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Eduan

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Yes they did. The final poduct is good, but what's the cost? A thousand uncomprehensible rules half of which means an arbitrary decision from some guys nobody cares about switching DRS zones from race to race? To achieve "natural" overtaking we depend on the Pirellis working Bad As Designed, but not too bad otherwise drivers and cars are irrelevant (with tires worth 2s a lap compared to the other compound...), we need that Whiting gets the DRS zone right which could or could not happen, we need KERS to actually mean something but not too much...geez...and all this to make people believe they are watching Gilles vs René? Well, for us who watched it back then this is not genuine. For those who didn't they can enjoy the overtakings as much as they want but who can honestly understand Sh#t of what is going on on the track? "Hey, look, Driver X is two laps behind!" "Ha! Sucker!", "No, wait, he is on a two stopper and he has an extra tire of softs so if he switches to a three stopper and uses that extra set...", "Yes, but he will still fall behind two cars and the DRS zone is not good enough..." "Oh, but the other team..." and so on...we wacth the race as some sort of MTV compilation of music videos in the 80s. A sucession of great images, but totally unconnected and then we awe at the result, just because it is too complicated to predict even for the teams.

I loved the strategy side in F1 but this is too much.

And George disagrees to make things worse! :P

I think everybody would prefer the more 'natural' type of racing, of say the Gilles era. That would be ideal. In addition, it would surely attract the younger/new fans much better than the complex system we have now, because it would be easier to understand. What we have now (2011) is a technological solution to the technological problem of a lack of overtaking (which existed from 2010 back to whenever you think the problems started...). The only other solution to a technological problem, other than the current solution of countering it by way of adjustable wings, power boosts and dodgy tyres, is to remove the technology causing the problem. This would mean reverting the cars back so they are similar to the way cars used to be when overtaking was apparently more natural, and of course F1 would never do that if only for all of the marketing reasons. It is very difficult to turn back the clock in terms of technology. So I think what we have now is the only reasonable or realistic route for solving the perceived overtaking problem. Where I would agree is that the specific way it’s being done can be improved, e.g. get rid ofthe DRS, or get rid of the zones, or whatever. But in any case it is still better for me to have an F1 with the chance of overtaking (I'm talking about a Spain rather than a Turkey), which will have to be through some technical device or quirk, rather than the processional races of 2009, for example (even if the strategy makes my head hurt). This comes from someone who would watch it either way.

In spirit I utterly agree. If we take today's F1 and compare it to the 1980's (when I started watching F1 as a young whipper snapper) it saddens me greatly. Then again, if I see it as a progression of last year or even then last 5 years then I allow myself to feel better.

As you know - I'm all in favour of as few rules as possible. Simplifying the sport back to the point where technological innovation matters most (being a fan of the technology rather than the drivers) and rules are easy to enforce because they depend not on 'interpretation'.

Seems today that F1 in a way has turned into baseball. The simplicity of guys hitting a ball and running around has been tarted up with stats that pop up on the screen every 2 seconds showing this or that guy's batting average / number of home runs this season / OGP / HLK (I made those up - I know nothing about baseball - other than that meaningless numbers keep popping up on the screen adding to my confusion when watching the ESPN broadcast overdubbed with Chinese commentators).

But here's the thing - a small percentage of us F1 die hards would be content with F1 as it was. Kids today want more and more excitement for their dollar - everything has to be extreme and the marketing guys have thrived on 'better than ever before' for a long time - so they need to keep making the spectacle of F1 even more crazy than ever in order to keep these new fans happy. It's the way of the world compadre. Patience is a long forgotten virtue - nowadays there has to be an F1 'amazing racing moment' every few laps or people switch off. It says something sad about humanity and our inability to stick at anything / see anything through in general. People want gratification without effort - they don't understand the pleasure that comes from working at something day and night for little reward other than that eventual feeling of success. How anyone under 20 will ever have the patience required/be content enough for a happy marriage is beyond me.

EDIT - I've always thought perfection will be sitting on my veranda at 70 with my wife, a coffee and a good book watching the world go by then getting up and pottering around in my garden for a bit before shooting the breeze with my grandchildren.

I wonder what perfection is to young people today? I fear the bar has been raised way too far and many will never find the level of contentedness they now feel it is reasonable to desire.

EDIT EDIT - that was a nice ramble - how about we meet up for a game of checkers after the nurses change our sheets old timer?

*Now for some thoughts which are less related to F1, from a member of the 'younger generation' :P*

I see what you are getting at here but I am not so sure about it. I don't think what's happening to F1 is the best example of "the downfall of modern society" argument. In fact, I'm not sure that argument actually works anyway. For example, you will notice every generation thinks itself better than the next, which logically could not be true otherwise society would never improve or sustain itself. All this particular argument really reveals is a truth: that most people think they are better than most other people, regardless of whether the evidence fits with that or not; and so it is that most members of a generation think theirs is better than the next, while considering their parents’ generation to have held silly ideas and values! I find this funny, really, and especially since at 19 I already see this kind of thinking in some of my peers (on Facebook yesterday someone [a 19 year old] used the old “kids these days” criticism without any sense of intended irony :lol: ).

That aside, what I do think is true is that young people (well, everyone) today have a much wider variety of "distractions", things which pull on us for our money and attention, and this leads to a few things, such as oversimplification, extravagant marketing, needless gimmicks, promises of quick success, etc., to attract people (like you talk about). So I don't think it is necessarily that people are inherently different, or have lower attention spans or anything like that, and people obviously aren't in a biological or evolutionary sense any different from previous generations. It is just those businesses/things which want our attention have to be increasingly competitive to get it, because markets are so saturated, and unfortunately they believe the aforementioned techniques are the best way to do it. Of course, clearly they do seem to be a good way of attracting many people, as the audience figures for most crappy talent shows will attest.

However, one generation cannot say "we are better than the next generation", because a certain set of people will always fall into the traps of their particular generation, past traps include things like racism, sexism, owning slaves, and think of anything that used to be socially and morally acceptable/unacceptable and is now unacceptable/acceptable. Currently one major trap of our/my generation is perhaps the obsession with fame/instant success, which I know has been around for a while, but perhaps, is worse than before (or maybe it is just amplified by TV, which is worth considering). But how do people of an older generation know that you would not be queuing up for some crappy talent show had you been raised under the same environment? People today are just a victim of their generation/circumstances, just like people who were incredibly racist when racism was much more prevalent were a victims of theirs, rather than being idiots or terrible people (don’t want to stray too far into Milgram territory here but you get the idea). We all like to believe we are different but in lots of important ways we are just the same.

Of course there are always those who don’t subscribe to the consensus or perceived consensus view, and there are always a lot of these people, but they are always under-represented. I think this is a big part of the problem between generations, it is one of perception, for example you might see on TV a large crowd of young people queuing up for the X-Factor or another talent show, and the natural thought may be “young people are obsessed with fame and instant success”. Yet you never see a large crowd of all those young people who don’t queue to go on the X-Factor, and who hate it (like me), or a 20 hour footage of a degree student working on an essay to try and get decent marks; so it is never a balanced view of how people actually are. To prove this point, usually when one of those talent shows is on, (annoyingly) my Facebook feed generally fills up with a running commentary of people talking about it saying what act they’ve just seen, etc.You know what else it fills up with at the same time? A bunch of people saying “shut up about X Factor it’s a load of crap”. Therefore, generalisations are always very dangerous. The same is true of the public perception of many things I fear, the news will always show a ‘youth’ who has done this, that or the other and how often does it show a young person helping another out, etc? Very rarely, and yet it does happen, and it has always been true that young people are more likely to be involved in violence, so it is absolutely nothing new yet the 'news' presents it like it is. Why? Because even the news needs to be entertaining now, because it's competing with so many other channels/shows. So it's worth thinking about whether the people of society have actually changed (i.e. they can't work hard at anything, have low attention spans, etc), and how likely that is, or whether this is something that the media has led us to believe and something which we find comforting to believe (we like to think we are better and different than others).

So what are my concluding thoughts on this: people in society don’t really change that much. Sure, their ideas and values change over time and so generations are a little different in their values, but generally and more importantly the way people form their ideas and their thinking actually stays quite the same. Society will always have a certain set of problems caused by certain sets of people; these are not generational problems, they are people problems. Any criticism of the way the world is today should not be made in a generational sense, it should be made in a "those kind of people have and will always exist, it's just the mistakes they make today are different than the ones people of our generation made yesterday".

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I had an argument discussion about this once with someone who maintained that ancient man was less intelligent/skilled than modern man.

I countered this and in a nutshell (and something which I firmly believe, and consider that there is evidence for):

People don't change (much) and are as intelligent as they always have been, however the technology/tools at their disposal does change and it is this that makes the difference between us and previous generations.

Which is why it is daft to compare Senna to Vettel as they were/are both at the peak of their game - just using different technology to achieve similar ends...

Kids, however are always b#####ds and I swear they were better behaved when I was a lad.... :)

(JOKING!!!)

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I had an argument discussion about this once with someone who maintained that ancient man was less intelligent/skilled than modern man.

I countered this and in a nutshell (and something which I firmly believe, and consider that there is evidence for):

People don't change (much) and are as intelligent as they always have been, however the technology/tools at their disposal does change and it is this that makes the difference between us and previous generations.

Which is why it is daft to compare Senna to Vettel as they were/are both at the peak of their game - just using different technology to achieve similar ends...

Kids, however are always b#####ds and I swear they were better behaved when I was a lad.... :)

(JOKING!!!)

it isn't fair to compare young Jesus Christ with kids of today

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Well, I am sorry folks but I'm here at Monaco again and the Maccas looked good this afternoon. The buzz is that JB could be a one-stopper and JV could be on three. The strategy combos are endless. The supersoft hasn't been used for ages and we shall see what we shall see. Pole is, as always, super critical. What new? Exciting though and we may have some weather issues too according to the locals.

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it isn't fair to compare young Jesus Christ with kids of today

Which team did he drive for?

Certainly couldn't be Ferrari with all that red, the colour of you-know-who.... :)

I think I remember him, his father too, but that holy ghost caused a huge amount of nuisance in the paddock, going up behind people and going: "boo!" :D

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Which team did he drive for?

Certainly couldn't be Ferrari with all that red, the colour of you-know-who.... :)

I think I remember him, his father too, but that holy ghost caused a huge amount of nuisance in the paddock, going up behind people and going: "boo!" :D

don't know about him, but his mother was a 'Virgin' personel

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Ok, here is a computer simulated, web-based game that will let you predict the various scenarios that might develop in the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix.

I know, it's entirely in Japanese, but you will not care that much. Give it a try.

http://www.jra-jwc.jp/vol2/

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Ok, here is a computer simulated, web-based game that will let you predict the various scenarios that might develop in the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix.

I know, it's entirely in Japanese, but you will not care that much. Give it a try.

http://www.jra-jwc.jp/vol2/

レッドブル ?

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WTF?

Any intelligent simulation will say Alonso 1st.

Can you all not see that, FFS!!!

:angry:

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I think everybody would prefer the more 'natural' type of racing, of say the Gilles era. That would be ideal. In addition, it would surely attract the younger/new fans much better than the complex system we have now, because it would be easier to understand. What we have now (2011) is a technological solution to the technological problem of a lack of overtaking (which existed from 2010 back to whenever you think the problems started...). The only other solution to a technological problem, other than the current solution of countering it by way of adjustable wings, power boosts and dodgy tyres, is to remove the technology causing the problem. This would mean reverting the cars back so they are similar to the way cars used to be when overtaking was apparently more natural, and of course F1 would never do that if only for all of the marketing reasons. It is very difficult to turn back the clock in terms of technology. So I think what we have now is the only reasonable or realistic route for solving the perceived overtaking problem. Where I would agree is that the specific way it’s being done can be improved, e.g. get rid ofthe DRS, or get rid of the zones, or whatever. But in any case it is still better for me to have an F1 with the chance of overtaking (I'm talking about a Spain rather than a Turkey), which will have to be through some technical device or quirk, rather than the processional races of 2009, for example (even if the strategy makes my head hurt). This comes from someone who would watch it either way.

*Now for some thoughts which are less related to F1, from a member of the 'younger generation' :P*

I see what you are getting at here but I am not so sure about it. I don't think what's happening to F1 is the best example of "the downfall of modern society" argument. In fact, I'm not sure that argument actually works anyway. For example, you will notice every generation thinks itself better than the next, which logically could not be true otherwise society would never improve or sustain itself. All this particular argument really reveals is a truth: that most people think they are better than most other people, regardless of whether the evidence fits with that or not; and so it is that most members of a generation think theirs is better than the next, while considering their parents’ generation to have held silly ideas and values! I find this funny, really, and especially since at 19 I already see this kind of thinking in some of my peers (on Facebook yesterday someone [a 19 year old] used the old “kids these days” criticism without any sense of intended irony :lol: ).

That aside, what I do think is true is that young people (well, everyone) today have a much wider variety of "distractions", things which pull on us for our money and attention, and this leads to a few things, such as oversimplification, extravagant marketing, needless gimmicks, promises of quick success, etc., to attract people (like you talk about). So I don't think it is necessarily that people are inherently different, or have lower attention spans or anything like that, and people obviously aren't in a biological or evolutionary sense any different from previous generations. It is just those businesses/things which want our attention have to be increasingly competitive to get it, because markets are so saturated, and unfortunately they believe the aforementioned techniques are the best way to do it. Of course, clearly they do seem to be a good way of attracting many people, as the audience figures for most crappy talent shows will attest.

However, one generation cannot say "we are better than the next generation", because a certain set of people will always fall into the traps of their particular generation, past traps include things like racism, sexism, owning slaves, and think of anything that used to be socially and morally acceptable/unacceptable and is now unacceptable/acceptable. Currently one major trap of our/my generation is perhaps the obsession with fame/instant success, which I know has been around for a while, but perhaps, is worse than before (or maybe it is just amplified by TV, which is worth considering). But how do people of an older generation know that you would not be queuing up for some crappy talent show had you been raised under the same environment? People today are just a victim of their generation/circumstances, just like people who were incredibly racist when racism was much more prevalent were a victims of theirs, rather than being idiots or terrible people (don’t want to stray too far into Milgram territory here but you get the idea). We all like to believe we are different but in lots of important ways we are just the same.

Of course there are always those who don’t subscribe to the consensus or perceived consensus view, and there are always a lot of these people, but they are always under-represented. I think this is a big part of the problem between generations, it is one of perception, for example you might see on TV a large crowd of young people queuing up for the X-Factor or another talent show, and the natural thought may be “young people are obsessed with fame and instant success”. Yet you never see a large crowd of all those young people who don’t queue to go on the X-Factor, and who hate it (like me), or a 20 hour footage of a degree student working on an essay to try and get decent marks; so it is never a balanced view of how people actually are. To prove this point, usually when one of those talent shows is on, (annoyingly) my Facebook feed generally fills up with a running commentary of people talking about it saying what act they’ve just seen, etc.You know what else it fills up with at the same time? A bunch of people saying “shut up about X Factor it’s a load of crap”. Therefore, generalisations are always very dangerous. The same is true of the public perception of many things I fear, the news will always show a ‘youth’ who has done this, that or the other and how often does it show a young person helping another out, etc? Very rarely, and yet it does happen, and it has always been true that young people are more likely to be involved in violence, so it is absolutely nothing new yet the 'news' presents it like it is. Why? Because even the news needs to be entertaining now, because it's competing with so many other channels/shows. So it's worth thinking about whether the people of society have actually changed (i.e. they can't work hard at anything, have low attention spans, etc), and how likely that is, or whether this is something that the media has led us to believe and something which we find comforting to believe (we like to think we are better and different than others).

So what are my concluding thoughts on this: people in society don’t really change that much. Sure, their ideas and values change over time and so generations are a little different in their values, but generally and more importantly the way people form their ideas and their thinking actually stays quite the same. Society will always have a certain set of problems caused by certain sets of people; these are not generational problems, they are people problems. Any criticism of the way the world is today should not be made in a generational sense, it should be made in a "those kind of people have and will always exist, it's just the mistakes they make today are different than the ones people of our generation made yesterday".

A very interesting post! I think it's marred only by its excessive reasonableness - no irony intended! :P All the best points are hidden deep within so as not to be noticed by anyone who disagrees, and who therefore ought to read them. :)

The point about racists being victims of their own circumstances is an excellent one, for example. I'd go a little further and say that we all fall into the traps of our time, which I think is what you were saying anyway. We all now say very casually that slavery is wrong - and I believe it is - without troubling ourselves to consider that our livelihoods no longer depend upon it. After all, modern technology allows us to ship the produce rather than the slaves around the world: we can leave our labourers in China, pay them a dollar a day and pat ourselves on the back for being so enlightened.

Regarding your main point about generations, again I would say the same thing but maybe a bit more so - and definitely less nicely! Imho new generations almost always progress and improve on their predecessors. They do this not only through more knowledge/skills/technology/tools having been accumulated, but also through actually being better educated, smarter, more tolerant etc. Evolution (very) probably only plays a negligible role between generations but improved healthcare, nutrition and education most likely have made us smarter imho. Children are indoctrinated with the views we wish we'd inherited - they're usually more tolerant and fairer values than previous generations held. And there is simply no contest in terms of education: I'd wager that even in a stable, developed country like Britain, the average 14 year old is better educated than the average adult now.

It's nothing new for the news to make out that young people today <insert negative stereotype>. Older generations find it comforting to be able to pass on their "wisdom" and to worry about the yoof of today. When you're old enough, George, lad, you will find time to read Shakespeare and d#ckens and therein will you find the timeless views of one generation on the next: they're always rushing headlong into one thing and then the next, never persevering or concentrating on anything.

Whilst of course it's good that older generations do express their concerns and views, because they have a lot of experience and wisdom to pass on, it would be even better if they also accepted more (or, indeed, any) advice from younger people. Almost every historical example of what is now considered progress would have happened sooner had they done so.

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One of those posts that makes me think if we met, we may get on handsomely.

I found perfection on tuesday evening. My four month old boy wouldn't sleep, so I took him for a walk in his push chair. It was a lovely warm evening. We walked around the fields and meadows where I grew up. As I sang to him and he looked into my eyes, then slowly fell asleep. I felt all at once as though I had found the true meaning of life.

This was reinforced when I brought him home and wiped the sh!t from his bottom.

Simple pleasures....

Indeed.

From Crash.net:

Somebody please shut up this kid (Lewis). He is doing great with his foot on the pedal, not in his mouth.

Indeed 2.0

I think everybody would prefer the more 'natural' type of racing, of say the Gilles era. That would be ideal. In addition, it would surely attract the younger/new fans much better than the complex system we have now, because it would be easier to understand. What we have now (2011) is a technological solution to the technological problem of a lack of overtaking (which existed from 2010 back to whenever you think the problems started...). The only other solution to a technological problem, other than the current solution of countering it by way of adjustable wings, power boosts and dodgy tyres, is to remove the technology causing the problem. This would mean reverting the cars back so they are similar to the way cars used to be when overtaking was apparently more natural, and of course F1 would never do that if only for all of the marketing reasons. It is very difficult to turn back the clock in terms of technology. So I think what we have now is the only reasonable or realistic route for solving the perceived overtaking problem. Where I would agree is that the specific way it’s being done can be improved, e.g. get rid ofthe DRS, or get rid of the zones, or whatever. But in any case it is still better for me to have an F1 with the chance of overtaking (I'm talking about a Spain rather than a Turkey), which will have to be through some technical device or quirk, rather than the processional races of 2009, for example (even if the strategy makes my head hurt). This comes from someone who would watch it either way.

*Now for some thoughts which are less related to F1, from a member of the 'younger generation' :P*

I see what you are getting at here but I am not so sure about it. I don't think what's happening to F1 is the best example of "the downfall of modern society" argument. In fact, I'm not sure that argument actually works anyway. For example, you will notice every generation thinks itself better than the next, which logically could not be true otherwise society would never improve or sustain itself. All this particular argument really reveals is a truth: that most people think they are better than most other people, regardless of whether the evidence fits with that or not; and so it is that most members of a generation think theirs is better than the next, while considering their parents’ generation to have held silly ideas and values! I find this funny, really, and especially since at 19 I already see this kind of thinking in some of my peers (on Facebook yesterday someone [a 19 year old] used the old “kids these days” criticism without any sense of intended irony :lol: ).

That aside, what I do think is true is that young people (well, everyone) today have a much wider variety of "distractions", things which pull on us for our money and attention, and this leads to a few things, such as oversimplification, extravagant marketing, needless gimmicks, promises of quick success, etc., to attract people (like you talk about). So I don't think it is necessarily that people are inherently different, or have lower attention spans or anything like that, and people obviously aren't in a biological or evolutionary sense any different from previous generations. It is just those businesses/things which want our attention have to be increasingly competitive to get it, because markets are so saturated, and unfortunately they believe the aforementioned techniques are the best way to do it. Of course, clearly they do seem to be a good way of attracting many people, as the audience figures for most crappy talent shows will attest.

However, one generation cannot say "we are better than the next generation", because a certain set of people will always fall into the traps of their particular generation, past traps include things like racism, sexism, owning slaves, and think of anything that used to be socially and morally acceptable/unacceptable and is now unacceptable/acceptable. Currently one major trap of our/my generation is perhaps the obsession with fame/instant success, which I know has been around for a while, but perhaps, is worse than before (or maybe it is just amplified by TV, which is worth considering). But how do people of an older generation know that you would not be queuing up for some crappy talent show had you been raised under the same environment? People today are just a victim of their generation/circumstances, just like people who were incredibly racist when racism was much more prevalent were a victims of theirs, rather than being idiots or terrible people (don’t want to stray too far into Milgram territory here but you get the idea). We all like to believe we are different but in lots of important ways we are just the same.

Of course there are always those who don’t subscribe to the consensus or perceived consensus view, and there are always a lot of these people, but they are always under-represented. I think this is a big part of the problem between generations, it is one of perception, for example you might see on TV a large crowd of young people queuing up for the X-Factor or another talent show, and the natural thought may be “young people are obsessed with fame and instant success”. Yet you never see a large crowd of all those young people who don’t queue to go on the X-Factor, and who hate it (like me), or a 20 hour footage of a degree student working on an essay to try and get decent marks; so it is never a balanced view of how people actually are. To prove this point, usually when one of those talent shows is on, (annoyingly) my Facebook feed generally fills up with a running commentary of people talking about it saying what act they’ve just seen, etc.You know what else it fills up with at the same time? A bunch of people saying “shut up about X Factor it’s a load of crap”. Therefore, generalisations are always very dangerous. The same is true of the public perception of many things I fear, the news will always show a ‘youth’ who has done this, that or the other and how often does it show a young person helping another out, etc? Very rarely, and yet it does happen, and it has always been true that young people are more likely to be involved in violence, so it is absolutely nothing new yet the 'news' presents it like it is. Why? Because even the news needs to be entertaining now, because it's competing with so many other channels/shows. So it's worth thinking about whether the people of society have actually changed (i.e. they can't work hard at anything, have low attention spans, etc), and how likely that is, or whether this is something that the media has led us to believe and something which we find comforting to believe (we like to think we are better and different than others).

So what are my concluding thoughts on this: people in society don’t really change that much. Sure, their ideas and values change over time and so generations are a little different in their values, but generally and more importantly the way people form their ideas and their thinking actually stays quite the same. Society will always have a certain set of problems caused by certain sets of people; these are not generational problems, they are people problems. Any criticism of the way the world is today should not be made in a generational sense, it should be made in a "those kind of people have and will always exist, it's just the mistakes they make today are different than the ones people of our generation made yesterday".

Interesting post - I think you're half understanding my point. It is not that the world is ending but rather (as you say in the 2nd paragraph) that people growing up now require more stimulus to retain their interest.

Regards the first para - couldn't be further from the truth, or my own belief. I have far more respect for my grandparents' generation than for my own quite frankly. It's not about which generation is 'better', we are all biologically the same. The issue is that the younger people are, the more they are becoming affected by the sense that they should be entertained every 5 mintues for no effort. Before the plethora of games consoles and TV channels people had to make their own entertaionment. This took effort and time to produce entertaining results... get a group of friends together to play football / make a magic box that allows you to saw your friend in half / prepare a new recipe from the garden / etc etc. Now gratification comes instantly at the flick of a button and so the amount of 'boredom' younger people are prepared to tolerate and the ammount of 'work' they are willing to put in to relieving that boredom is relatively less than for older generations.

Again - it's not a matter of any generation being better or worse than the one that preceded it or follwed it. It's a matter of every generation being a product of it's times. If I complain about 'kids today' then it is always with the full knowledge that their predicament is of our own doing.

Hope this makes it clear.

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Indeed.

Indeed 2.0

Interesting post - I think you're half understanding my point. It is not that the world is ending but rather (as you say in the 2nd paragraph) that people growing up now require more stimulus to retain their interest.

Regards the first para - couldn't be further from the truth, or my own belief. I have far more respect for my grandparents' generation than for my own quite frankly. It's not about which generation is 'better', we are all biologically the same. The issue is that the younger people are, the more they are becoming affected by the sense that they should be entertained every 5 mintues for no effort. Before the plethora of games consoles and TV channels people had to make their own entertaionment. This took effort and time to produce entertaining results... get a group of friends together to play football / make a magic box that allows you to saw your friend in half / prepare a new recipe from the garden / etc etc. Now gratification comes instantly at the flick of a button and so the amount of 'boredom' younger people are prepared to tolerate and the ammount of 'work' they are willing to put in to relieving that boredom is relatively less than for older generations.

Again - it's not a matter of any generation being better or worse than the one that preceded it or follwed it. It's a matter of every generation being a product of it's times. If I complain about 'kids today' then it is always with the full knowledge that their predicament is of our own doing.

Hope this makes it clear.

“Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Socrates (Ancient Greek Philosopher, 470 BC-399 BC)

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A very interesting post! I think it's marred only by its excessive reasonableness - no irony intended! :P All the best points are hidden deep within so as not to be noticed by anyone who disagrees, and who therefore ought to read them. :)

The point about racists being victims of their own circumstances is an excellent one, for example. I'd go a little further and say that we all fall into the traps of our time, which I think is what you were saying anyway. We all now say very casually that slavery is wrong - and I believe it is - without troubling ourselves to consider that our livelihoods no longer depend upon it. After all, modern technology allows us to ship the produce rather than the slaves around the world: we can leave our labourers in China, pay them a dollar a day and pat ourselves on the back for being so enlightened.

Regarding your main point about generations, again I would say the same thing but maybe a bit more so - and definitely less nicely! Imho new generations almost always progress and improve on their predecessors. They do this not only through more knowledge/skills/technology/tools having been accumulated, but also through actually being better educated, smarter, more tolerant etc. Evolution (very) probably only plays a negligible role between generations but improved healthcare, nutrition and education most likely have made us smarter imho. Children are indoctrinated with the views we wish we'd inherited - they're usually more tolerant and fairer values than previous generations held. And there is simply no contest in terms of education: I'd wager that even in a stable, developed country like Britain, the average 14 year old is better educated than the average adult now.

It's nothing new for the news to make out that young people today <insert negative stereotype>. Older generations find it comforting to be able to pass on their "wisdom" and to worry about the yoof of today. When you're old enough, George, lad, you will find time to read Shakespeare and d#ckens and therein will you find the timeless views of one generation on the next: they're always rushing headlong into one thing and then the next, never persevering or concentrating on anything.

Whilst of course it's good that older generations do express their concerns and views, because they have a lot of experience and wisdom to pass on, it would be even better if they also accepted more (or, indeed, any) advice from younger people. Almost every historical example of what is now considered progress would have happened sooner had they done so.

:lol: Well thank you, Muzza. Yep, I think we mostly agree on everything although you do go a little further than me (but I forgive you for that because you're a little older than me and therefore I'm just happy you're using a computer :P)!

Indeed.

Indeed 2.0

Interesting post - I think you're half understanding my point. It is not that the world is ending but rather (as you say in the 2nd paragraph) that people growing up now require more stimulus to retain their interest.

Regards the first para - couldn't be further from the truth, or my own belief. I have far more respect for my grandparents' generation than for my own quite frankly. It's not about which generation is 'better', we are all biologically the same. The issue is that the younger people are, the more they are becoming affected by the sense that they should be entertained every 5 mintues for no effort. Before the plethora of games consoles and TV channels people had to make their own entertaionment. This took effort and time to produce entertaining results... get a group of friends together to play football / make a magic box that allows you to saw your friend in half / prepare a new recipe from the garden / etc etc. Now gratification comes instantly at the flick of a button and so the amount of 'boredom' younger people are prepared to tolerate and the ammount of 'work' they are willing to put in to relieving that boredom is relatively less than for older generations.

Again - it's not a matter of any generation being better or worse than the one that preceded it or follwed it. It's a matter of every generation being a product of it's times. If I complain about 'kids today' then it is always with the full knowledge that their predicament is of our own doing.

Hope this makes it clear.

I think I fully understood your point, although you seem to be shifting it a little bit now so that it fits more with what I said :P For example when you said: "People want gratification without effort - they don't understand the pleasure that comes from working at something day and night for little reward other than that eventual feeling of success. How anyone under 20 will ever have the patience required/be content enough for a happy marriage is beyond me" - I am not sure how that could be construed as something which is positive. I mean, you seem to be saying here that young people are worse than previous generations, as they lack their virtues, which I thought was an odd view on young people and reminded me of the whole "downfall of modern society" argument (which has probably been around since...the beginning of society :lol:), at least it seems to be one (very weak) pillar of that argument.

I hate to break it to you, but people still make their own entertainment, yes, in different ways to how they used to, but fundamentally in the same way: they socialise with other people of their own age. Be it online, or in a park playing football or down the pub, and usually what you'll find is young people do all of those things now because they can!

Sometimes I read my friends/peers' Facebook statuses and think 'what an idiot' and start thinking "wow, my generation are complete idiots" or some other criticism similar to what you mentioned. Then at some point I will see another, older person, do or say something completely idiotic (and sometimes make completely the same mistake) and it will remind me it is not a question of age or generations or anything else, because there have and will always be dumb people, or impatient people, or people with low tolerance for others, etc, all that really changes is the medium in which it is shown.

Anyway, I don't want to keep derailing this thread, as I am well aware most people probably don't find this nearly as fascinating as I do, so my ultimate points are: 1) generations of people are similar in the sense that each had a variety of members with varying degrees of tolerance, intelligence, ability to sustain boredom, etc, 2) judgements on groups of people are rarely accurate, and 3) such judgements on the character, worth, or other aspects of people should not be made on anything other than their actual behaviour, values, ideas, and so on (i.e. what is relevant and what is true, rather than what we perceive). This point is not a revelation, it has been well made already in other areas, for example race, and gender. I wonder when/if society will make the same allowance for its 'young people' and age will not be used to make blanket judgements about people such as "they don't understand the satisfaction from hard work" (no I am not comparing the consequences of ageism to sexism or racism but pointing out that it stems from the same fallacious thinking that 'they' are so different than 'us'). The fact is that things like the satisfaction from working hard and achieving something will always be greater than instant success for most people, and a happy marriage with a great companionship will always be something which makes us content, because we are human. Sorry if this post was a little aggressive, your ideas were just a little annoying (but don't worry, I don't blame you for it :P:lol:)!

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I think I fully understood your point, although you seem to be shifting it a little bit now so that it fits more with what I said <img src="http://www.totalf1.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":P"> For example when you said: "People want gratification without effort - they <b>don't understand the pleasure that comes from working at something day and night</b> for little reward other than that eventual feeling of success. How <b>anyone under 20 will ever have the patience</b> required/be content enough for a happy marriage is beyond me" - I am not sure how that could be construed as something which is positive.
<br>Nope - you're still missing the point. It is neither positive, nor their fault. If anything it is our fault for demanding (as every generation does) more instant gratification than ever before.<br><br>
I mean, you seem to be saying here that young people <i>are worse</i> than previous generations, as they lack their virtues, which I thought was an odd view on young people and reminded me of the whole "downfall of modern society" argument (which has probably been around since...the beginning of society <img src="http://www.totalf1.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":lol:">), at least it seems to be one (very weak) pillar of that argument.
<br>No - I think that kids today are lovely as people, they are just unfortunate to be living in a world (and thus affected by that world) that is less than they deserve.<br><br>
I hate to break it to you, but people still make their own entertainment, yes, in different ways to how they used to, but fundamentally in the same way: they socialise with other people of their own age. Be it online, or in a park playing football or down the pub, and usually what you'll find is young people do <i>all</i> of those things now <i>because they can</i>! <br><br>Sometimes I read my friends/peers' Facebook statuses and think 'what an idiot' and start thinking "wow, my generation are complete idiots" or some other criticism similar to what you mentioned. Then at some point I will see another, older person, do or say something completely idiotic (and sometimes make completely the same mistake) and it will remind me it is not a question of age or generations or anything else, because there have and will always be dumb people, or impatient people, or people with low tolerance for others, etc, all that really changes is the medium in which it is shown.<br><br>Anyway, I don't want to keep derailing this thread, as I am well aware most people probably don't find this nearly as fascinating as I do, so my ultimate points are: 1) generations of people are similar in the sense that each had a variety of members with varying degrees of tolerance, intelligence, ability to sustain boredom, etc, 2) judgements on groups of people are rarely accurate, and 3) such judgements on the character, worth, or other aspects of people should not be made on anything other than their actual behaviour, values, ideas, and so on (i.e. what is relevant and what is true, rather than what we perceive). This point is not a revelation, it has been well made already in other areas, for example race, and gender. I wonder when/if society will make the same allowance for its 'young people' and age will not be used to make blanket judgements about people such as "they don't understand the satisfaction from hard work" (no I am not comparing the consequences of ageism to sexism or racism but pointing out that it stems from the same fallacious thinking that 'they' are so different than 'us'). The fact is that things like the satisfaction from working hard and achieving something will always be greater than instant success for most people, and a happy marriage with a great companionship will always be something which makes us content, because we are human. Sorry if this post was a little aggressive, your ideas were just a little annoying (but don't worry, I don't blame you for it <img src="http://www.totalf1.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":P"> <img src="http://www.totalf1.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":lol:">)!<br>
<br>Sorry George - but I think your defensiveness is uncalled for old chap. As I said in my previous post - people are all the same biologically speaking, but we've now got a world in which it is far far harder for kids to grow up content without constant stimulation. That doesn't make anyone better or worse - there's no competition between generations here as far as I can see.

<div><br></div><div>EDIT - I also don't know where you get the idea that intelligence is related to the traits that I'm talking about. I never once said older people are in any way more intelligent either. I think you're reading far more into my posts than is actually there.</div><div><br></div><div>To cover you shortened list of points..</div><div>1) Yes - but (through no fault of their own) I would say that younger generations have a greater proportion of people expecting easily attainable entertainment than the previous one. It is the same between my generation and my parents too. My generation expects to be entertained far more than my parents ever did. It's an ongoing trend - the more we provide entertainment at the flick of a switch, the more we grow to expect it.</div><div>2) Yes - I speak broadly because it's the only way to talk when concerning general societal trends - but indeed there are always exceptions.</div><div>3) I made no judgements of character or worth. If anyone is responsible for the position in which the younger generation find themselves it is their parents (members of the previous generation). I also <b>don't</b> think that younger people's expectation of instant entertainment in any way affects their 'worth' or 'character' that again is something you read into my posts which is not there.</div><div><br></div><div>If we were talking about food instead of entertainment none of what I'm saying would be under question. Just because we have easy access to food and people are getting (on average) fatter doesn't make us worth less than previous generations. Nor does it say anything about our character. It just shows that we are products of our environment at the time of our youth. Sadly that also means (through no fault of our own) that very few of us know how to rear cattle, slaughter a chicken or grow vegetables. <img src="http://www.totalf1.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif" alt=";)" class="bbc_emoticon"></div>

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Nope - you're still missing the point. It is neither positive, nor their fault. If anything it is our fault for demanding (as every generation does) more instant gratification than ever before.

No - I think that kids today are lovely as people, they are just unfortunate to be living in a world (and thus affected by that world) that is less than they deserve.

Sorry George - but I think your defensiveness is uncalled for old chap. As I said in my previous post - people are all the same, but we've now got a world in which it is far far harder for kids to grow up content without constant stimulation. That doesn't make anyone better or worse - there's no competition between generations here as far as I can see.

I can see you don't really want to engage on the theme of your original post here, Adam. You accuse me of missing your point when in my first reply I made it very clear that I thought people are largely "victims of their circumstances" (which is something Muzza picked up so I know I wasn't writing too cryptically there :lol:), so I am not sure how you think I am missing that one. And I'm not sure how you can believe that my 'generation' is not worse than yours if you also believe that my generation is incapable of taking pleasure in working hard or might be unable to find happiness in marriage (like you said)? That seems a little odd to me and I'm not sure how those two can fit together. Perhaps you stated that, then read my counter post and agreed with it, but don't want to go back and change what you said, and so now those two opinions have to live together for fear of losing some kind of imaginary face? Again, this comes down to not being too worried about admitting what you wrote was a little sloppy.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether you are genuinely thinking I don't understand your point (and it is hardly a difficult one so that's a little insulting, if I was the getting insulted type..) or whether you are just employing that nice misdirection tactic to sidestep my criticisms of your original post. I suspect it's the latter because it is a difficult one to defend (and I'm not sure it reflects your actual views or was just loosely written, and you are worried about making any concessions, I hope it was the latter...).

Your position now at least seems more reasonable than what you originally wrote, even if we disagree on the instant gratification idea and how that effects people. Well, surprising as it may be, this was fun as always, even if it took a lot of effort on my part. After all that hard work I really do need some instant gratification though! naughty.gif

P.S. Is there a race on this weekend? Somebody should really make a thread about it, because none of this really has anything to do with F1, you know!

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I can see you don't really want to engage on the theme of your original post here, Adam. You accuse me of missing your point when in my first reply I made it very clear that I thought people are largely "victims of their circumstances" (which is something Muzza picked up so I know I wasn't writing too cryptically there :lol:), so I am not sure how you think I am missing that one. And I'm not sure how you can believe that my 'generation' is not worse than yours if you also believe that my generation is incapable of taking pleasure in working hard or might be unable to find happiness in marriage (like you said)? That seems a little odd to me and I'm not sure how those two can fit together. Perhaps you stated that, then read my counter post and agreed with it, but don't want to go back and change what you said, and so now those two opinions have to live together for fear of losing some kind of imaginary face? Again, this comes down to not being too worried about admitting what you wrote was a little sloppy.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether you are genuinely thinking I don't understand your point (and it is hardly a difficult one so that's a little insulting, if I was the getting insulted type..) or whether you are just employing that nice misdirection tactic to sidestep my criticisms of your original post. I suspect it's the latter because it is a difficult one to defend (and I'm not sure it reflects your actual views or was just loosely written, and you are worried about making any concessions, I hope it was the latter...).

Your position now at least seems more reasonable than what you originally wrote, even if we disagree on the instant gratification idea and how that effects people. Well, surprising as it may be, this was fun as always, even if it took a lot of effort on my part. After all that hard work I really do need some instant gratification though! naughty.gif

P.S. Is there a race on this weekend? Somebody should really make a thread about it, because none of this really has anything to do with F1, you know!

I think the key is this - I think people can be in a worse situation and as a result of that situation lack certain positive traits, however I don't think that that makes those people worse people.

Otherwise poor people are worse people than their richer counterparts because their situation generally means they get less education.

That is obviously not true.

What makes a person good or bad depends on far more than the society in which they are bought up in.

Again - talking about the fact that we no longer have the knowledge to grow veg and rear animals for food but instead know only the skills involved in going to Tescos every weekend does not make us worse people than our forefathers, however it does mean that we lack (through no fault of our own) skills and knowledge that I think we would be better off knowing.

I'm not some evil old b#####d decrying the savagness of the young here. I am pointing out very obvious (and general) differences between the generations which are in no way reflective of any one generation's worth but rather indicative of the way the world is going as I perceive it. That can be bad, but it doesn't mean that the people involved are any better or worse as people than those who came before.

Let's go back to my first quote that seems to have done the damage...

"People want gratification without effort - they don't understand the pleasure that comes from working at something day and night for little reward other than that eventual feeling of success. How anyone under 20 will ever have the patience required/be content enough for a happy marriage is beyond me"

For the first part, 'people' very much includes my own generation too and I think we're all worse in this regard than our grandparents. For the second part, I stand by everything I wrote here and also insist that it doesn't diminish my respect for, or the 'worth' I attribute to younger people. I think that younger people have far less patience than their parents generally had at their age. It doesn't in any way make them worse people, just unfortunate to have been let down by people older than themselves (including myself) in not thinking properly about how to encourage patience in their children against the plethora of outside influences that indirectly encourage impatience. Again - if this reflects badly on any particular generation then it is the parental generation for failing their children by providing too much of everything too easily and not thinking about the consequences of 6hrs/day of playstation 3.

In China we have the 'little princes'. Parents love their single child so much that they and the 4 grandparents spoil the child rotten. The kid ends up expecting the world to revolve around them. It's not the kid's fault and it doesn't mean that they are in essence a worse human being at all (many of them are very sweet children) - only that their parents have done them a disservice because it also means that those children display astounding levels of impatience and expect a great deal from everyone else for very little return effort. If you want to place blame - I would say it's a combination of the gov's 1 child policy plus the parents lack of foresight in dealing with the issues that arise from that. The oldest of the little prince generation are now in their mid-twenties and display very different personalities from their parents. Obviously there are exceptions, but in general they have a very hard time building solid social groups and lasting friendships. They tend to see every social interaction as a transaction. Again - it doesn't mean they are bad people, just that they are products of their society and as such differ from their parents' generation.

I would like to reitterate - the whole 'who is better/worse' thing is of your making. I have never and would never say that my generation is any better or worse than any other - The reason I would not say that is because I do not believe it. Any generation that went through a period of wearing luminous socks can never claim superiority in any sense.:P

I have simply defined some traits (the main ones in my posts being impatience and an unbalanced understanding of the ratio between gratification gained vs effort made). To me these traits are quite obviously different in the younger generation now and yes they are negative - for positive traits look at the amazing way children now outstrip their parents in the use of computers - that's a great thing and something to be commended. Niether the good or bad traits make any generation better or worse than any other though.

Admittedly, I'm obviously not doing very well at explaining my position (sorry for that), but I believe it's fairly consistent.

Anyway - as you say - back to matters Monaco.:D

EDIT typos galore

EDIT EDIT - perhaps I can put your mind at ease by saying this...

My generation lacks many positive traits from my parents generation. We tend to have less knowledge of the world outside our country when compared with our grandparanets. We have a poor understanding of both recent and ancient history. We read a LOT less than any generation before and rely on TV/the internet for informative soundbites. We skim subject matter much more and are too reliant on other agencies (jounalists etc) to filter our information intake. We seperated ourselves from society more than previous generations and therefore take less responsibility for the affect our actions have upon people of other ages. I can blame these traits on Thatcherism, Roland Rat, the skate scene, Home and Away, ecstacy proliferation, the criminal justice act, children's BBC, rave/electronic music, the school system, more junk food, the coal miners strike, the poll tax etc etc etc. It doesn't make my generation any worse than my parents, but it does mean that we generally lack some beneficial traits that we would be better off having (or posses negative traits that we need to work harder to overcome).

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....it is not a question of age or generations or anything else, because there have and will always be dumb people....

Just remember the average person is dumb....

....and 50% of the population are dumber than that :)

And as for the comment on children being "lovely", as the parent of two girls and having survived their teenage years (just) - I'm not so sure about that!!! eusa_think.gif:D

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From Crash.net:

Somebody please shut up this kid (Lewis). He is doing great with his foot on the pedal, not in his mouth.

Yes please! He get so arrogant at times! If he doesn't shut up Monaco barriers will humble him. Not even Schumacher made remarks like that in is hey day!

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Yes please! He get so arrogant at times! If he doesn't shut up Monaco barriers will humble him. Not even Schumacher made remarks like that in is hey day!

Tsk tsk - it's that younger generation with their propensity for arrogance.:lol::eekout:

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Tsk tsk - it's that younger generation with their propensity for arrogance.:lol::eekout:

My dear friend Pride comes before the fall.... He is complaining about everyone that is blocking him.... Sounds like a former British F1 Champion....who used to complain about everything... I am all for confidence but displayed it on the track.... that speaks about the character of the man!

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