Maybe I'm just getting too old!

I have to say I'm a little taken back by this thread, not sure if many of you know but I'm only 18. I think it is completely out of line to get angry at "kids" for coming in here and posting and asking questions, i wouldn't be a Professional numismatist if it wasn't for forums like this and indeed google to help me out and answer my questions.

 

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Funny - It wasn't until this post that I realized that several of you guys, including cpm9ball, are much older than I thought!

Cheers!

 

Congratulations on becoming a Professional Numismatist at such an early age! Technology is moving at such a pace that I would be lost without the internet.

I'm not quite sure I understand the point the OP is making, but I would suggest that the average 18 year old might have 4-6 years experience in numismatics...with very little exposure to actual rare coins.

Compared with the OP's much greater experience, an 18 year old may seem "impertinent"

However, if the OP pitted himself (w/a library card) against an 18 year old with well-honed internet skills...on some mutually neutral subject...the 18 year old would eat him alive! (imho)

 

My parents worked, also. They happened to raise 12 productive members of society. They also did what was right when we stepped out of line and because they worked they listened to others in the community when any of us were stepping out of line. You mentioned in the OP that teachers can't look sideways at a kid any more for fear of retribution, be it termination or whatever trash can be dreamed up for punishment. Where do you think that comes from? Maybe some parent didn't like the reality of their kid stepping out of line, somebody putting them back into line and the parent not believing that their kid would ever do anything wrong?

While you are correct that it really is about choices that one makes for themself that makes the difference. The role models, peers and others around a person make a pattern that is easily followed. It is also easy to teach that if you step out of line there are consequences, if you are taught that. If you are taught or learn that you can push the limits to wherever you want to take them, where do you stop. I say that using the "we'll just sue the school" if he gets put to task. I think that you mentioned that.

One last thing that you mentioned that is flat out wrong is your "excuses" arguement. I'm not excusing the younger generation of anything. They make their own choices today that impact their realities of tomorrow. Those choices are made by lessons taught, if the lessons are trash, do you expect the choices to positive? Successful people make good choices or refuse to fail, if you are taught that failure is acceptable, how can you succeed?

This entire arguement is lame at best and has been argued since, I think a Plato quote was used. When was he alive?

The kids of today will be just fine. I see kids of many ages daily. There are some very well behaved and respectful kids, and some not so much. I'm pretty sure that if we look at any generation throughout the history of man, that book is written the same.

One last thing, if a kid gets out of line in my store and I see it, they know about it. If the parent has an issue with it, I have no problem letting them know that it is my store and my rules are followed. To this day only one family has left without doing any business, and I really didn't need their business or them allowing their kid to run roughshod thru my store. I don't really blame the kid either, because I highly doubt he's ever heard the word no, and probably doesn't know what it means.

 

Very well said. One of Ayn Rand's protagonists said something very similar in Atlas Shrugged.

 

Not sure about that. IMO The OP would carefully use MLA citations or the equivalent thereof, while many 18 yr/olds would spit out a bunch of Wikipedia articles loaded with recursive citations.

 

If the subject matter were something both were interested in?

 

Should it matter? Are you suggesting that the next time I have to put together a whitepaper or business document related to work - just because the topic doesn't particularly interest me - I can be lazy, or just fudge it, and have nothing to back the facts I present?

 

I think it should, because the subject matter you presented would interest me in a very serious way.

 

??

 

The subject you presented pertained to making a living. It matters, or would be of interest to just about anybody, except a screw-up.

 

The Attorney General must be one of them then... he admitted to Congress, after having already done the Sunday talk show circuits threatening legal action, that he actually never read the Arizona Immigration law. All he said he knew about it was what he heard in the press and had read on the internet. This, mind you, is coming from a person who has a J.D.

(Not trying to make this political, but I believe it does illustrate my point; The laziness and sloppiness of recent generations, extending all the way to the top.)

 

I will agree that many in my generation are lazy and sloppy there are exceptions, to generalize us all as lazy and useless would be like me saying all old men are mean and grumpy, which of course is not true. TO generalize a generation on a portion of the populations faults is tragic.

 

I'm quite sure that I could find specific examples of exactly this type of apathy throughout history.

It doesn't really matter, because the subject matter was about the "younger generation" not having respect for their elders, and lack of discipline as I read it. This debate is age old and will always come up. Tollerance or intollerance is a choice.

PS, I'm in my mid 40's and believe that respect is earned, not granted because of age.

 

I think it's spot on about "younger generation" having lack of discipline.

 

I think you're wrong. The younger generation is just as motivated as any previous generation. If you can't see that different things motivate them just as highly as different things motivated previous generations, then maybe you closed your mind and not the other way around.

It's just like the guys that post the drivel on here about dealers being crooks, or trying to "rip off" or steal from the "working man". I have bad news for you, but there are a whole lot less "laborers" in the US workforce than there were 20 years ago. It is a reality, it might not be a very good or positive reality, but it is reality.

I'm done with this subject, as it is age-old, and not really productive. It is emotional and sometimes heated, but has not been resolved for centuries and somehow the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west. (that means we will not resolve it, so no need for the ??? smiley)

 

Chris,

You are right...times have surely changed. Some of these changes have been negative as you noted but many more have been positive. Change (whether positive or negative) is typically stressful. A good coping strategy is to maximize the positive and minimize the negative. IMO, collecting (not investing) of any type involves some aspect of nostalgia or longing for an earlier time or perhaps locking in a current or recent time with some memento. There are still many more positives than negatives to coin collecting and its collectors.

TC

 

Russ, you're an exception. On the NGC forums, I've always held kids like you and Chad, God rest his soul, in the highest esteem for your level-headedness and down-to-earth attitude.

I'm not angry at the kids who are here to ask questions and learn. As a matter of fact, I'm not angry at all, but sometimes it is a little disappointing when you try to help some of them and they don't like or appreciate what they are told.

Chris

 

I'm older than dirt. How about you?

Chris