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The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

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Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#51

Post by nmeofthestate »

scandox wrote: post #27

There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of the…

Well, the internet is key to this social movement(?). Like the internet created a space for cannibal wannabees to get together, it's created a space for much larger groups to get together and hone a story about how things are not set up in their interests. It's very seductive - I have a Gen X brother who kinda pretends to be an honorary Millenial because things haven't gone great with his employment/finances (he never saved, got a pension, quit fairly lucrative work to live at home).

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#52

Post by sliverstorm »

mabub24 wrote: post #8
rayiner wrote: post #3

This is a very long article about something that has been known for a very long time: middle class existential angst.

Yeah. I feel like he spends a lot of time trying to say it's not about the bourgeoisie when it pretty clearly is. People have been writing about this phenomenon and this particular way of looking at social status from the mid 19th century to today. It's the same with "late-stage capitalism". People have been saying capitalism has entered a particularly "ignorant" stage for decades. Just because API's are now involved…

Nobody thinks "late-stage capitalism" is a revolutionary insight. The term is proliferating because it resonates with more and more of the public. Somebody thought of it decades ago, but we've reached a point where swaths of people feel we've really hit it, whatever it is.

P.S. I don't think lsc is about "ignorance". Maybe just me but I take it as a general state of consolidating wealth & government capture. Like a game of monopoly- in the middle everyone has opportunity, everyone is growing, it's fair and everyone is mostly happy. But in the end, small advantages snowball, influence is consolidated, power is entrenched, and the good parts of capitalism vanish.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#53

Post by Chardok »

mwcampbell wrote: post #35

Spare a thought for the people who end up "below the API", as he puts it. Life can be terrible for them. What can we do to make it more bearable, or spare people from ending up there in the first place?

We can begin with leveling the starting point for all. Transportation, healthcare, education, internet and cell phone access - all of these are necessary for being successful, yet we put the responsibility on the individual for acquiring these things.

When you can free a person from worrying about how they are going to pay for their medical bills, or if they will be able to afford fixing that check engine light on their car, they will have the freedom to make better choices for themselves. They can better negotiate where they want to work, since they aren't tied to their employer's health plan. They won't have to take that awful job just because its close enough to walk or pays enough to afford their car repairs.

It ends up being a trap - you need a job for healthcare - so you need a car to get you there, you need internet and a cell phone to do interviews, you need to be educated to be hired - which all drain your income from the job in the first place, in which you have to swing from job to job as a means of life support to continue.

IMO, this leads to the "premium mediocrity" the article describes, where it provides a brief means of escape from this trap.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#54

Post by scandox »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #51
scandox wrote: post #27

There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of the…

Well, the internet is key to this social movement(?). Like the internet created a space for cannibal wannabees to get together, it's created a space for much larger groups to get together and hone a story about how things are not set up in their interests. It's very seductive - I have a Gen X brother who kinda pretends to be an honorary Millenial because things haven't gone great with his employment/finances (he neve…

Personally I think it's a mistake to view young people as acting in bad faith or having inherent group characteristics (lazy, entitled etc)...I think they do have group characteristics that stem from a fairly rational response to their downward social mobility.

I can't comment on your brother's situation except to say that if things didn't work out well for him, it's natural for him to align with a group that he feels are in the same case. You say it's "seductive" which implies that basically he's taking an easy route out of hard work. That may be true for him, but it is unlikely to be more true of a cross section of any generational group.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#55

Post by scandox »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #51
scandox wrote: post #27

There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of the…

Well, the internet is key to this social movement(?). Like the internet created a space for cannibal wannabees to get together, it's created a space for much larger groups to get together and hone a story about how things are not set up in their interests. It's very seductive - I have a Gen X brother who kinda pretends to be an honorary Millenial because things haven't gone great with his employment/finances (he neve…

As for the Internet being key, I don't know. It has enormous powers of dissipation, despite appearing to be a perfect system for bringing things together.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#56

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

scandox wrote: post #27

There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of the…

well said. it isn't being talked about much, perhaps because the truth of your statement is terrifying for most who are lucky enough to sit at desks and collect a tech paycheck, but what you speak to is real, and not just among the younger folk. GenX has been ignored here, but they were the first wave of those affected by the changes - many of these educated people are without options after performing the theater he describes in the article while actually working hard at whatever arbitrary "meritocratic" hoop they had to bootstrap to just to get into the game at all, and were caught in the next wave. many didn't have a way to get out to that small town he spoke of either. Being in this category during the occupy wall street time gave one a front row seat to hear about, experience, and see all of this. To describe Bernie sympathizers in the way he does isn't fully honest. There are more than just younger folks in this group and it started a lot earlier than people realize because GenX was comparatively smaller and without a voice at scale (minus the social media and internet tools at first). Then there are older folks bankrupted by healthcare costs having to work until death, leaving no new space for younger folks. The anger on the ground in NYC is thick and multi-aged.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#57

Post by colefichter »

flachsechs wrote: post #19
_mhyx wrote: post #11

This is kind of meandering, and it loses the thread a bit in the end (it feels like he's getting to a point he's uncomfortable with ideologically), but it's extremely accurate. The bigger point about creating the future - that he seems to miss - is that it's a future _not everyone wants_, which drives a huge part of the "maga/bernie" divide he discusses. He is right though - the rate of downward mobility among my you…

> the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc. and if the pa…

Your post hits the nail on the head, but complicates things more than needed.

The whole idea of "middle class" is a fiction that supports the behaviours discussed in the article. In the real world, it doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way. You're either working class or you're not. If you can walk away from your job today and never look back, congrats! You're not working class. But for everyone else, you're stuck and putting a fancy label on things doesn't change much.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#59

Post by wnissen »

jp57 wrote: post #47

I'm having a hard time distinguishing "premium mediocre" from "bourgeois" as the term is applied to tastes and preferences. As with so many other neologisms, I think this concept is already amply covered in English's huge vocabulary.

Bourgeois is mediocre in taste but requires a certain level of resources. Premium mediocre adds two components: striving but failing to achieve that level of resources, and awareness that one is aspiring to it.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#60

Post by kurthr »

jancsika wrote: post #41

> When I tell them I made a bit of money investing, they think stocks, not blockchains. I’m not even going to try explaining bitcoin to them. They don’t need the aggravation. So many questions: 1) Why would any human think blockchains and not stocks when you talk about investing? 2) Humans shouldn't be investing in Bitcoin unless they have money that is 100% disposable (which, judging by the tone of your blog, you do…

Anecdata... I went to the local bar alone recently because I had to get out of the house for a contractor to do some stuff on the weekend. As I sat and had a couple of beers, I listened to the bartender, an Uber driver, and an aesthetician discuss ICOs, Bitcoin, and altcoins (Eth) for an hour. They had no idea what it was and I didn't really have much interest in bursting their bubble... they were all convinced they were going to win the lottery with the stuff... which websites had the best ICO deals listed, etc. I ended up with a few BtC because in the early days it was fun to set up a computer for mining so that was the story I told.

When your cabbie/bartender is telling you about ICOs, it's time to start thinking which fool you're selling blockcoin to.

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