Bud Light

[Szdfan]

Todays headline

Bud Light maker Anheuser-Busch to lay off hundreds of employees, company says
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna96633

I just wish other beer companies were not growing. I wish our society would consume less alcohol.

I saw a study that noted that Generation Z was consuming less alcohol than Gen X or Boomers but they were also taking more psychedelics and marijuana than previous generations. So choose your poison, I guess?

[Robert]

So choose your poison, I guess?

Yea. I try not to put poison in my system.

[Ken]

Todays headline

I just wish other beer companies were not growing. I wish our society would consume less alcohol.

I saw a study that noted that Generation Z was consuming less alcohol than Gen X or Boomers but they were also taking more psychedelics and marijuana than previous generations. So choose your poison, I guess?

Today's teenagers actually drink less AND do less drugs than previous generations.

Perhaps that is one positive consequence of spending more time on their phones rather than being out hanging out with each other in person.

[Szdfan]

I just wish other beer companies were not growing. I wish our society would consume less alcohol.

I saw a study that noted that Generation Z was consuming less alcohol than Gen X or Boomers but they were also taking more psychedelics and marijuana than previous generations. So choose your poison, I guess?

Today's teenagers actually drink less AND do less drugs than previous generations.

Perhaps that is one positive consequence of spending more time on their phones rather than being out hanging out with each other in person.

David Brooks had a piece in the Times a while back which argued that Gen Z is more risk adverse and less likely to take risks, which he didn’t think was a great idea.

[Ken]

I saw a study that noted that Generation Z was consuming less alcohol than Gen X or Boomers but they were also taking more psychedelics and marijuana than previous generations. So choose your poison, I guess?

Today's teenagers actually drink less AND do less drugs than previous generations.

Perhaps that is one positive consequence of spending more time on their phones rather than being out hanging out with each other in person.

David Brooks had a piece in the Times a while back which argued that Gen Z is more risk adverse and less likely to take risks, which he didn’t think was a great idea.

I went to HS from 78-82 and I remember a whole lot of risk taking among my classmates. Kid (probably drunk) dying in fiery car and motorcycle crashes. Kids getting paralyzed or killed jumping off high bridges into shallow rivers. Binge drinking until kids passed out. Lots of unprotected sex and babies. Not that I was doing those things, but one does know what is going on at one's own high school.

I'm not sure those were really better times. I do think that on average, kids today tend to be more serious than they were two generations ago when I was that age. I attribute that to more uncertainty in modern life. Back then you were more likely to follow in your father's footsteps so you could goof off all through school. That job at the mill or on the farm was still going to be waiting whether you got As or Ds. Today the world is changing so much faster and I think kids sense that they need to be more serious and prepared. Because whatever their parents did isn't necessarily going to be there for them.

[Valerie]

Today's teenagers actually drink less AND do less drugs than previous generations.

Perhaps that is one positive consequence of spending more time on their phones rather than being out hanging out with each other in person.

David Brooks had a piece in the Times a while back which argued that Gen Z is more risk adverse and less likely to take risks, which he didn’t think was a great idea.

I went to HS from 78-82 and I remember a whole lot of risk taking among my classmates. Kid (probably drunk) dying in fiery car and motorcycle crashes. Kids getting paralyzed or killed jumping off high bridges into shallow rivers. Binge drinking until kids passed out. Lots of unprotected sex and babies. Not that I was doing those things, but one does know what is going on at one's own high school.

I'm not sure those were really better times. I do think that on average, kids today tend to be more serious than they were two generations ago when I was that age. I attribute that to more uncertainty in modern life. Back then you were more likely to follow in your father's footsteps so you could goof off all through school. That job at the mill or on the farm was still going to be waiting whether you got As or Ds. Today the world is changing so much faster and I think kids sense that they need to be more serious and prepared. Because whatever their parents did isn't necessarily going to be there for them.

Wow, i went to HS 1972-1976 and your experience with classmates seem much worse than mine- drugs were an issue then- but i only knew of 1 death - due ro motorcycle,

I work with a very GenZ guided 25 year old who seems to be ruled & reigned by their statements, which are the most unusual & challenging & definitely not risk taker in myriads of ways- the statements remind me of someone who must live in a lot of fear. I really feel sorry for him. He started out before summer really upset about the fact that we were supposed to have a very hot summer. I reminded him that well that is up to god. They just said on the news the other night that Ohio has had an unusually cooler summer- why start out pairing things that may not happen? When the Canadian fires were affecting our air quality he was the only one wearing a mask inside the building we work in and was constantly announcing the air quality level. GenZ seems paranoid- we have a really good working relationship and I care for him, but getting through to some of his ideas like why they shouldn't work full time is very challenging- he is against corporate ideas so uses that to justify why at 25 he doesn't feel working full time is necessary. The thoughts of many in GenZ are similar in being radical, as the 60s were

[Ken]

David Brooks had a piece in the Times a while back which argued that Gen Z is more risk adverse and less likely to take risks, which he didn’t think was a great idea.

I went to HS from 78-82 and I remember a whole lot of risk taking among my classmates. Kid (probably drunk) dying in fiery car and motorcycle crashes. Kids getting paralyzed or killed jumping off high bridges into shallow rivers. Binge drinking until kids passed out. Lots of unprotected sex and babies. Not that I was doing those things, but one does know what is going on at one's own high school.

I'm not sure those were really better times. I do think that on average, kids today tend to be more serious than they were two generations ago when I was that age. I attribute that to more uncertainty in modern life. Back then you were more likely to follow in your father's footsteps so you could goof off all through school. That job at the mill or on the farm was still going to be waiting whether you got As or Ds. Today the world is changing so much faster and I think kids sense that they need to be more serious and prepared. Because whatever their parents did isn't necessarily going to be there for them.

Wow, i went to HS 1972-1976 and your experience with classmates seem much worse than mine- drugs were an issue then- but i only knew of 1 death - due ro motorcycle,

I work with a very GenZ guided 25 year old who seems to be ruled & reigned by their statements, which are the most unusual & challenging & definitely not risk taker in myriads of ways- the statements remind me of someone who must live in a lot of fear. I really feel sorry for him. He started out before summer really upset about the fact that we were supposed to have a very hot summer. I reminded him that well that is up to god. They just said on the news the other night that Ohio has had an unusually cooler summer- why start out pairing things that may not happen? When the Canadian fires were affecting our air quality he was the only one wearing a mask inside the building we work in and was constantly announcing the air quality level. GenZ seems paranoid- we have a really good working relationship and I care for him, but getting through to some of his ideas like why they shouldn't work full time is very challenging- he is against corporate ideas so uses that to justify why at 25 he doesn't feel working full time is necessary. The thoughts of many in GenZ are similar in being radical, as the 60s were

Maybe my school was unusual. I don't know. It was a big suburban/rural school in the southern Willamette north of Eugene so lots of blue collar kids raised on farms or with parents in the logging industry as well as more suburban kids.

The middle linebacker on my football team drove his motorcycle into a bridge abutment at high speed (he missed the corner) and died in a fiery crash. It was spring of our senior year and he had a D1 football scholarship waiting. There was a group of kids riding in the back of a pickup truck on the way home from a kegger party at the river. The student driving rolled the truck in a ditch and several kids died. When I was a freshman there was a kid moving irrigation pipe on a farm who got it tangled in the overhead electrical wires and electrocuted himself. And there was an incident where a kid jumped off a bridge into a river, hit a rock and paralyzed himself and then ended up dying. Alcohol was involved there too.

I teach at a similar sized school today and I don't see anything like that. Kids still do plenty of stupid things because kids are kids. But it doesn't seem to be quite the same level of wanton risk taking.

[Szdfan]

This is from the piece from Brooks:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opin ... ticleShare

But something else is going on here. Gen Z-ers grew up with hypercautious parenting that exaggerates the dangers in life. They grew up in a media culture that generates ratings and clicks by generating division and anger. They grew up in a political culture that magnifies a sense of menace — that presumes that other people are toxic — in order to tell simplistic us/them stories and mobilize people’s fears.

This culture of exaggerated distrust and presumed toxicity has influenced us all, but the younger generations most of all. On the one hand it’s made them hypervigilant to danger. Since 2011 the number of kids who have had to go to the emergency room for nonfatal injuries has plummeted. Members of Gen Z are less likely to do drugs or get into fights or car accidents than were teens in previous generations.

On the other hand this culture has induced — in all of us, but especially in the young — an aversion to risk.

People who grow up in this culture of distrust are bound to adopt self-protective codes of behavior. I’ve been teaching college students on and off for 25 years. Over the last few years, students have become much less willing to argue with one another in class. They don’t want to be viciously judged. It’s not even that they are consciously afraid of being canceled. It’s simply that the norm of non-argumentativeness in public has settled over many (but not all) parts of campus culture.

People who grow up in a culture of distrust are bound to be pessimistic about life. Since around 2012, the share of 12th graders who expect to earn a graduate or professional degree, get a professional job or own more than their parents has plummeted (even though, as Twenge shows, their brothers and sisters in the millennial generation are doing better and better).

People who grow up with this mentality are also less likely to believe they can control their own destinies. In her book, Twenge has a chart showing the share of 12th graders who believe that their lives are blown about by outside forces has been surging since 2006. That matters, she writes, because people who go through life with this defeatist attitude have worse life outcomes.

[Szdfan]

I teach at a similar sized school today and I don't see anything like that. Kids still do plenty of stupid things because kids are kids. But it doesn't seem to be quite the same level of wanton risk taking.

About every three or four years there’s a major accident in the area that kills multiple students. A couple of years ago, five students from a nearby district were killed when they intentionally ran a stop sign to play chicken with a semi truck.

[Robert]

I teach at a similar sized school today and I don't see anything like that. Kids still do plenty of stupid things because kids are kids. But it doesn't seem to be quite the same level of wanton risk taking.

About every three or four years there’s a major accident in the area that kills multiple students. A couple of years ago, five students from a nearby district were killed when they intentionally ran a stop sign to play chicken with a semi truck.

Vehicles are safer now. More laws, like seat belts, reduce car deaths and minimize injury then when I was growing up. Kids are just as stupid now, but I kid can't even ride a bike without a helmet now. We used to jump ramps over brick walls with no protection at all. They may be more cautious, but they are more protected too.