You're being foolish.

When I was young I had to go to libraries and read books that were published many years earlier, not up to date.

The dissemination of information is held in the hands of fewer now than before, of course. Media is obviously more monopolized now.

A person can Google something in a few seconds and get information of all kinds.

What does this mean: "a lot of folks here, where DU does trend older; there are things that simply aren't going to be known for a lot of reasons." No. The older a person is, the more they know because they were around when those things were happening.

"Instead of being an ass about it" Ignorance is bliss! Right?

That's not what was said at all. It's an opportunity to educate and inform instead of being "pissed" and "shocked" about it.

The way America was in how things were brought about to the national consciousness doesn't exist anymore.

Back before TV really expanded, your typical crappy sitcom would get 20+ million viewers a week. Now they're barely hitting 3-5 million because there's so many choices and ways to get things.

The same with news. The same with education and the avenues that we get it.

There will never be another Beatles or Michael Jackson that dominates the charts to those kinds of sales numbers because the avenues aren't as limited anymore. Some things may feel like they're omnipresent, but they're not dominating like before.

There are a lot if iconic images from the past that will resonate with a generation but mean little or nothing to the next and even less so than to those that come after.

9/11 imagery already means little to the generation about to graduate high school. It's not iconic with them, just like a lot of pictures from the civil rights era. They get it and what it means but it won't have the same kind of meaning to those that lived through it.

clickbait, disinformation, and propaganda that has been designed to make you angry and disaffected. Not the same thing in anyway.

I do not get your hostility. Maybe I missed something.

of us do. How is that wrong? To be tolerant? All this talk about incivility, and it is alive and well on du. Very sorry to see this here, but not surprised anymore.

I'm 69 and from the days of 3 major networks, and fantastic daily newspapers. We WERE more ideologically homogenous back in the early 60's, even if we disagreed to some degree.

The Vietnam war and Civil Rights began to widen the split, not just among the public but even among reporters and journalists, and we've never been the same (except for a hot minute after 911). When we saw the Bushies were playing us to start a war and steal oil, that was over. And now we have systemic, institutional racism trying to make a comeback, just like tuberculosis. It's depressing.

I'm in my mid-40's and have the context of what my parents lived through (born in 39 and 43 respectively) and I've got the upcoming context of my kids at 15 and 18 with how they're learning things. I luck out being in a very liberal state with high value in education. But with the three generations living in one house (I moved back to take care of my aging parents) you get some interesting discussions about things.

It's very true about the homogeneous aspect, which is what I was trying to convey, in how we as a nation learned things. You could watch primetime news on all three networks and would largely get the same stories without a lot of difference in context or tone. You might get a few different stories toward the end, or differences in length of coverage, but in a national sense most people got the same news.

I grew up and came of age in the late 80's and early 90's at the start of the internet era (I actually used to run BBS' in the early 80's on 300 baud modems!) and got exposed to different things from there. The fragmentation really got underway then with cable and the internet explosion since beginning in the late 90's altered everything in a different way.

So seeing three different generations in the same house with how they get info and the kinds just has me leaning more toward wanting to talk/educate instead of lament and get angry about. My mother still gets visibly shaken when she sees the images from Kent State. It has no meaning to me. When she talked about it at the table recently my kids followed it up by talking about how they live in fear of gun shootings at school every day since several times each class year, beyond the drills and such, they learn of someone being talked about in their grade/school as being alerted on for things they've said or done that cause much concern as a possible shooter.

Different times, different things.

I will wait patiently.

Here is a true Browning quote: “Measure your mind’s height by the shade it casts.” Lol.

Another, and my favorite: “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”

I am a huge Browning fan...no idea where you found this supposed “quote” of his.

You are pretty funny.