Reddit reviews A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

I suggest reading A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America.

It goes over a lot of detail on this subject. How they took plurality power of the government in 1982, majority in 1992, and even now, still hold 2/3s of all government positions such as federal senate/house members, governors, and state house/senators (that number may have been lowered in the 2018 election, but they still hold the majority).

That we find it horrifying that the rich have too much control with the money in this country, yet, if you look at it, the Baby Boomer generation controls 70% of the disposable income & wealth in this country.

They're a generation which changed laws to help the young when they were young at the expense of their parents. They changed the laws to help the middle aged when they were middle aged at the expense of their children and parents (e.g. wanting to get rid of the estate tax when their parents generation started dying, and no way to declare bankruptcy for student loans anymore). And now that they're old, laws are being changed to help the old at the expense of the young (not so surprisingly, a lot of state government problems are due to pension issues, which just so happen to grandfather their generation into the huge pension payouts causing all the issues).

There's a book called A Generation of Sociopaths that lays out a well supported argument that Baby Boomers carry that attitude more than other generations. Here's a crappy cell phone picture of one of the appendix charts that lists the favorable treatment Boomers have gotten from congress to the detriment of everyone else.

Our generation (I'm an early born millennial) has the environmental and fiscal mess the Boomers heaped on us to clean up, but we can and will do better.

It's partly a human thing, but I think it's gotten especially bad with the Boomers.

If you haven't already, I highly suggest you check out A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Try to get past the title, since the author tries quite hard to build an objective, data-driven case for how Baby Boomers have stood out in a fairly bad way compared to both their parents and children.

"A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America" A relevant, well-written and researched book that was released in March.

edit: release date

A Generation of Sociopaths: How Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Also, good book on subject:

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

>In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations.

>Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off.

I am reading through this

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Right now, and it would disagree fully. There a number of trends associated with the boomers and how they lived their lives, things such as drug use, premartial sex, teenage pregancy, etc that spike up with the boomer gen when compared to generation before and after. Is it really hard to say that they are a bloc with coherent political positions when as soon as they came into power they elected the first true neoliberal president, Reagan, and haven't looked back for the last 40 years?

If you want to read exactly how untrue that is here's a great book to start: https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

There is a book on that generation showing how they used their voting power to benefit their own interest by screwing future generations. A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
> Gibney shows how America was hijacked by a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity. Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts-- acting, in other words, as sociopaths-- they turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. ...

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America:

> In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations.
>
> Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off.
>
> Gibney argues that younger generations have a fleeting window to hold the Boomers accountable and begin restoring America.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I'm just going to leave this book recommendation here

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A Generation of Sociopaths

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Edit: stupid "new" reddit can't deal with it's own link formatting

You could get him a nice book as a make-up gift, this will cheer him up no doubt:

"A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America"
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

"In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations."

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

In short: they inherited cheap college, relatively new infrastructure, and low government debt to GDP ratio.

They left us underfunded college that requires massive debt to go to, $3.2Trillion gap in infrastructure, and highest peacetime debt to GDP ratio in American history.

Prove me wrong on that! No matter how you slice and dice it, the generations after the boomers have to pay for all this. America can't do things anymore because they've locked up so much of our future spending before my generation even had a chance to vote

I don't have to...just read this.

Sociopathic even..
A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

> Legitimately, did you come up with this eloquence on your own?

Read a lot on the topic.

Recommend A Generation of Sociopaths for the details on tax breaks/regulations and empirical breakdown on how they flopped on things like marijuana, abortion, and immigration based on what was convenient and desired at the time.

For a good write up on how the meritocracy was hijacked and turned into a tool for inherited wealth transfer, How the Boomers Broke America, written by a Boomer no less who profited from the original meritocratic system they took over.

How America Lost Its Mind goes even beyond the Boomers and gets into the culture of "Democracy means my opinion is as valid as anyone else's facts" and how the young Boomers of the '60s tripping on acid, deciding all reality was subjective would eventually end up glued to Fox News & Rush Limbaugh being spoon-fed their desired subjective reality decades later.

The War on Science isn't written with a specific generation in mind, but shows how an ocean arose between the scientific community and Americans as a whole during the Cold War and guaranteed government funding for all things science to win it. Gets into the psychology of what happens when people aren't intimate with empiricism and become mistrustful of experts and facts.

If you look at demographic trends, such as Pew Global, you see a lot of interesting things: Longer working hours for us now than they grew up with, from the mid 70s onwards median wages stagnating as productivity grew multiple-fold as labor laws/unions were weakened, Millennials have lower rates of drug usage, teen pregnancy, abortion, pre-marital sexual partners, etc. yet still get bashed as being "bad" by their multiple divorcee parents.

If you have specific questions or whatever, feel free to ask.

Cheers

Edit: Note that this isn't a scathing indictment of every individual Boomer. My father inadvertently checks a lot of the more negative generational stereotype blocks without necessarily being a bad person for example, just how he was raised and the effects of living in a society dominated by his peers. There are plenty of good Boomers, this is an analysis of how their culture came to change the nation when they became a supermajority with over 50% of all votes by the early 80s, and were able to completely hijack public policy to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. It's a warning, as millennials will soon be the largest demographic, and barring a Black Swan type demographic event, will enjoy nearly that level of political power and potential for abuse in the decades to come as the Boomers die out.

A Generation of Sociopaths

> Personally, I think its just as annoying to see Boomers blamed for everything too. Yes, they're older, but a lot of them are just like you and me.

I'll just leave this here...

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I am working my way through this book. Highly recommend it.

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

LOL this is a small Midwestern town, but no not San Francisco,I'd be homeless there. But it is like San Francisco, wealthy people from a huge metro city come here with their second vacation homes. Most of the populace is at the six figures level. I can't name where I am at, but think this place has the golf courses, expensive spas, etc etc. Yes many of these are very religious conservative wealthy people. I come out of a more well off family and know for a fact many got jobs via connections. I was the scapegoat so not allowed to share in the "wealth" so to speak. I have a few Baby Boomer friends, they get upset when I talk about generations, I understand, there are exceptions to all generational generalities, but I have to admit when I read this book, I agreed with a lot of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

OK boomer. https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Generational sociopathy.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518204553&sr=8-1&keywords=a+generation+of+sociopaths

The boomers nominated and elected the people you are labeling overlords. They enabled their overlordship. They supported (even if tacitly) the policies that these overlords enacted. The overlords are, by and large, themselves boomers.

You're right that it's unfair to lay all the blame on one generation, but they do deserve quite a lot of blame--owing to their disproportionate political weight and cultural influence. I think the better argument is to consider that whatever changes took place, they weren't necessarily done with malice or necessarily differ from counterfactual speculations. That is to say, boomers aren't that unique, and even if their population wasn't so large, reality may have unfolded similarly or worse.

Books have been written on how boomers fucked things up, and I'm sure more will follow. My instinct is that populations of people tend to have similar distributions of personality types that tend to yield predictable patterns through time. Namely, authoritarian followers (representing some significant fraction of people), routinely prop up authoritarian leaders who work to undermine broadly democratic processes. It seems like we take 2 steps forward and 1 step back carrying the vestigial cultural baggage of this primitive instinct. That doesn't just disappear in a generation and won't disappear with gens X, Y, Z either.

Oh wow lots of cool info about how the current generation sucks but nothing about how the boomers have left the planet in shambles and have pissed away any morality that the greatest generation gave them. Any decent psychiatrist will tell you narcissism peaked in the 80's/90's - when greed was good and celebrated - and we're in the age of the schizoids now. That said, where do you think people got the idea that who they are is connected to what they own? Where do you think this really took off? And who do you think let it grow unfettered to profit it off it every chance they could with no consideration about the effects down the road. Your argument is akin to throwing a can of tear gas into a room and then blaming people for tearing up. We were brought up with this shit. You'll need to give the young ones some time to realize their parents had fucked up values and forge their own paths...which they are actually starting to do.

Here, I can link articles explaining why the boomers pissed away everything and are clutching their gold watches to their graves with no consideration for future generations, only their own kids hoarding wealth for them and fucking up any sense of meritocracy for up and comers.

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/01/15/a-generation-of-sociopaths-rich-barlow

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/gene-weingarten-millennials-maybe-youre-right-about-us-baby-boomers/2016/11/16/a1e1a394-9d14-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html

https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/people-who-stole-the-world-alvarez

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/why-the-boomers-are-the-most-hated-generation/276368/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-baby-boomers-became-the-most-selfish-generation-2016-11

See, totally describes every boomer right? Nah, course not...but easy to assemble a bunch of generation bashing material that has some basis in...what's happening.

I'm sorry you're so miserable with the next generation, luckily you won't have to deal with us for as long as we'll have to deal with ya'll. I don't entirely blame you, coming of age in a time of material wealth, not having any morale building, unifying war experience, embracing consumer capitalism and perpetuating it like the world has never known before that - looking at the mess left behind, the current political environment, environment environment, rising income inequality - yea, that has nothing to do with governmental and corporate leadership of the past 40 years lolol.

Reading this one right now, and based on what the author says, current and near-future retirees are going to be withdrawing far more than they've put in.

https://www.amazon.ca/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/02/26/how-baby-boomers-destroyed-everything/lVB9eG5mATw3wxo6XmDZFL/story.html

Our gov't has created an economic pyramid scheme which requires the generational transfer of wealth and we're approaching the inflection point where the problems that this creates are going to appearing.

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316395781/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3Kl8CbG4JW3ZT

You may enjoy this book detailing the sociopathy of the boomers

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Probably would like this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

You should read this: https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I think some deluded racist poor whites voted for Trump. All I have to do is go to my old town's [very rural and remote] FB message boards to see the conservative brain-washing is still intact even though the place is turning into a ghost town and no one has decent jobs. I know how the alt-right almost managed to brain-wash me though I fought against the Dominionism and racist BS. Fox news is a damn scourge.

But yes many Baby Boomers especially over 60 crowd who are well off and white voted for the guy, they still live in the past, and don't give a crap about younger generations. BY the way us Gen X are far poorer, and entering our late 40s and 50s, now. I told someone I am still creeped out that I am THIS OLD, and Baby Boomers still hold the arenas and institutions in just about every area. My well off mother who I am no contact with, voted for Trump along with other well off relatives too. [I wasn't the only relative on a fixed income or Social Security or who was poor either.

This book may explain why they have no empathy....

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

A great book to highlight the utter destruction Boomers laid upon this country is "A Generation of Sociopaths". Well worth the read.

I'm saying this to point out the irony, not to offend you, but that is a really lazy explanation. It's not like the people who blame the previous generation only say "wah old people", the arguments are fleshed out a lot more than that, including complete books, some as long as 500 pages. I mean, feel free to refute the points people make, but to dismiss it without it does not carry weight to me.

And I'm not sure how it helps divide the working class, or how you can really even know that, but I'd be glad to hear your explanation. Of course working class boomers are not likely to be compelled by these arguments, but I think that making people aware of how much more fucked up capitalism became while the boomers held power creates intra-generational and inter-generational solidarity for millenials and the next generation (whatever they are calling them). If nothing else people should at least be aware that there was a shift in economics and politics at the end of the 70s - whether or not you want to put a middle finger to boomers in there.

Buy him this book titled "A generation of sociopaths: how the baby boomers betrayed America." https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I would spend my time roasting this guy but there a book that does it for me

It's Amazon so he'll have to get a millennial to figure out that darn computer machine for him to read it though. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316395781/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_IrLPCbHCV00PJ

Let me throw some numbers at you. Currently the average baby boomer pulls in around $1.12 in benefits for every $1.00 paid in. The average Millennial will pull in around $.85 for every $1.00 paid in meaning that if you took that money you pay every month and stuck it under your mattress you’d get a better ROI.

Highly recommend "A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America" for an in-depth exploration of this topic. The book goes a bit off the rails occasionally in an attempt to prove its thesis, but overall it's a well-done, eye-opening book about how the Boomers pillaged the wealth created by their parents and left nothing but debt behind for the rest of us.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Well, Yes.


https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

The meme works because as a generation, the boomers are sociopaths who have acted incredibly selfishly at the expense of all other generations. Read the book below as it lays it out very well.

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316395781/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_teeWDbKWNQXG2

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

The lead exposure is an interesting angle I haven't thought of. I have been pretty sick of boomers' collective BS and ruining of our country and state for a while now. I recently read this book, which basically lays out the case that boomers are sociopaths only concerned with getting as much for themselves as possible. The author discusses how they were raised in ways totally different from previous and following generations and then uses mountains of data to ram home the point of how shitty they have been for the country. I have been recommending it to everyone I know that reads.

There's a lot of evidence boomers are to blame, and it's well documented here:

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

It's an extremely biased book, but the data is there to back up the claims that the baby boomers benefitted from their parents' and grandparents' sacrifices only to take more from their children and grandchildren. But debt isn't the only issue, they are the driving force of the bullshit "feels over reals" governing that's really hurting younger Americans.

Whether you agree or not there's no arguing the boomers have been running the country for a while, and we are measurably not doing well on so many fronts; education, infant mortality, ... Very poor leadership, at best.

Super late to the party, But because Boomers, largely dismantled the social safety net their parents created for younger people, whilst voting themselves massive tax breaks, and just all around being shit goblins This book covers this issue quite well

Was it this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I did read a book, and it was in fact quite eye opening:

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America by Bruce Cannon Gibney

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

A Generation of Sociopaths

Funny, I'm actually reading this book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

I read the link (not the book). Out of the reviews, I respect this one the most:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0316395781/R9LCBK6KAFRDO/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_rvw_2?ie=UTF8&cursor=2

2 stars. And it’s not just the boomers. It is cyclical.

Explain how. Because so far, I'm the one with the facts. All you have so far are bad-faith questions and shallow insults.

This might help you, too.

The more I learn about the boomer generation, the more I see that a lot of avoidable problems that were living through in today’s gov’ mint are because of the “A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America”

Tip: apparently the definition of a sociopath is a narcissist to the bitter end. A “I got mine, fuck you” type”, a nimby kind, the blame the victim type(all happening in current social issues everywhere and coming from the top at the White House .)
Which is really the boomers anthem from my experiences to the core both anecdotally and within the big picture.

Shut up Boomer. Go read this and then come back

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781 this book lays out exactly how we’ve all been screwed.