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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

#401

Post by dang »

psychometry wrote: post #150
jdoliner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This might be the dumbest, most unnecessarily pedantic comment I've ever read on HN.

Please follow the site guidelines no matter how dumb or pedantic some other comment is, or you feel it is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#402

Post by flukus »

aeternus wrote: post #112
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.

Do you feel your buying power is less than that of your parents? Other than real-estate in a popular city, has your buying power really gone down? Also would you rather live in a society where: A) GDP (or general productivity and availability of goods) increases by 3%. However this society has wealth inequality B) GDP stays approximately flat or increases by only 0.1% / year but the society has perfect wealth equalit…

> Do you feel your buying power is less than that of your parents? Other than real-estate in a popular city, has your buying power really gone down?

What we're discovering is that this buying power isn't so important, affordable real-estate gives you stability and permanence that a 65" LCD TV and this years iPhone model just can't make up for.

To answer you're question, I'd say B whole be better in future, we're hitting limits on our ability to consume.

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

#403

Post by acd »

Stop using social media, go out join in real life local community groups.

A side effect of automation and internet is increased individualism and more isolation from other people.

In the past you would go for example to a video store and watch movies with friends now you use streaming services like Netflix.

More common in previous generations you would call your friends now you text people which is less interaction.

Social media leads to a comparison effect. Ie you compare yourself to others more. Facebook is like sunshine village trying to portray perfect life moments except real life has many everyday dull moments.

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

#404

Post by pimmen »

save_ferris wrote: post #105
dmschulman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that you can't afford to buy a house or that you can't afford to buy a house in the Bay Area?

Real estate prices are getting out of control in many of the US cities with healthy job markets, it's not just the Bay Area. Home prices in my old neighborhood in Louisville, KY have skyrocketed in the last several years as "shotgun" style homes have become trendy in the area. Last time I visited, I saw a one such home on the market for about $350K, which would've gone for roughly a 3rd of that about 15 years ago. Th…

It's skyrocketing across the world. Sweden for example has seen levels of growth in real estate prices that rivals Hong Kong, the Bay Area or London.

There are many, many, many reasons why but I wouldn't expect the prices of homes across the world to drop when basically all interest rates have been at rock bottom for a decade. People with capital to leverage really have it made.

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

#405

Post by drjesusphd »

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/…

> Acid rain was going to destroy lakes, trees, rivers, eventually killing us all

At that time, we had a functioning government that (relatively) promptly intervened to implement a cap and trade policy on sulfur emissions.

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

#406

Post by drjesusphd »

refurb wrote: post #368
hiram112 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer I'd probably be ridiculed by most of the younger crowd here for my views on global warming, I mean climate change, but as someone who distinctly remembers the nonstop warnings of the Ozone Layer - we're all gonna die - I just don't put much energy into worrying about the latest issues related to the environment. Part of me knows…

This is a very insightful comment! When all you've heard for the past 40 years is the end of the world is around the corner, and that doesn't turn out to be true, you start to tune it out.

Do you realize that acid rain and ozone depletion aren't problems anymore because the government fixed them?

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

#407

Post by drjesusphd »

hiram112 wrote: post #336
Domenic_S wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/…

> We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer I'd probably be ridiculed by most of the younger crowd here for my views on global warming, I mean climate change, but as someone who distinctly remembers the nonstop warnings of the Ozone Layer - we're all gonna die - I just don't put much energy into worrying about the latest issues related to the environment. Part of me knows…

You don't hear about he ozone layer and acid rain anymore because experts fixed the problem.

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

#408

Post by imtringued »

refurb wrote: post #84
dmschulman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that you can't afford to buy a house or that you can't afford to buy a house in the Bay Area?

That's a silly question. Why would you want to buy a house outside the Bay area? /s

Well it is true. Thanks to the internet a company can be located anywhere on the planet. But this also means that companies can simply relocate to investors and locations with a high density of tech workers. Since those decision makers have more influence than the workers this leads to centralization of jobs in a handful of cities.

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

#409

Post by [deleted] »

pimmen wrote: post #404
save_ferris wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate prices are getting out of control in many of the US cities with healthy job markets, it's not just the Bay Area. Home prices in my old neighborhood in Louisville, KY have skyrocketed in the last several years as "shotgun" style homes have become trendy in the area. Last time I visited, I saw a one such home on the market for about $350K, which would've gone for roughly a 3rd of that about 15 years ago. Th…

It's skyrocketing across the world. Sweden for example has seen levels of growth in real estate prices that rivals Hong Kong, the Bay Area or London. There are many, many, many reasons why but I wouldn't expect the prices of homes across the world to drop when basically all interest rates have been at rock bottom for a decade. People with capital to leverage really have it made.

[deleted]

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

#410

Post by imtringued »

algaeontoast wrote: post #172
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…

As a millennial who's been saving about 80% of my take home income, I mostly believe the money problems our generation complains about (regardless of economic background, debt, etc.) is more linked to spending habits and a perception of what an "ideal" or "reasonable" lifestyle is. For instance, I have a few friends who work at JPL outside of LA. They all make $110-120k TC and have ridiculous benefits (5% contrib to…

What you're talking about is simply impossible unless you're already rich enough in the first place or are living with your parents for free. Even if I assume that I own my apartment, only pay for maintenance/heating/food, I don't own a car and I basically never leave the house and do nothing that costs money (e.g. only contribute to open source) I don't think I can go below 600€ per month of expenses. 5x is 3000€ per month add taxes on top and we are talking about a 65k€ per year job. Sure as a software developer it shouldn't be too difficult to reach this amount. But in reality frugal/poor people get by on 1000€ per month and therefore the amount of money they'd have to earn annually to save 80% of their take home is closer to 110k€ at which point money struggles might as well not exist unless you're living in really expensive parts of the country.
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