Dear Mr. and Mrs. Angry Older Generation:

[Cainad (dec.)]

Twitter and Facebook both make me laugh

but then, I only read posts by people I think are funny.

Also Facebook is startlingly effective for organizing and inviting people to events. If you don't know how to use such media effectively, it might be a sign that you're not trying.

I agree with all of this. But when one is ranting, considering the positive side of things sort of kills the mood, yanno?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Dear whining little ingrate,

We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.

Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?

Sincerely,

Old Cunt

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Dear whining little ingrate,

We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.

Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?

Sincerely,

Old Cunt

[Cramulus]

It's weird how this continual pursuit of the Authentic Experience makes us water down the world's quality even further. We look at pictures of people having fun perhaps because we want to be included in it. We have to document our Authentic Experiences because they are so few and far between. We spend most of our day interacting with a lifeless machine. We work for these giant faceless corporate fictions, serving their DNA's instructions like red blood cells. I don't make anything, I don't produce anything. When I have real human contact, it seems so important to hold onto it, to tell others about it, and here we are, the Empire of Signs and Signals, of words and images, all ghosts.

I was reading up on Everyday Life, and I found this interesting bit:

History

Humans traditionally live in family-based social structures and artificial shelters.

In the past, before modern technology largely alleviated the problem of economic scarcity in industrialised countries, most people spent a large portion of their time simply attempting to stay alive.[4] Survival skills were necessary for the sake of both self and community; food needed to be harvested and shelters needed to be maintained.[5] There was little privacy in a community, and people were identified by their social role.[6] Jobs were assigned out of necessity rather than personal choice.[7]

Furthermore, individuals in many ancient cultures primarily viewed their self-existence under the aspect of a larger social whole, often one with mythological underpinnings which placed the individual in relation to the cosmos.[8] People in such cultures found their identity not through their individual choices — indeed, they may not have been able to conceive a choice which was purely individual. Such individuals, if asked to describe themselves, would speak of the collective of which they were part: the tribe, the Church, the nation.[9] Even now, survival issues are still dominant in many countries and societies. For example, the continents of Africa and Asia are still largely mired in poverty and third-world conditions, without technology, secure shelter, or reliable food sources. In such places, the concepts of a "personal life," "self-actualization," "personal fulfillment," or "privacy" are largely unaffordable luxuries

So: we get self-actualization, we get identity, but in trade we also get ennui, vertigo, and nausea. And express it in 140 characters or less!

This morning I'm overwhelmed by the cornucopia of bad career choices ahead of me. The job market is as stiff as the soil in late October. I don't even want to DO anything. I wish there was a community function that needed filling. If I was marching back to the tribe every night with the day's kill hoisted high above my head, I certainly wouldn't be feeling this restlessness, this anxiousness, this discord between me and my culture.

Maybe it's best just to accept that everything drifts along Siddhartha's river...

"Your father knows everything about you", he said.
"So he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is
no power on earth   that can make him change his mind about you".

Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept
feeding the idea with everything I did. "Don't you see ?", he asked dramatically.
"You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives,
and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal
history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your
acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.".

(...) "But that's absurd", I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me ? What's
wrong with that ?"; "What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair
taken for granted and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of
their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one
knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance".
"But that would be lying". "I'm not concerned with lies or truths", he said
severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history".

-castaneda

[Cainad (dec.)]

Dear whining little ingrate,

We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.

Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?

Sincerely,

Old Cunt

[Jenne]

for P3nt and Cram...both great examples ITT.  My husband always says these are the problems of the well-fed.  But he's kind of jaded that way.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

My grandma is all like "Kids these days, they're at least 100 times worst than my generation!"
And then we're all like, "But grandma, didn't your generation cause and participate in the deadliest conflict in human history?"

or

My mom is like "Young people these days are just always engaged in such terrible activities!"
And then we're all like "But wasn't your generation engaged in being hippies?"

What terrible activities?  I mean, what, was pot invented yesterday?