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Mike Musker

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The new generation: should we take control?

The previous generations have helpfully created economic and environmental crises which they won't end up having to fix, we will. I'm fed up of the excuses they make up and the attempts to force the world to return to how it was when they were younger because it's never going to be that way and they'll only create more trouble. I think they've had their chance and they've not delivered.

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Topics: education next generation
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    Maaher Sayeed 10+

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    Dec 11 2012: New Generation Take control? Yes, most certainly! Based on what expereince and education though?

    It is inevitable the new generation will eventually take control. But just ideas are not enough. It has to come with a lot of learning, responsibility and something called "work". Not by critisism without knowing the facts and history or by voicing opinions. You could not have raised this question on this forum if the previous "new generation" hadnt developed this media. Right?
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      Lori de Wet

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      Dec 12 2012: Well said Maaher, you sum up my thoughts exactly!

    • Mike Musker

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      Dec 12 2012: This is my point, "experience" essentially means learning how to govern or work in the way that whoever did it before governed or worked. I would assert that this isn't necessary, I'm in the fortunate position of knowing many intelligent young people who have ideas 'outside the box' as it were, the idea I expressed for this conversation being one of them.

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        Maaher Sayeed 10+

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        Dec 12 2012: Mike..without prejudice...New Generation do have new ideas for sure. So does everyone. But ideas and out of the box thinking is not sufficient enough to build viable and practical solutions. You need the "wisdom" that comes out of "expereince" . And unfortunately your definition of "expereince" is wrong. Below are a few from Dictionary.com.


        1. a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something
        2.the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something: business experience.
        3. the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time
        4. knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone: a man of experience.
        5. Philosophy . the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.

        Your idea expressed for this conversation is about taking control and blaming the previous generations. You make a callous statement about previous generations creating the economic crisis and not having to fix it. It could be argued that the previous generation created "economics" but the new generation created the crisis by buying things that they cannot afford on credit and not learning economics.
        By holding a mobile world of knowledge in your palms in the form of a browser doesnt make you smarter or more intelligent than the previous generation who built it and put in yoru palms in the first place while they pay the bills for it.

        Just to give you a graphical definition: Experience is like laying an egg. Your idea is like shoving it back where it came from. Go Figure!

        • Mike Musker

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          Dec 12 2012: My assertion is that the previous methods have failed and, to continue the use of your analogy, I'm suggesting that you shouldn't shove the egg back where it came from, but rather evolve and become a mammal. I may not have been explicit with my standpoint. By outside the box I meant a paradigmatic shift from traditional politics/economics (communism, socialism, capitalism ect.) which will probably only be realised by those who's viewpoints haven't been narrowed by 'experience' by the definition which I have asserted for the purposes of this argument for lack of a better word.

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