Contemplating old age, genetic selections

What will our children think of today’s pop culture?

The thought occurred to me today as my mother mentioned to me an old movie that made a joke about a commercial common at that time. I thought it sounded dumb since it created what’s essentially an outdated pop-culture reference.

I was horrified to think that one day, my own children might hear me mention Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride, River Tam of Firefly, Oppen Gangnam Style, xkcd, internet memes, or people wearing horse head masks during a hurricane. Most likely, they will entirely miss the humor that our culture has attached to these pop icons.

I’m sure they’ll think it’s dumb, probably because it is.

But will they find it quaint like a New England school primer? Or will they consider it old and cool like jukeboxes and gears and H.G. Wells?

Perhaps they will just ignore it and pretend it never happened like Woodstock and those stupid hats?

My guess is it’ll be a fairly even split.

I know lots of kids that prefer old cars, music and styles of dress. Personally, I have a tendency to prefer the new. Maybe not in clothing styles, but I enjoy new cars and new music, for sure.

This, of course, leads into other topics.

Will our generation’s old folks’ homes have Bingo, because we were raised being taught that old people play Bingo? Or maybe our nursing homes will be fully equipped with stereos blasting techno and widescreen TVs with video games for all the old people to play?

Will young people still think of old people as old and drab and boring?

How insane and energetic would they have to be to think that?

Most of all, though, I wonder about the world my generation will create when we’re in charge.

The majority of teens I’ve talked to are either very strongly opinionated in political matters or simply seem to not care. On one side, their views line up closer to the Libertarian and Socialist parties than the Democratic or Republican.

Even so, a lot of them seem to lack any sort of sense of morals.

When I was in biology class a few days ago, we were discussing meiosis. Several kids asked if we could select which of the four cells developed or which DNA switched during crossing over in order to cause the child to be smart and athletic and resistant to disease.

The idea bothers me because I think there’s an awful lot we don’t know about ourselves, and so selecting what we think we want might not be good.

For example, mental disorders. I have several family members with children that have mental disabilities such as autism, dyslexia, and Downs Syndrome. They have had mentioned to them that they could have terminated the pregnancy because the children are a bit difficult sometimes.

I also know several high school kids and adults that have the same sort of mental disorders. Yet, from my interaction with them, I am convinced that they are not mentally incapacitated at all. They simply think differently from a lot of us, and that’s often not a bad thing.

We simply need to learn how to effectively communicate with and teach them or, better yet, learn from them.

This is obviously not the general consensus since the term mental disorders is widely used.

Essentially, I am dying to see what on earth the technoboomer teens will do with the world. Once we realize it’s ours to change, that is.