Are We Too Soft .....

[LuckyOne]

I find it interesting to read views on this site about the way that the world might unfold in the next 10 to 20 years.

My frame of reference for how life might be like for us in the next decade or two is much more like 1868 to 1948 than the 1970s or 1980s.

I really question whether the soft, liberal (by the standards of the last 150 years rather than the last 60 years) lifestyle to which we have become accustomed in the last 60 years leaves us completely ill equipped to cope with the coming crisis.

My 1868 to 1948 time scale includes the Meiji Restoration, the Sino Japanese War, the Russo Japanese War, WWI, the collapse of the Russian Empire, Northern Hemisphere industrialisation, WW II , Chinese communism, the early stages of the Cold War and the emergence of current "liberal" thought in rich, first world, northern hemisphere nations. It is a stunning amount of change to have seen over a mere 80 year period.

If we are in the process of undergoing such seismic changes again in the next few years, I do not think that our experience in the last 60 years leaves us at all prepared to cope. I suspect that people who have lived in "hard" places like Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America and Asia will survive much more easily than people who have lived in the EU, US, Canada, Oz/NZ etc.

The shift in the balance of power from the traditionally wealthy to those who can cope without being mollycoddled could be stunning.

[EmpiricalBear]

I heard a fascinating story on Radio 4 a year or two back about a rail crash in the 1950's. They interviewed a couple who had been in the crash.

It was a serious crash and there were fatalities. The couple interviewed were not in the heart of the crash, but obviously would have been a bit shaken up.

Today, there would certainly have been support for everyone, starting with blankets, tea and I guess counselling in case of any disturbing psychological defects. Then someone would drive everybody home, with lots of supportive this and that.

So what happened to this couple, on that foggy dark night after a serious rail crash... well as they put it, ambulance and emergency help was focused on the injured people.

So they just walked a number of miles home and sorted themselves out.

Thats the kind of spine that I think most of us now lack. Imagine the uproar if anyone had to walk home two miles let alone some extended distance like these people had to.

[Its time to buy]

snip If we are in the process of undergoing such seismic changes again in the next few years...

Good post.

I suspect there is such a change, most on here would be able to adapt. The rest of us, I suspect not.

These things go in cycles, life challenges its players, always.

[LuckyOne]

I heard a fascinating story on Radio 4 a year or two back about a rail crash in the 1950's. They interviewed a couple who had been in the crash.

It was a serious crash and there were fatalities. The couple interviewed were not in the heart of the crash, but obviously would have been a bit shaken up.

Today, there would certainly have been support for everyone, starting with blankets, tea and I guess counselling in case of any disturbing psychological defects. Then someone would drive everybody home, with lots of supportive this and that.

So what happened to this couple, on that foggy dark night after a serious rail crash... well as they put it, ambulance and emergency help was focused on the injured people.

So they just walked a number of miles home and sorted themselves out.

Thats the kind of spine that I think most of us now lack. Imagine the uproar if anyone had to walk home two miles let alone some extended distance like these people had to.

A very elegant and eloquent explanation of how I think that the so called inter generational warfare will be resolved.

My personal view is that the 25 to 35 year olds don't stand a chance against the 55 to 75 year olds in the next decade.

I fall almost exactly between the two demographic groups described above.

[LuckyOne]

Good post.

I suspect there is such a change, most on here would be able to adapt. The rest of us, I suspect not.

These things go in cycles, life challenges its players, always.

Too true .....

There are a lot of original, independant thinkers on this site. I agree that many of them will be able to cope much better than the general public.

Many members of the general public are in for a very big shock as the status quo is about to be challenged in a very big way ......

[dances with sheeple]

I wouldn`t be too sure, there are kids out in the streets who do things to each other that previously only happened in the Trenches? there are plenty of people who go through life too drunk and drugged to even know they had been in a train crash, that is mainstream now, no one comments,they just try and avoid eye contact. The ascent of consciousness will involve a lot of change and we can`t be sure how it will play out. The media is responsible for much of how we percieve things, especially the past, there are people of every generation who will rise to a challenge, whatever it may be.

[D.C.]

A very elegant and eloquent explanation of how I think that the so called inter generational warfare will be resolved.

My personal view is that the 25 to 35 year olds don't stand a chance against the 55 to 75 year olds in the next decade.

I fall almost exactly between the two demographic groups described above.

Depends how bad things get.

Did you see any footage from Belfast? How old did those rioters look?

Come and have a go if you're ard enough grandad

[LuckyOne]

I wouldn`t be too sure, there are kids out in the streets who do things to each other that previously only happened in the Trenches? there are plenty of people who go through life too drunk and drugged to even know they had been in a train crash, that is mainstream now, no one comments,they just try and avoid eye contact. The ascent of consciousness will involve a lot of change and we can`t be sure how it will play out. The media is responsible for much of how we percieve things, especially the past, there are people of every generation who will rise to a challenge, whatever it may be.

I am very naive.

I hope that a result of the collapse of the ponzi scheme that has been our economy for the last 10 to 15 years is that people start to think for themselves rather than relying on the media to "help" them think.

I hope that I am right and fear that I am wrong .......

[LuckyOne]

Depends how bad things get.

Did you see any footage from Belfast? How old did those rioters look?

Come and have a go if you're ard enough grandad

I accept what you are saying .......

An alternate view might be that the older generation are very adept at getting the younger generation to make silly sacrifices that they would not be willing to make themselves ......

Getting young people in Belfast to sacrifice themselves at the altar of a cause that they do not yet understand is a very cynical manipulation by the older generation.

[dances with sheeple]

I am very naive.

I hope that a result of the collapse of the ponzi scheme that has been our economy for the last 10 to 15 years is that people start to think for themselves rather than relying on the media to "help" them think.

I hope that I am right and fear that I am wrong .......

Well, the power that drives everything is in everyone, and they see it and feel it at different times, so eventually I have no fear that everything will resolve itself?

[right_freds_dead]

Are We Too Soft ....., To Deal With Life The Way That It Was 60 Years Ago??

no. im sure were all willing to charge into machine gun fire for the benefit of an elite class over a global power grab between blood related royal kingdoms, while living in amazing levels of self poverty in our home country.

im up for it !!

Edited July 14, 2009 by right_freds_dead

[Injin]

Are We Too Soft ....., To Deal With Life The Way That It Was 60 Years Ago??

no. im sure were all willing to charge into machine gun fire for the benefit of an elite class over a global power grab between blood related royal kingdoms, while living in amazing levels of self poverty in our home country.

im up for it !!

[LuckyOne]

Are We Too Soft ....., To Deal With Life The Way That It Was 60 Years Ago??

no. im sure were all willing to charge into machine gun fire for the benefit of an elite class over a global power grab between blood related royal kingdoms, while living in amazing levels of self poverty in our home country.

im up for it !!

So you have seen the future for many of us then ..........

[juvenal]

The coming decade will undoubtably bring a decline in the standard of living for the majority of people. Every redundancy of a family breadwinner will materially affect several other people. Local businesses are already feeling the pinch. Parental indulgence of their children will necessarily lessen. Non-working grandparents on fixed incomes are already finding the purse strings need tightening. The diminution of easy credit will show the actual prosperity of the UK, rather than the plasma screen illusion that endless borrowed money created.

A significant tranche of the emerging generation may hopefully be introduced to the concept of 'need' rather than 'want'. One their own parents too often failed to recognise themselves. The whole concept of buying on credit is long overdue for examination, and consequent rejection, painful though that will be. Buying secondhand is growing fast; Oxfam alone has a UK turnover of £70m plus, and millions more changes hands at bootfairs every weekend across the UK. Add the hundreds of other charities, auction house and Ebay trades and we have a huge emerging secondhand economy, driven increasingly by need.

As personal affluence declines, the least worried will be those with the skills their grandparents had. The dressmakers and needleworkers, cooks, gardeners, car-fixers, DIYers, menders and repairers of every kind. Those least reliant on a multitude of tv channels, or the 'fix' of being permanently shopping, 'going out', buying magazines, drinking Starbucks coffee, or on a mobile phone. Those capable of finding stimulus and entertainment without enriching the decreasing number of night club owners, cinema chains, junk food vendors, hairdressers, nail bars, tanning salons, car dealerships, fashion chains, restaurants or gadget shops. Those who don't see being unable to take a foreign holiday, fly to Prague for a stag do, or go to Glastonbury as a catastrophe of near-Holocaust proportions.

Clearly, those old enough to know less profligate times will adapt best. Those times are returning. This is indisputable, Mr Brown.

Younger people will find the coming decade (for many) to be one of unemployment, tax and interest rate rises, lack of credit, static wages, decreased opportunity and cuts in public services. A winnowing of the trivia of life (yesterday's 'necessities'), and the painful readjustment of values and priorities will make this the most challenging period of their lives.

That they couldn't be more ill-equipped to deal with this is the responsibility of their parents, who took to the easy way out, by wanting to be their children's friends, rather than accepting the more testing reponsibilities of being guide, mentor, teacher (and on occasion) disciplinarian.

Let's hope there's resilience there. It's the younger ones who'll need it.

Edited July 15, 2009 by juvenal

[Cogs]

This one keeps coming up amidst much tutting and head shaking. But no, I think people adapt to their circumstances remarkably quickly and remarkably well. If times are easy they become soft, if times are hard they become tough. History is replete with examples, we are far from the first people in history to have become bourgeois and then have things go horribly wrong. Its actually quite arrogant to assume we are different in many ways. I have every faith in people actually. I'm sure you must have a way of coping but I genuinely wonder how some contributors to this forum get through the day with their dark, dark, dark views of human nature (and strangest of all, they even have children!?).

Today, there would certainly have been support for everyone, starting with blankets, tea and I guess counselling in case of any disturbing psychological defects. Then someone would drive everybody home, with lots of supportive this and that.

And you base your firm belief that this happens on...?

We talk about things being painful incidentally, but as everyone who has ever been kicked hard in the teeth knows, once you make the adjustment in your own mind, its not too bad going from wealthy to broke. Having done that myself to a degree, I wonder actually if the fear of it was worse than the reality. George Orwell talks about this in his journalism and seemed to think the same; I mean, only a fool would say poverty is better than being wealthy but life goes on, it isn't terrible it is merely "squalid and boring". Repeated threads on this general topic have a sort of fearful prurience to them, rather like the conversations kids have in queues going to get immunisation injections, "they get this needle and its THAT big and...". No need to be scared, you'll all do fine. Most people always do.

To put it another way, I'd sort of like to believe the rich and mollycoddled will have their day of comeuppance. But that is really just an inverted form of the belief that the rich man is inherently different from the poor man which I don't believe in either.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Cogs

[athe]

I heard a fascinating story on Radio 4 a year or two back about a rail crash in the 1950's. They interviewed a couple who had been in the crash.

...

Today, there would certainly have been support for everyone, starting with blankets, tea and I guess counselling in case of any disturbing psychological defects. Then someone would drive everybody home, with lots of supportive this and that.

So what happened to this couple, on that foggy dark night after a serious rail crash... well as they put it, ambulance and emergency help was focused on the injured people.

So they just walked a number of miles home and sorted themselves out...

I seem to remember that they got a cup of hot sweet tea before they walked home.

[Ponzi]

Re. The rail crash in the 1950s

On July 7 bombings - the BBC interviewed a young man (minor burns scratches) who was also caught up in the bombings and he walked home several miles, no paramedics, no blankets.

I don't think we should underestimate the resolve humans have to survive - it's a at the very core: from the moment we seek mother's milk at birth.

No doubt some will crack and fail, usually those who remain in denial about the reality, eh Gordon?

[Guest Skinty]

My personal view is that the 25 to 35 year olds don't stand a chance against the 55 to 75 year olds in the next decade.

Or maybe it's the other way round. The 55 to 75 year olds have embraced comfort more thoroughly because they originally had much harsher lifestyles and now couldn't imagine going back. Whereas the 25 to 35 year olds take comfort for granted and are not fearful of change. They have also had to work much harder to get the necessities of life that were handed to the baby boomers on a plate.

[scottbeard]

I suspect there is such a change, most on here would be able to adapt. The rest of us, I suspect not.

These things go in cycles, life challenges its players, always.

You'll be surprised. The first time there is a problem, people cry for mummy. Then they realise mummy isn't coming so they just get on with it.

We all have tremendous power of instincts to survive and reproduce. It will happen.

[bogbrush]

People will adapt and in the long run it'll be good for us all.

The first thing we have to learn though is that life is hard, often unfair, and shit happens. That particular lesson seems to have been lost to the media. I mean, I feel sorry for anyone killed but I don't understand why soldiers dying in a war is a news story; I mean, what do people think happens in wars?

[expatowner]

Are We Too Soft ....., To Deal With Life The Way That It Was 60 Years Ago??

no. im sure were all willing to charge into machine gun fire for the benefit of an elite class over a global power grab between blood related royal kingdoms, while living in amazing levels of self poverty in our home country.

im up for it !!

Oh I feel a song coming on any minute

[Neverland]

Or maybe it's the other way round. The 55 to 75 year olds have embraced comfort more thoroughly because they originally had much harsher lifestyles and now couldn't imagine going back. Whereas the 25 to 35 year olds take comfort for granted and are not fearful of change. They have also had to work much harder to get the necessities of life that were handed to the baby boomers on a plate.

+1

They are still getting things handed to them on plate:

- risk free final salary pensions

- HPI

[kara gee]

Too true .....

There are a lot of original, independant thinkers on this site. I agree that many of them will be able to cope much better than the general public.

Many members of the general public are in for a very big shock as the status quo is about to be challenged in a very big way ......

I think you're right. The independent thinkers are open-minder enough to not rule out the possible very different futures we will inevitibly see. If in your head you can visualise these futures, and then allow your mind to run through what that would mean, what you would do and how you would fare, removes fear and anxiety.

However I don't think the general public go through this process, so the changes in status quo will hit hard.

I wonder if this can be linked to reading? Using your imagination to picture history, fantasy worlds, foreign lands etc.

[kingsgate]

I find it interesting to read views on this site about the way that the world might unfold in the next 10 to 20 years.

My frame of reference for how life might be like for us in the next decade or two is much more like 1868 to 1948 than the 1970s or 1980s.

I really question whether the soft, liberal (by the standards of the last 150 years rather than the last 60 years) lifestyle to which we have become accustomed in the last 60 years leaves us completely ill equipped to cope with the coming crisis.

My 1868 to 1948 time scale includes the Meiji Restoration, the Sino Japanese War, the Russo Japanese War, WWI, the collapse of the Russian Empire, Northern Hemisphere industrialisation, WW II , Chinese communism, the early stages of the Cold War and the emergence of current "liberal" thought in rich, first world, northern hemisphere nations. It is a stunning amount of change to have seen over a mere 80 year period.

If we are in the process of undergoing such seismic changes again in the next few years, I do not think that our experience in the last 60 years leaves us at all prepared to cope. I suspect that people who have lived in "hard" places like Eastern Europe, Africa, Central and South America and Asia will survive much more easily than people who have lived in the EU, US, Canada, Oz/NZ etc.

The shift in the balance of power from the traditionally wealthy to those who can cope without being mollycoddled could be stunning.

I don't buy this idea that just because life has been easy for some people, that they definitely won't be able to turn hard, or even feral, nay cannibal, if the situation demands it.

People can change just like that. Put an average bunch of folk into a survival situation, a good few of them would be eating their own dead, barbequed, after a week or so.

[Neverland]

I don't buy this idea that just because life has been easy for some people, that they definitely won't be able to turn hard, or even feral, nay cannibal, if the situation demands it.

People can change just like that. Put an average bunch of folk into a survival situation, a good few of them would be eating their own dead, barbequed, after a week or so.

Exactly, have none of you ever seen Big Brother or Survivor?