Good advice for new graduates


Adults are rubbish! Don’t trust us or listen to us except for this one thing which is: immediately form yourself into a huge ferocious army of wild youths and destroy everything! Storm the offices of every fossil fuel organization in the world and geosequestrate them all!

Don’t ask us to do that. We’re old and tired and comfortable and we’re leaving it all up to you.

Comments

  1. bodach says

    Whenever I see my daughters, I always apologize for leaving this sh*it pile for them to clean up. My wife and I have chosen to be turned into compost when we croak (WA state) so at least we won’t add to the pollution at the end.

  2. naturalistguy says

    Very funny but not that easy. If it was the kids in the 1960s would have fixed everything.

  3. ajbjasus says

    Or maybe we can all share our experiences and learn from each other.

    Not so snappy though.

  4. =8)-DX says

    As soon as my housing loan is paid, ADHD, anxiety and lack of self-worth sorted out I’m joining the kids. Any day now. =8)-DX

  5. John Morales says

    =8)-DX, Indeed. As we get older, if we’ve had any sort of half-decent run of life, we have more to lose. The young, they have more to gain, less to lose.

    So sure, I’m good with PZ’s OP sentiment.

  6. says

    @#2, naturalistguy:

    The kids from the 1960s, who supported Reagan, and thought Trickle-Down Economics was a great thing, and were happy with endless wars in the mideast as long as the stock market was booming? The ones who made sure we got Pro-Israel, Anti-Single-Payer Biden instead of Sanders?

    Yeah, f*ck that. The Boomers may not be uniformly evil, but insofar as any trends appear when you stratify by age, they are the worst people in the country and have been for ages. If, in 1980, every last one of them had been disenfranchised, the world would now be a massively better place than it in fact is.

  7. unclefrogy says

    the opinions of the “60’s kids” sure seem like they are from people who were not there but have some personal issues with those who were there. I remember the kids back in the day doing a little protesting about some thing going on in south east Asia then.
    There were a few who put themselves on the line going on bus rides down south as well but that must not count.
    there were a few social norms that were changed which a little time before would have gotten you into a little trouble.
    I do not think it was the “young republicans” by themselves that clamored for the raygun era. just like most er-rational political bullshit artist and other middle class idea-logs fail to actually look at the whole of anything but just spout off what ever bile they find so personally satisfying
    why is it that the “60’s kids” “boomers” are labeled as monolithic or are all generations monolithic?
    uncle frogy

  8. says

    “Like every great religion, we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present—turn on, tune in, drop out.”

    And how did this strategy work out, @9?

  9. says

    @9 And, while it’s maybe a little unfair to judge the whole cohort, the overall Boomer legacy is anti-intellectualism, cynicism, disengagement with the political process, sadism as entertainment (the movie PZ approvingly quotes in his previous post does feature the main character chiding himself with a very naughty word after not raping an unconscious and underage girl after plying her with liquor but that’s KOMEDY, amirite?), and epic consumption and two and a half generations who’ve topped the Boomer’s instruction.

    Like I’ve said before, the environmental disaster left by Woodstock encapsulates the Boomer generation perfectly.

  10. naturalistguy says

    “I’ll take Generational Stereotypes for $200 Alex”.

    My point wasn’t that any particular generation was going to fix the world, but that fixing the world is a hard thing to do.

  11. says

    @12 Do you mean to tell me you need more than love? That benefit concerts, balanced chakras and Screw magazine weren’t enough to make a lasting, positive change?

  12. naturalistguy says

    The 1960s had their frivolous side with respect to fashion, culture, and sex but it wasn’t all just a put-on. The Beatles really did matter, after all. It was that in the 1960s not only was the world new for those graduating from college, there were a LOT of them thanks to that soaring birthrate after WWII, and not just in the U.S. The culture DID change as a result and we haven’t gone back to the 1950s.

    Compare that to the Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-1976, which despite its ferocity in hounding running dog lackeys of the bourgeoisie ended up with China going all in on capitalism.

  13. unclefrogy says

    @15
    and I would take Ike over Ronny as well
    and Carter over any of them
    so what does that mean any way?
    You seem to be saying that change should be completed by now because it is easy after all. everyone is the same
    My suspicious distrusting nature which has been encouraged by experience is telling me I smell another authoritarian. A left leaning one but none the less I get the message do what i say think what I say to think
    The cultural revolution failed because it was not a cultural revolution at all but just another authoritarian purge an Inquisition making a big mess and accomplishing little of lasting value.
    The American Revolution was not finished after they ratified the constitution and held the first election it is not completed yet .
    uncle frogy

  14. stroppy says

    Well not the best cartoon I’ve ever seen, but the punch line of all the facetious hyperbole, “Storm the offices of every fossil fuel organisation in the world and geosequestrate them all,” is hard not to sympathize with on some level.

    When I was in Junior High long, long ago, there was a progenitor of social media called the “slam book.” Some kid would cobble together some note paper in booklet form with pages headed by other students’ names. This was circulated around the school. The idea was that everybody was expected to select and list all the things they could come up with that they hated about the people named–the meaner the better.

    Naturally this wasn’t met with approval by teachers and parents, and the stupid, childish practice was stamped out.

    So this thread seems to present a dichotomy, on the one hand there are solid and pressing reasons to be angry at the oil companies.

    On the other hand, there is apparently a fossil fuel enthusiast loose in the comment section who wants to change the subject and circulate a slam book attacking kids of the 60’s. Speaking for myself, I find this irony challenged and not at all constructive.

  15. says

    @16. I’m saying the precise opposite. And I need to because most of the rest of the left (what may broadly be called “the left”, anyway) is operating on video game logic – pass just one law or elect one president and the other side will give up and disappear.

    Real change means hard work, sacrifices and accepting that you won’t get all of what you want right away. Mindless destruction for it’s own sake (as is advocated by the above cartoon) doesn’t fit into that

  16. Rob Grigjanis says

    @11:

    Like I’ve said before, the environmental disaster left by Woodstock encapsulates the Boomer generation perfectly.

    If you want to bash dirty hippies, pick a better example.

    Photos of Max Yasgur’s farm right after the concert look like a tornado had gone through. Crates, plastic, and clothes were strewn about, and the farm’s green grass was trampled into oblivion. (Frankly, it looked like a lot of places when humans are done with them.) But in truth the clean up that followed was quick and thorough, helped by some 8,000 attendees who volunteered to help

    Of course, like all monomaniacs, you’ll ignore that factual fuck up or dismiss it as irrelevant. So boring.

  17. birgerjohansson says

    Unclefrogy at @ 16
    40 years on, Carter still seems to have been the best of the lit.
    .
    Going off on a tangent- about far right paranoia that any change will lead to Mme Guillotine decimating the lot of them and the World Government introducing communism.

    GAM just brought out ‘The World Enslaved By A Virus’- Plot: the societal changes from the pandemic has resulted in an atheist, communist world government (!)
    IMDB estimates the film budget at just $ 10,000
    You know, if this provides an insight in the far-right mind it is no wonder they screw up everytime they get power.
    A creative bonobo will offer a better political alternative.