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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

#371

Post by Zarath »

internet_user wrote: post #60
danielecook wrote: post #53

Started chatting with a guy at the airport about work / careers. Within 5 minutes he started ripping on millennials and their work ethic. I am a millennial! Sucks to be saddled with debt after college, have lower paying jobs, and still be shit on by the older generations. And I have things relatively good.

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…

Who wants to slave away at a desk all day under fluorescent lights breathing stale air while you try to optimize some metrics that will probably get people addicted to some app or website or fool them for paying more for a product they don't really need, all the while the world outside is burning, the company you work for and the government is probably spying on whatever you're doing, people are morons, and it is unlikely to get any better.

This isn't "learned helplessness", people can find jobs, they just don't want jobs that make them want to off themselves. Maybe I'm projecting here, but every NEET I know thinks this way. People need work that firmly embeds them in the present, whether that be interacting with others (NOT in some formulaic way like taking orders at a Chipotle or working in customer service), working outside, working with their hands, etc.

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

#372

Post by gizmo686 »

ac29 wrote: post #144
gizmo686 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except our per capita productivity has gone up, and we are not facing any fundamental shortages.

They're not making any more land in high-demand areas.

High-demand areas aren't (generally) high demand because of intrinsic qualities. They are in demand because of the people and social structures that are already there. It is not inherently the case that there is a fixed amount of high-demand areas, that is just how we are set up politically at this point in time.

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

#373

Post by eutropia »

ddebernardy wrote: post #69
rubicon33 wrote: post #38

My wife and I are not having kids. If you could sum it up into one short explanation as to why: My wife and I don't believe that the future is going to be a better place. Chief among the reasons are wealth inequality and buying power. If I can barely afford to buy a house now with a great job, I shudder to think what my kids would be faced with.

I don't think the future is going to be a better place either, but I don't buy for an instant that it's a good reason for you to not have kids, or the actual reason you don't have any. Firstly, life is pointless and meaningless without children, or as a fallback without taking care of others. And secondly, why should you, who are aware of this, be the ones ending up not reproducing, essentially mimicking the storylin…

Movie plots are not reality and don't make for compelling arguments.

As someone who plans to adopt kids rather than adding another human to an overcrowded planet, people who act like life is meaningless without reproducing strike me incredibly narrow-minded.

A third point as well -- humans are not manifest destiny. There is no imperative for our continued existence in this universe, so we have no obligation to reproduce -- any reason to reproduce you can think of is imagined by a brain evolved from millennia of creatures that decided to reproduce: selection bias.

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

#374

Post by noobermin »

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…

>[...]companies are so desperate for people that they can't find anyone and are just dumping cash into stock buybacks instead of raising wages.

Said companies are so spoiled by high profits that they dare dip into them to pay employees more.

Also, this isn't for your run of the mill small-business or start-up, these are companies that afford to pay employees much more and simply don't.

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

#376

Post by austincheney »

bmcooley wrote: post #206
austincheney wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 find it sad that things like rising sea levels and mass extinction do not worry you. Should someone only care about things that affect their own personal life? Rising sea levels are going to affect a large amount of people negatively, and mass extinction means we are losing a lot of biodiversity that we needn't be. Your viewpoint seems to lack empathy for other people and other species.

Before you question a person’s empathy, honestly, what are you doing about those subjects yourself specifically? A key difference between empathy and sympathy, in all common definitions, is objectivity. Sitting around feeling sad on social media is sympathetic, not empathetic.

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

#377

Post by filoleg »

Domenic_S wrote: post #267
algaeontoast wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was giving location as context for my perspective / statement...

I was (too subtly) making the point that perhaps it's the location and not kids-as-trophies per se. Possibly your experience in the 3rd richest zip code in the nation isn't generalizable to the rest of the world?

>Possibly your experience in the 3rd richest zip code in the nation isn't generalizable to the rest of the world?

Your experience anywhere in the US isn't generalizable to the rest of the world. Just like your experience in China or South Africa isn't generalizable to the rest of the world. Which is why the parent comment pointed out his location to give some context.

Making a post like that without mentioning the location is absurd and makes things more confusing for everyone.

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

#378

Post by austincheney »

rdiddly wrote: post #239
austincheney wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I completely agree, but my decisions on the subject would vary in proximity to the immediate distress of the subject and would in no way feature social media.

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

#379

Post by rnotaro »

hiram112 wrote: post #350
ddebernardy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the future is going to be a better place either, but I don't buy for an instant that it's a good reason for you to not have kids, or the actual reason you don't have any. Firstly, life is pointless and meaningless without children, or as a fallback without taking care of others. And secondly, why should you, who are aware of this, be the ones ending up not reproducing, essentially mimicking the storylin…

> life is pointless and meaningless without children This view won't be well received on a forum with a lot of millennials and Gen-z, but as a millennial myself (late 30s, though) without kids, I would actually agree with you to an extent. I've already lived and travelled the world. I've volunteered a bit. I've worked and saved money and can afford what I want. And none of these things really do matter the older I ge…

I am 22 and I have the same opinion as yours.

I didn't travel around the world yet but I've already saved some money and can live comfortably alone.

Having a kid seems like an economical suicide for me at the moment. However - I'm scared about what my life will look like when I'll be old and vulnerable. A family help your social life and may allow you to feel safer when you'll start to have some illness.

My Utopian life goal would be to find a long term partner in my 30s and have a sudden death before I start to get mentally ill.

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

#380

Post by filoleg »

madengr wrote: post #355
opportune wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure most well-paying jobs will pay for your airline tickets and hotels to interview. Not sure why you would take a job in a very high COL city that doesn't cover that type of thing, sounds like you're walking right into poverty

Ditto. It’s been 23 years since I looked for a job, but all 5 interviews out of EE grad school flew me out and paid for hotel, car, etc. Have times changed? This was standard practice back then.

Not at all. If anything, a lot of tech companies have only upped the stakes since then. Every single one of my friends who just graduated college and was actively interviewing recently had not only flights/hotels/transportation taken care of, but also got some nice perks like first class tickets or airline lounge access at the airport. Most also reimburse for food and any other expenses while you are in the city, up to a certain limit per day, which is usually very generous (the most common one I heard was $75/day for food).

I don't know of a single dev in real life who had to fly out for an interview and had to pay for flights/hotel out of their own pocket.

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