The Lost Generation

By Justin Langley
Contributing Writer

Last fall the world population passed 7 billion people and the United Nations Population Fund released its Global Population Report warning about the perils of a new Lost Generation or as some have called it, the Un Generation; “Un” being short for unable to contribute meaningfully to society, unable to obtain an education, unable to find employment, etc. According to the UNFPA Global Population Report, of those 7 billion people, “1.8 billion are aged between 10 and 24, and 90% of those [youth] live in the developing world.” Those numbers present an enormous opportunity and an enormous risk… it’s on the backs of those youth that the global recession is and will be resting. A full 10% of the world’s population is comprised of youth in India under the age of 25! It’s these numbers that turn the concern about the Un Generation from a human rights issue to a global economic crisis and it becomes no wonder that movements around the world from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street are largely youth based movements. Personally, I think it’s a bit hasty to be calling the generation that grew up during the “War on Terror” a down and out generation. They are a powerful force, proficient with technologies that were only dreamed of decades earlier; they are networked and adept with tools for information and discourse and organization that are the pinnacle of human accomplishment. To believe they are weak and powerless is a terrible miscalculation; however, being mostly from developing societies does mean that to a large extent they aren’t accustomed to the societal freedoms that we enjoy so much, but that needn’t remain the case. This is a generation of people with technological marvels at hand, nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

The China Situation
The Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements have done a commendable job of bringing to light the exploding amounts of debt that our country is placing on its youth. According to the last unemployment statistics that I saw of those under 30, nearly 1 in 5 can’t find a job. In previous articles I have argued (echoing decades of old arguments) that oil is actually the de facto standard for the dollar. I’ve also argued that if we changed the base of our economy to an energy supply that was more plentiful, that debt would be less of a drain overall. There’s been lots of political talk about infrastructure projects as a solution to create jobs and stimulate the economy. How about issuing developing countries debt specifically for them to buy infrastructure building services and technologies from us? Money is created, debt burdens eased, and countries develop economically and sustainably. Self-liquidating debt has always been the key to solid economic growth in America and throughout the world. What I’m proposing would be very similar to the debt we create with China except that they get a flourishing economy by taking on our debt and supplying us with all of the consumables of our throwaway society. If the U.S. doesn’t begin investing in new infrastructure technologies in developing countries, you can bet that China will. China’s economy is expected to out-pace the U.S. in just 4 years, according to International Monetary Fund reports. It seems the United States’ situation echoes that of the Un Generation: technological marvels at hand, nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Hail Beer!
I recently watched the Discovery documentary “How Beer Saved the World” and was pleasantly surprised to find the number of ways that beer has shaped society throughout the ages. Beer residue found in ancient clay vessels that predate bread making by about 3000 years suggests that beer was responsible for humankind’s shift from hunter-gatherers to the agrarian lifestyle that brought us art, science, philosophy, politics and religion; in short, modern society. The shift produced writing, the domestication of plants and animals that feed the world today, as well as the need for mathematics and accounting. Evidence suggests that beer was the major food source and money system of ancient Egypt during the construction of the pyramids. Mummified remains have been found to contain the antibacterial agent tetracycline, which was only discovered by modern medicine in 1948, and is believed to have been present in the Ancient Egyptian’s “liquid diet.” The documentary also credits beer for the invention of pasteurization, refrigeration, industrial automation, and even the American Revolution (taverns, pubs, bars and the like being the information hub of previous generations.) Many of the early presidents were brewers and Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Despite all of this, from 1920 to 1933 the “Noble Experiment” attempted the cravenly flawed model of prohibition. After thousands of years of social development made possible largely by beer, we still banned it in the not-so-distant past; will that kind of short-sightedness ever pass? The documentary goes on to discuss people brewing beer made from 45 million year old fossilized yeast and even beer for the rapidly growing private space industry.

The Red Planet
Necessity has always been the mother of invention; people have crossed previously unimaginable barriers from exploring the seas and covering the planet, to landing on the moon. At some point in the future, if we want a continually growing population, we will need resources not available here on Earth alone. We already have robots exploring Mars and various countries with plans to send more soon to further analyze the chemical composition of the soil and atmosphere. We also know that many of the requirements for life are available on Mars and there are serious debates taking place about how to raise the temperature by several degrees in order to melt its CO2 icecaps and create an atmosphere more similar to conditions on Earth. George Mallory, when asked, “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” on making the first three expeditions to Everest replied, “Because it’s there.” Just as the pyramids, and Everest, and the Moon have been monuments of humanities’ perseverance and triumph, The Red Planet waits as an unconquered testament to the human spirit and history is lined with individuals willing to take up that call.

Questions and comments: justin.langley@blueskiescomputing