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    A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
    Unavailable
    A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
    Unavailable
    A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
    Audiobook14 hours

    A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

    Written by Bruce Cannon Gibney

    Narrated by Wayne Pyle

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Informative, provocative, and entertaining."--Booklist What happens when a society is run by people who are anti-social? Welcome to Baby Boomer America.

    In A Generation of Sociopaths, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows how America was hijacked by the Boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity. A former partner in a leading venture capital firm, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations.

    Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off.

    Gibney, whose 2011 essay "What Happened to the Future?" transfixed the investment world, argues that younger generations have a fleeting window to hold the Boomers accountable and begin restoring America. Distilling deep research into a witty, colorful indictment of the Boomers and an urgent defense of the once-unquestioned value of society, A Generation of Sociopaths is poised to become one of the most controversial books of the year. "Sure to be controversial."---Fortune Magazine
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMar 7, 2017
    ISBN9781478941385
    Unavailable
    A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

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    Reviews for A Generation of Sociopaths

    3.5/5

    29 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      In A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, Bruce Cannon Gibney presents an economic history from the postwar years to the present that explores the social developments that linked a generation and how, more than any right or left divide, the generational bonds shared by Boomers characterize their political policies. He writes, "The central theme of this book is that America's present dilemma resulted substantially and directly from choices made by the Baby Boomers. Their collective, pathological self-interest derailed a long train of progress, while exacerbating and ignoring existential threats like climate change. The Boomers' sociopathic need for instant gratification pushed them to equally sociopathic policies, causing them to fritter away an enormous inheritance, and when that was exhausted, to mortgage the future" (pg. xxvi). Gibney uses the DSM-V for his definitions before drawing upon a close reading of economic policies over the past forty years that undid much of the work of the Greatest and Silent Generations to save for the future and invest in prosperity in favor of immediate gains. These careful examinations can get a little bogged down in the details and statistics at times, but they help to illustrate the larger points. Rather than simply castigate the Boomers, Gibney does offer a way forward. He concludes, "The goals of this cultural reorientation are straightforward. The first is to provide a foundation for unity against the Boomer agenda, and to do it quickly... The second is to remember that the anti-anti-social agenda is, at heart, a prosocial agenda, one that strengthens the ideals of a commonwealth" (pg. 356). It is not yet too late to undo Boomer malfeasance, but the deadline is fast approaching.
    • 4/5
      As a history book regarding how we got to the mess our country and economy are in now, this is a pretty good book. As far as blaming an entire generation that is where this book has a problem.The problem is, the author thinks that by citing examples of everything he has made a point of in the book is enough to convince the reader, that what he says is true. But his points often waver in far to many places or he glosses over areas and topics that don’t support his narrative, which makes it highly difficult to take the premise of the book seriously.It’s hard to blame an entire generation when that generation does not think uniformly nor vote uniformly. In addition many of the chapters don’t hold up to critical analysis.For example the chapter on education, while doing an excellent job, pointing out what a train wreck it is in this country and the many reasons why, there are no solutions but it contains a misguided belief that somehow government can fix it.He also has some sinkhole sized holes regarding his chosen field and the kinds of companies he has invested in to get as rich as he has, PayPal- his Stanford college roommate invented it, Facebook (a ground floor investor), and Lyft to name a few. A number of books have pointed out the damage Wall Street has done to this country.He also makes the asinine claim on page 297 of the paperback version (while talking about monopolies), that Facebook isn’t a monopoly, and doesn’t perpetrate evil.He, I believe,truly thinks government is capable of fixing most things if they do it correctly, he makes the claim that Obviously climate change is real but that baby boomers are deniers of science, and doesn’t see any conflict in interest between having an organization who believes something to be true (even though every prediction they have made regarding man made climate change has been wrong) paying for said research.He also believes that we need to tax people far more than we do ( I love when rich people preach about how taxes need to be higher, just not theirs).Lastly they was a very large omission- in my opinion regarding very little was said about Barack Obama, the a consummate baby boomer, who was the president for the 8 years prior to the book being written.In the end the author try’s too hard to blame way too many policies, decisions, laws, etc, on a single generation who doesn’t vote, believe, or care about the same things the same way.
    • 2/5
      What a load of whining. If you think boomers were bad just wait till the millennials take over. In reality there bad people in every generation. The only thing the author is effectively arguing against is democracy itself - giving power to the people is of course dangerous because they will be self serving. But so are corporate states (which I'm sure the author would prefer) and dictatorships.
    • 5/5
      Shocking, amazing and yet entirely plausible and believable premise and book. If remotely true, the Baby Boomer generation will go down in history as the generation that destroyed America -- and didn't give a shit doing it.
    • 1/5
      I read the first 58 pages of the book but did not have the interest, curiosity or concentration to read the entire 356 pages. There is a lot of data, charts and analytics within the book that the author uses to make his case that Boomers are "Selfish, imprudent, remorseless, and relentless. Me first and damn the consequences…

      There have been tremendous changes in our politics, economics, culture, technology etc. Some good, some bad. Can you blame an entire generation for the bad things? I think that one can blame individuals who had the exposure, power and means to create and affect changes which did not turn out to be good events, circumstances •or results. In many ways, I think that the boomer generation was swept by changes as opposed to affecting the changes that occurred.

      I guess the author lost me when he was talking about Vietnam. He pointed out various incidents of fragging, lack of discipline (My Lai) and lack of will by boomers during the war. The Vietnam War wasn't started by boomers – – boomers may have, through their protests and political efforts, brought the war to an earlier conclusion.

      If the author had focused on specific individuals within the boomer generation who were or are responsible for the economic mess that we are in today, I would have been more convinced about the thesis of this book.
    • 5/5
      An eye opening shot at the Baby Boomers and their lack of leaving the next generation in position to prosper as they did. A damning verdict of the generation in many areas such as climate change, social security/Medicare, financial responsibility, the deficit, and other cases where Baby Boomers say we don't care about these things yet someone else deal with it.