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please tell me this is not the "most selfish generation"


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html


https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2020/09/06/wvu-suspends-29-students-for-covid-19-related-violations-additional-sanctions-pending

Over and over again there are college students partying, unable to control themselves, infecting themselves and their communities

Why is this generation so unable to do anything for the benefit of their professors, janitors, cafeteria workers and the economy?

Their grandfathers went to war in the Pacific and Normandy, their mothers and fathers to Vietnam, but they apparently think they are suffering because they can't limit their parties to 10 people.

Comments

  • Don't know if you can pin this all on the youngsters! If colleges went with virtual ed. the partying wouldn't be taking place. So seems to me a little greed on both sides.

    Derf
  • edited September 2020
    Why is that age the favorite of those looking for someone to go to war? Why is that age the most likely to do take dangerous dares? Why is that age the most likely to do want to surf the most dangerous waves?

    I admit that I am a little weird on the subject of young adults. I think we should do all we can to make sure their youth isn't robbed from them while we try to keep the old folks from danger. I don't know, admittedly, how this is done. I just hate the thought that they are starting their independent life with such an implied burden.

    Who is the selfish one?
  • I agree with Anna. Who is the most selfish? The 18 year old having her 1st taste of freedom or the baby boomer professor who wants all the young and healthy to sacrifice their youth for his well being. There are many young adjunct professors Just waiting to take his pace. It is time for the adults to sacrifice for the future generation .
  • @AbrahamLincoln I'm not sure that is exactly what I was trying to say. I think I was trying to say that consideration of the needs of both groups needs to included in the solution. But I do think the nature of the age group means that if young adults aren't given serious consideration, they will just take on a solution of their own. I don't want to make older teachers lose their jobs to accommodate adjunct professors that don't want to pay their dues. The solution is not to give advantage to anyone but to give consideration to everyone. I don't see where ousting people from the workplace is anything other that proving the point of the OP.
  • Someone has to make a sacrifice . The question is who it shall be. Is it the under age children who might not receive in classroom instruction? Is it the college age students? Is it their parents or grandparents , who may or may not taught them about selflessness / sacrifice. We just can’t let the boomers force the younger generation to sacrifice for them, without the elders leading by example. BTW, I am a 55 year old with a 3 1/2 year old daughter so I have a foot in both camps. And she will be getting her kindergarten in person education in 2 years or I will make it my business to tear down the local NYS school district !!!
  • Most studies agree that 18-year-old brains are not yet fully developed. The areas that take longer to mature involve those things that regulate higher order cognitive functions and self control. That makes them great candidates for the military - they don't weigh risks and rewards the same way we do - and poor at self-control when there's a party nearby.

    Remember, too, while some of their grandparents were fighting in Vietnam, others were dropping acid at Woodstock.
  • sma3 said:


    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html


    https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2020/09/06/wvu-suspends-29-students-for-covid-19-related-violations-additional-sanctions-pending

    Over and over again there are college students partying, unable to control themselves, infecting themselves and their communities

    Why is this generation so unable to do anything for the benefit of their professors, janitors, cafeteria workers and the economy?

    Their grandfathers went to war in the Pacific and Normandy, their mothers and fathers to Vietnam, but they apparently think they are suffering because they can't limit their parties to 10 people.

    Jeebus man. If you're a boomer you're embarrassing the rest of us.

    For one thing, for most of them, it was grandparents that were Vietnam era and great-grandparents that were WWII era. The Vietnam vet in my family will turn 76 this coming February. My kids are rare ones that know him as only an uncle.

    For another, I'ld like to see something like data on how many kids are getting this from attending wild parties. And then I'ld like to see a comparison to the actual college population.

    West Virgina U. has a student body around 20,000. So why are we getting excited about 29 idiots? Arizona State, which is just down the street from us, has something like 42000 undergrads, but only 375 cases. Not bad considering how bad Arizona was not too long ago.

  • ".....Someone has to make a sacrifice . The question is who it shall be....."
    Everyone. Cripes. It's a frikkin' pandemic.
  • WABAC said:

    sma3 said:
    Because this virus spreads exponentially. Just one infected person, especially one without symptoms, can in a remarkably short time spread the virus to dozens and then hundreds of people, many of whom will be miserable and some of whom will die and die miserably. 29 "Covidiots" can in short order inadvertently kill thousands of people. That's why we are getting excited about them.
  • edited September 2020
    Ben said:

    WABAC said:

    sma3 said:
    Because this virus spreads exponentially. Just one infected person, especially one without symptoms, can in a remarkably short time spread the virus to dozens and then hundreds of people, many of whom will be miserable and some of whom will die and die miserably. 29 "Covidiots" can in short order inadvertently kill thousands of people. That's why we are getting excited about them.
    29 people are not the most selfish generation in American history.

    Bringing up WWII, Vietnam, WWI, The Spanish American War, or any other conflict in American history in the context of the current situation is ludicrous at any level of historical knowledge past what people forgot about what they learned in high school.

    Taking our most recent conflict, I can't begin to fathom how anyone alive during the 1960's remembers it as some great era of shared self-sacrifice that is in anyway applicable to the situation we're in now.
  • I didn't bring up any conflict or anything about the 60s. I answered the question about why we (everyone) should be concerned about 29 idiots.
  • Ben said:

    I didn't bring up any conflict or anything about the 60s. I answered the question about why we (everyone) should be concerned about 29 idiots.

    This is where I do my Emily Litella impression.



  • The New York Times estimates 50000 college students are infected at least are diagnosed.

    Many more asymptomatic cases

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012

    you should be able to read this without signing in or if you do it is free.

    I should also have mentioned that I consider many of the " I am never going to retire" tenured professors at a lot of colleges just as selfish for refusing to step down after 65 or 70 and making room for younger people.

    My main point still is that there was a lot more suffering and death in previous 18 to 25 yos in 1942 and 1968.

    I never understood the "party till you drop"mentality in college. I went to get an education
  • >> should also have mentioned that I consider many of the " I am never going to retire" tenured professors at a lot of colleges just as selfish for refusing to step down after 65 or 70 and making room for younger people.

    Maybe. I have a professor sib, 77, who is still compos mentis and almost certainly knows more about his subject area than anyone, including anyone younger, or so I infer. I assume he adds to the sum knowledge and 'understanding goodness' of the economic and overseas labor / manufacturing world (global trade, international development, foreign investment, etc.) w his students than the opposite. But conceivably they would benefit from someone 45y younger - ? He just started his new classes Monday, which seems to be a thing in academe.
  • sma3 said:

    The New York Times estimates 50000 college students are infected at least are diagnosed.

    Many more asymptomatic cases

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012

    you should be able to read this without signing in or if you do it is free.

    I should also have mentioned that I consider many of the " I am never going to retire" tenured professors at a lot of colleges just as selfish for refusing to step down after 65 or 70 and making room for younger people.

    My main point still is that there was a lot more suffering and death in previous 18 to 25 yos in 1942 and 1968.

    I never understood the "party till you drop"mentality in college. I went to get an education

    Yes. Yes. The med students were in the library. Thank you. Please don't over-prescribe the rest of us.

    OTOH.

    I really don't understand the analysis you are trying to form from criticizing old tenured profs, some number of present day adolescents, and a sketchy understanding of demographic cohorts that went to war in two years of much wider ranges of conflicts you seem to know little about.


  • Hey both of the grandfathers of my 3 year old daughter are Vietnam combat veterans. One is 83 and the other is a 74.
  • Blame their parents. Not sure why the parents had success guilt and coddled their kids growing up. Not much was ever expected from them. I witnessed first hand many instances.
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