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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

#311

Post by asdff »

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 hate the work ethic mantra. It implies millennial just cluelessly stumbled into their jobs if they have them, or screwed up their life if they didn't.

Mr. Boomer didn't need 3 summer internships and a 3.80 gpa to get their job.

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

#312

Post by xemdetia »

jdhn wrote: post #203
eropple wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hitch in this whole thing is that down payments have gotten ridiculous, it's gotten harder to save in desirable areas because rents and many expenses have grown out of pace with income for normal folks. Even as the percentage necessary for down payments has dropped, house prices have gone into orbit so much that it hasn't kept parity. My girlfriend and I had to buy a house for $520k, at 5% down, just for the priv…

Where do you live, the Bay area? At what point do you say that enough is enough, and you move to a location that even though you'll earn less, the COL adjustment will more than make up for it?

I'll mention since I am in the same boat in a sense. The cost of a house even 40-70 miles out from Boston on effective commute routes is still hovering in 350k to 500k. A house without a likely 100k in repairs is 450k It feels like for the Boston area they are just toeing the FHA limit or blowing completely past it instead of some other pricing dynamic. I haven't checked the Bay Area's FHA limits but since the max is 750k for 2019 and I keep reading about million plus properties I think they are just in a different category of appreciated values.

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

#313

Post by redwards510 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #225
icegreentea2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a millennial, at least one thing that is different is that we all grew up in that brief period when the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable. It seemed like the adults generally knew what they were doing, and could be counted on the to the right thing. I'd also argue (with no real basis of course) that the type of dread that cli…

> the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable Here are some things I remember from that time off the top of my head: We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer Acid rain was going to destroy lakes, trees, rivers, eventually killing us all HIV was not well understood and very very scary Waco/…

Don't forget killer bees!

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

#314

Post by eropple »

opportune wrote: post #306
eropple wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hitch in this whole thing is that down payments have gotten ridiculous, it's gotten harder to save in desirable areas because rents and many expenses have grown out of pace with income for normal folks. Even as the percentage necessary for down payments has dropped, house prices have gone into orbit so much that it hasn't kept parity. My girlfriend and I had to buy a house for $520k, at 5% down, just for the priv…

Do you mean you spent $520k for a 5% down payment? Why should anybody feel sorry for someone who is buying a $10m house? Even for bay area standards that's on the very high end and not at all representative of any meaningful fraction of people in the US

$520K sale price, 5% down. Edited for clarity. Thanks.

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

#315

Post by asdff »

atemerev wrote: post #23
izzydata wrote: post #7

I'm surprised that half of people would believe businesses are making a positive impact on the world.

Unless you live in North Korea (and perhaps even there), everything that your life depends on is brought by businesses.

And my life is dependent on exponential consumption and destruction, and I have no agency to stop that. Pretty glad I can order pizza with my watch though! Cavemen would be green with envy at that.

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

#316

Post by oldjokes »

opportune wrote: post #297
jjoonathan wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Yes, if you need people, raise prices until you can afford the people that are available. The actual industries that do need people (like tech) have done that.

Right, in theory that's what we've always been told about how it works, but that is not what is actually happening. There has been almost zero correlation between unemployment and wage pressure for 20+ years now. In all industries, yes even tech.

It's just not working. Unless you're a director or exec, then your wages are skyrocketing. Everyone else is flat or declining.

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

#317

Post by hiram112 »

jdoliner wrote: post #116
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…

There have been 4 or 5 (one is a bit ambiguous) elections where the winner lost the popular vote. [0] So no, this isn't more than any other time in US history combined. But more importantly, who cares? They lost the popular vote in an election in which the popular vote didn't count for anything. If the popular vote had counted for something in these elections, you would have gotten a different result. The candidates…

> the team that won the superbowl had a lower free throw shooting percentage

This is why I love HN. My kind of people!

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

#318

Post by Analemma_ »

refurb wrote: post #71
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…

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.

> 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 key difference is that, with the possible exception of MAD and the Cold War, during all of those crises people were in near-universal agreement that there was a crisis, and were actively working to fix it. Climate change is a unique problem in that a depressingly large percentage of the population believes it is a myth, that there is nothing wrong and no need to do anything.

That's where the despair is coming from. If everyone understood the seriousness of the problem and was determined to fix it, I have no doubt we could do it. We've solved bigger problems in the past. But right now we're not even trying. Even the progress that has been made has mostly been an accidental byproduct of market forces like renewables getting cheaper; the actual amount of deliberate effort to fix climate change is close to zero and seems likely to remain that way.

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

#319

Post by nixpulvis »

Domenic_S wrote: post #225
icegreentea2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a millennial, at least one thing that is different is that we all grew up in that brief period when the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable. It seemed like the adults generally knew what they were doing, and could be counted on the to the right thing. I'd also argue (with no real basis of course) that the type of dread that cli…

> the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable Here are some things I remember from that time off the top of my head: We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer Acid rain was going to destroy lakes, trees, rivers, eventually killing us all HIV was not well understood and very very scary Waco/…

It's honestly not that there are issues, as you have mentioned, there have always been. In fact we're a lot better off on almost all fronts than hundreds of years ago.

It's that we aren't making any progress, and generally are moving the wrong way.

There will never be a lack of issues to tackle. It's "how" we tackle them that defines our era. And as far as I've seen, we do a lot more arguing and debating about what we're talking about than we do fixing problems in the real world, myself included.

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

#320

Post by asdff »

CM30 wrote: post #181
izzydata wrote: post #7

I'm surprised that half of people would believe businesses are making a positive impact on the world.

If you look at society now compared to society a few hundred years ago, or perhaps society in an authoritarian/communist country, then it's pretty clear that the effects of a capitalist society (at least in a democractic system) have been on the positive side. After all, we've got better products and services available now than ever before, better tech than ever before and a decent number of ways to go from dirt poor…

If the bar is that I'm no longer a peasant, that's a pretty low fucking bar.
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