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Ask HN: What can today's youth learn from young people of the 80s?

by p5v on 2/20/24, 4:55 PM with 17 comments

This is something I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. When you look at the 80s, particularly in Europe, you see much of the same conflict between generations, a Cold War threatening to wipe out the world at the push of a button, Chernobyl, the beginning of people’s realization that yeah, maybe the climate is not doing well.

So, the youth protested. Much like it does today, but it seemed more hopeful about the future.

So, I’m wondering what parallels and lessons a young person from the 80s can draw to a Gen-Z-er.

  • by runjake on 2/20/24, 8:28 PM

    - You can survive without electronic devices and the Internet. In fact, you should, some of the time.

    - You should spend a lot more time outside.

    - You should spend a lot more time being bored and left to your own thoughts.

    - Read more books. Especially fiction. It's not a waste to grow your imagination.

    - Your children will be fine.

    - From a US viewpoint: Conservatives want a world that never was. Liberals want a world that will never be.

    - The world isn't getting worse, the challenges are only changing. The current set of challenges doesn't have global thermonuclear war in the list, so that's good.

    - On the back of that last point: everything ebbs and flows in cycles. There is no "happily ever after"/"miserable forever".

    - Despite what other "old people" would tell you, you younger people have it way harder than we did. You have so many more inputs to deal with, society and tech is changing at unprecedented paces, and in virtually every aspect of your life, you are surveilled and influenced by those who don't have your best interests in mind.

  • by kstenerud on 2/20/24, 5:46 PM

    In the 80s we were worried about the bomb and US-USSR relations deteriorating into a nuclear war.

    Now it turns out our worries about Russia were correct, with the exception of nukes. Nukes are to have, not to use. Russia must be stopped, because they've taken the place of Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and the only way to stop an imperialist is with force.

  • by legrande on 2/20/24, 11:12 PM

    > So, the youth protested. Much like it does today, but it seemed more hopeful about the future.

    Protests happen more and more online now. Angry about something? Make a humorous meme about it and watch the whole world laugh at it, dissolving & disarming the power of the thing you're angry about has.

  • by JojoFatsani on 2/20/24, 5:04 PM

    Based on my parents… young American people of the 80’s didn’t care about any of that stuff at all. That was for the boomers. They just wanted their MTV.

  • by gadders on 2/22/24, 12:44 PM

    Words aren't violence.

  • by billconan on 2/20/24, 10:30 PM

    did the protests work?

  • by solardev on 2/21/24, 5:43 PM

    Well, as a child of the mid-80s and 90s, it seems to me like the Cold War has warmed up into an actual proxy war with Russia, the climate is quite a bit worse now and widespread floods and fires are normal, the protests are still ongoing but people have less faith that anything can improve, wealth and housing inequality are getting worse, the economy is even more concentrated at the top, abortion is illegal again... oh, and music is long past its peak :P

    But hey, we Millennials griped and screamed and absolutely nothing got better, then we kinda just gave up and left the world even worse off for our kids. Gen Z was born into the multipocalypses, but to them, it's all they've ever known, and in a way they seem way more at peace with it than my generation was. Less "oh noes, everything is dying, we must save all of it!" and more "whelps, everything is broken, what can I do to survive and still find moments of joy?"

    I don't envy the kids born this decade, growing up into a post-peak-capitalism world where robots and dictators are the new norm, instead of liberal democracies... but I suspect they'll adapt, as kids do. It's always the parents who worry about the future, especially when there's a drastic values shift (like there have been over the past few decades). To the kids, it's just everyday life.

  • by h2odragon on 2/20/24, 5:09 PM

    The eternal lesson of politics hasn't changed: "Money Talks"