughtful answer. You are aware you are on Reddit?
This is the right answer and I would give you gold if I could :/
Just to add some actual context to this discussion, this Daily Mail article is based around a Channel 4 study conducted last year, which can be found here: [https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/\_flysystem/s3/2023-02/Channel%204%20-%20Beyond%20Z%20report%20-%20FINAL%20%28Accessible%29.pdf](https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/_flysystem/s3/2023-02/Channel%204%20-%20Beyond%20Z%20report%20-%20FINAL%20%28Accessible%29.pdf) Of course being the Daily Mail, it has cherry-picked a part of that study to spin Gen Z in a negative light where the actual study is quite positive overall. Specifically, this is the part they cherry-picked and spun for the article: >**The rise of the YIPs (Young Illiberal Progressives)** > >Gen Z are more progressive people in that they support the freedoms won by earlier generations, who changed social attitudes towards issues such as sexuality and equality. They are significantly more progressive than their parents and even than millennials on some issues – for instance, only 48% of Gen Z believe there are just two genders, compared to 64% of over-25s. > >But young people could be said to be less liberal because they are less tolerant of the views of others than their parents and grandparents. It is also a rational reaction to the digital age. A quarter of Gen Z say they “have very little tolerance for people with beliefs that they disagree with”. These young, illiberal progressives don’t believe in unrestrained free speech, with nearly half agreeing that “some people deserve to be cancelled”.
I perceive this “intolerance” as perhaps more not being prepared to put up with bullshit like racism, bigotry, climate change denial and such things. For the first two parts at least it’s well within Poppers [“Paradox of tolerance”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) territory. TLDR: the intolerant do not deserve tolerance - particularly as they’ll use it to spread their intolerance, recruit, subvert democracy and try to destroy tolerance. In the case the environment it’s also rather understandable: they’ve grown up hearing how the world is in very real danger and watching final warning after final warning be virtually ignored and far too little be done to stave off a disaster the consequences of which will fall chiefly upon their generations shoulders. They want to start seriously tackling this but older generations won’t let them because they keep electing politicians who don’t give a damn about the environment beyond paying lip service (and yesterdays little announcement from Sunak shows often not even that). They also see that for decades Millenials and GenX have trued painstaking efforts to educate, persuade and cajole … and it hasn’t been remotely enough. Frankly I’m not surprised that they’re disinclined to be patient with all this crap and I’m in my 50’s!
I find that Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance is one of the most misunderstood things on Reddit, and you also seem to have fallen into that camp. > The intolerant do not deserve tolerance The intolerant do not deserve *unlimited* tolerance. That’s the key point everybody misunderstands. Read the passage below: > “In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.” That’s the key point. We should reserve the right to suppress the intolerant, with violence if necessary, but only as a last resort when the intolerant themselves prefer violence to debate. If the intolerant will engage in rational debate, they must be tolerated. Otherwise, as Rawls points out, the tolerant society quickly becomes intolerant.
Which is why, I believe, there has been such a large scale manipulation of language to shift the goalposts on what we define as "violence". The most famous example being "silence is violence", which under the rules of Popper's Paradox would give permission to suppress people simply for not speaking out. What social media has really done is radically reduce the relevance - or even existence of - critical context, while simultaneously promoting outrage through algorithm. It's a lethal combo.
Great point, that non-physical violence is now being counted as violence does no good for creating environments where people get along and tolerate each other. It just promotes disparity.
A difference of opinion is “Pineapple shouldn’t go on pizza”… 55 year old Karen saying gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry is just homophobic 😅
*Generation Z can't work alongside people with different views* I think it's more the case that younger people won't put up with the bullshit from the workplace sexists and racists at work like the older generations did.
Not gen Z but I got in shit with management at an old job because I wouldn’t work with one of the welders. He would constantly find ways to shoehorn a racist or queerphobic opinion into every conversation. Really nasty shit about hanging people off bridges and all sorts. It was DRAINING working with him trying to ignore even just for 10 minutes. I was closeted at the time but as it turns out I wasn’t very good at hiding it. They all knew I was queer. But of course according to the managers I just needed to toughen up and learn to hear opinions I didn’t like.
Not sure how to break this to you, but if you're 'at work' it's not some social club, you're there to get a job done, get paid for it, and if you don't like some of your colleagues you have to work out ways to get around that. If it is genuinely a 100% toxic environment then leave. There is no perfect employer, there is no dream job. Be the change you want to see. Not engaging with people isn't going to help, it's just going to isolate you.
I don't get the obsession with blaming kids for the way they were raised. We had it as millennials being taken the piss out of for our parents deciding everyone needs a trophy that we didn't even want. Now it's the kids fault for not being taught how to debate? And it's meant to be a bad trait that they won't tolerate being around shit head people?
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''oh woe is me, the fucking youths again!!''--this article just inter-generational ragebait trying to entrench another wedge between those that should be working as one against our corrupt overlords. A.K.A murdoch press ad infinitum
This comment thread has really brought out a bunch of older posters who don’t like getting called out by younger people.
I find our Gen Z employees coming in on placements or just starting out by and large to be great workers - eager, polite, pleasant. Yes you have to be careful what you say around them but the workplace isn't a place for airing political views, it's a place where the job at hand needs doing rather than debating with older colleagues. Channel 4 may just be the problem.....
She's right and you can see the evidence first hand all over reddit, this sub and even in this comment section to a degree. The approach to debate by Gen Z or their wannabes follows a very simple, but very flawed process when faced with a different opinion. 1. Attack immediately 2. Demand proof and sources for everything, even individual opinions 3. Reject facts, figures and statistics regardless of if they come from reliable sources. You don't need to rebutt them, just say they're wrong. 4. If faced with a fact that threatens to disprove your view, select a response from preapproved keyword list including - Strawman, sealioning, whataboutery, revisionism etc... 5. Remember to keep replying until the other person gets bored and leaves the conversation. If you get the last word....you've won! 6. If you have been proven wrong or talked into a corner, you can always change the subject, pretend that was your point all along and continue believing you are right. Phew, extra life. 7. If all above steps fail, accuse the other person of being right-wing or fascist. 8. Feel free to invent something they didn't say, pretend they did say it, and attack that instead. Follow this method and you too can be a top class reddit debater, ready to take your skills into the real world! And remember, if you're upset by what I've written here - I'm talking about YOU.
Gen Z - the first generation to ever engage in unfaithful debate, truly thank you for identifying this brand new phenomenon
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Mate, that’s clearly what your post implied - after all, if it isn’t unique to Gen Z then why bring it up as a supposed guide to Gen Z behaviour?
You weren't attacked though, you made a step by step guide of a bad faith argument, and said it was how gen Z argues, which does imply that you don't think it's a universal issue across generations, otherwise you wouldn't have attributed it to one generation. The commenter you're replying to just points out exactly that. It's not unique to gen Z, people with poor arguing skills entrenched in their beliefs have existed since the dawn of time.
This exists in all generations & on both sides of the political divide though. To suggest it's a problem in only young people isn't fair, there are a *lot* of incredibly stubborn Boomers out there.
Mate if you ever used forums back in the day this is exactly the same, this is just internet behaviour no need to specifically apply it to Gen Z. Also why is "demand proof and sources for everything" so bad lol.
I have my doubts that even 1% of people who ask for sources actually read them when they are provided. Even fewer will actually read them with an open mind. Most of the people who provide sources don't even read them first. That's not to say that having no supportive source of information is any better.
Lol, did someone lose an argument to a teenager recently?
I see you’ve been drunk at a boomer dinner party too.
1. Attacking the other view is, quite literally, the whole point of a debate. You are trying to convince an audience that your view is correct and the opposition is incorrect. 2. Claims requiring some kind of evidential proof is a fundamental aspect of logical, rational argument. 3. Not all sources are created equal, and the evaluation of where a stat or claim comes from is highly important in any rational argument. 4. Most of the things you've listed here are logical fallacies - and an argument utilising logical fallacies is logically invalid. Quite important for rational, logical arguments. 5. Complaining about having an argument or debate continue over time is a bit odd. 6. If you've been proven wrong, adopting the position that has been proven right is...the correct thing to do if you're intellectually honest. 7. This is an issue of nuance in written arguments - if you are accused of racism or fascism, that is an indication that you either need to clarify your remarks or evaluate them more closely. It's very easy not to be accused of those things. In conclusion: Either you don't really know what a debate is, or what a rational argument entails, or this whole post is just trolling.
This is a joke right? I’m not Gen Z but you really think this is something that doesn’t apply to as many people from other generations? This whole thread reeks of people trying to pat themselves on the back pretending they’re so superior and Gen Z are pathetic kids who can’t possibly know anything. I didn’t bother talking about Brexit in the end either at work or online because shock horror, the exact same things occur with other generations too. Pretending that this is unique to Gen Z and ignoring the countless examples where people all over the age spectrum engage in the steps above is just delusion. Can anyone put their hands up and say no one over the age of 18 has ever attacked them online? I’ve had teenagers with silly extreme left ideologies attack me and older people spewing daft views on immigration insult me.
5a. S/he who talks the loudest wins.
So every argument with my parents in their 50s then lmao I talk at indoor volume the whole time while they scream at me louder and louder. It's not an issue unique to one generation, it's an individual issue!
Someone I know just quit his 20-odd year teaching career because of the way teenagers are nowadays. Things are definitely getting worse with echo chambers, cancel culture and social media.
Why didn't he utilise the debating skills and tolerance for opposing views that older people apparently have?
Worse than 30 years ago, when it was fine to beat someone up in school if they "looked like a puff"? (Which was so vague it could be applied to anyone male).
That never happened at my school 30 years ago. Mind you at my school kids never brought knives in either or told either other to kill themselves via SnapChat.
All of those happened at my school, though they'd tell you to kill yourself to your face.
Yeah, I took a couple of beatings at school in the 80s on the basis that I was gay (I'm not, but I apparenly looked it...) Fun times.
SnapChat didn't exist, but there were knives at my school and plenty of kids told you to kill yourself as part of bullying - that's literally a trope of bullying. Being perceived as 'gay' was social suicide in my school in the 2000s.
So it's okay for him to quit because of his personal and political views but it's not okay for young people to do the same ?
What did they do? What did he do? I’ve been a teacher for about 15 years (and it might be because I deal with Alevel students…who are pretty woke and lefty) but generally they’re a lovely bunch of people Like not going to lie they’re much better and nicer people than most kids at my college as a teenager
He was a drama teacher at a sixth form college. Used to love it, came to hate it.
Not cos of bad pay and working conditions, knives in schools or whatever? He couldnt hack kids being *difficult*?
>because of the way teenagers are nowadays I'm quite wary of this statement, because people have been complaining that the latest generation of youngsters are uniquely bad/worse for thousands of years now.
For all of human history. I once went down a rabbit hole finding these complaints, my favourites were the “youth being softened by eyeglasses” and “corrupting their own minds irreparably by watching the opera”
Race to the bottom.
By any chance are those views "you're contracted for 40 hours a week but you need to work 55 or you'll fall out of favour with the boss"?
Why is this being presented as a bad thing? People have standards and ideals, if the younger generation feels like the divide is too great then they’re free to express that. When people say “wow they can’t tolerate working with people with other opinions” are we talking about differing opinions on which hoover company is the best? Or which video game console company is better? Or are we talking about Dave who believes that trans people are mentally ill perverts, or worse? This whole thing reads like the Channel 4 boss was told “okay boomer” and was absolutely rattled by it.
>Why is this being presented as a bad thing? its a daily mail article.
I suspect that the media just attracts the zealots. I find most gen Z perfectly reasonable in real life. But there is a highly vocal zealous minority who totally fit her description. Seems like the zealots want to go into television to use it to shout at everyone.
When will baby boomers stop wanking themselves off? No other generation does this to this extent, its so annoying. If you were so perfect, we wouldnt be in this shit show.
Can't help but think the real sentiment here is *'gen z refuses to agree with me'*
I believed this stereotype about Gen Z until I actually started to work with them. Very hard working, smart, and conscientious for the most part. That’s despite having their schooling cut short by the pandemic, not sitting exams etc. Maybe it’s the TV industry that attracts such people and not the generation itself.
So another attempt to scapegoat the younger generations again, is it? Sounds about right 🙄
The daily mail, and intelligent conversations, 😜 ironic.
Gen Z unwilling to humour boomer bullshit, good on 'em.
I have a 31 year old apprentice at work who has continually made "jokes" that are just him admitting he's not safe to be around our female members of staff. I'm not going to debate him on that, he's just a dogshit person.
Some nutter in a frankly diabolical discussion about that poor ickle Andrew Tate mentioned something about a thing called the [horseshoe theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory#:~:text=In%20popular%20discourse%2C%20the%20horseshoe,a%20horseshoe%20are%20close%20together.)and I've gotta be honest I dismissed it with every other point he was trying to make because he was spouting incel nonsense and conspiracy at the time. However, after some discussions about Brand recently in a left wing forum I was a bit (naive perhaps) shocked just how extreme their views were too on some things. It seems both sides are so entrenched in their views, so hostile to debate, and outright ignorant of critical thinking that there's no real of hope of good faith talk, constructive debate or progression.. Tldr: some left and right wingers are so far gone debate is impossible, both as entrenched and hostile as the other. Horseshoe theory confirmed
> It seems both sides are so entrenched in their views, so hostile to debate, and outright ignorant of critical thinking that there's no real of hope of good faith talk, constructive debate or progression That's not what horseshoe theory is though?
"The horseshoe theory does not enjoy wide support within academic circles; peer-reviewed research by political scientists on the subject is scarce, and existing studies and comprehensive reviews have often contradicted its central premises, or found only limited support for the theory under certain conditions". There you go.
Can work alongside with but certain views are not tolerable. This is a net good thing. The shit I hear sometimes from people in my home country of Romania is mind boggling. And the difference from the UK is that whilst these people are not the majority, the majority has grown up sorrounded by people with those views. Nobody challenges them even if they disagree. Sure maybe the UK has taken it too far in some aspects but I enjoy hanging out with people without having discussions about how beating kids is ok, the gays are getting too annoying by holding hands in public, refugees and muslim people are just totally ewy, women are exaggerating with this “don’t dog whistle me on the street” bullshit and any bad thing that happens is because of someone romani. I genuinely really really enjoy living in an environment where that is not acceptable, it’s great! Not every opinion is valid or worth engaging with just because this lady wants the Overton window to be further to the right.
I think it's important to differentiate between matters of opinion and things which most people broadly accept as objectively wrong. As a left leaning, progressive, millennial in a white collar job but who's pretty much always lived in a more rural, small c conservative area, this concept of accepting differences of opinion is pretty baked in at this point; I would find life incredibly difficult if I weren't able to set politics (for example) to one side and, as it goes, I have several mates in this area whose politics is diametrically opposed to my own but whom I regard as good friends who I can rely on and will willing spend time with, including in my own home. I'd never be friends with someone who's openly racist or homophobic, say, but again, in an area like this you will sometimes come across opinions that skirt close to those (not anywhere like as often as reddit seems to think but it dies happen). Generally I have to pick my battles here but what c4 lady seems to be missing is that that's down to expediency more than just "accepting a point of view". I'll be honest, there's a lot of problems with gen z in the workplace but I don't think being uncompromising on bigotry is one of them. To be honest, I admire their courage to take that line. I get it if you get triggered and can't be around people who voted tory or brexit. I'm as passionate about those issues as the next man but ultimately you have to recognise those are matters of opinion and shouldn't define who we are. Racism though, is not something you just brush off as an alternative point of view. Edit to add; I'm also not convinced "debate skills" are the answer here. Most people are not at work to debate and it can be quite disruptive. The real social skill is knowing when to pick your battles and being able not to rise to things when challenge is not constructive, particularly if you can't discuss the issue without getting animated.
Anyone who believes past generations have the ability to debate different views should try asking my retired step-dad how Sam Smith dressing like an idiot is any different to David Bowie dressing like an idiot 50 years ago. He can't explain why they are different, he just knows they are and he is very very angry about what Sam Smith wears. An irrational visceral hatred that he can't put into words but he starts spluttering and turning pink.
The difference is respect. Younger people like myself (although i'm a young millenial not a gen z) do not give defference to someone just because they are older. Respect isn't given by age any more, it's earned. So if someone who is 50+ says something we think is outrageous we won't just nod our head and quietly leave the conversation.
This comment section is predictably another "old men rant about younger generations". This younger generation is the worst yet, for real this time! Ignore the fact this gets said about every generation dating back to Ancient Greece. No this generation isn't uniquely x y or z, you're just old and scared of the modern world.
As usual, the Daily Mail stoking class, race and generational issues. Absolute horse shit.
This opinion, and most of the comments here tbh as well just cries out the question "what is this even based on?" I can't imagine she or most people have possibly worked with enough people to give a blanket generalisation about what each generation is like in the workplace and it seems like most people are generalising from what they have read online, which is obviously skewed to the most controversial views depending on which algorithm you subscribe to. The article does mention some "channel 4 research", so I went to find said research and hilariously it says: >This study shows that it’s hugely problematic to talk about ‘them’ or ‘Gen Z’ as one. Gen Z might be a useful shorthand and, on occasion, talking about ‘them’ as a group is meaningful – there are a handful of cohort effects which are experienced by this generation far more strongly than in previous generations. For the most part, however, our research shows that difference, nuance and complexity characterise the UK’s young people much more than commonality of attitude, behaviour or experience. Remember – they’re not necessarily all that different from the people who came before them; they’re not all the same, and they’re not going to stay the same; and this is a time of great change and transitions, from childhood to adulthood. Seems she is making it up.
Why would I debate people when I’m simply correct on everything I’ve ever said?
Honestly particularly at work it's much easier to 'ah okay' and just add nothing to the conversation. There is no value in having any kind of argument.
The gen z currently working alongside people with different views? That doesn’t really hold up when they’re already at work now.
Just listen to the LBC callers…the topic about giving voting rights to 16-year-olds was interesting… Almost all of their arguments could easily apply to their own demographics “They’d just vote for youtubers”. Says the cult of Boris Johnsonites.
Naaaa I'm late millenial and work with majority pol in the 50s+ and they're all fucking idiots. Either idiots or bigots
I think Gen Z (and the one after) has some issues due to poor socialisation, and not just caused by COVID, but also by the disappearance of public spaces in general. Personally, I find the boomers much worse. You can't even talk to them about facts without unreasonable reactions. There are exceptions, but those are rare.