The next generation is growing up with their lives already documented and shared online, without their consent. They will find our reactions to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and to Snowden, and perhaps even the very notion of personal privacy itself, to be absolutely baffling.

Clearly the principal was wrong, he didn't grow up, he's still not a grown man. Grown men don't laugh about having been disgustingly abusive children, especially when it's actually their job to stop abuses.
Maybe the next kid will put the .45 in the bully's mouth before their own. What is there to lose when you've been abused to the point of suicide?

Because violence is a part of life and games reflect that, the same as movies, books, tv, etc.

It would be nice if the “non-gamer” part of society would grow up and finally realise that games aren’t just for kids. If you want to ban violent games, you have to ban the Godfather, the Lord of the Flies, Breaking Bad and Guernica.

Possible, but I don't really think so. I think that the Medical minds of the time thought that physical shock, pressure waves from bombing etc. as you described, were a (or perhaps THE) primary cause of the psychological problems of returning soldiers. So the name "shell shock" came from there, but the symptoms that it was describing were psychological and, I think precisely equal to modern PTSD. Basically, "shell shock" became a polite euphemism for "soldier that got mentally messed up in the war and is having difficulty returning to civilian life".

My grandfather was an Army Air Corps armorer during WWII. He went through basic training, but his primary job was loading ammunition, bombs, external gas tanks, etc. onto P-47 airplanes. He was never in a direct combat situation, as I would describe it. He was never shot at, never in the shockwave radius of explosions, etc. But after the war he was described as having mild "shell shock", manifested by being withdrawn, not wanting to talk about the war, and occasionally prone to angry outbursts over seemingly trivial things. Eventually, he started talking about the war in his mid 80's, and here's a few relevant (perhaps) stories of his:

He joined the European theater a couple days after D-Day. Came to shore on a Normandy beach in the same sort of landing craft seen in Saving Private Ryan, etc. Even though it was days later, there were still LOTS of bodies on the beach, and thick smell of death. Welcome to the war!

His fighter group took over a French farm house adjacent to a dirt landing strip / runway. They put up a barbed wire perimeter with a gate on the road. In one of the only times I heard of him having a firearm and being expected to potentially use it, he pulled guard duty at that gate one evening. His commanding officer gave him orders to shoot anyone that couldn't provide identification on sight. While he was standing guard, a woman in her 20's rolled up on a bicycle, somewhat distraught. She spoke no English, only French. She clearly wanted to get in, and even tried to push past my grandfather. By the letter of his orders, he was "supposed" to shoot her. Instead, he knocked her off her bike when she tried to ride past after getting nowhere verbally and physically restrained her. At gunpoint! When someone that spoke French got there, it turned out that she was the daughter of the family that lived in the farm house. They had no food, and she was coming back to get some potatoes they had left in the larder.

Riding trains was a common way to get air corps support staff up to near the front, and also to get everybody back to transport ships at the end of the war. On one of those journeys later in the war, my grandfather was riding in an open train car with a bunch of his buddies. They were all given meals at the start of the trip. A short while later, the track went through a French town. A bunch of civilians were waiting around the tracks begging for food. I'll never forgot my grandfather describing that scene. It was tough for him to get out, and then all he managed was "they was starvin'!" He later explained that he and his buddies all gave up the food that they had to those people in the first town -- only to have none left to give as they rolled past similar scenes in each town on down the line.

When my mother was growing up, she and her brothers learned that they'd better not leave any food on their plates to go to waste. She has said that the angriest she ever saw her dad was when her brothers got into a food fight one time, and my grandfather went ballistic. They couldn't really figure out what the big deal was, until years later when my grandfather started telling his war stories and suddenly things made more sense.


A lot of guys had a much rougher war than my grandfather. Way more direct combat. Saw stuff much worse -- and had to DO things that were hard to live with. I think the psychological fallout of stuff like that explains the vast majority of "shell shock", without the addition of CTE-like physical head trauma. I'd wager that when the docs said Stewart's father's shell shock was a reaction to aerial bombardment, that was really just a face-saving measure to try to explain away the perceived "weakness" of his condition.

Your absolutely right that characterising an entire generation as the 'same' is flawed.

However, I also believe there is more to the whole 'entitled millenials' view than just the bias of 'those darned kids again'.

I think the lumping of generational groups is just a miswording and but reading of the problems facing society at different times. Baby-Boomers as a generation were just people, same as millenials, same as anyone else. The thing is, kids born between 1910 and 1930 grew up in a world at war. Baby boomers grew up in a post world war/cold war era. The societal problems that shaped those times and people still existed, so dismissing the problems as just perception or bias isn't necessarily a good idea.

I've been out of high school 20+ years, and the notion of participation ribbons for everyone was already starting then. The notion that losing or winning isn't important, even if you lost because you were lazy, or won because of years of hard work was already starting. The problem of basically denying hard parts of the real world has been building for 20 years, and the current generation has been buried even deeper in it.

For anyone born in Canada or the USA to cry that no amount of hard work, talent or anything else can help them get ahead and that the system must be changed to help them is insidious. When 80-90% of everyone born in Canada or the USA will never know real hunger, never face homelessness, never have a warlord burn and destroy everything they own, complaining about the inherent injustice of being born where you were as a Canadian or American is just wrong.

The ideology that has grown up in the western world over the last 20+ years has the stink of the rich, entitled world we've enjoyed here. We have a society so removed from hardship, that hardship is working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week to lead a life more comfortable than 90% of the world.

It's not millenials, it is however the society that millenials are growing up in(so all of us).

I don't wanna grow up, I'm a toys R us kid.

I've gotta say, people have vastly varied ideas what 'growing up' means.

Adopting responsibility can happen in childhood....some of us are raised that way.

Women are at least as good at being irresponsible children as men, perhaps they are infantile about it less often. I think he needs better data.

Women at my wife's job are paid less than men. Women with 10+ years experience and seniority are paid the same as entry level men with zero experience, but entry level women are not paid the same. There is no other factor, these new men haven't shown their skills or personality at all when they get hired at the same pay rate as their established, competent boss.

My experience differs from his gender conclusions at every turn, and I found his estimations of women horrendously dismissive and wrong.

Physical conflict is off limits to women? Somebody better tell Rousey.

The market doesn't define positions, the boss does. If a position has certain responsibilities, it's the same job no matter who's doing it. It doesn't become a lesser job because the employee has no penis.

There's actually plenty of evidence that treating workers with respect and empathy is beneficial to both retention and work quality. He's flat wrong on that.

She's totally wrong to imply a right to not be uncomfortable for anyone. No one has that right. She's also a fairly bad interviewer.

When you grow up watching dad create the sport driving Grave Digger, then doing it yourself, you're kind of expected to advance the sport when you get your own truck....he doesn't disappoint.

@ChaosEngine --

I've only seen one other piece by this dude, so I can't claim that I definitely "get" what he's going for, but... To me, his shtick is: "I wanted to be a rockstar / guitar hero when I was growing up, but my parents made me learn the piano instead of guitar. So, I'm going to live that rockstar dream via the piano instead of guitar, partially because I enjoy it, partially to stick it to mom and dad, and partially because other people seem to enjoy it as evidenced by views / likes / comments, etc." (And importantly, he can't play the guitar, so he uses the skill that he has available.)

I like his stuff (well, the 2 videos I've seen of his). This one is pretty reliant on bends, and to nitpick I think he should have used an analog pitch bender for that instead of the fancy touch digital one he had. On the other hand, it isn't too critical, and he seems to go for playing by ear without a lot of (maybe *any*?) practice run-throughs which would definitely be required to nail those bend sections perfectly. So, the imperfect on-hand equipment (digital vs analog) and imperfect execution don't detract much from the performance for me.

You're also correct that he played the wrong notes a few times, but in a musically acceptable way -- he was still playing chord notes in the scale and key of the song, but not exactly the same ones as in the original. So while I noticed it, that also doesn't really detract much from the performance for me either.

Taking a piece for another instrument and adapting it to a different one as opposed to trying to "imperfectly" emulate the original can also be very cool. Youtube covers of rock songs on a Korean Gayageum come to mind. BUT, I also get a kick out of my interpretation of this guy's shtick, and don't feel like he's trying to do the musical equivalent of forcing a round peg into a square hole or anything.

Definitely all subjective though.

Your video, Taylor Tomlinson - Growing Up Religious & Abstinent, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The screening tests are readily available online:
https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

It wasn't till I was married and raising kids that it even occurred to me to check. I was just the notoriously shy kid growing up who would as soon play beside his friends as with them. I took the pre-screening tests though and my score there landed my in not just the range to test further, but the almost certainly going to be on the spectrum.

I've looked more at Aspergers now since and in very, very many ways it looks much like just a more extreme form of the 'male' dominant mind. A greater interest in things than in people. In many ways it's just exactly as the video presenter alludes to. People are just different, and this is a classification of a particular kind of difference. Our differences make some things easier and others harder and such is life.

"if someone had been able to take Hitler aside BEFORE all the horrors of WW2 and been able to convince him to lay off the genocide"

This is the pacifists dilemma though. There were numerous attempts to sway hitler from his course. Neville Chamberlain famously celebrating the Munich Agreement. At the end of the day, you can't peacefully stop someone if they are intent on causing violence.

I don't think you can really go down this road, either. It's a fun thought experiment, but it requires knowledge you only have once it's too late. You can't talk to the one kid who will grow up to be adolf hitler. There's very likely one out there now that we can't stop because we don't know them.

"At that point, violence is your only recourse to stop the atrocities."

The pacifist's dilemma and this combined, to me, put this in a morally ambiguous place. If you accept that you can't stop someone bent on violence, and nazis arrive announcing that they are, then is it better for a little violence, visited upon those who pursue violent ends? Or is it better that we wait and see the violence occur before we react to it?

On further introspection, i think both of our positions exist in a similar ambiguity - you need to know who to speak to before you know who to speak to, and i need to know who to correctively punch before i know who to correctively punch. Yours might be better for short term, worse for long term. Mine might be worse for short term, better for long term.

In truth, i probably lean more towards agreeing with you, but i'm trying to point out that even though we think "be civil" is the best option, it doesn't have any divine right to be the best option. The best option (we would probably agree) is the one that causes the least overall harm, and we don't *know* what that is, and never can. I think it's important we reconsider accepted wisdom like that. (which is really why i decided to argue it..in honesty, i probably feel the same as you; disapprove but not loudly. My main problem with the position i'm taking is - how do you *stop* the nazi punchers once the nazis are suitably punched? And when do i become the nazi?)

@transmorpher
"leaving yourself and your loved ones open to the same treatment next time someone disagrees with one of your views."

I made it very clear in earlier comments that i'm only ok with someone being punched if they are openly calling for genocide and death to people. I'm ok with you ripping that argument apart (because i think it can be.. i'm leaving myself open on purpose), but that isn't what you've done. I don't accept there's an equivalence between my harmless beliefs and a genocidal maniac's.

As the little little bother growing up in a similar situation, big sisters suck...self-centered vindictive cows.

Being a Canadian colours my view, but it seems there is at least some parallels between race relations up here and in the US. The difference is up here is it's aboriginal/white as opposed to black/white.

I don't know how close the parallels are, but in Canada it is statistically accurate to observe the following:
-Aboriginal people are disproportionately the victims of violent crime
-Aboriginal people are disproportionately committing violent crime
-Aboriginal people are over-represented in the prison system
-Living conditions on Aboriginal reserves even compared to neighbouring municipalities are, on average, grossly worse

These are basic facts that are, statistically speaking, irrefutable.

There facts clearly indicate there is a problem in society. Unless you believe that race determines criminality, they indicate that a group of people is facing some kind of systematic disadvantage, currently, historically or both.

Canada has failed in trying to address this issue IMO. Instead of looking for the systematic problems, we are trying to treat the symptoms. For example, we have passed laws that demand differential sentencing to be more lenient towards convicted criminals if they are of aboriginal back ground.

What we really need is to discuss the root issues. If you grow up on a reserve or in a terrible neihgbourhood, that matters. If the likelyhood of growing up in those places is still racially distributed, that's a major root cause that needs addressing above all others.

"That's what mature people would do.."

For some reason, in my head all i can see is a posh woman sat in one of Titanic's lifeboats, which is tipping side to side as desperate, freezing people try to climb in. "If they tip the lifeboat over we'll all die, why can't they be more mature about it?"

Trump is shit for the US and for the world, but it's a bit of an own goal to blame people who Hillary Clinton & her political supporters couldn't convince that either a) the US would be significantly better off with her over Trump for it to matter or b) they individually would benefit from what she had to offer. They don't owe you votes, you have to win their support by making them believe they'll be better off.

This is more of the same shit that we've been shoveled for years - neoliberalism is the ONLY way. Compromise, grow up, be mature, *agree with us or you're to blame for what happens*. What's the end game of a political system where the blame for the result goes to anyone who didn't vote for the two largest parties?

Look, the centre can't energise people because they don't have anything hopeful or interesting to offer. If you want a message that carries well, if you want the energy and positivity to overcome trump then it HAS to come from the left. Anti-fascist protests have attracted so many thousands of people from a position of love & togetherness, largely organised by socialist women. See Kristian Hernandez for example.

You can't get people out and marching and waving signs saying "We Want More Austerity" or "We Want Tough Talk On Minimum Wage But No Real Action" - you need a message and a hope that will inspire kids from universities to come out in droves and have those difficult conversations with friends, strangers, and their families. Have them out in the streets with music & activity spreading a positive message and showing people that there IS strength and love in a community that comes together. You need something that will inspire an entire population of forgotten black communities. YOU FIGHT HATE WITH LOVE, NOT THE COMPROMISE OF THE CENTRE. You know what the compromise of the centre gets you? It gets you a man who thinks adding "on many sides, on many sides" is how you present a balanced statement, and an audience who agrees.

The chattering classes like Maher have done very well for a very long time out of neoliberalism. He's been on the TV for years talking about the results of that ideology, earning a good livelihood off it. He has a very nice suit, looks healthy and happy, probably a nice house, looking forward to pension and good healthcare. He's calling people who have sickness and exhaustion, living in rented apartments in rough areas, looking forward to the sweet release of death, immature.

So pardon me if i say fuck off Maher; stop asking people with nothing to keep compromising your way. If you want their support, compromise their way. And if you want their energy and fire, you're going to have to share control of the reins because talk is cheap. Give them a Bernie.

Sorry for the rant.