Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by justaguyhere » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

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…

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?

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

#122

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

shanusmagnus wrote: post #58

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…

This "losing the popular vote" narrative would be a lot more compelling (at least to me) if the elections were less close. It looks bad to win the Presidency and lose the popular vote, but I don't think it actually matters. In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate. The problems lie elsewhere. (The fact that I can say "either candidate" is part of it.) [Edit: I should have said…

> In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate.

Neither of the major candidates ever has support from anything close to half of the 300-something-million population; of the total 324.5 million population, the 2016 election was like 20.03% to 19.26%.

Even of the eligible-to-vote population, the vote for the two major party candidates was about 26.84% to 25.68%.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

rawrmaan wrote: post #64

Consultant32452 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constantly hitting records for economic highs. Lowest unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics in the history of recorded unemployment rates. Rising wages. Just took a huge step in eradicating HIV in the US by securing free treatment for 200k poor people every year. Between the technological advances in solar/wind/batter, renewed interest in nuclear, and shrinking CO2 it seems climate change is well on its way to b…

> shrinking CO2 [citation needed] Global CO2 emissions are nowhere near peaking, let alone shrinking.

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by rootoor » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

john_moscow wrote: post #49

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…

Are you sure? Does the climate change affect your personal life more than inability to afford reasonable real estate or kid-related expenses off most today's salaries?

For me personally, it does. However, I am not a typical member of gen z due to my high salary. Most of my friends, who all make much less than me, are more worried about immediate needs but climate change is a dark cloud looming over their heads

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

#125

Post by challenger22 » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #57

internet_user wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If a cubicle drone is making twice as much money in adjusted terms but has to pay three or four times as much for housing, they could well be coming out behind in the equation.

They could, but most people are coming out ahead now. That is more relevant.

Turns out that when some consumption categories outpace inflation, the people that consume the most of those categories pay more!

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

#126

Post by jbattle » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

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.

So we should be approaching climate change with the attention and resources that we threw at the great depression, ww2, and the cold war - right?

But we aren't, not even close

I agree there have always/frequently been dire challenges facing us, but that is no logical foundation for arguing "it worked out ok before, it'll work out OK this time"

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

#127

Post by shados » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #43

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…

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…

Isn't it partly expected though? I never looked at the stats for single income vs dual income families over time, but my instinct tells me that single income was much more common in the 80s, and dual income is much more common today than it was back then. So even if single income had drastically gone up, they'd be "competing" with dual income families on a global level.

And sure enough, when you look at house prices in an area, they very much seem priced for dual incomes.

All anecdotal and unverified guesses, mind you. But even a highly paid software engineer in SF will have no hope of competing with a DINK family of equally paid software engineers, for example. And there's more and more of those. I assume the market's following.

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

#128

Post by crooked-v » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

el_benhameen wrote: post #106

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying if heroin is causing you pain then just back away from it. Rising sea levels will kill and or displace millions of people. That's heartbreaking for those who care .

And it's terrifying (or should be) to even those who are only self interested. Displacement of millions means mass migration and destabilization of larger parts of the world. The climate change and warming that cause it mean crop failures, novel diseases, and weather changes that will have the potential of affecting everyone.

For a simple example, it's likely that literally the entire population of the Republic of the Marshall Islands will have to relocate in the next few decades: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/risin...

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

#129

Post by CodeCube » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

B-Con wrote: post #89

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…

> 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! An untrue claim[0] that's been copy-pasted for a while. It has happened twice recently and three times before that, stop making it sound like it's unprecedented. None happened in the 1900s, so it's ver…

Sure, that point of OP's post was pedantically incorrect ... but I think the overarching point they were trying to make is that the republicans haven't had a candidate elected by the popular vote since 1989 when GHWB was elected. Since then, both elections in which a republican president won the office, was while losing the popular vote ... that's THIRTY YEARS since the last true win.

Looked at from that perspective, yeah that feels pretty depressing that it keeps happening.

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

#130

Post by caconym_ » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

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…

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 comfortable) because they pay me as little as they can get away with. I don't see the problem.

^[1] Coveted tech job. It is a "great job" and in practical terms I feel lucky to have it. None of that changes the calculus of the business relationship that is employment.