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The Cheapest Generation

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Cheapest Generation

#111

Post by clarkm »

sliverstorm wrote: post #64
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I want the "freedom feeling" of the open road and the wind in my hair, I'll get a moped or motorcycle, and ride it in some backwoods location where joyriding doesn't actually mean getting hit by an irritated commuter.

Oh, it wasn't "freedom of open spaces", it was "freedom of travel". A large part of being a teenager is "discovery". As a young teenager, my range was effectively limited to where I could pedal. The "freedom" was the world I discovered once I gained access to four wheels. The beach, San Francisco, San Jose, the mountains, and even simply staying out late (I hated biking home at night)

It's good to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I really hate having my travel restricted by bus stops and time tables.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#112

Post by im_a_lawyer »

narrator wrote: post #54
angersock wrote: post #7

Here are some scattered observations and opinions as somebody in this generation. I'm basically just dumping gut feelings here--don't expect a lot of well-written explanations. There is not a lot worth buying that is long-lasting. Most everything feels mass-produced and cheap, and the things that aren't are pretty obviously marketed at people trying to buck that trend. I don't want to pay 10x more for something witho…

>Our parents set our city planning up for failure. The primary reason for anti-walkability is to keep "riff-raff" out of the nice suburbs. The white flight from the cities in the 60s and 70s was a huge event in American urban planning and those whites who wound up in the suburbs don't want any of that inner-city stuff they got away from downtown from mucking up their suburb. It's horrible but it's the truth. It's one…

This and schools. There are no non-racist solutions to this.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#113

Post by im_a_lawyer »

graeme wrote: post #21

Back of the envelope calculations put the cost of car ownership around $7,000 per year. I'd have to earn an extra $10,000 before tax to cover that. That pays for a lot of "overpriced Apple products" that we millenials are constantly blamed for overspending on. And my electronics are a business expense. I can't see the use case for a car. I live in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood of montreal. Everything I need is…

>> I can't see the use case for a car. I live in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood of montreal. Everything I need is literally a five minute walk away in any direction. A bike gets me downtown about as fast as a car does in summer, the metro can often cross town faster, and taxis are a minute's call away. You can pay for a lot of taxis with the money saved not buying a car.

Congrats you're in the top 0.01% of US/Canada.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#114

Post by aparticulate »

angersock wrote: post #7

Here are some scattered observations and opinions as somebody in this generation. I'm basically just dumping gut feelings here--don't expect a lot of well-written explanations. There is not a lot worth buying that is long-lasting. Most everything feels mass-produced and cheap, and the things that aren't are pretty obviously marketed at people trying to buck that trend. I don't want to pay 10x more for something witho…

>We don't believe in advertising.

Count the number of highly-ranked stories on Hacker News that want you to buy and/or finance their products.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#116

Post by malandrew »

jnbiche wrote: post #74
jseliger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like a lot of what you say, especially about cars and urban development ( http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/why-would-you-want-... ), but I will note a couple other things: Police... always always always make things worse They don't always make things worse, as I discovered when a random guy pounded on my door in the middle of the night and threatened to kill me: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/guy-…

Sorry, I'm going to disagree here. My generation worked our asses off getting Obama elected, and was really the driving force behind his election (to my shame). Yet, as soon as he's in office, all his promises to us, all his soothing words, all his assurances of change, were out the window. Other than some lame alternative to single-payer health insurance, and (only after major prodding) some gay rights advances, he'…

Exactly. Once you're in office your audience changes. Instead of hearing directly from voters, you're hearing directly from very important people.

Think of all the people you meet when you are president and you interact daily. You meet with hardly any of them before becoming president. That dramatic change in people you talk with daily completely changes your worldview in a way that is incompatible with the American people.

I don't know about you, but I think the President and other elected official should be legally obligated to spend more time with real people at the bottom of the ladder. The president should spend 1% of his time hearing from the 1% and 99% of his time hearing from the 99%. Instead it's currently the opposite.

I'd love to see some investigative journalism done with respect to the demographic makeup of the people a future presidential hopeful spends his day and the demographic make up of the people with whom the president spends his day.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#117

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jnbiche wrote: post #90
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations. You've worked up a pretty good set of bullet points for why our generation is full of firey nonstop rock-shattering MOTHER-GODDAMN-FUCKING RAGE when it comes to most every institution we lay eyes on. EDIT: This comment is very low-content; please stop upvoting it out of plain agreement.

Do you understand now why I didn't vote in the last election? It wasn't apathy; it was rage and contempt for the institution. Voting idealistically has gotten us less than zero as a generation.

Dude, I voted for the Socialist and Green Parties last election. The two-party system is not an excuse for throwing away what tiny democratic voice we have.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#118

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mkr-hn wrote: post #94
jnbiche wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm going to disagree here. My generation worked our asses off getting Obama elected, and was really the driving force behind his election (to my shame). Yet, as soon as he's in office, all his promises to us, all his soothing words, all his assurances of change, were out the window. Other than some lame alternative to single-payer health insurance, and (only after major prodding) some gay rights advances, he'…

> Sorry, I'm going to disagree here. My generation worked our asses off getting Obama elected, and was really the driving force behind his election (to my shame). Yet, as soon as he's in office, all his promises to us, all his soothing words, all his assurances of change, were out the window. Other than some lame alternative to single-payer health insurance, and (only after major prodding) some gay rights advances, h…

While he did run as a centrist technocrat, Senator Obama had indeed made some nicer mouth-noises about civil liberties.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#119

Post by eli_gottlieb »

tvjunky wrote: post #98
xemoka wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your whole rant comes off as entitled. You haven't really said anything of value. Just hackneyed sentiments that you can see any day on reddit or on Facebook. You seem to be suffering from the same curse here. Every counter-point you make is no less evident of your own privilege. You've taken many of his points and flat out denied or stated it's his fault—solely from your own perspective. You seemingly like to blame…

I think this rebuttal adds some perspective, asks some additional questions and certainly doesn't cast blame. I think it makes a clear point in the end. That point, your feelings/thoughts are not new or special and is more hyperbole than thoughtful comment. It's a tough world out there snowflake. If you see victimization in not wanting to own a car or house, then you have some big surprises coming.

>It's a tough world out there snowflake.

Well, no, it's not. Sorry, but we're not hunter-gatherers anymore. The last time I had to kill a lion with my own hands and weapons to prevent it eating one of my family's flock of sheep like my Biblical-age ancestors was... well, never.

In terms of sheer material productivity and ease, we are all snowflakes now. The problem is that our culture somehow refuses to acknowledge that and thus constructs elaborate systems designed mostly to compel us into non-stop status competitions every day. Lacking struggle against nature, we've been made to struggle against each-other because it's somehow traumatic, horrifying, and wrong to actually do away with struggle altogether.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#120

Post by thaumasiotes »

jnbiche wrote: post #74
jseliger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like a lot of what you say, especially about cars and urban development ( http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/why-would-you-want-... ), but I will note a couple other things: Police... always always always make things worse They don't always make things worse, as I discovered when a random guy pounded on my door in the middle of the night and threatened to kill me: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/guy-…

Sorry, I'm going to disagree here. My generation worked our asses off getting Obama elected, and was really the driving force behind his election (to my shame). Yet, as soon as he's in office, all his promises to us, all his soothing words, all his assurances of change, were out the window. Other than some lame alternative to single-payer health insurance, and (only after major prodding) some gay rights advances, he'…

> He sure had me and a lot of my very smart friends fooled.

When I first heard that Obama's campaign slogan was "hope and change", I assumed it was a joke. I'm still vaguely ashamed that that happened in a modern country.

I would never, ever vote for someone whose campaign message is "you're too stupid for my platform to have any planks in it". (Full disclosure: as a resident of california, that stance on voting didn't really have the potential to cost me anything. I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same anywhere.)

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