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Ever wonder where you fit in the grand scheme of things?

Flowing Data has a graph that shows the rise and fall of generations since 1920. It reminds me of a conveyer belt. New generations start at top of the graph, they fall through it over time, and then they fall off of it as they come to an end. My generation of Millennials is still closer to the top than the bottom. We're not over the hill yet (horray, we're still young!), but we're getting there. Generation Z, which came after us and includes Wintreath's younger members are newer but no longer the newest. That honour goes to the new Generation Alpha, which started with babies born in 2010 who we'll start seeing in our community in a few more years.

I used to feel old just knowing that people were joining that were born after the year 2000. How will we feel when the 2010 kids start arriving?

It also reminded me of something that Steve Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address: "And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

Doesn't this graph show exactly that?

I recently read a phenomenal science fiction work, 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future by sports writer Jon Bois, that explores a similar sentiment, by imagining the opposite. Highly recommend.

Spoiler

It takes in a universe where in the near future, all humans spontaneously stopped aging, dying, or being born. So as the generations currently alive today age tens of thousands of years into the future, nothing fundamentally changes. In a stagnant society with only adults, people keep doing the things they know, using the things they like, even though those aren't the best that humanity have come up with, because that's what they're used to.

As for that first part though, I'm not sure what to get from that chart. I feel like a lot of generation categories are somewhat arbitrary. It's useful to group people into categories to see sociological trends and such, but to generalize that into discrete identity labels has always seemed somewhat strange to me. Maybe some of this is due to personal experience, I've always felt too young to be a Millennial but too old to be a real Gen Z. In some sense it feels like it's just saying that people are getting older and young people are being born, just with the obfuscating extra step of using made-up generational labels.

I don't know that the generation label really matters...it's just like any other label, it tries to group people that are similar in some way together under one name. I think it's more just putting things in perspective...of course we all know we're aging and that we're going to die someday, but at least for me seeing the graph really put just where we are as a group into focus.

lol, it took me about ten minutes of going through the website to realize that is the story. I don't think I've ever seen a story put together like this before, but it's promising so far. Thanks for sharing it.

Looking at the chart it reminds me of the theory of evolution where over the passing of time what were subcategories of humans are nearing extinction but new and adapted subcategories evolved from those that came before. I myself have no clue which label I belong to because every other article or study changes the dates of when one generation ends and another begins.

Looking at it this way, it kind of puts me in this area of thought, or moreso of worry, for my generation. It may be something not many have thought of before, but has anyone ever looked at similar charts or statistics about the generations and thought, "Is my generation a good one? Did we do a good job?" That may just rise from fear that I will one day be called a "boomer" or some old timer but it's a good question. Would the generations we are a part of be known for good things by the generations coming after us?

@Alistair: You will be called some old timer.

I think that's every generation though, no matter what their accomplishments or virtues though. Younger generations are just always going to see older generations as stuck in the mud and set in their ways. I think that's by and large true, too...it seems to me that as people age they do stuck in their ways, though some individuals escape that fate (I've read before that meditation and closely interacting with younger people help thwart that). Even the "Greatest Generation" was largely self-named I think...hell, Millennials are already put down for supposedly destroying everything under the sun.

lol, it took me about ten minutes of going through the website to realize that is the story. I don't think I've ever seen a story put together like this before, but it's promising so far. Thanks for sharing it.

The sequel, 20020, is quite a different story but just as great. As a non-sports fan, Jon Bois makes me somehow interested in (in this case, imaginary) sports in ways that I never thought possible.

The sequel, 20020, is quite a different story but just as great. As a non-sports fan, Jon Bois makes me somehow interested in (in this case, imaginary) sports in ways that I never thought possible.

I read it over the weekend. It was both fun and inspirational for me, in that it got my game design juices flowing. I just need to find the time somehow to bring the ideas it generated to life now, lol. I also liked how he researched neat historical events that happened in and around the fields and found cool ways to tie them into the story. It made the whole outlandish idea feel more relevant somehow.

There's another sequel coming out this year too, 20021, and I look forward to seeing the adventures of American football through the sensors of Nine, Ten, and Juice.

The sequel, 20020, is quite a different story but just as great. As a non-sports fan, Jon Bois makes me somehow interested in (in this case, imaginary) sports in ways that I never thought possible.

I read it over the weekend. It was both fun and inspirational for me, in that it got my game design juices flowing. I just need to find the time somehow to bring the ideas it generated to life now, lol. I also liked how he researched neat historical events that happened in and around the fields and found cool ways to tie them into the story. It made the whole outlandish idea feel more relevant somehow.

There's another sequel coming out this year too, 20021, and I look forward to seeing the adventures of American football through the sensors of Nine, Ten, and Juice.

It was supposed to come out this winter/spring, but has since been indefinitely delayed. Jon Bois said that he knows the plotlines, but to do the story justice he has to fully immerse himself into it, which would conflict with his other work things.

FUCK HIS OTHER WORK THINGS! Nothing he's doing can be more important than this.

FUCK HIS OTHER WORK THINGS! Nothing he's doing can be more important than this.

lol fair

That said, definitely check out his other stuff if you haven't. Some good ones:
The Bob Emergency (oh hey that name is familiar...)
The History of the Seattle Mariners
What if Barry Bonds had played without a baseball bat?

(Apologies to everyone for completely derailing this thread. Maybe have a gander at Fighting in the Age of Loneliness which is at least somewhat tangentially related via the coming and going of history )

Ever wonder where you fit in the grand scheme of things?

Flowing Data has a graph that shows the rise and fall of generations since 1920. It reminds me of a conveyer belt. New generations start at top of the graph, they fall through it over time, and then they fall off of it as they come to an end. My generation of Millennials is still closer to the top than the bottom. We're not over the hill yet (horray, we're still young!), but we're getting there. Generation Z, which came after us and includes Wintreath's younger members are newer but no longer the newest. That honour goes to the new Generation Alpha, which started with babies born in 2010 who we'll start seeing in our community in a few more years.

I used to feel old just knowing that people were joining that were born after the year 2000. How will we feel when the 2010 kids start arriving?

It also reminded me of something that Steve Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address: "And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

Doesn't this graph show exactly that?

Hell no I will not accept death. As far as I can comprehend I am the only vessel through which the universe can be experienced and thus meaningfully exist, and life is the only thing I know I have or ever will have. Dying is the worst thing that could happen and I'm already implementing measures to increase my life span should I make it to an older age and not meet my end under the wheels of a car or by some other untimely incident. Also there's the theory that a generation will escape death because we'll reach a rate of medical technological advancement where medicine is increasing life expectancy faster than people can reach it essentially making them immortal. Provided industrial society survives the coming decades there is a slim chance that I could experience near immortality or at least a life extending beyond many multitudes of what is currently normal.

@taulover: Thanks! I'll check them out when I have a chance. I wouldn't worry too much about derailing the topic...it's not like there was much in the way of other conversation to derail.

@Qymaen: I suppose that it's possible, but people have been looking for the fountain of youth probably for as long as humanity has existed...it's nice to have the hope, but don't be disappointed if it ends up being as out of reach for you as all prior generations. So far death has a pretty good track record, but hey there's always cryonics if you really won't accept death.

@taulover: Thanks! I'll check them out when I have a chance. I wouldn't worry too much about derailing the topic...it's not like there was much in the way of other conversation to derail.

@Qymaen: I suppose that it's possible, but people have been looking for the fountain of youth probably for as long as humanity has existed...it's nice to have the hope, but don't be disappointed if it ends up being as out of reach for you as all prior generations. So far death has a pretty good track record, but hey there's always cryonics if you really won't accept death.

Although I do not necessarily believe that I will experience immortality I will argue that we are living in a time in human history where we are quite possibly advancing faster than ever before in our history in terms of technology so looking to the future for medical achievements such as reaching "escape velocity" with increasing life expectancy is more realistic now than ever before.

@Qymaen: You know, it's just as likely that at that point AI will become sentient and wipe out humanity, making our life expectancy 0.

That said, definitely check out his other stuff if you haven't. Some good ones:
The Bob Emergency (oh hey that name is familiar...)
The History of the Seattle Mariners
What if Barry Bonds had played without a baseball bat?

(Apologies to everyone for completely derailing this thread. Maybe have a gander at Fighting in the Age of Loneliness which is at least somewhat tangentially related via the coming and going of history )

Three years later I finally got around to watching The Bob Emergency! So long that it took me a moment to remember your reference to the bob incident...a bit ironic since you could say that was an attempt to make new bobs. v_v

I'm not into sports, but it was still a fascinating tapestry of history made up of professional sports players named Bob...a tapestry often made up of human dedication, perseverance, and excellence, but occasionally not. Not so much one big story, but a bunch of smaller stories weaved together. And I do think it's fascinating how names that have been timeless are falling out of popularity...besides the video's suggestion that Bob just isn't considered a serious name anymore, I think most people want more unique nicknames for themselves and unique names for their children these days. We live in times where people want to stand out, and the old generic names just won't do it I guess.

But still, I took a moment at the end to mourn the coming end of the Bob legacy. Thank you for sharing!