From the NY Times, “The Fat Drug.” “How humankind unwittingly joined an experiment on antibiotics and weight gain.” / and / “In the meantime, we are faced with the legacy of these drugs — the possibility that they have affected our size and shape, and made us different people.”

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The Fat Drug.

The Fat Drug.

Dear #Millennials, please remember antiobiotics (these good-ideas-gone-horribly-wrong) when you’re in mid-life (about 43-65 years old). You probably don’t know this but it’s your generational archetype (Heroes) that ushered in Vaccines For All (wheee!!!) and  promises of “antiobiotics are good”  to the masses the last time your archetype was in midlife. That would be, for your reference,  the GI generation, born 1901-1924. And in some ways, they weren’t wrong.

But see, the thing for your generation to understand about itself is your Achilles’ heel: your hubris. Your generation is upbeat, trusting of institutions, increasingly powerful as it ages, and focused on a few grand solutions rather than scattered countless gambles (that’s the GenX role) or moralistic, values-driven contemplation (Boomers’ role).

But, in your collaboration and agreement, in your assumption that because you all find X or Y or Z the Thing To Do, what you forget to do is assess, to look at repercussions, to look at the effect and the effect of the effect. That’s what your junior generation (the Homelanders) will do for you in their young adulthood to your mid-life years. Heed them. And more so, remember in your feelings of glory and power, that the things that seem so grand today will — like clockwork — become the profound problems that create the crisis situation for society and the next round of Millennial-like kids and young adults 80 years hence.

You’ll do great work; that is certain. Just remember to listen when your elder cautious GenXers and your younger sensitive Homelanders say, “um, maybe this could be tweaked just a bit.” And heed. For truly, your generation’s weak point is your hubris, a problem which becomes increasingly pronounced — not too surprisingly — the more older and powerful you become.