this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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It's a common mistake among conservatives that they believe everyone is as self-centered and greedy as they are
I've not become more conservative as I age because I'd kill myself before becoming that awful to people around me
Not knocking your worthy efforts, but the vast majority of people don’t turn conservative because of ideological reasons, they do it because they want to keep what they acquired over their lives.
The people don’t become conservative any more because everyone younger than 40 pretty has pretty much gotten the economic middle finger across the board, so people turn radical instead. If I have nothing to lose I don’t feel protective of the status quo.
But the greedy fucks in charge around the world are so removed from the reality of life they cannot see past their bank account, and would rather concede to fascism to keep things going for a bit longer, than making the needed changes. For the lost generations and the planet itself.
Well it's worth noting that teenage boys have started leaning a bit more to the right, likely in large part because of Andrew Tate and others in the manosphere, plus right-wing think-tanks like PragerU targeting schools and kids.
Though it's not like the gap between conservative and liberal boys is that big, plus it's not uncommon to hear from men on the left say that they had a phase of watching Ben Shapiro debate compilations only to grow out of it, so it's not like this is the end of the world.
Still, it's also true that Millennials and Gen X are getting fucked by boomers when it comes to money: Millennials only hold 3% of total US wealth, and that's a shockingly small sliver of what baby boomers had at their age
I guess we can only hope that the latter is a stronger motivating factor than reactionary propaganda and efforts to curtail education that are coming from the right.
PragerU is like barely removed from Nazi propaganda. It’s so fucking insidiously and evilly incorrect I can’t believe YouTube allows it at all. Fucking YouTube
40-54 year olds were 7-21 years old in 1990. That group had >30% of wealth? I have some doubts about these charts.
That's because you're reading the chart wrong. It's showing the change in wealth for those age brackets across time.
People that were 40 in 1990 had a bigger share of the wealth than people who are 40 in 2020.
Ah, I see. Thank you.
What exactly are older people afraid of losing? It's not like even the farthest left politicians are in favor of doing anything more radical than raising taxes on people who are wealthier than the vast majority of boomers.
I don't think they are afraid of losing anything specific. It's ingrained at this point.
"If you made straight A's and someone else made straight F's, how would you feel if you both ended up with C's? That's fair right? No? Welcome to the Republican Party. Isn't everyone who doesn't agree with this an idiot? I'm glad we aren't idiots."
I grew up homeschooled and the Christian curriculum my parents used had similar feeling brainwashing tactics. "Scientists searched their whole lives to disprove the Bible, then ended up Christians instead!" Making you feel smart for not wasting your life like the other guy, you are already in the "good" group.
I've grown up in the same educational situation, and this is exactly what I've experienced. Their attempted indoctrination turned me into a liberal, antichristian agnostic. But with mental health issues, because emotional abuse is better than "letting your kid go to hell"...
Well Jesus was a peace loving socialist hippy, who would have been seen as a woke liberal by any US Christian conservative. They would have crucified him and not seen the irony.
To what extent do you think education has played a role in allowing kids to critically analyse these types of people. Because in my history classes, we learned about ways people influenced others in nefarious ways and I'm wondering if kids see the same common pattern and know when to avoid.
Just a thought 🤷
Oh, I definitely think it's played an important role. There's a reason the right wing regularly attacks education. Seems to be a global thing, too -- not just the US.
Also just a thought, though!
Good question, anyone that has an education will tell you it's changed their life and I believe that too. Even though sometimes it's boring, the advantage is just too good for future children. Just suspicious that right wing wants to reverse progress.
It's become unfortunately popular in some circles to view education as strictly a state's propaganda tool, but in spite of its flaws, I've been pretty impressed by how effective it can be in the hands of skilled and passionate groups of individual educators.
That's not to say there aren't bad teachers (and don't even get me started on administrators and legislators), but I do attribute a lot to what it has accomplished, for example, in my remote state, and that's in spite of being regularly attacked by christofascists. When I think about it, I'm not sure I'd have much of a healthy perspective on things if not for some influential teachers. I'm a huge fan of public education, and I think we need to speak up for it whenever we can. It's tragic what's happened to it these past few years in my state and others.