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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

#271

Post by asdff »

deckar01 wrote: post #160
CryptoBanker wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are able to look past their own noses and think about other generations and what their descendents' lives might look like. That weighs heavily on some people

It shouldn't weigh so heavily that people give up on their future, never settle down, and never own a home. The article says these generations' primary aspiration was to travel. That is naive and wasteful. It isn't a choice between greed and saving the planet, it is a choice between making responsible financial decisions and having fun. You can make responsible financial decisions while making responsible environment…

I'm sure saving up 2k to go to Spain one summer is really going to put a dent on a home. 5% down on the median home in my area is 30k now.

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

#272

Post by eropple »

tathougies wrote: post #256
eropple wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Boston area. I can't foresee ever leaving because of cost-of-living expenses. I'm not an import; I've lived in New England my entire life and the Greater Boston area--let's define it as "the Red and Orange Lines, and I guess the Green Line if I was desperate"--is effectively the only place I can be short of blowing off my family and my support network of friends and colleagues. The area is congruent wit…

> congruent with my politics--I mean that not just in the "who you vote for" sense of the word, but in the "how a society should operate" sense of it You believe that a society should operate such that a lot of people can't afford to live there?

Somerville is already one of the most densely-populated places in the United States (16th most densely populated city in the nation as per the 2010 census--6th most that isn't part of the NYC metro area) and I'm enthusiastically in favor of that increasing with additional building. Keeping in mind that new construction necessarily overwhelmingly favors high-end construction I'm also in favor of increased proportions of affordable housing, as well as rent control ordinances to help keep people in their homes. And I say that as a soon-to-be rental property manager and owner, too; these are things that would be skin off my nose in the near future.

So that's a pretty weak strawman--and, tbh, I've seen your posts before, I thought about ignoring you because I get a troll whiff out of them. But I will also push on the real question behind it, because there is the germ of something useful there. I believe that a society should openly welcome people who are not members of the majority, should emphasize that its public administration be mindful that it operates for its constituents, and where, when citizens need help, they can get help. The place where I live is not perfect, but there is a drive to adhere to such principles.

It is not impossible to find that elsewhere. It is unlikely to be found elsewhere that also doesn't involve disconnecting from my personal social networks and also doesn't require a car to commute.

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

#273

Post by jraby3 »

ranie93 wrote: post #70
xyzzyz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Do you have any source to support this? Because real median personal[1] income went up almost 50% since then[2]. [1] — don't confuse it with real median household income, which didn't grow nearly as much, because of a significant rise in single-person households which pushes the median…

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…

That’s widely quoted but turns out to be incorrect.

https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1125468274995675138

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

#274

Post by kaesar14 »

selectodude wrote: post #224
travisjungroth wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The box office thing is a game, and the game isn’t fun when Gone With The Wind will never be defeated.

The new Avengers movie is already #5 (inflation adjusted) and it's only been out for a little over three weeks.

Three weeks pretty much mean the lions share of the box office take is in already.

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

#275

Post by rdiddly »

ravenstine wrote: post #178
salawat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an economic anti-pattern. Good for building up social capital and references, but a losing economic move as organizations have neither obligation nor incentive to pay you for what you're actually doing, just for what they've hired you for. Speaking strictly from experience. Doing five different people's jobs, for the paycheck of one has gotten me a fair number of friends, and the companies I've worked at tons…

Personal time is valuable, and going "above and beyond" will more often result in lost time, no extra pay, and as you say, neuroses . What a lot of people fail to understand is that established companies have no incentive to recognize people or reward efficiency . Once a company reaches a relatively low profitability threshold, efficiency is put on the backburner because effecting the existing patterns can cause a me…

It's not necessarily about doing extra. It's about doing what you want to do, and in particular doing what you want your next job to be about. And it's not outdated; it still works; see my reply to the grandparent comment.

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

#276

Post by badpun »

village-idiot wrote: post #222
refurb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change and mass extinction are the chief reasons I am pessimistic about my life. Can you name another time in recent history where the end of the world wasn't near? WW1, Great Depression, WW2, Mutually Assured Destruction, Swine flu, AIDS, Cuban missile crisis, etc, etc. The correct answer is it's always been this way and what we're going through right now isn't really all that new.

I doubt many in America thought either world war was the end of the world. But the difference is that all of those required affirmative action to cause a global catastrophe, someone had to reach out and press a metaphorical button. With global warming the status quo will get us all killed.

Global warming is not lethal in itself. The biggest threat in it is destabilisation of societies and resulting wars - but for a war to start, somebody has to press that metaphorical button. It is not inevitable.

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

#277

Post by asdff »

fancyfish wrote: post #136
temp99990 wrote: post #37

I’ve been fortunate to have landed in a financial position where I’m not scraping by as a millennial but having worked for several years in SF tech one thing that I have felt increasing unease with is the feeling that the companies I’ve worked for might not actually be a net positive for the world. My problem is more existential than economic, which is very much a first world problem but a problem for me nonetheless.

Your feelings sound not unlike colleagues working in hedge funds who say it's hard to maintain motivation when your purpose at work is to optimize a percentage risk/return at the end of the quarter. Quarter after quarter. Year after year. I think this correlates with the idea we expect to derive most of our "purpose" directly from our work [1]. Which certainly doesn't bode well when you are told to go to college for…

I don't think that's too much to ask that you derive some pleasure from your work. It does take effort, and 8hr is 50% of your waking hours a given day, and if you work for a hedge chances are you are working till at least 6 and weekends during busy season if you are <5 years out of school. That really is a huge chunk of your life and if you think its bullshit, it can really way you down.

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

#278

Post by rdiddly »

salawat wrote: post #74
rdiddly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say just look for a job as a "programmer" then, but once you're hired, take every opportunity to a) learn and b) show off, skills in the other areas. Nobody really sticks strictly to their job description, do they? Maybe, but my idea is to be always stretching beyond it so they're eventually forced to update it, heh heh. Eventually you're "so good they can't ignore you" like Steve Martin said via Cal Newport.…

This is an economic anti-pattern. Good for building up social capital and references, but a losing economic move as organizations have neither obligation nor incentive to pay you for what you're actually doing, just for what they've hired you for. Speaking strictly from experience. Doing five different people's jobs, for the paycheck of one has gotten me a fair number of friends, and the companies I've worked at tons…

If it's anecdata we're looking for here, I'm about to be hired "whenever I'm ready" (i.e. whenever I get sick of being on vacation... probably another couple weeks) and get a $20K-$30K raise (still under negotiation), because of skills I accumulated at my last job that had nothing to do with my job description. And the contact I made who pushed for them to hire me (to in fact create a job posting based almost verbatim on my resume, so that they could hire me) is someone whom I went out of my way to help and impress at the last job.

The goal isn't necessarily to get a raise or promotion within the same company. And it doesn't even necessarily require you to work more than 40 hours. The idea is to do the things you want to do, which is for you and makes you "better"; and to prove yourself awesome at learning and doing, which makes you the object of somebody's desire, somewhere. It doesn't matter if they're within the same company (promotion scenario, which you are correct is less likely) or elsewhere.

Demanding that the world adjusts to suit me hasn't worked out as well, so it would be bad faith for me to promulgate that advice.

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

#279

Post by eli_gottlieb »

internet_user wrote: post #48
crooked-v wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some simple examples, inflation-adjusted home prices have gone up by a factor of 6 and inflation-adjusted education prices have gone up by a factor of 3 over the past few generations [1], while inflation-adjusted average wages have only gone up by $2/hour [2]. That single mom would have had a dramatically easier time providing housing and education for kids even with lower purchasing power for most consumer goods…

that just means a single mother today working the same job would be able to afford fewer things than 20 years ago. where is the comparison with cubicle drones?

>that just means a single mother today working the same job would be able to afford fewer things than 20 years ago.

That's a pretty bad indictment of our economic structures!

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

#280

Post by Fomite »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42
Kye wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "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" There aren't a lot of data points--less than 100--for this, so it might not be statistically significant. Both those presidents are awful , but that could be an anomaly once seen in the context of a more significant sample.

Trump hasn't gotten us into any trillion dollar boondoggles in the middle east (knock on wood) so I think the history books in 100yr are going to consider W "bad" and Trump "mediocre". I'd still rather have W in the white house though. Uncouth comments and geopolitical stupidity get forgotten in the long term. Iraq, the GWOT and the accompanying erosion of our freedoms will be what's in the history books. Obama will…

That will entirely depend on the knock-on effects of Trump. Wars are flashy, undermining the norms that keep the government running less so.
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