There’s a generation a lot of people forget exists. We were born at the tail end of the Boomers, but we are not culturally the same as people born in the 40s and early 50s. We are Generation Jones.
And honestly, it explains a lot.
We grew up in a world that still felt fundamentally analog, but we were young enough to be dragged headfirst into the digital revolution. We are the bridge generation between rotary phones and smartphones, between slide rules and AI, between Walter Cronkite and algorithm driven media.
We remember when there were only a few television channels and the entire country watched the same thing at the same time. We also adapted to the internet, email, forums, social media, streaming and now artificial intelligence. We lived before and after the technological singularity hit everyday life.
That is not a small thing.
People born in the 40s came of age in a post World War II America that was still industrial, deeply hierarchical and institutionally stable. Their formative years were shaped by the Cold War, Vietnam, the civil rights era and a society where information moved slowly.
Generation Jones came later. We inherited the aftermath of all of that.
We were the kids who watched Watergate destroy blind trust in government. We watched manufacturing begin to collapse. We saw divorce rates explode. We were the first truly latchkey generation in massive numbers. We learned independence early because many of us had to.
We grew up with one foot in old America and one foot in whatever this new thing was becoming.
We played outside until the streetlights came on but we also learned DOS commands. We learned cursive and keyboarding. We had card catalogs and Google searches. We went from vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3s to streaming in one lifetime.
We remember maps. We remember memorizing phone numbers. We remember life before GPS and before every human interaction became filtered through a screen.
And because of that, I think Generation Jones developed a very unique perspective. We are adaptable because we had no choice but to adapt. We learned technology as adults instead of being born into it. We remember a slower world but were forced to survive in a rapidly accelerating one.
That creates a very different mindset than either older Boomers or younger Gen X and Millennials.
A lot of us also reject the caricature people now associate with “Boomers.” We were not buying houses for the cost of a sandwich in 1965. The interest rate on my first house was over 14% and that was after buying down a point. Many of us got hit by recessions, outsourcing, pension collapses and economic instability just like younger generations did. We watched promises evaporate in real time.
We understand older generations because we were raised by them. We understand younger generations because we had to evolve alongside them.
That’s why the Jones generation often feels culturally homeless. We are rarely discussed, rarely defined and usually lumped into categories that don’t actually fit us.
But we exist.
We are the human transition point between the industrial age and the digital age.
And frankly, there will probably never be another generation quite like us again.
Not an overstatement at all. Team Trump has attacked and extorted some of the most reliable news media in the world. This is part of his attack on freedom of any kind.
@RobertK32894268@LHubich I did not have kids because I didn’t want kids. That is also a valid reason. And no tax discount or baby bonus would have changed that. Dani’s been reading from the Project 2025 Playbook and that is troubling.
This is your daily pension announcement, the costs edition. The Pension War Room™️notes that costs are up to 92.2 basis points (0.922% of assets). Which is on the high side no doubt. But considering the above-benchmark-1-year performance, not totally out of line. #AbLeg
Any assertion that AIMCO's economy of scale meant it would be a lower cost provider were wrong. So many times over. ATRF provided more cost effective investment management than AIMCO is currently. #ableg
But, please enjoy my mirth as I again point out that the @aimcoinvests "business case" for subsuming ATRF and WCB predicted costs would fall to 49.0 bps. Roughly half of what they are now. Can we all agree (even Tany Yao) that this was a festival of bullshit. #ableg
@globalnews I am ashamed & frustrated to be living in Alberta right now. I will not be buying any American booze in the foreseeable future and will make a point of supporting businesses that don’t stock US booze. There are lots of fabulous Canadian and non-US alcoholic beverage producers.
@TheBreakdownAB What the actual F!!! 🤦🏻♀️ I wish I could say I was surprised. My friends and I will definitely not be buying any and will preferentially frequent any stores that don’t stock US alcohol.
@mrdr780@ABDanielleSmith Oh puh-leeze. No one is perishing. No one is separating. The UCP need to get their heads out of Trump’s butt and start governing Alberta as part of Canada. We are part of Canada. Period.
@RockyHuff3@Lenforoffice No. Either the member didn’t really want to run (in which case why did he), he didn’t expect to win (in a riding where a fence post would win under the CPC banner?!), or he is being pressured to step aside so that his “fearless leader” won’t be embarrassed twice. 🤷🏻♀️
@eric_laurain@TheAtlantic@davidfrum We weren’t supposed to be adversaries. We were supposed to be allies against Russia and North Korea. But I think we are adversaries now. Certainly America cannot be trusted to hold up its end of a commitment. So we will look elsewhere for trading partners. 🤷🏻♀️
@ColinZvaniga @LedgeWatcher They did a great job. 5 great years trying to undo 40 years of PC mess. No one could fix it all in that time. But they made a great start. I absolutely want them to get back at it.
@jengerson Don’t jinx things. It is, unfortunately, not over until the votes are counted & I am not counting any chickens in the meantime. I don’t trust polls farther than I can throw them. We all need to get out and vote!