Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 124 posts

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#51

Post by aaron-lebo »

yahna wrote: post #46
aaron-lebo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived on that, so try again. Why do you believe that's crazy? $500 apt $150 car insurance $100 utilities $ 50 media (Netflix, Spotify, etc) You're taking home about $1800 a month, so that still leaves another $1000 to fill out the rest (food, gasoline, etc). That's plenty of money. You aren't going to be making regular trips to Hawaii, but that's more than enough to do whatever you'd like.

> 500 apt My shitty apartment in a small city (80k) was 615 a month. 100 dollars a month for gas/water/power? You need internet for that media consumption. You need gas for that car. Cell phone? Food?

That's why you have another $1000 a month, as the math suggests.

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#52

Post by tempYeez »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #47
tempYeez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That leaves you 700 bucks a month not including the 15% taxes. Once issue and you'd be living month to month as soon as anything actually happened.

That's with taxes taken out. Pre-taxes it is $2500 a month. Most people are an issue away from month to month.

And you think thats ok. One car breakdown and then you can't get to work.

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

ekanes wrote: post #25
danhak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very fascinating. You argue that millennials favor restrictions on hate speech because they have not experienced anything like Hitler. Yet Germany censors hate speech precisely because of that history.

Hate speech is always a problem. "let's kill all the $value" isn't the type of free speech that most people are trying to preserve.

[deleted]

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#54

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #13

The generation that was in power while incarceration rates skyrocketed (which also means more people without voting rights) and that tends to have quite unforgiving attitude towards failures/mistakes complains that young people are not freedom loving enough.

[deleted]

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#55

Post by NTDF9 »

manbearpigg wrote: post #24

The Founding Fathers of the United States said, everyone will be free to do whatever he pleases. It produced the greatest culture, the greatest technology, and the greatest generation in the history of this planet. Leftists came along and said, I'd rather hold a gun to the head of people who produce wealth and make them give me some. That's why they don't like freedom.

>> The Founding Fathers of the United States said, everyone will be free to do whatever he pleases.

So why am I being forced to study programming by taking on significant debt, just to be able to pay rent?

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#56

Post by aaron-lebo »

tempYeez wrote: post #48
aaron-lebo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had all of that for 30k a year, 20 minutes from a major population center. I wasn't paying back college loans (yet), but you can only do so much on 30k. It's a lot, though...

Well in the US you can't really choose when to pay those loans back. Not to mention for the type of car you'd be able to afford if it breaks down it would easily wipe that 700 dollars out. Go forbid you got sick. An emergency bill would run 3 months income.

Well yeah, at 30k a year you can't afford to retire, you are still working. But 30k isn't hard to achieve. Hopefully if you've spent money on college, you've got a skillset which will make more than that, and then you can pay back those loans, and all the other stuff.

Nobody can help you if you are fiscally irresponsible, it's not an unobtainable path to freedom though.

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#57

Post by generalizethis »

Maybe they're wary of trolls and they reflect digital forums rather than historical upbringings. Don't we all wish life had an ignore button? Anyway, I wish the author had asked them; their answers would probably be more interesting than the author's helicopter parenting.

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#58

Post by DickingAround »

noobermin wrote: post #15
aaron-lebo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much disposable income do you need to be free? Cheap car, cheap rent, every form of media ever for about $50 a month. You can do that easily on 30k. If you can't make 30k a year, you've got a limited skillset, it's not anyone else's fault. What's amazing for US millenials in particular is just how much we've got and how little we appreciate it.

You are extremely ignorant of the cost of living in the US if you think 30K is enough to live on.

BTW, I love this article because it brings data to show this actually exists. This question of 'why' seems particularly difficult. We speculate it might be because of some material/socio-economic deficit this never generation is experiencing. This conversation assumes "is 30k good enough or not" is at the heart of it. For someone living 100 years ago, a live in our age on 30k gives them more nutrition and tools than they could have dreamed of (and let's not act like land/housing is all that expensive; you can live in the boonies for almost nothing). The difference must lie in how 30k is interpreted today. Perhaps it's that people expect not just an absolute level of living but a continuous upward mobility they're not experiencing? Or perhaps all those 30k+ jobs are actually in places where you can't own land for 30k? Or maybe just it's more obvious now that you can get a much better life if you have more money? (e.g. I can see all these things are for sale, I just can't afford them) This topic aside, I wonder why we have such a hard time accepting a life that's a bit simpler...

What about the other side of that initial assumption? Are there causes other than the 30k-thing that might be why people don't seem to care as much about freedom? I suspect the confusion between 'democracy' (which can be pretty imperfect; starting wars and all that) and 'freedom' (which is a very generic concept) might be a part of it. It also might be just the usurpation of the theme of 'freedom' to back conservative opinions (e.g. freedom to discriminate).

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#59

Post by ithilglin909 »

imustbeevil wrote: post #8
ithilglin909 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being sick of bullshit is fine. Having the government regulate bull-shitting is a huge step towards tyranny.

What is one example of the government regulating free speech through law in the last 10 years?

Your question is a red herring. Even if there were no examples in the last ten years (and there are), you only need to have a little awareness what led up to the rise of totalitarian governments in the 20th century to realize this is not good.

Re: Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?

#60

Post by kirillkh »

It seems we are sinking ever deeper into the victimised state of mind where any opinion you express may and will under certain circumstances be used against you, even by people from your closest circle. So the best course of action is usually to avoid exposing your opinions, especially on controversial subjects. Just pretend to be a nice person, smile a lot and never say anything explicit.

Criticism can get you in trouble, avoid it if you can. If forced to choose sides, try to guess which is less likely to raise any kind of negativity towards you. Counterintuitively, usually it will be the more radical side, as radicals are often younger and more energetic in forcing their opinion on others, so the last thing you want is to offend them.

In short, be a spineless, shapeless wuss with an appearance of calm confidence and a lot of scenical sympathy.

Post reply on HN