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Nope, you were just way more annoying than you generally care to remember. Sorry you had to find out this way.
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If you say, "but actually I wasn't annoying as a teenager." Sorry, you missed your chance! Not my problem!
It is absolutely impossible for modern teens to be more annoying than I was. I was a Reddit teir edgelord atheist as a teenager. And used to constantly stir the pot at school for no reason other than to piss the teachers off. Turns out some 15 year old kid who thinks he's got everything figured out insulting your whole belief system to rile the class up is very effective at that.
I had my atheist phase as a teenager, and even as a Catholic nowadays, fuck religion. Atheists got coopted by the mens right and other right-wing memelords, but there needs to be a strong secular control of government and all these freedom of religion discrimination protections need to fucking die.
Fuck evangelicals. Even the devil can quote scripture.
Don't get me wrong I'm still an atheist, just not some edgy teenage Reddit debatelord one. It's been a long journey, but I'm finally satisfied with my outlook on that.
It's been a long journey, but I'm finally satisfied with my outlook on that.
I think the biggest journey every human embarks on is to not be annoying.
Hey I realize this is super off topic, but what brought you back into the fold? Absolutely no judgement from this apostate - I just don't meet a lot of leftists who return to religion as adults so you've got me curious.
I read Zealot that discussed Jesus place in Roman Judea as more of a rebel fighter that was essentially speaking in code. That to some extent the crowning of Messiah's and tracing lineages to David was a way to say "he is the real chosen one" it was a mythologization of the human being that was fighting an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle against the Romans...like seriously the Romans fucking suck.
The Nazi Pope had also stepped down and Pope Francis was selected and he is absolutely despised by the right-wing Trad Caths; when I realized that religious infighting is just as complex and equally stupid as political infighting, I kinda made my peace with just...believing in something. As stupid as it sounds, we shouldn't let Right Wingers have a monopoly on God. It is an affront to humanity, to cede spiritual matters, religious ritual, and morality to morons, evil, fascist, morons.
I was already struggling with being an Atheist, ex-Ancap Libertarian, and in my way to becoming a socialists, now commie. I read a bunch of stuff. Marx cites religious utopians and their concern for the poor in Capital Vol I. Paolo Freire is a marxist and a radical Catholic christian, Fr. (now Saint) Romero died helping indigenous and was killed by the Great Satan and its death squads, Che Guevara was raised religious. Fidel Castro was taught by Jesuits. Paolo Freire says that both radicals and Christians should find his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed a useful resource. In Hammer and Hoe the communist and radicals in Alabama were having church meetings and highlighting different Bible passages to speak in code/keep track of meeting notes. The Bible, like any book, can be a tool of the oppressor or the oppressed.
My wife and I had also just met, she was religious and I would accompany to church and I just kinda stuck with it.
I am trying to come at the brokenness of the world from a place of Love, rather than just violent hatred.
I will definitely check out Zealot and some of the other works you referenced!
As stupid as it sounds, we shouldn't let Right Wingers have a monopoly on God.
I don't think this sounds stupid at all. I don't have any faith and I'm not the type to fake it, but I often wish I did or I could for that particular reason.
I am trying to come at the brokenness of the world from a place of Love, rather than just violent hatred.
I think this is a good approach regardless of religious beliefs. For me it's about what can be accomplished, and there's just a lot less that you can get done through hatred.
I was an insufferable ass. I was too cool for everything. I was counter-culture, but that got too cool so I became counter-counter-culture. When that was too cool I basically just booked myself down to one niche interest.
I missed out on so much actually cool shit because I was so insufferable.
Yeah that kinda happens. I was counter culture, but not because I wanted some niche interest, but because I ended up on the fringes at middle/high school (grades 8-12), as the closeted gay/bisexual kid on a scholarship/bursary at some elite all boys boarding school. So I just embraced being on the outs and being a punk. Definitely missed out on some stuff because of it.
I was the poorest nerdy kid at a poor "sports are life" school, so not on your level of fringe but I definitely get where you're coming from. I just kept leaning harder into it.
I hope you're doing awesome and catching up on some cool shit, friend.
Teens today are sexting, twerking, gaming, hot chiping and lying.
Huh? Sobel Operator is just something used in image processing and graphics. Seems like a clueless person.
I'm pretty sure it is your job to stir the pot as a teenager. I'd better be pissed at each of you young people. Do something outrageous in support of your values. Fuck whatever world we currently find ourselves in. It is bullshit.
I'm pretty sure it is your job to stir the pot as a teenager. I'd better be pissed at each of you young people. Do something outrageous in support of your values. Fuck whatever world we currently find ourselves in. It is bullshit.
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The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
i assumed this quote was fake, and while it is from 1907 and not ancient greece, there's similar sentiments from Plato and Xenophon quoted in the dissertation this is from on pages 73ff. This particular one is in the middle of page 74.
I honestly don't know what century this was originally written.
Response above mine says otherwise, but my point was that you can look at any time period and find some grumpy adult saying when they were children they were respectful, unlike kids these days! I read somewhere that one of the oldest pieces of writing was lamenting how lazy people are now that they can write things down instead of having to memorize everything.
Say what you will about the zoomies but my generation was responsible for 4chan and 9gag. Their contribution to the destruction of Western civilization pales in comparison, and quite frankly I'm disappointed.
I wasn't annoying as a teenager and I deeply regret it. Wasted those years of my life
I defy modern teens to be worse and more annoying than I was
My experience (late 90s) is entirely anecdotal and I’m really not familiar with teen culture in 2023, but I suspect we were way worse. It wasn’t just how pervasive bullying was. It was how non-conformity was treated. I knew someone who was mocked for liking anime. There were a few guys who would play MTG before school started - just off in a corner not bothering anyone. And they got mocked. And in a school of nearly 2,000 students, there wasn’t even 1 kid who was openly gay. Of course there were gay students but none of them dared to be open about it to anyone other than close friends, I can’t imagine how bad it would have been for them.
And all this time, by the 90s bullying occupied this space where it wasn’t sort of encouraged like in past generations. It was “bad” but no one felt it was something that had to be specifically addressed and rooted out.
I get the impression things are a lot better now in this area, while teens do have challenges that we didn’t have. Academic and extracurricular performance seems to cause way more stress today. And then there’s the who social media aspect.
But overall yeah, we were way worse.
Yeah, in my school kids still got viciously bullied for wearing glasses. I was bullied for 9 years straight and the teachers took part in it.
Having done the raising of one of these newer kids from baby to adult and seeing lots of kids in the process, also did substitute teaching and work with young adults now, the difference is night and day. Yes, there are still bullies, but they get a lot less room to operate. Yes there are assholes with bad politics, but they get called out on it more.
With climate change and identity politics they tend to all lean left, they just need help in reaching class consciousness. The "issues" they show are all caused by this violent system, so much selfharm and such. But that is on us, not them. I think a good material understanding would also help many feel less hopeless and start seeing a way out of this (meaning the older kids/young adults).
The kids are the best. I have a young adult kid and he and his friends have taught me all I know about neurotype, gender, communism, acceptance and introduced me to people like Hasan which was my first step into proper leftism. Without my kid I probably would not be here.
I also love how they create safe spaces, how they stand up for things, my kid walked away from a work rehearsal where they used racist and misogynistic language. I never probably would have, back when I was a teen it was totally ok to comment my body and if someone touched you, you kind of had to just suck it up and move on.
My heart breaks at how my gen and those before me have broken this world for them. I work with young adults in my work that have been left behind by this system. They are the best humans, each struggling in pretty horrible ways in the world we are leaving them. This is a big reason why I am all for revolution.
this is a really sweet anecdote. genuinely happy for you and your kid's relationship
I also feel like Andrew Tate fans are mainly younger teens and preteens
I was in middle school in 2016 and definitely noticed A LOT of guys were falling into reactionary sentiment and even into the anti-SJW to alt-right pipeline (leafyishere was basically the tate of our time). Anyways, those same people seemed to grow out of the edginess sometime in high school.
Think it’s just a maturity thing, 13 year olds are unfortunately easy to mold into bigots but are usually redeemable by the time they turn 18. Also, the kids seem much better at bullying each other for harmful beliefs lately
Some don't shake as quickly as I'd like when they reach high school
Tbh some of the reactionaries in my grade took til 10th or even 11th grade
Today's teens aren't annoying enough. I was way more obnoxious at that age.
Teens today are more annoying because they aren't getting in enough trouble. We've sterilized the idea of youth. When I was a kid our parents were freaked out by the Jacob Wetterling abduction and we were always under close supervision. Meanwhile, my dad and his buddies would tell crazy stories from their childhood. My dad was smoking cigarettes when he was 9 years old and started a fire in bunch of tall grass along the riverbank. Fire dept showed up and had to control the fire. Poor kids got it way worse than I did growing up I the 90's.
They were talking about this on the most recent Boonta Vista lol. The boomerification of millennials has begun!
It's very true. At some point one must shave one's ironic moustache and begin to grill
Not me catching strays after wandering into this thread
is bald with a beard lol
