Who Is The Best Generation? | Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Lemonade Stand Podcast

Episode: Who Is The Best Generation? | Lemonade Stand 🍋
Date: September 10, 2025
Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug

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Overview

This episode of Lemonade Stand takes on a wide-ranging, humorous, yet insightful debate: If you could pick which generation to be born into in the last 100 years, which would be the “best”? With the tone that swings from unserious memes to serious social and economic commentary, the hosts (Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug) systematically break down each generation from the “Greatest Generation” to Gen Alpha, with a special focus on American context, but frequent asides to global perspectives. Each generation is probed for its pros, cons, pivotal historical events, and what life (and business opportunities) were like, all while challenging the myths and stereotypes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Premise and Approach

• The hosts use a “sorting hat” metaphor: if you could choose a generation to be born into (roughly 1900 to now), which would you pick and why?
• They define each generation, discuss who actually had the best shot at a good life, and riff on both the memes and the real historical context.

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2. The Generational Gauntlet

A. The Greatest Generation (Born ~1901–1927)

• Key Experience: Survived the Great Depression, fought in WWII, some survived into the Korean War.
• Cultural/Economic Context:
  • Born into poverty and global instability.
  • High risk of early death via disease or war.
  • Post-war boom for white men, boosted by the GI Bill (which systematically excluded Black veterans, fueling the racial wealth gap).
  • Emerging tech: fridges, microwaves, TVs, etc.
• Highlighted Quote:

  "Stat for stat, this is a dog generation."
  — DougDoug (11:01)

• Memorable Moment: The panel jokes about the generational naming being SEO optimization for future podcasts (01:47).
• Consensus: Grim early years; if you survived, boom times awaited—IF white and male. But high risk.

Timestamp: 05:25–08:42
In-depth look at the GI Bill and racial inequality.

B. Gen Alpha (Born ~2013–now)

• Key Experience: Growing up entirely in the digital age with AI, TikTok, and rapidly changing norms.
• Pros:
  • Likely to benefit most from future healthcare technology (“try to live long enough” for radical longevity).
  • Growing up with tech adaptation and hyper-connectedness as the norm.
• Cons:
  • Unknown long-term societal impact—complete data not in yet.
  • Exposed to mental health challenges, digital alienation.
• Memorable Quote:

  “If you’re Gen Alpha, you’re kind of praying for World War Three to happen...you want to be the people who are young and right after.”
  — Atrioc (17:21)

• Consensus: Biggest coin flip—could lead to health and tech wonders, or global/political decline.

Timestamp: 14:25–18:20
Discusses the “test case” experience of Gen Alpha and possible futures.

C. Gen Z (Born ~1997–2012)

• Key Experience: True digital natives; smartphones, social media, creator economy, and COVID-19 as formative events.
• Pros:
  • Hyper-connected, aware of mental health, first-movers in new economies (creator/remote work).
  • Social awareness and activism (climate, equality).
• Cons:
  • Guinea pig for disruptive technology without adult tools to manage it.
  • Home ownership and traditional economic ladders largely obliterated.
  • COVID pandemic hit during formative school/career years.
• Memorable Quote:

  “Gen Z is very much the guinea pig. And we’re just, oh, like Covid. Let’s just see what happens if remote work [becomes the default]...”
  —Aiden (26:10)

• Consensus: Tough break—change hits at vulnerable ages, old advice no longer works, but at least not sent to literal trenches.

Timestamp: 25:39–28:28
On Gen Z’s hyper-connectivity, “guinea pig” status, and economic hardships.

D. The Lost Generation (Born ~1883–1900)

• Key Experience: Came of age in World War I, then hit with the Great Depression, then lived through WWII.
• Historical “Punching Bag”:
  • Every positive was quickly followed by a disaster (war, Depression).
  • Roaring Twenties only semi-bright spot; American experience over European decimation (worse in Europe).
• Unanimous Ranking:

  “Lost Generation just sucked balls. If you’re European, like it is just truly worse.”
  — Aiden (37:14)

• Consensus: Easily the worst life-draw; their story is never-ending trauma.

Timestamp: 34:11–40:52
Colorful back-and-forth on historic misery.

E. Millennials (Born ~1981–1996)

• Key Experience: Raised on optimism (“America is #1!”), but adult years feature 9/11, endless wars, recession, and slow erosion of “American Dream.”
• Pros:
  • Benefited from highest access to modern medicine and stable institutions.
  • Most educated cohort, ready to inherit Boomer wealth.
• Cons:
  • Repeated economic shocks, delayed milestones (home, kids).
  • Realization that old formulas (college + job = house) stopped working.
• Memorable Quotes:

  “All of the major events that have happened in our adult lifetime or young adult lifetime have all felt like a fucking waste.”
  — Aiden (47:29)

• Consensus: If you survived the pitfalls, could thrive—especially compared to Gen Z. Appeal mainly in adapting pre- and post-tech, and inheriting from Boomers.

Timestamp: 43:58–52:53
Discussion on Millennial fortunes and disillusionment.

F. Gen X (Born ~1965–1980/82)

• Key Experience: The "forgotten generation": sandwiched between Boomers (the dominant cultural/economic force) and Millennials (tech-native upstarts).
• Pros:
  • Good run of stable jobs, rising prosperity, and major technological leaps (Walkmans to web).
  • “Latchkey” independence; women entering workforce.
  • Not targeted by global war’s worst, and jobs still followed the classic path.
• Cons:
  • Late-life disruption: careers upended by technology (internet wipes out stable professions in 40s–50s).
• Notable Quote:

  “This is called the Gen X career meltdown...they spent their life doing don’t exist [now].”
  — Atrioc (57:36)

• Consensus: Low risk, steady, but not flashy; only real “crisis” is career obsolescence late.

Timestamp: 55:06–58:42
Gen X’s quiet plight.

G. Baby Boomers (Born ~1946–1964)

• Key Experience: Post-WWII prosperity, immense population boom—Americans “won the lottery.”
• Pros:
  • Explosive job and home availability; could walk into a job, housing boom lifts all boats.
  • Decades of asset appreciation; hold most of the political/economic power today.
  • Life defined by continuous improvement (tech, medicine, civil rights advances).
• Cons:
  • Vietnam War (biggest direct trauma).
  • Major responsibility for policy decisions that benefited their own cohort and left problems (housing, debt, taxes) for following generations.
  • Often perceived as “pulling up the ladder.”
• Notable Quote:

  “I think boomers fucked us up. Pretty hard. I think they took a situation, took all the benefit from it...and now we are stuck with all of these things.”
  —Aiden (65:36)

• Memorable Moment: Extended chart breakdown of Boomer power and wealth; laughs about how every major world leader is a Boomer (71:34).
• Consensus: By nearly any “marble in the hat” criterion, this is the optimal outcome: high prosperity, long stability, low risk–especially as a white male.

Timestamp: 65:36–82:37
Epic Boomer roast, and deep dive into why their ride was so smooth.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Atrioc (24:36):

  “Phones are what made social media really like. Instagram, the reason it took off is because of phones.”

• DougDoug (46:11):

  “You’re at this weird inflection point where…you have this strong, like, belief and faith in American institutions…and now you’re starting to see the earliest parts of the system break around you…”

• Aiden (80:25):

  “If you are rolling a die and you want to ensure you have the best outcome…the baby Boomer generation. You have so much more power and influence…”

• Atrioc (77:22):

  “…Things were getting better decade after decade…They were seeing new technologies make lives better immediately. They were seeing, like, civil rights progress make progress. Like, things were measurably getting better and their economy was getting better.”

• DougDoug (89:31):

  “If only because…the worst part about being a boomer is being old and having to not understand Facebook, which is right now. This is an AI Jared image of a sand created sandcastle dog that is obviously fake to any eyes…Walls of boomers commenting on this already.”

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Generation Tier List — Hosts’ Final Rankings

| Rank | Generation | Summary / Rationale | |------|------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | Baby Boomers | Maximum prosperity, stability; all asset ladders accessible and rising. | | 2 | Millennials / Gen X | Millennials adapt to tech, inherit wealth; Gen X has steady life, less risk. | | 3 | Gen Alpha (Potential) | Major unknown: could inherit tech paradise or global collapse. | | 4 | Gen Z | Tough adaptation period, “guinea pig” for all societal/tech shocks. | | 5 | Greatest Generation | Survived hell, but only for “lucky” survivors; world rebuilt in their time. | | 6 | Lost Generation | Misery sandwich—war, brief hope, depression, more war; lowest upside. |

Timestamps for Final Reflections:

• Boomers’ final roast/defense: 65:36–82:37
• Final musings/dystopian jokes about Gen Alpha and the unknowable future: 83:41–89:31

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Tone & Speaker Style

• Humorous & Sardonic: There’s constant playful roasting (especially of Boomers and Greatest Generation).
• Data-Driven & Analytical: Frequent references to economic charts, social trends, and historical data.
• Conversational & Relatable: The hosts use their own families, tech obsessions, gaming, and work experiences for context.
• Candid: Not afraid to highlight generational divides, racial and gender inequality, or their own biases.

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Key Takeaways

• “Best” generation depends on your luck and values: Statistically, being a Boomer is the best bet. If you care about living in interesting times, Millennials/Gen X or possibly Gen Alpha could be more rewarding.
• Being born on the cusp is weird: The oldest Gen Zs and youngest Millennials experience big differences.
• Every generation’s “trauma” is different: Financial, societal, and existential threats change form, but the dice roll always matters—war, depression, debt, or TikTok addiction.
• No generation gets out unscathed: Even Boomers are now “the olds” confused by AI sandcastle dogs.

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For New Listeners

This episode is both a crash course in modern generational thinking and a stand-up routine for the Very Online. The hosts deftly mix insight with jest, making a heavy topic accessible and fun.

Listen for:

• Deep dives into economic consequences of each generational cohort
• Normally boring charts explained via running gags
• Provocative, sometimes darkly comic hypotheticals
• Open acknowledgment of the privilege and luck baked into generational experience

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

A lot of people wish they were born in a different generation.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They talk about, oh, how much better would it be?

[C]

I'm an old soul.

[A]

And I wonder, right. If you could pick which generation which would be the most advantageous, the best life. If you had a sorting hat, if you will.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

That you could put on your head and it would drift out of the generation that you were born in the last hundred years, what generation would you pick?

[C]

I mean, I kind of like the generation that I was born into. I've, you know, I have access to so many technologies. I feel like I'm younger.

[B]

Technology.

[C]

And then can we phrase thing is a tick tock.

[A]

Like, let's put him in a vertical frame.

[B]

We put subway surfers on the side.

[C]

How is it? How is that? How about you two tell me how the Dust bowl was? How about that, huh?

[B]

Dusty. It was dusty.

[C]

Did you even get the polio vaccine?

[B]

Stronger men. It made us stronger men. Weak men for weak times.

[C]

No, I get it. You're still. You were hanging on to that FDR first term. I know it changed everything for you guys.

[B]

That's the question, Doug, we're trying to answer today.

[A]

And we have decided to look through the various generations that have existed over the past 100 years of American history with a focus on America. But it's also going to address the whole world broadly. And we're actually going to see as we poll generations randomly, which do we think of the eight is the best. Like if you could pick one, which is the greatest generation to have been born in? And I think we kick it off with the first one.

[C]

We can just start off.

[A]

Let's pull one from that.

[C]

Pull it out.

[B]

Okay, pull it out, pull it out, pull it out.

[C]

All right. The first one is the greatest generation.

[A]

Now I would say the shittiest generation to be born in, which is weird, that they name themselves, that they're the great.

[C]

Apparently the name comes from something coined in the 50s, that these are the, you know, the hardest, hardest working. Been through the most, most capable generation.

[B]

Because they were trying to tap it in for this contest with that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they knew we'd be ranking the greatest generation. Like we need.

[A]

We need good SEO in 70 years.

[C]

They read that there would be a podcast called Lemonade Stand one day.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And we have to stand up for ourselves on it.

[B]

I'm gonna change my twitch name to Greatest Streamer.

[C]

Well, the greatest generation. These are the people born between about 1901 and 1927. So which I think when you're talking about Times that far back. I think it helps a little. These are the people who were on average living into anywhere in the 1950s to the 1980s. With some of these people still alive. Now, if they're in like their late 90s to like early hundreds. There are people still alive from this generation.

[B]

Presidents recently.

[A]

Great.

[C]

They are, and they're still. And that's what they set goals still. That's what makes them the greatest. They say, no matter my impediments in my ability to think or speak, I will still run.

[A]

That's so great. That's honestly. Okay, here's what I want to understand. Okay. Like, we all complain about what's going on our lives and we feel like it used to be better maybe for specifically our parents who are at a certain generation. But I think it's like, if you were born in the greatest generation, was it actually that bad? Was it good? What's going on economically, what's going on culturally? Like, is that actually a shit time to be born or not?

[C]

I think the big marker for these people is that they were basically born into the. Like, they would be in the Great Depression. They would be in their teenage or twenties during the Great Depression.

[B]

Is the Great Depression a good time and is that?

[A]

Yeah, no, because I really break it down.

[B]

Teens nowadays feel like they're in a Great Depression. Yeah, you know, they're like, they're very depressed.

[C]

It's actually the same. It's the prolific discord a lot. They were on a lot of short form video and like, didn't have a lot of real life friends. I don't know what source I read, but that's what it says.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

No, these people, I think they're primarily known for growing up during the Depression and either coming of age or coming into their early adulthood during World War II. And then, you know, if you were a man fighting in World War II. And I think a lot of changes in the wake of World War II are what define this generation's sort of success. I think the big things we could look at here are like, you know, life expectancy and health care first. Like, what was this generation dealing with, realistically? Pretty low life expectancy overall because they.

[A]

Were shot by a German soldier.

[C]

So that's the first thing is that you had a pretty decent chance of just dying in World War II. And then shortly after, if you didn't die in World War II, a decent chance of dying in the Korean War. Right, right, right. Which are two of the bloodiest conflicts in American history. I think Korean war is like fifth, and then World War II is like number one.

[A]

And I could be wrong. I think even a lot of people around the world died in World War II.

[C]

In World War II is actually a lot of.

[A]

Actually, while America did suffer the most, I think actually many countries suffer.

[C]

It was. It was over 400,000American soldiers died in World War II. Over 600,000 people wounded. So over a million total casualties, just American. Weren't Americans on the low in there?

[A]

Compared to a lot of estimates. Estimates for Russia are 50 million.

[B]

It's pretty sure no Russians died in World War II.

[A]

I'm not 100 sorry Soviets.

[C]

That's. Now that's a conspiracy.

[A]

I might be. I mean, so you got to. There's a broad range of things that's like the very high end. But, you know, jokes aside, we didn't have it that bad. Although, you know, the people who fought for America had it pretty fucking bad. And it is worth reiterating that, obviously.

[C]

And then in the Korean War, 36,000 deaths and over 100,000 wounded. So also a pretty. Pretty terrible outlook if you were someone who joined the military for either of these things or the Depression, right.

[B]

So you go from the worst economic depression into your adult life, possibly fighting in a war, one of the bloodiest conflicts ever.

[C]

So the life expectancy gap here is kind of strange for this generation because when you're a kid, you grow up in a time period where there's very few, like, antibiotics, there's not a lot of vaccines. You're dying from things like maybe measles, maybe polio, tuberculosis, pneumonia. You go straight into the bloodiest conflict in our entire history. But if you manage to come out the other side of that and you're still in like your 20s, your 30s, your life from there relatively good. America is starting to build itself during and in the wake of World War II in this pretty incredible direction. If I'll put an asterisk on this. If you're white and a man usually, and a man mostly. So that's the big asterisk on this. So there's a really important bill that comes in the wake of World War II that people might be familiar with, the GI Bill. And this gives returning soldiers, the white ones, unfortunately.

[B]

Is that true? Black soldiers didn't.

[C]

I think a lot of these programs did not work in favor of black soldiers in the wake of World War II. And this was what helped the. Expand the racial wealth gap that existed in the United States. A lot of like, wow, that is.

[B]

I did not know that straight up I did not know the GI Bill, designed to assist all veterans, systematically excluded black Americans.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it's obviously I knew there.

[B]

Was racism at that time. I just thought the GI Bill was one of the, the things that I.

[A]

Thought it was good old fashioned racism, not that they would modernize it.

[B]

That was the one thing. No, in my mind that was like a, an anti racist thing because people that came out from war.

[A]

Right.

[C]

No, they made it racist.

[B]

No, they made it racist.

[C]

So that's crazy. What this did. What this did, and one of the criticisms of it is that it did help expand that racial wealth gap that exists that already existed is payment and support for tuition to secondary education, greatly expanding the number of people that were enrolling in colleges and kind of helped set the trend of college becoming more standard in average people's education or maybe going back to high school or getting vocational training. It's helped support those things as well. And then also helped people get into homes, gave them very good mortgages with very low interest rates. And a lot of people moved into the suburbs, which was where a lot of building was expanding at the time. And the, the other thing that they were doing was fucking. They were, they were doing a lot of, they're pumping out a lot of babies, just record amounts at the time.

[A]

Was this again, mostly men or were women involved with this?

[C]

So presumably it was about even their 5050 split on that gay generation. And then things like home prices, you know, if you're in the 40s, and this is all in 20, $24 if you're in the 40s, you know, the average home was like $64,000 in today's. In today's money. In today's. 64,000 in today's money. Isn't that crazy?

[A]

So what, it was like a nickel?

[C]

It was like a couple thousand nickels.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And then in the 50s, in the 50s it jumps up to $93,000. And then in the 60s jumps to about $120,000. And that's all in today's. In $2024, which is crazy, right? And, and you're also existing in a time period where a lot of common household technology is proliferating. Things like in the, in the decades that happened, you're getting access to like fridges, microwaves, AC units, landline phones are becoming more common, TVs are becoming more common. I would say maybe one of the downsides is through this period it's declining, but food spend for families was a larger share of income, but that's considerably offset by the amount of money you were saving on things like your home when. When they were so, so much cheaper. And then Also through the 40s, the 50s and 60s is medical technology is starting to catch up and vaccines are getting developed, antibiotics are getting developed. I think the other big thing that people forget around this time is that there is a bit of a. Bit of a mental health crisis in the wake of these wars. You know, mental health is not as well established of a field. Things aren't as easily diagnosed or identified. A lot of these soldiers are coming home and dealing with PTSD in like an environment that doesn't know how to properly recognize that people are actually dealing with something like that. Health isn't viewed in the same way that it is now. So I think there's this strange thing is if you're young, were born into this generation, managed to navigate your young life through. Through one of the worst periods in American history, through the Great Depression and then also survive the war. You end up in a timeframe that is unprecedented success and wealth if you're a white American.

[A]

So would you. Would you guys go for the. Would you roll the crap dice there at this and go, all right, I'm gonna. I would be born in the greatest generation. Hopefully I survived the Great Depression, hopefully survive World War II. Hopefully I was born white and hopefully I was born a man. Would you take those odds? Just are betting Manette table.

[C]

I'll be real stat for stat. This is a dog generation.

[A]

Yeah, this is one of the worst.

[C]

It is just so cuz chances are like you, if we're running the simulations, so many of them are like, I was 10 and died of measles. Like and then, and then a lot of them are like, I was 18, went to. Went to France and then died.

[B]

Died on Normandy beach.

[C]

Or I was 20 and then I died. Or I was 25 and then I died in the Korean one war. Like there's so many of these people's stories just ended there. And then they were the. They're the generation that sired the, the. The baby boomers in the silent generation.

[B]

So that's a pro though. I mean you get through it all. You're fucking like crazy.

[A]

You got some money. I would argue. And this is maybe a spoiler for what I think is the greatest generation that. What if you were born right after the World War and the Great Depression? That would be even chiller.

[C]

Oh, nice foreshadowing. I think if we're just going to. Going to cleanly call it the greatest generation. I'm sorry you don't live up to the name. I know you went through a lot and I don't need to apologize. Most of you are dead and not listening to this podcast.

[B]

That's the primary audience. Yeah, I said bad.

[A]

That's the worst part of the coin flip. Not even if you survive at all. Aiden calls you a piece of shit 100 years later.

[B]

Not a great time.

[A]

Can you pull up this picture of. Of the. Of.

[B]

Don't do that.

[C]

You can't pull that up.

[B]

You can't pull that up.

[C]

And if you. If you look at your screens now, you'll see a photo of three of the Greatest generation.

[A]

Greatest to ever do. Didn't matter.

[C]

Somebody pulled the next fucking.

[A]

Didn't matter.

[B]

Next generation. All right, let's rank these generations and the next one is J Alpha.

[A]

J Alpha also, I would say we.

[B]

Jumped right to the edge, you know, very similar. Wait, is this you again?

[C]

This is also me. So we'll go me back to back here with. And I'll quickly say they have something. They have a deep similarity with the Greatest Generation. I'll really explain that. And it's that not a lot of them are taking measles. Vaccines.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[C]

But the similarities, the similarities end there.

[A]

Let's get these Gen Alpha kids into an iron lung.

[C]

So I think part of my problem with evaluating Gen Alpha, which is the generation that began being born in 2013 and are basically spanning until now. Until 2013. Until now.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And a lot of the statistics that I think will affect their lives the most haven't, you know, haven't exactly played out yet. Like, I can't compare life expectancy.

[B]

The oldest one is 12.

[C]

A lot of them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

These are Ludwig viewers.

[B]

They watch a lot of Ludwig.

[A]

Yeah, we don't know how that's going to play out in five years.

[C]

They're not queuing up to buy it homes. They're not. They don't have to buy the food.

[B]

They should grind these. The lesson of American history has been buy homes. When you're 13 years old, buy homes as soon as you can, because it'll get worse.

[A]

Okay, what, what do we know about them? I'm genuinely curious. Like when, when we talk about Gen. Oh. Other than they're obsessed with TikTok and Roblox, like, what do we know?

[B]

That's a huge part. I mean, short, short form. Media is a big part of their diet. Tech is rapidly changing in their lifetime. The school system they're coming up in is being upended by AI while they're in it. Like they're. They're the test case.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In the middle of it, you know, their friendships are taking place on Roblox or on social media. What else do we know about. I mean, that's. There. A lot of them are parented by the first generation, parented by millennials. So that's terrifying.

[C]

Yeah. I think part of the hard thing is, like, I could point to some of those things and make a guess based off of a different generation that comes before them, is that a lot of these things have significant effects on things like mental health or suicide rates. They are also genuinely. They are also the first generation. That is prominently within this pocket of time in America where I think things like vaccines are being questioned so broadly. It's not like, you know, it's not like the granola parent who was talking about vaccines causing autism didn't exist 25 years ago.

[B]

Right. But it's gone.

[C]

But the popularity of that version of health and parenting is more common now. And I think the issue when your entire sample size of people is either at the age of 12 or below it is that the data isn't. The data isn't amazing.

[B]

What are some pros? What are some, like we're saying some negative. What are some pros of being born right now in Gen Alpha?

[A]

I would. I would argue, and we'll talk about Gen Z millennials and whatnot, but like Gen Z is, you know, had a, let's say, somewhat normal grow childhood, and then everything's being upended now as they're adults. And arguably I'd rather be Generation Alpha, like, of the couple of them. Like, I would rather be grow up in a world where AI has and is already upended the education system, rather than. It feels like it's becoming obsolete. Right. As I'm exiting it.

[C]

I think that's how I feel too, is a lot of the trends that are affecting Generation Z in negative ways that we've even talked about on the show. I think by being born a little later, you're at least coming up in a time where parents are more familiar with what's developing and playing out in the world. Things like AI and its effect on education and the way it affects life in general, we get to have more time to react to those things. I think the problem with Gen Z among many, you know, we'll get to Gen Z, they just exist. They are the testing ground for a lot of these technologies that have broken through in recent years. Right. But Gen Alpha gets to potentially benefit from our reactions to those things and maybe shifts in policy or approaches to the way that would otherwise affect their health negatively. And then in a more solidly pro direction, they might be at the precipice of how all of these things benefit healthcare substantially.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So you might get to live long enough into a pocket of time that millennials or Gen Z doesn't really get to benefit from, where your lifespan is elongated by the quality of medical treatment available. And so there, I mean it's kind.

[B]

Of like, you know, if you're the boomers, you dodge World War II right after it. Right?

[A]

Right.

[B]

So if you're Gen Alpha, you're kind of praying for World War three to happen.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You want Gen Z to go through all the. Or whether it's World War three or whether it's.

[C]

You want the post World War III.

[B]

Boom, you want to be the one right after. You want to be the people who are young and right after. And then all sorry, the previous clanker.

[A]

Wars happen over the next five to six years.

[B]

Gen Z.

[A]

I mean, I honestly think there's truth to it and I think especially healthcare. You know, like we did a whole episode about this talking about the advances in healthcare with AI and I continue to believe and there's a lot of evidence pointing that we are going to make massive leaps in healthcare over the next couple decades and that some of the framing I've heard around it is just try to live long enough to get to the point that that stuff happens and probably we will get to live through that. Of lifespans dramatically extending. You will almost certainly. And then the Gen Alpha will. If you're 10 right now, if you're 5, you almost certainly are going to have access to vastly better medical.

[B]

Can you pull up my screen, Perry? It's not just us hoping.

[A]

This or mine.

[B]

Yeah, no, don't. There was this parade, military parade in China and there was a hot mic incident where they caught Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un of North Korea talking together about how they're all going to live to be 150. With the advance, they're all going to be able to like use harvested lab grown organs to replace their body and cycle it out and live to be 150.

[A]

Whether or not they're actually very like Trump esque where they're like, I've heard that people are going to be able to live to 150 with organ donations and various blood transfusions. It's like none of them were like this is happening. They're just like, I've heard that this is. It's all like, hands up. I'm definitely not doing this. These people are all 80 and they're talking about how they're going to live to 150. So I think it's too late for.

[B]

For boomers, like, they're not be cooked, but Alpha is going to have something like this. And you're going to.

[A]

You're not going to. We're not going to be able to reverse the aging that happen to these people. But maybe before we hit aging period, we get to also say, like, so what?

[B]

You know, Gen Alpha, let's say you're 12 now. You'll be 30 in 28 years. What is that? That's like 53. 53. 2053. That's. The world's gonna be different, bro. I can't even visualize what 2053 looks like. So they're gonna be, you know, whether it's good or bad, they're going to be seeing stuff that completely out of our realm of our possibility. We can't even imagine it.

[C]

And I, I think a last note on this is like we said at the beginning, this is framed around how these generations, you know, exist with it. You got to take it off. You gotta take it off. All right.

[A]

You wait. You gotta take away the lost.

[C]

Yeah. I keep looking over and I keep.

[A]

Seeing three men doing what?

[C]

Three. They're making love.

[B]

Yeah. That's what they're doing. They're celebrating.

[A]

You told me the greatest generation like to do stuff like this.

[C]

Yeah, they got wild, dude. But in an American context. And I think there's also a world here where, you know, due to the, you know, financial collapse of America, due to the crushing amount of debt that we have, you know, maybe American life for this generation is poor. But, you know, this. This generation succeeds somewhere else. I.

[B]

Well, Gen Alpha in China is really. They're rearing up. Yeah.

[C]

Maybe they know who Gen Alpha. When the nuclear war happens, Gen Alpha in New Zealand is going to be chilling.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That would be Gabe Newell's bunker.

[A]

Yeah. There's the sorting hat. Could also. You could pick which country that would be sick.

[C]

Gabe, who is going to live to 150is.

[B]

I mean, counterpoint once and CS go.

[A]

Hands for once, the boomers finally die and we get into power finally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Maybe we can kick the debt problem down the road just a little bit longer. Let the Alphas take care of it. To the Alphas.

[B]

That's a good idea. Idea. If we had a choice to make their lives good or bad.

[A]

God, we could punt for like 30 more years.

[C]

We could just punt.

[A]

We just punt.

[C]

All right, well, why don't we. Why don't we get the next one?

[B]

Well, I just want to say quick, quick ranking so far. Would you rather be Gen Alpha or Greatest Gen if you had to pick?

[C]

I would definitely rather be Gen Alpha.

[B]

I think so.

[C]

It's just not worth. You're the casino.

[B]

I mean, we don't know the Great Depression or the wars to come.

[A]

Yeah, but in one of those two, you know, the Great Depression and wars to come true. That's the difference.

[B]

The devil you know, you take a risk. Okay, all right.

[C]

I'll at least flip the coins.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right.

[A]

Okay, Millennials.

[C]

O. Dude, we got to do it different. I can't go three back.

[A]

Okay, all right. We're going to be back to millennials. We are doing Gen Z. Let's mix it up. Let's do an older Gen Z. Gen Z. All right, fine. All right.

[C]

You.

[A]

All right, Hit up with Gen Z. Yeah.

[B]

You?

[C]

Yeah, I'm going to listen to two older men.

[B]

Speaking of free men, Aiden, what did Gen Z love? They love being whiny on podcasts. Oh, they love working for Ludwig.

[C]

They do.

[B]

They would like stupid haircuts. They love. They like having cheating at basketball, complaining about.

[A]

They love the environment. They always try to talk about the environment. Make me feel guilty about eating factory farmed food.

[B]

Yeah, what's wrong with that?

[C]

What do think you. Yeah, you guys keep telling me what.

[A]

It'S like when I go dump crude oil into the Los Angeles River. There's always some Gen Z, some woke.

[B]

Gen Z, holding up a greater.

[A]

Thunberg always yells at me when I pour crude oil onto the birds in the LA harbor.

[B]

Gen Z years 1997 to 2012 though I. What year were you born?

[C]

97, baby.

[B]

You're such a fake.

[C]

Gen Z. I'm the gatekeeper. I'm the gatekeeper.

[A]

Wait, so you're the oldest Gen Z. Okay. I didn't realize it.

[B]

I will say there is. It feels like to me there's this weird 97 to 911 period of gen Z where they're really not. They're so different. They're like so. Because they still. You guys still had VCRs and. And early Game Boys with batteries.

[C]

I was watching the Lion King.

[B]

Yeah, it doesn't usually like the. Because there's Gen Z that's now that are still in school and you're like basically 30 and dead.

[C]

There's something 28.

[B]

There's such a difference in this, in what I've seen from Gen Z, but yes. Okay, so Gen Z, the tech you guys grew up with would be like the Nintendo ds. The Wii.

[C]

Indeed, indeed. And we played Super Mario Galaxy.

[A]

I think the key thing is you grew up with tech because, like, yes, for us, there was still. I mean, like, yes, there were video game consoles, but they weren't like, ubiquitous in your life. And the really big thing is Internet wasn't big yet when we were in high school. I mean, in high school, I'd say phones.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. So definitely. So Internet was like becoming a thing going into high school. I remember, like, you know, in middle school still. AOL is how we, like, talk to people, right? There wasn't really social media. Yeah, it was. High school was when that stuff was kicking off. And even then it was still very immature. There was no YouTube that anybody used really in high school. It was like coming to form towards the second half of high school. But anyway, the big one being phones, right? I did not have a smartphone in high school, and almost nobody did. And then right after we exit is when smartphones become a thing. And then that, as everybody knows, this is Gen Z dominated society, has dominated attention spans, has dominated apps. It dominates entertainment. It's TikTok. It's the gig economy. Like, phones have, in combo with the Internet, dramatically changed how people live their lives.

[B]

I would say, like, phones and social media are the big things, but phones.

[A]

Are what made social media really like Instagram. The reason it took off is because of thing is because of phones. Right.

[B]

And this impacted everybody. Right. Every generation said by this. But I think what you're saying is right, was Gen Z is the first native, right?

[A]

They grew up.

[B]

They are immersed in it. From shut the. He's not even saying anything. He's annoying me. He's so. He's on his phone. He's always with the phones. With this generation, what's the good parts? What's the pros of the generation? They grew up.

[A]

I mean, it's like this.

[B]

Luna gives you a job.

[A]

Love it gives you.

[B]

Certainly you get a job.

[A]

They're all really depressed.

[B]

That's not actually this a negative, Doug. Well, okay, but not in a great.

[A]

Depression sort of counterpoint. They're actually aware that they're depressed. Because one of the things I often have heard when I talk to older people is like, oh, yeah, they're really depressed. But like in Texas, you don't talk about that, right? You don't Bring it up. You know, so it's like, there's certainly an argument that Gen Z is more anxious and more depressed than any other generation. There's also an argument that we just talk about mental health far, far, far more. And there's more awareness. And I think both of those presumably have truth to them.

[B]

It's a fair argument, I would say. They're also, you know, they're more connected with people with similar interests online, like, in a way where you would be like, you know, if you lived in a certain area. Even when I would grow up and move on different military bases, if I didn't have a friend that I could find in that school who liked same hobbies as me, I just had to pretend they didn't exist and try to conform a little bit more. But now you really can find people with similar hobbies and interests anywhere you want online and build these communities, which is kind of cool. Like it's Mario Kart Wii year.

[A]

It's kind of like a guinea pig where we, like, inject it.

[C]

Phones.

[A]

Okay, how does that work? And we just kind of squirted in there and we see what. Oh, it's like, hey, right as you're finishing up education. AI. Let's just see what happens, right? Yeah, I think Gen Z is very much the guinea pig. And we're just, oh, like Covid. We're like, yeah, let's just see what happens if remote work and then we hire a bunch of people and everybody gets laid off. Let's just see what happens. Let's see what happens. Crypto. Let's just see what happens. Gen Z, I think.

[C]

I think that's that. And the average home price is about $400,000 now.

[A]

I think that's the other thing that's worth pointing out. And obviously we'll get to homes is just this is the generation where really the prospect of homeownership and even just spending a reasonable amount of money on your living expenses is. That's not the thing anymore. You have to spend a crazy amount of money, and it is incredibly unlikely you're going to be able to buy a home and have that traditional American dream. I think, like, with our generation, it's like half and half. Half the people have a foot in that half. Don't a lot of us have boomers who have, you know, accumulated all this wealth and we can lean on that. And I think Gen Z is the first one where it's like, oh, no, I graduate from college or high school or whatever, and I'm just planning on paying all of my money in rent for the rest of my life. And that is depressing.

[C]

I think that the. The general downside of this generation is that you are the guinea pig generation in so many ways. You're the generation that this technology has molded the heaviest at a time when it's the least regulated, you have the least defined path of how to become successful. Like this general track record that all of the generations prior of you could pretty much follow is starting to break this system of American success that is modeled out for you. And you've been sold. Your whole upbringing isn't translating into the things that it's supposed to. And then you've also gone through the. The mind blender of having a phone or an iPad or the Internet around you unmoderated for your entire life. And we're just going to kind of see how that works out. And you sit in this little divot of time where I think this generation is going to be wrestling with a lot of the consequences of just having been born and existing in this time period in a way that I think Gen Alpha gets to be more reactionary to.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Or in. Millennials didn't have to live through in quite the same way because it came at a tail end of their mental development.

[B]

I think it's still. It's millennials. But I totally agree with what you're saying, and I really like the point about this is one of the generations where you really cannot get advice from those older than you. Like, it is just the old systems do not apply in any way. They have fractured and broken. And so you're kind of on your own in a unique way and almost like a Greatest Generation way, almost like a throwback. Like, things are changing so much that you are really thrown to the wolves. That's interesting.

[A]

I also just piggybacking on what you're saying of the change in, like, so the old systems, like, you know, we grew up with our parents, and presumably most Gen Z kids do as well. Their parents saying, you got to go to college and you get a good degree and then you'll get a job and you'll be set, you buy a home. And that's, you know, you're like told this dream. And that's true. Has worked for many millennials, but many have failed. I mean, there's a lot of resentment.

[B]

It was already failing.

[A]

Right. There's a lot of resentment in our generation. And I in college was resentful of the fact that our colleges were giving my friends and people I knew These degrees that were not going to pay back at all and they're putting themselves 100,000, $200,000 in debt for an English degree from some college that is just not going to pay back. But they've been sold this story over and over. But it was still true for many people. Like you could go get a computer science degree and just be good. And that was my experience. Right. And then it feels like now the stat that came out that's really illustrative is that college graduates are just as unemployed as non college graduates.

[B]

For men. Yeah.

[A]

But yes, okay, for men. But like that alone is like that's a total. Like it's never been like that. The facade was still there, but now it is a complete fracturing for Gen Z of this is what you were supposed to do to succeed.

[B]

You know, two more things about this generation I think are interesting. We kind of mentioned the pandemic but you know, in the way that like Vietnam would be a big deal for generation The COVID is like the big defining event of this generation. So far the biggest world event. And it really had it hit every member of Gen Z during schooling. So and I think that's where it impacts the most. You know, in studies after study it's shown that like people that were in school during COVID had markedly worse outcomes in the years following. You know, it disengages you from the system you were on. You get off of the treadmill, it's hard to get back on in the same way. And so they all got hit with it, various stages, some older than some younger. But it's like that's been a big thing. And again it shook the world in such a way. Second thing is the creator economy is like it never existed really prior to Gen Z and Gen Z has now become such this big cultural force not only from like where they get information. Thanks for watching this podcast. But also as like a path of, you know, career path, like where you want to possibly it's the number one requested job among Gen Z is like working the creator economy. So that's. These are two weird things that didn't exist before that are like big defining.

[C]

Parts this gen. Yeah. You have such a comparatively outsized cultural impact now because. Because you're so well integrated and you understand all of these tools to like make videos and share them and you're so. And you don't have to go through the old media structure of like going through all these hoops to get, you know, broadcast a television show, for example. Right. So young people get to be the. At the forefront of like cultural messaging in a way that they never were before.

[B]

I actually saw a really interesting stat. I'm not going to spoil who the number one ranking generation was, but it was ranking generations based on like economic political power, but then also had cultural power. And what you said was so true in that Gen Z was like massively higher outweighed on cultural power and had no financial or political power. Like zero. Like they have way more cultural influence, but. But almost. No, I thought that was very interesting.

[C]

So with all that said, where do you think it stands? I think this is, this is an interesting one for me because it is the technically the pocket I'm in. I do sit in a weird spot where I'm like you said, I do think the people who are born in like 97 to like 99 are in.

[B]

It's like, oh, one.

[C]

It's a little different for you. But if I was, you know, take my survivorship bias out of the equation, I think I would rather be a millennial or rather be Gen Alpha. I think Gen Z, at the very least is worse than those two options.

[A]

I, I would agree with that. Particularly because of COVID Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

It does feel like it. It. They just get hit with everything. First, the world's changing rapidly. Feels like they're, they're the unprepared younger people being thrust into it. So I do feel like it's a kind of a unlucky dice roll.

[A]

Covid. Yeah, anecdotally, Covid happened and I was able to change my life to benefit from it. Like I was mature enough and had enough experience as a, you know, in my career and in my work and everything to benefit from it. Same with AI. And that would be totally different if I was 16. When this stuff is coming out or happening, like, it's so. Just seems incredibly challenging. That being said, would rather go into the trenches of TikTok and Covid than the trenches of World War II. I still would rather be a Gen Z than a Greatest Generation.

[C]

Yeah, I agree. I would still take Gen Z of our Greatest Generation any day of the week. Dude. So far, Greatest Generation is at the bottom of the list.

[B]

It just don't want to fight.

[A]

Honestly, for the first couple minutes you had me sort of like, damn, you know, they kind of had it. Okay. And you know what? No, actually World War II sucked bad.

[C]

No, it's just, it's really that Great Depression. It's really combo of no health care, like shitty health care, into Great Depression, into World War II. And it's, it's, it'll be tough to top that.

[B]

Who's next? The Lost generation.

[A]

The Lost Generation.

[B]

A lot. I don't even know much about this.

[C]

What do we know?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean, they're lost.

[A]

The Lost Generation. Okay. The defining thing is that they were born and they were young adults during World War I. All right, so we're shifting it before the Greatest Generation. And as I looked into the Lost generation, they're, they're like the character in a movie that is only there to be kicked down every time they show. Like, it's like the cabbages guy in Avatar last night. Airbender. It's like they, they start to grow.

[C]

Up and they're like sad because they would never see him.

[B]

They'll never get to see Avatar last. Airbender.

[A]

They're like, oh, World War I, my cabbages. No. And then World War I ends and then they like get to gather their cabbages during the roaring twenties. But even then there's a lot of disill. Are kind of like upset over World War I and how it ruined the whole sort of romanticized war and national unity. There's also prohibition, a move towards cities. There's just kind of this like weird fraying of cultural society. It's where you get like the Great Gatsby coming out and then. Oh, beans. The Great Depression. My cabbages again. And so they're kind of like middle aged adults during the Great Depression. And then towards the final quarter of their life, they get to chill with World War II. My cabbages, they had a.

[B]

It really bad.

[A]

So they had a pretty shit.

[C]

Some of those guys are in their 30s and 40s and then they just, they had to go to World War II. Some people went back to back World War II.

[B]

Back to back wars.

[A]

No, no, that, that's this generation, to be clear. And it's. I assume. I didn't look at why they're called lost, but it's, it's literally a sandwich, man. It's World War I. So here's the question. There's four quarters to the lost generation. Yeah, right. It's. It's World War I, a good decade and then depression twenties they got to hang out with. Generation starts with Great Depression, then World War II, and then their final two quarters are pretty good. Which would you rather have? Right?

[B]

Easily. Easily. Greatest.

[A]

You rather have greatest. You take the gamble of 100 greatest for sure.

[C]

Because look, the best case scenario of lost generation is like you go to a Gatsby party and get syphilis there's, there's, that's like the best case scenario because you're, you're pretty much, you're pretty much dead by the time all of the progress Post World War II is happening. You're pretty much guaranteed to be dead by then.

[A]

Yeah, basically what you got is the 20s. That's the one, that's the one salvaging thing for the lost generation. And like some interesting things about that. We call it like the roaring twenties, but as a reminder, people are still pretty poor in the 20s. But at least from like the American perspective, this is where consumer culture starts to come up. A lot of mass production cars become a big thing. Radios, like 40% of people have radios by the end of the night by 1930. So like this is, you are being connected to the rest of the nation. More people are moving to cities. There's like investing in the stock market and there's, you know, jazz and there's all this like kind of cultural stuff.

[B]

Jazz, Aiden.

[C]

And they got rid of that later.

[A]

Like you're, you know, your life is pretty shit from the war and certainly if you're in Europe, right. I mean The World War I just absolutely devastates, decimates.

[B]

I just read it.

[A]

It's like, it's pretty decent for. We should say lost generation just sucked balls. If you're European, like it is just truly worse if you're American, you at least get that 20s where for a large number of people it was pretty chill.

[B]

I just read All Quiet on the restroom front for the first time. I think maybe I had it in school, but I never, I never cared. I read it while I was on a plane flying back from Arizona and I was tearing up on the plane. It is so depressingly sad. It is just young people being thrown to their deaths over and over in this miserable, sad environment. One thing I want to say on our point between greatest gen and this gen is I've seen a lot of studies on happiness that show even in poorer countries that have measurably worse outcomes than like a richer country. As long as you feel like you are currently doing better than your parents, that is a huge part of. You feel like we're on the right direction. Yeah, people feel they get a lot of purpose out of that. And so I think for the greatest Gen, the world around them got better their whole life. They went through the bad times, but it got better. I think for lost, like going through World War I and then going back to World War II or Great Depression is like just misery. I just feel like this is probably the worst. This is. I mean, I don't see an upside.

[A]

That's one, the only upside is that if you're born in this, you're more likely to get to enjoy a decade.

[B]

Right.

[A]

With Greatest Generation. Like you have to survive through two brutal decades to get. And again, this is. If you're American, you kind of want.

[C]

To die of syphilis in the 20s.

[B]

It'S a good time to go.

[A]

I mean, that's the thing. Like, you know, if you're going to die, let's say you're going to die in World War II. Either way, you'd rather die in World War II as lost generation, where you at least got to enjoy the 20s, you know, if you're looking at, you know, and what you're saying about war. So like one of the defining things with Lost Generation as much as you have the 20s and it's good, it's, it's what you said. Everybody again, particularly in Europe, but people are coming back from the war scarred. And so like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scotch Fitzgerald are like authors during this time and they're, they're the great American authors and their whole thing is about like disillusionment. So Hemingway's quote, there's nothing as bad as war. When people realize how bad it is, they cannot do anything to stop it because they go crazy. There are some people who never realize. It's like everybody just be going like, oh, this is fucking awful. And then they're distracting themselves with jazz.

[B]

There's a part in the book where he talks about he's like a 19 year old kid. I mean he's a German soldier on the stage.

[A]

World War I. Yeah.

[B]

And he's talking about how he's in school at like 16 and all with all his friends and the teacher is talking to him and talking about how noble it is to fight for his country and how great it is and how, how they're going to be the Iron Youth and they're going to. And like him over the course of the book, just having that all fall from his eyes and realizing what, what a disaster this is and, and being there when his friends around him die. And I think I can't, I cannot. Mechanized war, which is World War I, that is probably the most horrendous war to have happened in the world thus far. I mean it is like truly just infinite amount of people being sent into a bloody trench for death. And I. Not that there's a comparison, But World War II is probably a Better thing to have gone.

[A]

Where'd you put it on the tier list?

[B]

I'm not tier listing it, but, like, it feels like this is the worst iteration to me. This one. I would not choose this one.

[A]

Yeah. The more they think about it, having to. If, like, I think to put this differently, the worst possible experience to have is that you go through that in World War I. You watch all of your friends and family die. You come back for a decade. If you're in America and you're lucky, you get an okay generation. And then depression and then you have to go back to war.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With Germany again. It's like. It's like.

[C]

Yeah. I can imagine the scenario where you're coming out of the depression or you're in the depression era where you're suffering and you're poor and unemployed and you're in your, like, late 30s, early 40s, and you decide to enlist again because it's like your only option. And then you cope.

[A]

And reminder, not necessarily decide. Right. There's still conscription at this period.

[C]

I think when you're at that age, it has to be voluntary. Right.

[B]

Or maybe for World War II. I'm not sure.

[C]

Maybe not now, I think. But anyway, that's. I'm imagining like the worst track there. That. With that. Yeah, that's. Yeah. I. I'm down to put Lost Generation.

[A]

As the shittiest time to be born. That is fair. And that's. That's right around 1900 for people are clear. So right at the turn of the century, if you were born, damn, your life probably sucked. Feel for you.

[B]

You get drafted up to 35 years, seven months.

[A]

So if they were born and if.

[B]

You'D ever enlisted or whatever, then it could be up to 44. So if you'd already.

[C]

What?

[A]

So it's worse for vets. Yeah, dude, that's. I was going to say, at least Lost Generation wasn't drafted into World War II.

[B]

Dude, they needed.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

What? We got next one. Next who?

[C]

All right, we got millennials.

[A]

Tell me about me. Aiden, tell us about us.

[C]

I will tell you. You know, I will tell you.

[B]

Charming, good smile.

[C]

No, actually the Most Likely to Go ball.

[A]

Very good at League of Legends.

[C]

Sunset. Sunsetting in their YouTube careers. Probably can't keep it going for much.

[A]

Longer than right now just because the viewership's been waiting.

[C]

It's weird. It says it. No, it does say all that. Wikipedia.

[A]

Yes, I'm. Our generation is more of a roller coaster we're building for the up.

[B]

Okay. Slingshot. Yeah, we're Pulling back.

[C]

Okay, so Millennials, I. This is an interesting generation to me, because I think you're starting to see the. You're starting to see the trends turn against you, but not fully yet. You don't have the same quality of life as the couple generations that came before you in terms of, like, affordability of housing or affordability of college. But you do still have a pretty concrete track. Like, college enrollment in this generation has gone up from previous generations. You're, like, the most. You're the most educated so far. You're also the most likely to inherit the wealth of the two generations prior to you, especially the boomer generation. I think that's. That's, you know, that has to come later in your. Later in your life. You know, maybe you're struggling to buy a home, for instance, but you're set up to receive the wealth of the wealthiest generation previous to you. I think you're also at the tail end of the. By the way, this is the generation that's born 1981 to 1996, and you're seeing the benefits of modern medicine, vaccines. You're at a time when there's, like, a max public, I would say, belief in these things. You're also coming out of an era where we've achieved all these great scientific achievements. I feel like you have the legacy of things like landing on the moon that you're, like, coasting off of. You're also at the.

[A]

Okay, hold on. I'm stopping you there. At no point have I thought, damn.

[B]

I'm coasting off the.

[C]

No, no, no, no.

[A]

Remember that thing that happened 40 years before I was born?

[C]

It didn't happen 40 years before. Right?

[B]

30.

[A]

Okay, 30. I'm not. I'm not coasting off World War II. Why would I coast off of the moon?

[C]

No, I think you just exist. Okay, My point is more you're not. You're not taking credit for the achievement. You exist in an American time frame where like. Like belief in scientific achievement.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

In, like, all of these things are core tenets of your upbringing. And I would say they. They are. Are real in a lot of. In a lot of those ways that.

[A]

Yeah, there's still a real sense of American exceptionalism. Like, we are driving all these things around the world, and. And we're the center of culture or the center of technology.

[B]

It was one of the defining things of my youth because I was born in 91, which sounds so fucking old. It was the year.

[A]

For context, we were born, like, three months apart or something.

[B]

It was the year the Soviet Union fell and the Cold War ended. 91, Berlin Wall goes down. And, and it sort of felt, especially when I was young, especially living on a military base, but it was like, we've done it. It's the end of history. America, global hegemon, and now everything's going to be good forever. That was the idea in the 90s. That was sort of the feeling that I had as a child.

[C]

Yeah. And that's the feeling that you grow up with. And I think by the time the, the first big, I would say hiccups, or at least that you're realizing as a millennial, from my perspective, are 911 happens. And then the reaction, the global reaction to 9 11, especially America's reaction, okay, we invade, we invade Afghanistan and we invade Iraq, like a couple years later. So now you, it's the first, you know, you might be enlisting in the military as like a reaction to that event if you're old enough. And then you're leading straight into the 2008 financial crisis, which is also something you have to navigate. You're coming out of college into that time period, which is, I think you're, you're starting to deal with the first big economic problems that have been set up by the policies of the generations before you. So you're, you're at this weird inflection point where you're not the testing ground for all of the technology that is proliferating. Exactly. It's coming to access. It's something you're accessing when you're older. You have this strong, like, belief and faith in American institutions and the legacy of American success that has come before you and existed for most of your upbringing. But now you're starting to see the earliest parts of the system break around you and realize that your path in life is not as easy as it was for your parents. Like, you can't afford a home as soon as your parents did. Maybe you're choosing to not get married and have kids as early as your parents did, and all of those decisions are getting pushed a little later. But I would argue especially over the long run, and statistically this is more likely to be the case if you're, if you're white when it comes to the inheritance of previous generations, wealth. But I think going into the next, like, century or, I don't know, 50 years. Yeah, I think millennials are going to be a very large empowered generation. They are the largest generation by, like, population right.

[B]

Right now, and the largest voting bloc right now just, just recently passed.

[C]

So you're going to wield the most, the most power, like political power, and the most wealthy as a voting bloc. You, the millennials, will be the generation that in will shape most of the next 50 years. Thank you, and you're welcome.

[B]

We'll spare him.

[A]

Yeah. Something as you're saying that I hadn't thought about till right now is you talk about the American exceptionalism and growing up, I was told over and over, America is the greatest country on Earth. Like you're privileged to be born here. The greatest. And you're just told over and over how great America is. Yes, with the sprinkles of it. You know, here's the faults or whatnot. But it is off the world wars and off the moon and off of Soviet Union and all these things. And then all of the major events that have happened in our adult lifetime or young adult lifetime have all felt like a fucking waste. Like Afghanistan, all of the wars in the Middle east felt pointless and wasteful and destructive. And they went on for 20 years. We're $37 trillion in debt now. That doesn't feel like it got us anything. The Great Recession was boomers fucking up the banking system and the loaning. Like, we didn't do that. Right. Like, the Great Recession started when we were in high school. It's not like we were doing this. And so it's interesting to think about, like, the defining elements of our generation and all of them, I think, are this slow narrative that is being unraveled about American exceptionalism as we just watch Miss after Miss after Miss is my feeling.

[B]

I think that's well said. I mean, my, my wife, same age as me, was more directly impacted. But let people have memories like this of growing up and seeing their parents lose their home in the Great Recession or have to lose their job or. And then. And if you're an older millionaire, we just barely dodged it. I think getting as the recovery was coming back. But like most people, many older millennials had to graduate into the recession. And that hurts your earnings for decades to come. Like it. So I do think that. I think that in general, I feel like America kind of had this narrative until maybe say, 1999. And then ever since then, it's been sort of like it feels like the crest of the wave. But especially in 08, it's felt like none of the old methods or the talk the Post World War II discussion has really fit. It doesn't fit anymore. And so being a little bit older as a millennial, it's obviously easier, I guess, than Being native to it, like Gen Z. But it's the same that you're getting hit again and again with, like, different body blows, different. Different shocks to the system of what you were told when you grew up.

[C]

One benefit of this generation, I think, and you guys can speak more to this, but I feel like this is the generation that started to benefit a lot from really positive social changes. Like the. Like, more. Less discrimination happening or more a broader acceptance of, like, different people in different walks of life and different races. And like, that is. You were a generation that ushered in a lot of social change that I think is very important to the way we live modern life.

[B]

I would agree that possibly the most. Because there's a big shift, at least with the younger Gen Z, mostly the male side. My understanding is they're becoming more radicalized socially. There's like the Andrew Tate and there's the. Especially not even interested in America. Like I've seen in South Korea, you know, it's been off the cliff for. And so this is like a thing that seems to have peaked with Millennials, which is like trying for more equality among.

[C]

Yeah, I feel like it's. That's was my thought too. Is like, in a way, I feel like it's more of a core tenet of the millennial generation than Generation Z because of that radicalization. Thank you. But mostly, Doug, I'm just giving you guys so much credit, but. Yeah. And I think this is actually one of the most interesting ones to rank on the list that we've made so far, because I would probably put. Like I said, I think I put millennials above Gen Z and then Alpha. Alpha is like the coin flip of. It could. It could have so much potential, but your life could also be B shit, depending on how things turn out. Right. Yeah. I would put millennials, personally at the top of the list so far. I think this is the best generation to be born into overall, because you have this. While certain aspects of your life are worse, like, maybe homes are less affordable, as an example, or maybe it's less affordable to have a family. You have access to a lot of modern amenities and technology that I think can push your life and career in a lot of interesting directions. And also you're the beneficiary of a lot of things that help with, like, life expectancy and general health.

[A]

A key thing, just as we talk about this, is I think, Gen Z, all of these new technologies and trends and shattering of American. You know, this happened at pivotal moments in an unregulated way where you Weren't equipped to handle it. Whereas for us, it's like we got to experience stability and then things start changing. I think it's a huge advantage. Like, I would infinitely rather be a millennial than Gen Z for those reasons. I can't imagine AI coming out when I'm in fucking sophomore year of high school. Like, that would be so disruptive for me and my friends and everything. Or Covid, anyway.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's all the time I think about, you know, how tempted I was to cut corners in college to play more League of Legends. And if I had, I don't think.

[A]

I would have gotten into a good.

[B]

College, would not have learned a goddamn thing, because I would have. I would have used JGPT for everything in order to play more league. And the only reason I had to go to the library and focus and, like, try to grind through it was because I would have failed otherwise. Like, I had to do it it. So, yeah, I soft agree. I think the Gen Alpha coin flips an interesting question where they might have. I think if this stuff gets solved, it could be really prosperous.

[A]

And I remember you saying, off pod. AI will fix it.

[B]

I've been telling Doug to say the whole time. He doesn't even like AI. Yeah, okay, that's a fair. That's a fair discussion.

[C]

Why don't we get on to the next one?

[A]

So right now we win.

[C]

Yeah, you guys are beating me.

[B]

Oh, I ripped it off.

[C]

Oh, okay. You don't need to get so angry.

[B]

Gen X. Gen X. I have a little presentation about Gen X. I'm so.

[A]

Curious about Gen X because we never talk about Gen X. It's just. No true millennials. Right? We just pretend that they. They're almost silent, if you will.

[C]

Can I give my little guess as to why this. This is the case? I think that the reason they're forgotten about a lot of the time is I think culturally, we basically lump them in with baby boomers. Like, I think that's the main reason that we don't talk about the specifics of their generation.

[B]

Let's. Let's show it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So if you can pull this up. This is Gen X, also known as the, at least in America, the MTV generation, because that was such a dominant cultural influence when they were growing up.

[A]

How old are they right now? Just give me a sense of it. Because. Because boomers are like 65 to 70 or 65 to 80, something like that, right?

[B]

No, that's your Gen X. Oh, gen X is 65 to 82.

[A]

Oh, roughly. Oh, Damn. Okay.

[B]

Boomers are right after the war, so 46 to 64.

[A]

Damn. Okay, so I have been lumping them together.

[B]

Yeah, well, so they get a lot because there's. Because the way the population curve went, there are so many more boomers that Gen X just wasn't big enough to have a cultural impact, to have economic and political impact the way that boomers did. So they kind of got forgotten. They're often called the forgotten generation. 65 to 80 is their number. So when they were born, it was like the Beatles in black and white. And when the earliest ones were born and when the latest ones were born, it was like the 1980s. Rubik's Cube just came out. It's yuppies and it's Reagan and it's boom times. So they were named after this novel by Douglas Copeland about tales for an accelerated culture. And I think that's the main thing is culture really began to accelerate in their time with mass media. These are all some famous Gen X people. And a lot of them who have big cultural impact today, like Joe Rogan is the most popular.

[A]

Wayne the Rock Johnson didn't know he was.

[B]

That's Vin Diesel, Will Ferrell. Kurt Cobain died young, but he's kind of like a. The one of the most famous, like Gen Xers, the. The rebellious, you know, that's the kind of. Yeah, they were big of analog technology like that. That is there. The Walkman, the VCR, early floppy disks and PCs, all of that is very Gen X. They got to experience a lot of this stuff before it became all digital. One of the quotes they might say is like, when I was a kid. Because again, this is one of the first generations to have two parents working. So women started entering the workforce. So they were called the latchkey generation because they could just leave home and wander around and go on their bikes and do whatever. So what's very funny situation? Like, when I grew up, I could go play outside till sundown without a parent or cell phone or anything. And now the situation is one of the most likely to have six tracking apps and all their children and like Life360 and, you know, watch everything they do. So very interesting. They. One of their big events was the fall of the Berlin wall again in 1991. They were like, you know, in their 20s for this. The invention of the World Wide Web happened for them. 9 11, again, is also a millennial thing. But we were young. They were like, yeah, we were.

[A]

We really did not experience 911 to any meaningful degree.

[B]

So that's that's, that's, no, I don't do. So that's, that's sort of Gen X in a nutshell. They, what I would say is they, they got to draft off a lot of things that the boomers had but again are too small to claim the full power of it. They didn't have enough of voting block to, to take it. I did have a big con I wanted to show and this is what I found while researching so I can find it. This is happening right now. This is called the Gen X career meltdown. It's basically that Gen X came right after the boomers and really wanted to emulate them in a lot of these creative fields like photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, tv. But unlike the boomers who got to finish their career, make all the money and sort of retire while those things were still thriving, Gen X is being hit with all of those things radically being disrupted by the Internet while they're still like 45, 50, like still needing to earn, still needing to figure it out and all of it's getting wiped out. And so it's actually a really kind of deeply kind of sad and dangerous time because they can't change. Like it's much more difficult to be.

[A]

Like, learn to code just to be.

[B]

Like 45 or like you know, 54 with, with three kids and to be okay, I'm just going to change my career radically. Like newspaper editor no longer exists as a career in a lot of places. Like it's just wiped out. Photography is all digital. The things they spent their life doing don't exist.

[A]

Yeah, that's interesting. A lot of the automation and stuff that you know, like the trucking industry, there's a lot of Gen X in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, as those jobs get decimated, like who, who wants to retrain and hire a 65 year old, 20 year old truck? You know, somebody who's been trucking for 20 years.

[B]

Yeah. I'm having conversations every day with people whose careers are short of over a 53 year old and film and TV director talking to people in their late 40s and 50s about who once imagined they would be able to achieve great heights or at least a solid career, are now more likely to hear about the photographer whose work dried up, the designer who can't get hired or the magazine journalist who isn't doing much of anything. Like this is a, it's, it's weird because they don't have like a World War I or 2. Their biggest crisis is coming late in their life as the things they spent every, you know, their years doing are irrelevant. Like that's, that's an interesting crisis to have. It's kind of unique.

[C]

Is this your. Because for me, this is my parents generation. Is this your.

[B]

I have one boomer one. One Gen X.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, I thought they. My parents were boomers, but they are Gen X, but like late Gen X.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And so I mean, you know, and I said my parents are. Are pretty happy, pretty stable, enjoyed the prosperity of. But my dad was in the military, which is not a career that got, you know, changed.

[A]

Yeah. So this is really interesting because I still associate somebody who's, you know, 50 plus as benefiting from the.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

You know, economic environment and everything that the boomers really ushered in. And it still feels like they are. They got a ton going for them. And really the one downside is this like major transformation towards the end. But I still think that the major, the. They got to be there for genuine moments of like American exceptionalism, including the Soviet Union falling. And I would include 911 of like a moment of like the nation really rallying together around this thing. Whereas again, we grew up when we're just in Iraq, like, we didn't grow up, you know, like being like, hey, we had this, you know, big crisis that we had to overcome together. We're just like, oh yeah, we're killing tons of people every day.

[B]

As you're younger, it's worth noting that after 9 11, America has. Was like, we put 95% approval in George Bush. Like, it's the most united America has ever been behind a president. It was the most bipartisan the bills ever. Like, it was a brief country.

[A]

Was like united as Americans, you know, unless you were Islamic. But like, we were united as Americans and like, and that, that's like foreign to us and. Right. And that same unification was then used to go start a war in Iraq and spend tens of trillions of dollars, like the stupidest possible use. But like, during that Gen X period, like, you had American exceptionalism. Yes, technology starting to change, but they're still the generation that really benefited from that. In the same way that you're saying like, oh, these things have changed. All of the TV and movie executives who are getting wealthy off all these things are Gen X. Right. They're all. And so I.

[B]

It's very widely distributed, like all generations are. So I would say it's a fair point and it's worth saying that by the rule of like, did you have a better time than your parents? They did. They absolutely did. They Had a way better time. They were in an era of actually real peace and prosperity in America, only near the end where it's starting to, like, fray and they're still active, you know.

[C]

Oh, I think this one is interesting. I figured this would be one of the harder ones to place for me. I take millennials over Generation X. And I think, because if you're. If you're in the millennial category, you were just younger when the Internet became super important. And I think you are more likely to adapt in how that fits into your life and career, which I think is a very, very important thing for how you succeed from there. And also, like, the amount of options that you have to take your. Take your life in. I do think there's an economic argument for choosing Gen X. Like, I would understand if somebody chose that generation over Millennials, but that's kind of my vote is, like, I stand by millennials here.

[B]

I think I personally would take Millennials because I fear change, and I know the devil that I know. But I think, realistically, if you're doing a marble out of the hat, yeah, Gen X had a better chance.

[C]

Better, statistically, a better chance.

[A]

I think this is the lowest risk option of what we've talked about. Millennials, like, as we talked about, like, these new trends come in and are crazy disruptive, and we're adults and can handle it better. But I'm sure we all know plenty of millennials who have not handled things well and are dealing with. With lack of affordability and lack of job prospects and all these things. And so I think just the gap between haves and have nots really started to expand on Millennials and Gen X. It's still a lot of that just you could follow the path and have a good life kind of vibe still existed.

[C]

I guess the way I look at.

[A]

It is get a house, you know, get a. Get a good career, go shake somebody's fucking hand and get a job. Like, you know, go to medical school. And medical school. My dad was. Had made more money after medical school than when he went in because he would work on the summers. Yeah, like, that's a. Education was affordable is the point. Right.

[B]

The stuff that Boomer said still worked.

[A]

For all of our friends who work as. Who became doctors are still in debt 10 years after graduating. Like, it's.

[C]

Yeah, if I was picking. If I was picking this, like I was some omnipotent being, I was dropping a marble into the system of life, I would drop it into Gen X, but for me, personally, I would pick Millennials.

[A]

Yeah, same. And for me, it's like technology is what makes me excited to be alive. And if I was back then, I was like, oh, cool. You hear about Pong?

[B]

Like, I don't know, you say Pong, they literally think. I think it's like selfish, but in my mind, I'm thinking of gaming. It's like they didn't have good games.

[A]

Right.

[C]

When you get older, like when you get older, there's arcades. You're also in the time period. Like, you're, you're in the wake of the civil rights movement. Like, there's so many interesting cultural things happening in that time period too. Like through your teenage years to your twenties.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, I think it's. I don't know, you have some sick video games. You gave Donkey Kong.

[B]

By the time you're like anything sick, really.

[C]

Like, you don't think Donkey Kong's sick.

[B]

When you haven't seen come out till 1997, bro.

[C]

But you haven't seen GoldenEye yet.

[B]

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like multiplayer playing with making like the things that I love about.

[C]

No, it's because your dopamine receptors are fried, bro.

[A]

Dude, imagine.

[C]

Imagine you can't even enjoy consumer is.

[B]

Telling me my dopamine.

[C]

Obviously put yourself in the Gen X body. You're. You're. You have farm to table dopamine receptor still. And you're playing Donkey Kong at the age of 25 in the arcade. That.

[A]

Yeah, relative. Like that pizza you're playing.

[B]

Hey, you're making a good case.

[A]

I bet the high from playing Donkey Kong when you're 25 is higher than any high you've had playing league.

[C]

That's what I, I actually, no, I think that just.

[B]

That's not true.

[C]

That's crack.

[A]

That's not true.

[C]

All right, well, you know what?

[B]

It is.

[C]

And you know what? We have to close one left. The champs. The boomers. God, I want you hate them, but you love them. But you probably hate them.

[B]

Okay, I want to do a little bit of slide here.

[A]

Can I introduce the tone here? I think that growing up, there's always been a little chiding, particularly the last five years around, like, okay, boomer. And a little resentment towards boomers and kind of chiding at the boomers. And over the past, like, special year, especially this year, as I've done more research in a variety of different factors around what is causing the various economic, cultural challenges, debt challenges, all of these different things. I really keep coming back to. I think boomers fucked us up. Pretty hard, I think. They took a situation, took all the benefit from it, built lots of housing, and then stopped housing from being built, Took all the political power and then stopped other people from having political power. They took all of this stuff, they put us $37 trillion in debts that could go blow up half the Middle east. And now we are stuck with all of these things. And I have become really genuinely pretty resentful towards the boomers, and I would love for you to convince me otherwise. I don't want to be an asshole.

[B]

Let's find out. So the boomers, 1946-1964. World War II ends in 1945, and it is a pivotal moment for the entire world. It changes everything. And again, we all currently live in the shadow of how the world got reset up, how boundaries got redrawn, how power dynamics shifted after World War II. They are born starting in 1946, one year after everyone gets home from the war, starts fucking and begins this new world order. So they have dodged the Great Depression, they have dodged world one, they have dodged World War II. Again, I can, could, you know, their cultural impact goes beyond what I could fit in one slide here.

[A]

So.

[B]

So this is boomers. And this is a quote you might hear from boomers nowadays. And then I told him, just print out a resume and walk in and they'll give you a job. Quite get the laugh, right? You get the idea. So this is boomers, famous boomers. You might know Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, George Clooney. Wide range of people who've had cultural impact recently. Boomers are kind of like the TV generation, because when boomers were born in 1945 and onward, TV went from 0% of US households to 100%. So rapidly, literally in their lifetime, they saw everyone around them get a tv and it become a huge part of the cultural landscape. And seeing radios decline, that being said.

[A]

Those are rookie numbers. We all got smartphones in like two years.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

It took them like two decades.

[B]

Even faster. The greatest challenges they faced in their lives were not World War II or Great Depression. They did have in the 70s, which there would be, you know, it would be somewhere between 20 or 30, that range. Huge rise in inflation. People had long gas lines. They had. This is a beginning of some economic changes we did where we suspended the gold standard and all that stuff. It was 70. And then Vietnam. I'm sorry, I don't have an image here, but Vietnam was there, was there. They were old enough to have fought and died in Vietnam. And in fact, many of them spent their youth protesting. Yeah, Vietnam.

[A]

And these. This is the jungles of Vietnam.

[B]

This is not the jungles of Vietnam. I got the wrong picture, but it was Vietnam. Okay, so. And I found. Here, I'll go back to this. So the main thing about the boomers is that this is the popular. The fertility rate in the United States. And you can see right after World War II, there is this massive spike. And you could call it.

[C]

It.

[B]

Demographers call it the pig in the python, which is like if a python ate a big pig and it's. You mean digested. So in 1970, most Americans were between 5 and 23. This is the boomers. And so over their lifetime, they have had outsized impact on everything because they have been so much bigger than every other generation around them. So people that have their beliefs and their worldview and where they grew up with, have just had this unprecedented amount of political power. And again, shown here, they have, even today, even today, when they're all relatively old, have still the most political power. When they were born in 1945, they had about, you know, 20, 30 years of flat home prices. Right. For them to get their jobs and get earning.

[A]

Holy shit. I did not realize that.

[B]

And then right around 1970, when they hit around 30 years old, boom, it skyrockets.

[A]

Do you think that has anything to do with the fact they bought and built all the homes and then stopped other ones from being built? Does that have anything to do with it, Brandon?

[B]

Lucky, I guess. I think just lucky. Just a lucky timing. So, yeah, right around here is when they started acquiring houses, and that is when they went absolutely off the rails, which is a huge part of why they have all the wealth today. So this is A chart of U.S. wealth by generation, starting right now. So right here is basically when they started to get political power. Like when I have the arrow on the. On the chart.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is when they be. When the first boomer president comes in.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

And you'll notice from there, their wealth skyrockets past the older generation, silent generation, and then it goes to unprecedented heights. So we see now that they have way. They have more than, you know, Gen X, silent and millennials combined. Gen Z is not even on this chart. They have almost no collective wealth generation right now. So that arrow lines up nicely with this. We've talked about some previous episodes, but I want to go into it. This is Bill Clinton in 92, the first boomer president. Basically, right when we're born, Bill Clinton takes over Followed by a series of boomers. You know, two terms of Bill Clinton, two terms of George Bush, two terms of Obama. Trump, Biden. Trump. Biden is the only non boomer because he's too old. He is three years too old to be a boomer.

[A]

Oh no, he's great.

[B]

Yeah, I think he's great. Or silent. I think he's silent, actually. Whatever it is, he's three years old. So he's basically a boomer. He's basically. He's like the oldest boomer or the oldest of the previous. So essentially our entire lives, 92 to 24 till now, now has all been boomed political power. And that is when these massive wealth changes happen. That has kept assets like housing and stocks that were acquired before this time growing and bubbling so that new people cannot get on the ladder. But they are, they are, they're rising up. And I wanted to show most of the day we've been talking about America. It's been mostly an American centric lens of these generations because it's hard because it changes so much better. But I just want to say the boomers, this Post World War II, like shaking up of the world are not just an American phenomenon. And so I have extrapolated over the entire world right now who is still running the country, by the way, by normal laws of generations, which is mostly about 20 years long, we should have been done with the boomers in about 2012. It should have been 92 to 2012. And then we move on to Gen X presidents. That's the rough idea. But they have kept hanging on to power and in fact with Biden, gotten even more so right now across the world. These are boomer leaders. Now I'm going to go through this a little bit. Donald Trump, obviously, you know, in North America, biggest economy in the world and biggest coming in North America. But if you go to South America, Brazil, biggest economy, South America, boomer. Lula. The four biggest economies in Africa are for boomers, which can make up more than the rest of Africa combined. Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, boomer. Uk, one of the biggest economies in Europe, Europe, boomer. I included Sweden to make fun of Aiden. Also a boomer. I don't even know the guy.

[C]

No, no.

[B]

Also a boomer. Valor Putin boomer. The two biggest economies in Asia, India and China, Boomer. Boomer. Also Japan, I didn't include it got covered by Xi Jinping. Australia, Albanese boomer. In Antarctica, there's a really old penguin. That's a lot of power. So we are currently living in a Truly. And by the way, I added up the GDP of all these countries. It's like it's well more than half of the world population and well, well above like 70% of the world economy. So it's like we are in a boomer dominated world, top to bottom, across all countries. They have all of the wealth and all of the power, no matter where you go, no matter which continent you're on. And you know, because of, of the dropping fertility rate in the world, the idea is that the oldest generation will always be the most powerful going forward. Like it's because old people live, live longer and we're not having enough new babies. It. Once the boomers die off, it will still the next oldest will take over. Which by the way, if you look at this little bump here, is millennials.

[A]

Yeah, let's go.

[B]

So we should talk about how much boomers damage I've done.

[A]

We're gonna imprison anybody who's too tall.

[B]

Yeah. Or two, eight, any.

[A]

You gotta engender yourself to us a little more.

[C]

Okay. Say a millennial.

[B]

We are setting up for a millennial type situation. And, and we should talk about what the boomers have done wrong so we can learn from it because we're gonna have a similar level of influence globally. The millennial population bump is almost as it.

[A]

Well, okay, so, so, so is the millennial population bump as big as the boomer?

[B]

Not even close.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But so that's relatively. It will.

[A]

Okay. Because we're going to be the biggest. We're going to have the most control technically, but not in the way the boomers have, where they have this unbelievably large just percentage of people. Right.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Gen Z is almost just as big as millennials, to be honest. It's a little bit, I think it's.

[A]

A little smaller because we're, I mean, we're both way smaller than boomers. Like neither generation is even close to how big they were.

[B]

So that's, that's boomers in a nutshell. They really have. You know, one thing I want to say, I had a little note about it here, but I'll just sort of paraphrase. The idea is that when boomers were young and they had this big population bump, the things they cared most about were like getting out of Vietnam, student protest, things like that. And they got those things done. Like they made impact. Then as they grew older, they started to care more about like, you know, housing affordability, whatever. Like they, the things they cared about have been priority number One for America their entire lives. And now, as they get older, you're seeing this huge push to, like, eliminate all property taxes like that. That is the last gasp of boomers who have gotten all the real estate, using their political power to, on the way out, kick out the only tax they really are still paying. Like, it's. It really is this testament to how much they have. They have taken it over. I wish I had the quote here.

[A]

Or even the incredibly wealthy boomers, of which there are so many who have helped to drive their housing prices just through the roof, complaining about, just screeching at the idea of Social Security reform, which, to be clear, is a system where you pay into Social Security throughout your adult life, and then when you retire, the government pays you back. But we are bankrupt. We can't afford it, and it's becoming more unaffordable every year. And the problem is that the boomers are living longer than any previous generation, which makes the system even more distorted. So there needs to be something to change there. The only way to not change it is to put America more into debt, to assure that they get Social Security until they die, and then we are stuck paying for that bill. It's just like.

[C]

I think the general theme here, right, is like, as this cohort aged and because of their outsized impact, they're able to make a lot of decisions that are most pressing to whatever their generation is at the time, right. Successfully put that policy into place, and they've been able to do that the whole way through. So the world as it's structured, or the American. The American world as it's structured serves to benefit the boomer generation the most, whatever time period you happen to be in. Can you guys think of any big downsides to their generation? I wanted to ask you guys that because I figured from like a. A, you know, from an economic perspective, the boomers were going to have kind of the best case here. But can you guys think of any big blights? I think, personally, like, they came up.

[B]

Vietnam is like the big downside. Yeah, they had gotten that drafted into Vietnam. Many of them died. It was a. It was a stupid, pointless war. Height of the Cold War. Arrogant. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, that, that. And that radicalized a lot of them, and they were anti war, though they, in later life often became pro war. So I would say Vietnam in their youth, it's like the biggest black market this generation. But. But again, the death scale is so much smaller than World War II, World War I, Korean War, and from an American POV. I mean, they just had just decades of prosperity, decades of, like, green lights. Like, even if you fucked up a little bit, you're likely to have things bounce back, go on the right track.

[A]

Because you can go to college. You. It's very easy to fund yourself to go through college, and then you have an incredible amount of new prospects.

[B]

Housing was cheap.

[C]

You're more likely to be addicted to cigarettes.

[A]

Yeah, health stuff is always. Yeah, health and technology obviously were worse then. And that's. I mean, I would still rather, for that reason, be a millennial, but, you know, they. Yes, they had access to TV, and I think maybe some people forget how shitty TV was when you had 10 channels and you just, like, hope something was on and.

[B]

Yeah, and again, you know, we said at the beginning, but, like, this is a primary, like, white male perspective or whatever, because, like, being a boomer, it doesn't matter. Your opportunities for housing are better. If you can't get on the housing ladder because you're a woman or you're black or what in the. In the 40s and 50s, like, that, you're screwing that. But they did get to see, like. So the thing about baby boomers, I think that's the. The. The. The trust thing is, like, everything was getting better decade after decade after decade. They were seeing new technologies make lives better immediately. They were seeing, like, civil rights progress make progress. Like, things were. Things were measurably getting better and their economy was getting better.

[C]

This is the generation leading the charge with a lot of the, like, movements for equality.

[B]

Yeah, that's true.

[C]

They were the people.

[A]

Not as much as us, but, yeah, they were.

[C]

All right.

[B]

I have this video from the currently leaving prime minister of France who is trying to pass a balanced budget who could not get it passed. He couldn't get people to politically agree because he couldn't decide whether they should cut spending or whether they should raise taxes. And they tried to do a little bit of both, and he couldn't get it through. And he said this on the way out. This is translated with, I don't know, some kind of technology. But. So it's not his actual voice, but this is what it sounds like. He's talking about boomers. And he is a boomer, by the way. He's talking about boomers in France. This is not just an American phenomenon, but basically this boomer thing. They're the ones who are the victims. They're the ones who will have to.

[A]

Pay off the debt for their entire lives. And we've managed to make them believe that it needs to be increased even more.

[B]

Don't you think that's brilliant? All this just for the comfort of.

[A]

Certain political parties and for the comfort.

[B]

Of the boomers, as they say, who.

[C]

From this point of view, think that.

[A]

Well, everything is just fine.

[B]

Yeah. So we talked about all the fracturing that is going on for millennials and for Gen Z and for Gen Alpha, but for boomers, things are roughly fine because they still have all of these assets. And so they are like, on the way out the door just making sure that no money goes towards solving any of these new problems and only goes to keeping what they had afloat, just keeping it afloat.

[A]

For example, the largest floating block in the United States is boomers, and they voted to keep cutting taxes in the big beautiful bill and put us more in debt.

[B]

Well, I'll say none of them are going to be millennials.

[A]

Just pass that.

[B]

We are by the time that happened. Millennials are the biggest voting bloc in America. However, we don't vote at higher rates like there's more millennial voters, but boomers vote, like way higher rates.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So they. Yeah.

[C]

So with that being said, where would you. Actually, I think similar to Gen X and maybe even more solidly, I think you could make an argument that this was the best generation to be born into. I'm on this list, I think, you know, obviously variations in circumstances that I'd put an asterisk on that. But I think in a lot of ways you could argue that this was the best generation to be born into. Would you guys pick boomers? It's hard to imagine giving up, giving up what I have access to now.

[A]

I think definitively it's very hard to argue that it was not the best generation to be born into. If you are rolling a die and you want to ensure you have the best outcome and the highest likelihood of becoming wealthy and having all these incredible benefits, it is clearly the baby Booner generation. You have so much more power and influence, and they have. And we have seen how they have made everything benefit themselves and fuck everybody else and pull up the ladder. That being said, me individually, I have no interest in being alive in 1970. I want to make videos and play video games and build interesting, creative things, and the world is a million times more adapted for that now. So, like, no, absolutely not. I would rather be any of the more recent ones.

[B]

I think it's tough. So I looked it up and the, you know, even though we do say that there's obviously more racism back then, the racial wealth gap among boomers still, like, black boomers have all of the wealth among black people in America. Like, it's still. So even if you were not white, you probably have a better economic opportunity being born as a boomer, probably. Difference between women who couldn't have the same access to, like, bank accounts and jobs. But so basically, as a man, either way, you're probably getting more economic opportunities. Women, I would say. I wouldn't pick it. But again, for some reasons, we've adapted to these lives. And I wouldn't change easily is the number. I think it easily clears as, like, less chance of dying in a war, less chance of a ton of things. You just have more likelihood that at the end of your life, you're going to have some financial security. And whether that's from your own assets or whether it's from the government, which is funneling it through Social Security before it falls out of funding, it's all to you for most of your life. So, yeah, I would say that. I would say for me, it's an easy win. And for someone like a white guy like me, if I was born in the 50s or 60s, very likely I would have easy career opportunities. You know, someone who has no major problem. It would have been an easy glide for me. I would be the standard boomer, probably. And the world was less polarized then. America got more. You know, it would just be easier. So for me, I think I would pick Millennials number one, but Boomer would be right second. And I think it's easy, actually. First, if you're.

[A]

Or you put it all on red, you go lost generation. Send it.

[B]

Just go crazy, take a chance. It's like Dark Souls, dude. I want the hardest mode.

[A]

Yeah. Start on Boomers, then you new game plus into lost.

[C]

Gentlemen, this is fun. I. I think I'm ex. I mean, it's. I guess I'm excited to see what the next, you know, 10, 20 years. Even though I think it could be doom and gloom in a lot of ways, like, just to have the answer of what. What things are like for Generation Alpha and Gen Z. Because I. I think. I mean, those two especially have so much of their experience of what we're evaluating here yet to play out. And even Millennials, right? Like, realistically, you guys have another, like, 10 years, you'll be alive.

[B]

I'm gonna kill you.

[A]

Especially Adrian.

[B]

Dude, I think about it, like, okay, imagine, remember? I don't remember, but, like, think about 20 years ago. Right now it's 2005. Imagine 2005 in your mind, like, YouTube has just launched. Phones do not exist.

[C]

You can still watch Saddam Hussein being hanged on YouTube.

[A]

You cannot.

[C]

20 years ago in 2005.

[A]

No, you cannot.

[C]

And you could back then was like.

[B]

One of the first videos or what?

[C]

Yeah, I watched.

[A]

Five. There's like, there's 20 videos on YouTube at this time.

[C]

Look, it might have been 2006.

[A]

They were manually approving every video. There's no way. They're like, yeah, let's add this. Let's be five.

[C]

Yeah, the first two videos, I went to the zoo and Saddam Hussein.

[B]

Yeah, but that's 20 years ago. And so the whole world is different. It's so dramatically different. I can't even. There's so little similarity between the world we're in now and 2005. What is 20 years from now going to look like? We cannot picture it. It's going to be drastically different, unimaginably different. So I do think Gen Alpha is the massive coin flip here where we don't know what the hell they're going to go through. It could be better, it could be worse. We literally don't know know they could be the top or bottom of this ranking.

[C]

Yeah. I feel like so much of being able to evaluate, like the lost generation and the greatest generation in this. Right. Is we can literally see the whole timeline, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So you can be like, well, the greatest generation. You can see the struggle at the beginning and the benefits that the people who make it far enough get to see. And. And you get to evaluate it so holistically. But so much of this for the. For the top four is guessing what the ending is going to be for people, which is. Which is dumb.

[B]

That's like the point of the show. We're watching the news, we're figuring out it out. Like, we're guessing what's going to happen. What is. What is the world we're going to live in. I think it's interesting.

[A]

I want to just briefly pose something, which is just a crazy thing. Like, as an American, I think probably as a European as well, we used to build cities. The cities didn't exist forever. The baby boomers built the cities. So, you know, when you see the skyline of American city, like the boomers did that in their lifetime, and then they stopped things from being built. Like in my lifetime, of the major cities I've lived in, there's like one or maybe two new skyscrapers that have like, been put in the. In my lifetime. Lifetime. And you compare that to like San Francisco, for example, was built by the boom, primarily And I mean, a lot.

[B]

Of those were built before the boom, I think, like the silent generation, the greatest generation. The great skyscrapers of, like, New York or of Chicago. These were all built by.

[A]

Wasn't that like 50s, 60s, 70s?

[B]

No, I would say, like. Are you talking about like, New York?

[A]

Yeah, no, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Like all this stuff.

[B]

Is it like the golden. Yeah, I think this is all earlier. This is old. It's like 20s, 30s.

[A]

Oh, I was. I was wrong.

[B]

I thought the great generation did everything after. And then we're all coasting. Oh.

[A]

I actually dislike them more now. Interesting.

[C]

Okay. Yeah, the baby boomers got to.

[B]

I think the boomers just coasted. They literally had the ultimate coast.

[A]

Maybe it's just.

[B]

I don't know, Everything was set up.

[A]

It's still something. It bothers me, man. It's. It's really frustrating.

[B]

Anyway, so two generations we didn't get to get to were the missionary generation, which is before Lost. Why was it called that?

[C]

The missionary generation?

[B]

They basic.

[C]

I think it was. They were only.

[B]

They never.

[C]

And it was just. No, it was. And then the lost generation figured it out.

[B]

Yeah. That changed everything.

[C]

Yeah. Which is probably one of the only pros for the lost generation, if you think about it.

[B]

And then the other thing to talk about is Gen Beta, which just started this year, January 1, 2025, is the first gen betas, which, by the way, what a terrible name. You don't want to be a beta.

[C]

They're born to be cucks.

[A]

At least put another thing like a. Like Beta Alphas. Let's add another title to the end.

[B]

They're just gonna get mogged by Alpha.

[A]

Wait, hold on.

[B]

How.

[A]

How are these generations named? Who got to pick Greatest?

[C]

Greatest was.

[B]

When you defeat Hitler, you get to name.

[A]

Sorry. That's fair. That's fair, dude. By the way, I looked it up. You're right. The greatest generation built all the cities. That's what I'm saying. They're so great, man. They're actually the greatest.

[B]

They did. They had the tough times. They built. It's like the weak men hard times thing, but they built it.

[A]

We had a generation that just like, set everyone else up. What? God.

[B]

And the boomer screwed it, man.

[C]

I think it's. I was digging back because I wanted to see how many generations we had named, like, just how far back we could go. And, you know, I looked at the next three before the lost generation, one of which is the missionary generation. And the outlook back then just wasn't good. As it turns out.

[A]

It's like it's before running water.

[C]

You're. You're reaching back and it's like it's slavery. Like no, no, no water. Civil war, religious fervor, quote unquote. And, and just no medical treatments available.

[A]

Everybody is a farmer. You're just a farmer back then.

[C]

You're probably just farming. Like it, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty bitter back then. It really starts to get. It's, it's really the boomers where it starts to get juicy, cool and fun.

[B]

Yeah. Hang out.

[A]

I think they deserve it.

[B]

It.

[C]

Maybe they worked harder.

[B]

They were, they were.

[A]

By being born.

[B]

They picked the right time to be born. I'll say that.

[C]

Call me crazy, man. I think my pick, my pick is Gen X Gen. I'm not my personal pick, but I think Gen X is. You at least get to reap some of the rewards of the interesting entertainment that comes to fruition. I think, I think that's something that the boomers don't get to. They don't get. No matter how much money they have. They never get to be fully integrated too in the same way. And I think they're missing out on a cultural window that exists primarily for Gen X and after.

[B]

I agree with that. If only because. And we can end on this. The worst part about being a boomer is being old and having to not understand Facebook, which is right now. This is an AI Jared image of a sand created sandcastle dog that is obviously fake to any eyes. Beautiful. You have every right to be proud.

[A]

Of this awesome work of art.

[B]

I hope that you will create and share many more creations like this. And there's just walls of boomers commenting on this already.

[C]

Yeah. Is it really worth having. Is it really worth having the mental cognition of that of, of Vicky there on the post? And I'd say no.

[A]

Hold on, hold on. That woman sincerely believes that's a real picture. I would love to have my last few years. Are you serious? Your final few years you're rich and you think that everybody's making incredible things because you don't understand technology. That's incredible.

[C]

Maybe it's time for us all.

[B]

And if you were to ask who was the best generation, the boomers will tell you it was them. I found more quotes. I'm 59. I love being a boomer. Everything was better when I grew up. I turned 65 today and I still think we had the best of everything. Cars, music, fashion sense and dance styles. We were the fortunate generation. We lived through the best years. The country ever had. And then Vicky Bloom here says, we had to pay out of pocket for these things. We were a kid, never had handouts like this. Why can't today's young people make things work like we did? Because they're lazy. Biden has made them depend on the government, and it is sad to say they will never know what a dollar's worth.

[C]

It's funny because they. They co op the messaging that if the Lost Generation and Greatest Generation are flinging at me, I can. I could be like, respect. I. You know, like. Because the, The. I think if you talk to somebody old enough, especially when. When I was younger, I remember there's a certain. There's a certain air from, like, Greatest Generation era people that's like, not. I had it so good growing up, and I long for those times I had it so growing up. And you don't know how hard it was. And I can get behind that, because when you do the VOD review of what that generation was going through and. And you're like, shit, man. It's like you're. Your friends in school died of measles. Like, you got drafted into World War II. It was like the advent of, like, machine weaponry and like, the two world wars, then nuclear bomb. Yeah. It's all. It's all horrific. And then the baby boomers were like, I had to pay to go to school. And then you find out how much it costs, and you're like, yeah, I had to pay, too.

[B]

On that note, let us know which generation you would like to be born in in the comments that you're watching this week's Lemonade.

[A]

Stand by, everybody.

[B]

Bye. Ready?