The only way my views have changed over time is that, more and more, I'm convinced that nothing I do affects much of anything beyond my own neighborhood. I have no illusions about significant national change, but I can keep my own block clean and take good care of people here.

my sister told me public transportation is how the government is going to limit mobility and "15 minute cities" are bad.

i asked, have you ever used public transport? she said no. I asked if she could afford a car, she also answered no.

"but public transport is a means to limit people from traveling so they can trap us"

i almost hit her.

When right-wing people see the statistics that educated people are more likely to be left-wing, they apply the obvious incorrect logic that 'education is indoctrinating our children'.

The simple fact of the matter is, that in high school, college, and university, I was exposed to people. I played sports with people from every culture, shared classrooms and completed group projects with them. I was taught by people with different cultural backgrounds and I can promise, not a single word of it had anything to do with politics.

Meanwhile, the uneducated are born in their small town, they go to work in their small town, they are surrounded by the same people they went to high school with (presumably from their own cultural background) and ultimately, they listen to mass-media telling them that X people are bad.

And if you explain this to them, they'll still say that you're brainwashed.

The older I become the more progressive I become. I remember when I was a conservative little shit and am glad I ended up growing a brain.

The really just thought the brainwashing would eventually take. They didn't know it also requires years of lead ingestion

Boomers at least had a reason to go through this development because they were still able to accumulate some wealth. With a good job in the 80s-90s it was possible to invest into assets that have by now exploded in value. That does make some people more inclined to hold on to the status quo.

Anyone after Gen x on the other hand has little reason to hold on to a system that keeps screwing them over.

Interesting podcast on this subject: https://srslywrong.com/podcast/ep-346-does-parenting-make-you-more-conservative/

The conclusion they come to is that becoming more conservative with age generally only applies to low information apolitical people who are sort of vaguely left leaning when they're young. As they age they become more entrenched in the system, acquire more wealth, etc, and those vaguely conservative ideas they had in the back of their minds become more pronounced. There's also the overton window shifts that may mean someone who thought of themselves as vaguely liberal in the past may now consider themselves socially conservative in the current climate.

In fact, if you look at the evidence, the reality is the complete opposite: generations are becoming more progressive because they're getting better educated and they understand the world better.

As an oldster who becomes more progressive (and shorter) every year I have to disagree.

Every conservative accusation is a confession.

Former fascist/conservative here, the whole "you will grow out of progressive politics" is both a Reagan-era lifestyle marketing gimmick, and a passive ultimatum saying "you either cease your progressiveness or you won't live to an old age".

Reminds me of that quote „one who isn‘t leftwing in youth is heartless, one who isn’t rightwing when an adult is thoughtless“ (say only old men that smell their own farts)

Morals and compassion are unAmerican tbh.