The legacy of a generation

It is a sad day, for the final WWI veteran has died. She was 110, just two weeks shy of her 111th birthday.

It's always right before the birthday, ain't it?

But in all seriousness, that's wonderful that she lived so long and did so much, and didn't even want to "blow her own trumpet" as the article said!! She's admirable not only in her longevity but in her dedication and humility.

And yes, it's really something that this is the last known member of an entire generation of people who participated in such a monumental war. And yet despite there being few people left who were there (living in that generation, not necessarily part of the war), their influence is still mighty powerful on us. This was one of those few generations that changed absolutely EVERYTHING. They defined an entire century, fir better or worse, setting the stage for everything that's happened from the 1910s on.

It kind of makes me wonder, which brings me to my reason for creating this thread: when the current generation is dead and gone, what will our legacy be? And will it be one that we're proud of, that our descendants will be proud of, or one that history looks back on with regret?

Just keep in mind here, hindsight is 20/20.

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I think we'll be pretty neutral about it. I mean so far we haven't created anything bad, it's really the leftovers of the Baby Boomers actions that have been affecting generation X/Millenials/whatever.

T Vtropes.

Seriously?

• We may be the generation that sparked the Information Age.
• We now see seeds of the "Green Revolution" where clean technology beomes the norm.

911

• September 11/2001 has shown the world the power of the few with faith in Allah against the many with none, and the War On Terror, with its greater death toll on Afghan/Iraq civilians than the Americans in the Twin Towers, with attrocies like Camp X Ray and Abu Ghrad will be remembered (and probably resented) for generations to come.

The new "Internet" culture, with ever faster and more powerful systems shutting data about all over the world has started to errode the importance of geographic location for cultural identity.

Unlike the previous age of Paper and Print, the Electronic Media doesn't need huge investments in machinery and allows almost anyone to publish anything and be seen all over the world (Sturgeon's Law may be in effect.)

There will be more of course, but I've got to go.

Someone continue pls?

edited 7th Feb '12 5:49:47 PM by Natasel

So we were the generation that learned the hard lesson not to be trusting or ever at rest for even a second, lest a minority of nutjob fanatics kill thousands of people? Anyway.

This has been a revolutionary decade or two, I'm in the thin age bracket of people who grew up with the internet, and I have mixed feelings about having gotten to watch the evolution of computer gaming happen in the last decade and a half or so. If there's anything we should be amazed at, I'd say it's the way that computing power has improved over what is historically such a small period of time.

I mean look at old computers that used to fill up an entire facility to do the simple things a calculator can do for us now. We have cellular phones with the computing power of an entire city of those relics. We mapped the human genome, we're making prosthetics for amputees that are controlled by the brain and are capable of fine motor function, every person on the entire planet can communicate with anyone else on the entire planet with not much more than a mouseclick, and it's instantaneous. We have a semi-permanent space station that is manned orbiting our blue planet, and we've eliminated or treated diseases and illnesses that used to be fatal, or would kill the victim within less than a decade.

None of these things existed when I was born, the last two decades have been, for lack of a better word, miraculous.

edited 7th Feb '12 6:39:19 PM by Barkey

I think the better lesson to take away from 9/11 is that America is not a magical microcosm completelely immune to the repercussions of our actions or who can see terrorism and suffering as something that only happens in other countries.

Pity most didnt.

as for your second point, I say one of the most miraculous new technologies is the Digital Camera.

We've managed to take a simple computer chip. allow it to sense light. record that light as a numerical value, and in a split second, assemble, colorize via algorithm, and then, reassemble several MILLION of those data bits into a full photo. Think about that. A 12 megapixel camera has to calculate 12 million data values together in a SECOND. a top of the line camera has to calculate 20 million plus values .

edited 7th Feb '12 7:05:07 PM by Midgetsnowman

No. That would be the generation before mine. And I am in my late twenties, so I'm older than most tropers here.

Now that would be a worthy legacy. But as you said, it's not something we achieve, it's something that we might achieve (and we will suffer if we don't).

More in general, it's up to us, now, to decide what our generation's legacy will be. We might be remembered as Those Who Screwed Up Royally, or as Those Who Finally Got It Together. Or any combination of the two.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:51:16 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

It has been said that a good nickname for Gen Yers might be "the Facebook Generation." While I don't feel comfortable acknowledging that Facebook is the pinnacle of ANYTHING, I do believe one of the premier legacies of Gen Y (and probably late-term Gen Xers) will be the rapid manner in which communication technology and media have changed within the last fifteen years.

I'm old enough to remember when the cutting edge technology in portable communication was getting a cord-based car-phone installed.

edited 8th Feb '12 2:31:05 AM by ForlornDreamer

Facebook, TV Tropes, its all sort of connected.

As stated before, we can now communicate faster, further and with more people than ever before.

We are using this ability to create Wikis, blogs, "communities" in cyberspace based on interests and spreading ideas/ideologies at a rate that made the original Printing Press seem like dark age tech.

Its now so common to use electronic media that students in this day and age might learn to use a web browser before learning the decimal system of an old fashioned library.

As we create content, critique content, edit content on the web, we are not only adding to the collective knowledge (though admitedly, not all knowledge is created equal) for humanity, but the end result is something the future will have to enjoy.

Except of course if Tv Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.

We will be the generation that either sank with the West or saved it. No more, no less.

And so, with joy in my heart, I hum this song.

Well, I might be a part of the generation that ushered in Scottish independence. That's quite a big thing, really, the establishment of a whole new country for the people who come after you.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

Well, the re-establishment of a very old one...

The West signed its own death warrant nearly 70 years ago.

edited 8th Feb '12 11:23:56 PM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

Explicanos, por favor.

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2011: The Year Young People Finally Cared About Politics Again To Change Shitty Rulers For Good Ones

2012: The year I made an iPhone with a Hello Kitty phone case, downloaded a shitton of Hello Kitty apps, and made Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" my ringtone so that Australian society's blokey misogyny would be trolled at every turn as my desecration of what a man's phone is supposed to look like destroyed bloke-hood as bogans understand it because Australian men are too apathetic to fight against my tide of trolling.

2013: Hopefully my editor gets my book ready for publication by then, a book by the way hopes to do worse damage to imperialist credibility than the above two factors combined.

Life is looking up somewhat.

Hell Hasn't Earned My Tears

We had an opportunity, in the aftermath of the most destructive war in our history, to build ourselves a fairer, more long-term world. Instead they went for profit-chasing and consumerism. Of course, that can only ever end one way. Humans, oil and mineral resources are all too slow to reproduce to allow the infinite growth the system requires in order to avoid implosion.

You have a girly 'phone and a crap ringtone. Is that what passes for rebellion these days? If so, the legacy of your generation will be fuck all squared except for huge piles of landfilled iPhones.

edited 9th Feb '12 6:04:15 AM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

On the contrary. We've lost the will to success and power while questioning ourselves and our position. The move from practical to moral is the cancer, not the other way around.

And so, with joy in my heart, I hum this song.

We all have to start somewhere.

So...No more "What works!", and then "What is Right!", is problem?

edited 9th Feb '12 6:12:55 AM by Natasel

Basically yes, though it is not as simple as that. Sometimes moral is practical and practical is moral; They are not polar opposites. The problem is the definition of 'right', not its existence in itself.

edited 9th Feb '12 6:35:50 AM by Scando

And so, with joy in my heart, I hum this song.

Well, then, perhaps the Legacy of this generation can be finding a solution to that problem.

It wasn't all that long ago when something called the Scientific Method was formally codified and charged up the modern world.

It'd be near impossible to combine them into a universal code because of the varying interests. Universalism is one the greatest mistakes of the West because it leaves no room for differing approaches: there is but 'all', not 'us' or 'them'.

edited 9th Feb '12 6:58:48 AM by Scando

And so, with joy in my heart, I hum this song.

Then have a Reawakenin of Good Ol Fashioned Values!

Replace Right Makes Might with things like:

• Might Makes Right! (hmmm, stilll in play.)
• Money Makes Right! (ditto)
• For God! (same here)
• I AM RIGHT DAMMIT!!! (poor Mubarak)

edited 9th Feb '12 7:05:18 AM by Natasel

And Gadaffi and Bin Laden. (damn, you won't believe how hard it was to write their proper names than the nicknames they acquired over the years)

As cliche as a thought as this may be, I'm curious how kind history will be to the Occupy movements. I see it being similar to how the hippies are looked at—lauded by those who were there or who supported them, but seen as something that did not help much despite its good intentions.

But, then, that's a different topic. Literally, we have an Occupy topic here, so, yeah. I'll say this, though: You know what the hippies had that Occupy doesn't and desperately needs? Woodstock.

edited 9th Feb '12 8:49:15 PM by 0dd1

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Letimof Duels? Rocking Hard Battle? War of the Wail?

Well, I suppose each age had its own musical signature.

Now that we have advanced electronics, we could have Techno Tunes.

Not a whole lot of mainstream political music in the past decade though, eh?

Granted, I don't necessarily require my music to have substance. Hell, as I'm typing this I'm listening to a Vitamin String Quartet version of Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday". But still, I'd say the popular music that comes out of a generation reflects a lot on the trends and attitudes of the majority.

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