• A Generation of Sociopaths

  • How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
  • By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
  • Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
  • Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (735 ratings)

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A Generation of Sociopaths

By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
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Publisher's summary

What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 Bruce Cannon Gibney (P)2017 Hachette Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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Honest introspection required

If you're a Boomer, this is truly enlightening as to just how self-serving and destructive our generation has been. I'm ashamed of us. I think most of us will be in denial.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Single minded but convincing arguments within

The content in this book is well presented and mostly well researched (Outside of a few notable political aspects the the author seems purposefully ignorant on due to his own viewpoint.), but my primary complaint is summarized to: Inconsistently Engaging.

The very beginning of this book, the history and creation of the Mother of All Evil: The boomer, is very entertaining and sets up the thesis very well. That thesis being that we have an entire generation of Americans who trend significantly towards sociopathy. The author outlines his data points that demonstrate sociopathy, and pairs that with theories about upbringing that may have aligned these people in such a way.

The middle sections, which are dedicated to highlighting the political and institutional power that this generation has wielded (for a demonstrable "out of the ordinary" length of time) explains why their seemingly bizarre logic and decision making actually does make some sense through the lens of selfishness, short-term thinking, lack of empathy, and other sociopathic traits.

For every well explained example of sociopathy, the author, unfortunately, stumbles elsewhere and fails to convince. Alternatively, he fails to keep attention consistently... especially in the last third of the book. I can't tell if it's the reading (which I generally enjoy, but is somewhat monotone) or the inability to go back and re-read to fully digest what was said, but I found myself zoning out and missing the information for 2-10 mins at a time. There will be hints of intriguing and convincing information presented, but then it's followed by a set of boring reiterations, continuing to "prove" a point that already seems proven, or taking a short aside to postulate on current politics from the author's point of view.

The most egregious of these instances pop up when the book hand-waves away some kind of political theory, or a specific person's platform, with little respect or regard. Your mileage will vary on how offensive it is to you, since I fully support doing this for someone like Trump, but I have also removed 1 star from my overall score because of a particular paragraph where the author goes out of his way to misrepresent and misunderstand Bernie Sander's platform. It seemed like he was just waiting to tell us his true feelings on the politician and couldn't help but slip his "deathblow" (a single interview that the author has erroneously taken as the entirety of Sander's plan and platform) into the book that is supposedly about a set of Americans that actually came AFTER Sander's own. The whole thing comes off as Bruce Cannon Gibney buying into the character assassination that the Neoliberal DNC pushed so strongly during the primaries, yet Bruce claims that Neolib Boomers are just about as bad as their right wing counterparts. This particular section stood out to me as a very strange aside in a book that, sometimes to the detriment of proving it's own point, was otherwise extremely single minded in it's focus.

Overall, the data in here is interesting and he's helped me reinforce my existing observation that that older ruling class is NOT operating at a normal level of empathy or humanity. But the book itself, as something that should be worth your time, somewhat fails. I'd almost rather listen to the first 3-5 hours, then read the cliff notes and data points for the rest of the book rather than sit through the remaining 10 or so hours. Near the end, I found myself just playing the book while I was working or doing something else, just to get it over with so I can move on to something else. As such, I cannot fully recommend the time investment here, although I do endorse most of the persuasive arguments.

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Roger

Silicon Valley libertarian garbage.
I was sometimes amused but also horrified with his baby boomer analysis . His answer to fix their "sociopathic" destruction of America is gross. Cut the welfare state but not the enormous military budget? Tax the middle class and poor but not the rich and corporations? I guess just handout bootstraps?

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You can't diagnose an entire GENERATION!

Would you try another book from Bruce Cannon Gibney and/or Wayne Pyle?

No, THIS is the first book I refused to waste my time finishing.

Has A Generation of Sociopaths turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes

Would you be willing to try another one of Wayne Pyle’s performances?

The narrator was fine.

Any additional comments?

This book made me very sad. To "diagnose" an entire generation is too broad a brush. Does he understand the definition of a sociopath?Based on his description of himself, he clearly has never had to sacrifice a thing in life.I am a retired nurse who married a young physician in the 1970's.After working nights to put myself through nursing school, my husband and I put off starting our careers to work with the poor in the rural South. My husband's brother had already been killed in Viet Nam when we volunteered to work with the poor. Our patients didn't have to worry about the ACA because we provided healthcare for free.My husband died suddenly in the 1980's, leaving me to raise our children alone. I saved enough money to put both of my children through college and grad school, by working more than one job. I have 6 siblings as did my husband. We all struggled to pay for college. Neither of our parents had time for Dr. Spock. I didn't want my children to struggle to pay for college as I had done.During the Great Recession in 2008, I lost over half of my retirement savings. I didn't do it! THE BANKS MISMANAGED OUR RETIREMENT FUNDS! Friends lost their homes because they had second mortgages to pay for THEIR CHILDREN to attend college- not because they wanted another bathroom. We have watched OUR HEALTHCARE get too expensive to maintain. As far as baby boomers causing obesity, we aren't the people too fat to fly.I'm sorry Bernie Sanders wasn't the Democratic nominee. We all are going to suffer because Hillary and Trump are both "sociopaths" who put their needs ahead of what would be best for this country.Paul Ryan dragged Ayn Rand's philosophy out of the dust bin of history - he's not a boomer.We didn't invent divorce. We didn't invent sexual promiscuity. Rowe vs. Wade was the law of the land long before boomers were old enough to have any influence. The author watched too many "Leave it to Beaver" reruns and mistook them for reality TV. Reality TV was a "GEN X" invention. It truly makes me very sad to think my generation is going to be blamed for ALL THE BAD in the world.It's time for the author to grow up and see if his generation can do any better!Did the author do any research or is this just his opinion? I agree the government has all but shut down. They need to turn off the lights and go home until they are ready to work for the American people. Congress is made up of many generations and they have all failed miserably. Health care is a mess and the economy will crash again. We are out here trying to fix what we can at the local level but starting a "generation gap" is not going to help anyone!I would recommend readers to not waste time or money on this book.

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A Scary Indictment of My Parents Generation

I've long said the Boomers have bankrupted the United States with their shenanigans in the 80s and their obsession with Voodoo Economics, but this book takes it even farther. When discussing this book with my Mother, she immediately got defensive. As a younger boomer from an impoverished area, I'm inclined to be a little softer on her, but the generation as a whole are pretty much to blame for our current situation. I once saw a statement about my own generation, Gen X, we're paying for our parents and our kids can't afford to move out. That seems to be the future of this country as our parents retire footing us with the bill for their malfeasance and our kids will not be financially able to pick up the significant slack.

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Just a long rant

I’m a millennial and while I do agree generally with the idea this book pushes forward, this feels more of a rant than an effective argument for its main thesis. The first two chapters seem to just be rambling of the same points over and over with just different phrasing. After a while it gets annoying to listen to here the author state that boomers are sociopaths multiple times over and over but not get anywhere beyond that. I only finished the first two chapters but I couldn’t bear to go on for another 14 hours, no matter how interested I was in the topic when I spent an hour listening to the same message over and over. It may be this format changes but the beginning was bad enough to make me just give up with this

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    5 out of 5 stars

Thought provoking and balanced

A great look at what has lead to the current state of America. Uses factual information to expose many lesser known evils of Boomer policies, no matter the political affiliation. It also forces younger generations to acknowledge the unbalanced benefits we enjoy and how woefully unsustainable they actual are.

Personally, this book has inspired in me a sense of duty I never had before to work to prevent my own backsliding, and clarifies the sacrifice I must accept if I want to see America moving in a less detrimental direction.

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A must read for every American that cares....

This book lays out facts and ties them all together of how the worst generation in American history leveraged the future of the country at the expense of future generations. An important book to better understand the circumstances we find ourselves in today because of personal greed.

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Guilty dog barks loudest

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The narrator read the book with enthusiasm. That aspect encouraged me to sit and listen to a disappointing diatribe that was comparable to witnessing a teenager having a temper tantrum and blaming his parents for everything that he perceives is wrong. It would have been more engaging for the author to tone down the name-calling calling long enough to propose reasonable, or even innovative solutions to the issues that are challenged in this tome.

What could Bruce Cannon Gibney have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

This book made extremely good points, from a financial analytical perspective. The author tried so hard to 'assign blame' and diagnose an entire generation for everything he disdains that he came across as mentally unstable and emotionally immature. And that is a shame because this approach may turn off many readers, and not reach potential supporters of his proposed remedies.

Any additional comments?

I would not recommend this book to anyone that has a low tolerance for name-calling and narcissistic narrative.

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Hatchet Job<br />

On Social Security.
Elaborate and funny but biased and sociopathic itself. it provides a very comprehensive list of the ills that have been inflicted on the population, finding a very convenient scapegoat.

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