this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] binarytobis@lemmy.world 115 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 67 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Millennials are apparently the first generation to move "left" as they grow older, instead of right.

There are changes. Some positive.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

But the trend is immediately back for Zoomers. That hope dissipates 9nce you realize it's not a new trend and Millennials being decent people is actually just weird

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 25 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Presumably meaning the percentage. Not all GenX went right, but I will admit I've been disappointed in seeing how many around my age did lose any semblance of critical thinking. And some of them very early, so it may not be age at all that's a factor, but something else that affects people. Maybe millennials have managed to avoid whatever that is.

[–] cv_octavio@piefed.ca 10 points 1 day ago

As a 50 year white guy old who has never voted for a conservative, and always tries to support the most progressive candidate, let me assure you, we exist, and we are tremendously disappointed in our demographic peers.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think there is something to the "millennial's refuse to grow up" mantra that boomers and genx accuse us of.

Like, if growing up is adopting a "fuck you i got mine" mentality... nah.

[–] avg@lemmy.zip 10 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It does help that most millennials didn't get theirs.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Zoomers didn't either but they're perhaps even more conservative than boomers were

[–] warm@kbin.earth 18 points 2 days ago

Tiktok and the like. Millenials grew up at the perfect time, where the internet was at its peak, then it all became consolidated into large echochambers which are more easily manipulated. Generations after millenials don't remember the internet outside of tiktok, instagram, snapchat etc. they don't what they missed out on.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

That article was about Australia and even then the headline didn't support the claims. Millennials have always been like 14 points more liberal than Gen X before them, but they haven't moved more liberal over time.

[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

The Boomers designed (and then aggressively defunded) the education system that these kids are being raised in, so it's not really a huge surprise that they aren't learning critical thinking.

Then combine that with the social media/advertising landscape that they're constantly exposed to, and it's really a losing battle.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

One reason why so many are turning bigots, you expressed it yourself: your refusal to consider them on your same level, as intelligent and critical thinkers as you. Somehow everyone is stupid but you (and I don't mean "you" specifically, rather everyone who approaches discourse in the same way).

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.

If you are dumb it's not your fault. You didn't, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.

If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn't usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.

Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.

The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.

[–] plyth@feddit.org -3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

against the horror of the alternative.

Which could also be that they are correct.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

We have more than enough evidence of exactly the opposite to dismiss this possibility. All the problems are less extreme in the countries with public healthcare and that don't worship corporations

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

This bias is real. Everyone thinks they're the smart one. There also do exist huge differences in intelligence.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yep.

I have a graduate degree, been left/progressive my entire life. Only in the past few years have I been told, to my face, that I'm a bigoted ignorance stupid piece of shit. It's almost as if the left has gone off the rails and basically thinks anyone who won't vote for them should f off. And they wonder why they don't get votes or population.

I used to be proud to be a Democrat. Ever since Clinton I've been ashamed and all the party has done is double down on their stupid sexist bullshit.

I remember talking about how clinton was a bad candidate and was going to lose in 2016. all i ever got in reply was 'you're a sexist piece of shit'. yeah, god forbid i be critical of clinton's shity campaign, and her crappy policies that alienated huge swaths of america.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Plenty of us also criticized Clinton, we just recognized Trump was that much even worse and we're willing to hold our nose. Because we care about getting our policies and will settle for closer to it, we aren't going to go for whatever merely says theyll fuck over the powerful when we know the policies won't actually hurt them.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 5 points 2 days ago

Social media is an incredibly strong tool. It started off pretty nice, so we thought once the boomers died out we would be better off and for a while it was looking good, but it has quickly turned into algorithmic slop which can easily feed people propaganda without them even realising it.