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Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

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Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#231

Post by djakjxnanjak »

caconym_ wrote: post #130
internet_user wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also a millennial. The work ethic problem seems to actually exist (from my limited but numerous experiences, including my own), however I am convinced that it is due to learned helplessness. Just imagine hearing your entire life that the world is just about to end any minute now, the icebergs are melting, everything is polluted, everything is so very bad, financial depression, no jobs for you, etc etc. Seems lik…

The phrase "work ethic" pisses me off because it codes this idea that I should be a hard worker , which of course (because we live in the world we live in) refers to me busting my ass for somebody else's benefit. Anyone who wants to criticize my work ethic can go and fuck themselves. I work incredibly hard, but at my job ^[1] I do as little work as I can get away with (while retaining the standing I need to be comfor…

I think a more reasonable attitude is that it’s usually possible to improve your material wealth with effort, and people can decide to make the trade-off if they think it’s worth it. This is not a value judgement.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#232

Post by xyzzyz »

epiphanitus wrote: post #220
xyzzyz wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The productivity and wage decoupling is very hot debate topic in the economic circles. It's not very easy to sum it up, as there are many factors going in. For example, productivity is calculated based on real GDP, which uses GDP deflator, while deflator for real wages that is typically used is CPI. Just the fact that you're using two different deflators already makes a meaningful comparison harder. Looking at minimu…

Hey where can I read more about this? You got me curious...

Scott Alexander has a good entry level write-up[1]. He is not an economists, he tries to understand the debate as a lay-person, so it doesn't cover it all, but should give you some taste of the complexity involved. For an actual economist, see e.g. Scott Sumner[2].

[1] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-m...

[2] - https://www.econlib.org/the-wage-decoupling-mess/

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#233

Post by Draiken »

atemerev wrote: post #176
Draiken wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this canned response all the time. But it's a gross oversimplification of the issue designed to keep the ignorant happy. The cheap things from china, all your amazon crap, your iPhones and all the rest of the so called "nice things" of today's society are only gained through (near) slavery conditions elsewhere. This delayed effect on how bad things are that is now reaching rich countries like the US, but it has…

Yes, this is Marxism. Marxism was tried quite a few times already, particularly in the USSR. I was born in the USSR and lived there until it collapsed, so I am pretty familiar with what Marxist socialism used to look like. Thank you, I prefer capitalism, which brings prosperity, innovation and peace to the world.

It's so easy to label things erroneously.

No, this is not Marxism. I can't even claim to have ever read his books. It's the reality of what I see today. Note that I'm not saying in any way how we should solve these things. I'm neither smart enough to think of those solutions or naive to think they'll ever come to life. But it's undeniable that we live in a dire world and capitalism is one of the biggest forces behind it all.

Peace? Seriously? Of all the things you could cite from capitalism, you mention the one thing that never stopped happening. Perhaps war stopped nearby your home, but capitalism never brought peace to the world. On the contrary, it created many, many wars. As it's often said: war is profitable.

Innovation is a tricky one. I agree a lot has been brought because of the pursuit for profit, but I believe they are happy coincidences. Many of the worlds greatest brains are today trying to find out how to exploit people through ads.

Perhaps your personal experience makes capitalism the lesser evil compared to the soviet USSR, but I'd urge you to not fall into this false dicothomy. It's not a binary choice.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#234

Post by refurb »

wcoenen wrote: post #147
jakeogh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In elementary (late 80's) were constantly propagandized that the whales were going to be extinct, the ozone layer was going to be gone, and killer bees were going to get us all. Not a peep of optimism that we could solve problems. It was presented as inevitable. There are strong forces that need people to be in a constant state of worry. Power is derived from it.

The panic about the ozone layer was the correct response. It lead to the Montreal protocol which banned CFCs. Quote from a NASA page[1] about what would have happened without that CFC ban: > By 2040, the ozone hole is global. The UV index in mid-latitude cities reaches 15 around noon on a clear summer day (10 is considered extreme today). [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38685/the-ozone-lay...

China laughs at your Montreal protocol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/climate/china-ozone-cfcs....

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#235

Post by malka »

challenger22 wrote: post #63
syn0byte wrote: post #15

A single mother working as a waitress at Denny's in the 1980's had more spending power than a college educated cubicle drone in 2019; Let's talk about how is social media's fault! Twice in the last 20 years - more than any other time in US history combined - The Presidential election went to the candidate that LOST the popular vote; These generations just lack a proper understanding of civics! The beatings will conti…

If you let sensationalized news stories dominate your worldview, you will give in to apathy. If your strongest moral convictions are about events you cannot influence, redirect those convictions to something that is inside your locus of control. What I urge people is: be conscientious in your day-to-day tasks. If you can see your efforts contributing to people's happiness, the apathy will disappear. Society is built…

what if i want it to collapse because i find it disgusting ?

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#236

Post by jjoonathan »

oldjokes wrote: post #194
ranie93 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP, and they may be overstating statistics (happy to be shown otherwise). At the same time, wage stagnation is no myth: "From 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent. This breakdown of pay growth has been especially evident in the last decade, affecting both college- and non-college-educated workers as we…

The really weird thing about wage stagnation is that there are millions of jobs going unfilled, companies are so desperate for people that they can't find anyone and are just dumping cash into stock buybacks instead of raising wages. Something is fundamentally broken in the labor market, it is not responding to supply & demand forces as it has in the past. I am not sure what terminology to use to describe what's goin…

They don't need people. They always complain about needing people because it's always in their interest to do so, but the fact that they don't just raise wages strongly suggests that they don't know how to profitably employ additional people and that "we need people" is just a bunch of hot air.

This dilemma, and many like it, vanish entirely if you stop paying attention to what people say and start paying attention to what they do.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#237

Post by Domenic_S »

CM30 wrote: post #138
makerofspoons wrote: post #30

"Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry." This is surprising. As a Gen Z-er this highlights the kind of bubble I find myself in- my friend group is almost universally in a state of despair about the collapsing biosphere. Climate change and mass exti…

Not that surprising. People tend to focus on their own personal/economic issuea rather than larger problems in the world as a whole. If you're struggling to pay rent, find a good job, keep up with others, get political representation etc, then stuff like global warming won't really register by comparison. On the other hand, I suspect those with decent living conditions are probably more panicked about stuff like clim…

Another possibility: it's more comforting to funnel the anxiety you feel about your immediate lifestyle into something so huge no one person can change it.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#238

Post by mrguyorama »

challenger22 wrote: post #154
justaguyhere wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter point, why should he/she bring another human in this world, fully knowing that the quality of life is going down? And, there are already 7B+ people in this planet, why add more?

A less-good-than-it-would-have-been-30-years-ago life can still be a good life, easily. Would you rather be born in the year 2050 or never exist at all?

Can't help but feel like if I wasn't alive I really wouldn't care either way, since you know, I don't exist

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#239

Post by rdiddly »

austincheney wrote: post #34
WhompingWindows wrote: post #9

Social media's ills, rising wealth and income inequality, rising sea levels, mass extinction event, crumbling roads, shit wages, corruption in government and industry, governments overwhelmingly filled with representatives of other generations with different priorities...there is a huge list of reasons to be pessimistic and they are constantly thrown in our faces online.

It’s really hard to take that seriously. If social media is causing you heartburn then back away from it or delete your accounts. I deleted my Facebook account nearly a decade ago and deleted my Reddit account last year. Nobody is forcing you to be a drug addict slave of online media. Some of your list looks like entitled anxiety desperately in search of sympathy. For example you mention rising sea levels. Do you own…

I agree with the general sentiment of getting off social media, but I really doubt that wages (adjusted mind you) are at record high levels.

As for the rising sea level, thus far not mentioned in this whole branch of the comment tree is the fact that it's going to cost us all money. There have been billions of dollars deployed/invested in port infrastructure. It wouldn't even have to end up being submerged, to become unusable by some number/type of ships. That in turn either requires modifying/rebuilding/relocating (costs money), or reducing/rerouting/cutting off flows of goods (raises prices, costs money).

Not that that's a reason to get particularly depressed; the alienation is mostly what's doing that. But the economic precarity doesn't help matters.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#240

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

sjg007 wrote: post #110
SamuelAdams wrote: post #39

> Less than three in ten Millennials expect to stay at their current job for the next five years. Well yeah. I can stick around my current company for 5 years and get a 2-4% increase each year, or job hop every 2-3 years and get a 20% raise each time. With a market like this, why wouldn't you job hop? Loyalty to a company only inhibits you.

Lots of reasons: risk in the new job, different benefits, different job tasks and promotion opportunities.

Job hopping makes you more resilient. You see more organizational styles and become more effective at navigating in a variety of environments.
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