Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 102 posts

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#61

Post by ghaff »

collyw wrote: post #46
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is certainly a part of it based on people I speak with. A certain demographic--which is mostly an educated subset of 20-35 year olds who tend to write articles/posts and/or know those who do--have decided that they absolutely must live in a reasonable neighborhood of one of a handful of urban locations. As a result, a relative handful of cities have become what many parts of Manhattan, for example, have been…

I would quite happily live in the mountains but there aren't any IT jobs there. Its seems difficult to get a remote working job. I imagine it is the same for many jobs - you need to live in a city.

You do often need to live in the vicinity of a city. However, in most cases (the Bay area being something of an exception), there's plenty of reasonably priced housing within commuting distance of large cities. (And, in fact, many of the jobs are not even in the urban cores anyway.)

In the Boston area for example, most of the computer-related jobs are not actually in the city and there is plenty of reasonably priced housing within 45-60 minutes of the city.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

s_q_b wrote: post #19
MrZongle2 wrote: post #5

Another article that bemoans the fate of Millennials, compares them with the Baby Boomers....and somehow ignores the fact that there was a generation between them. Gen-Xers, anyone?

They're the ones who mortgaged our future and blew up the global economy for short term gain. They're also the ones writing these articles.

> They're the ones who mortgaged our future and blew up the global economy for short term gain.

No, that was the Boomers. The reason that you get all these Boomer vs. Millenial articles is that Gen-X was comparatively a baby bust between the Boomers and the Millenials, such that Gen-X never were the largest generation in the population, and never dominated (and likely never will dominate) political or social influence. Earlier this year, Millenials passed Boomers to take the top spot in sheer numbers, something Gen-X never had.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

FussyZeus wrote: post #4

The 70's were seen as stable because no American's knew anything about what was happening worldwide. Being connected to pretty much any human on the planet is a really new concept, what we call our "community" has grown exponentially in size, distance, and diversity in the last decade. The world has always been this scary, now we're just paying attention.

> The 70's were seen as stable

No, they weren't.

Though much of what you say about the 70s might be accurate of much of the 80s in the US.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#64

Post by nickbauman »

ethanbond wrote: post #10
nickbauman wrote: post #8

A "broken political system", please. Like Syria? Most of the Arab Spring? Even Brexit? There are people literally laying down their lives to get an opportunity to participate in such a "broken" system as ours in the US. If you don't like the system, work to change it. In the US at least you won't go to jail for doing that. Good grief!

Part of "working to change it" is by publishing articles that point out that it's broken. Good grief!

So explain "broken". If you say "superdelegates" "ratifying temporary rules" or "DWS" or "Trump", I hate to break it to you: this is not what broken means.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#65

Post by pnathan »

codingmyway wrote: post #52
pnathan wrote: post #11

It depends on who you ask. The narrative here is of precarious terror. Other people will have a different story. Seattle attracts a lot of people, and they often have sticker shock because they didn't do enough research. And , a lot of people feel entitled to live in the hippest neighborhoods very cheap. That said. The writer needs to contextualize this. In 2001, the year I went to college, the Twin Towers fell and a…

As someone in Europe I just don't understand the level of fear among Americans who are in the safest position probably of any population ever. Is it just media bias? If I lived in eastern Europe any where near Turkey right now I'd be more afraid.

> As someone in Europe I just don't understand the level of fear among Americans who are in the safest position probably of any population ever. Is it just media bias?

No. People really are that afraid.

I don't know why.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#66

Post by pnathan »

collyw wrote: post #44
pnathan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As near as I can tell, the complaints of 'broken' come from people who don't participate. People who participate somehow seem to find ways to get some change in their desired direction.

The powerful don't let us participate.

Sorry, I see people participate constantly in local politics. Some are often referred to as NIMBYs. The kooks typically don't get voices, but if you want to effect change, find the locallest bit of politics you can and work on it.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#67

Post by losteverything »

I think it's an age thing. Older dudes like me have "been there done that" with fear and uncertainty. In the seventies I had my first "wow" events (corrupt gov't "I am not a crook"; Japan making cars; Iran hostages) and thought there was no future. But as an old guy I know the future is better as it always has been. The younger people are only going through their first adult view of the world as newbie thinkers

It's like handling death. The first few times you suck at handling it and after many deaths of family and acquantinces it becomes very unscary. You become confident in want to say, etc

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#68

Post by anexprogrammer »

siculars wrote: post #9
codemac wrote: post #2

These feelings are not unique to our generation -- they are part of becoming aware enough of everything around you. I would agree though that most of my friends don't believe they're building a future for themselves. Several friends in their mid-thirties don't have retirement accounts because they strongly believe it supports an unethical economy. The idea that the nation seemed more "stable" in the 70's is an insane…

Stable in the 70s? I keep hearing this but I don't buy it. Rolling off of Vietnam. The oil crisis. Inflation. Decimation of manufacturing. I wasn't around then but we're they actually good?

I was fairly young, so didn't have huge awareness of oil crisis, as i didn't drive until the 80s. Slightly tongue in cheek here...

The bad:

Constant strikes, works to rule, sympathetic strikes (miners going out in sympathy with the rail works and other such silliness), having to be bailed out by the IMF, three day week and doing homework by candle light due to electric strikes. Horrific fashions and decor. So much bad music! Godawful food - this was when the UK earned the reputtion for terrible food, and it was well deserved. thankfully we're well out the other side of that reputation. High inflation if you were a saver. I recall my childhood saving account paying 16% one year! Tech was a calculator, a record player and a speak and spell. The internet was having a penfriend!

The good:

Simpler expectations, no great media missions to have government "do something" after every minor crime and accident. No 24hr news so little chance of hearing about the 1:1,000,000,000 crime that took place 500 miles away. Terrorism existed, but didn't result in wholesale change of the way we lived. "They won't change our way of life" was the usual refrain rather than "we need a war on terror"[1]. As a householder, high interest rates. Yes really. As a worker it led to regular, large, wage rises - often perceived to be good whatever your stance on the economics. After 3 years at 15%+ the mortgage you made a huge stretch to take has reduced to affordable. After ten or fifteen years its become pocket money. The house was a much lower multiple of wage to start with. After all that you still got tax relief on mortgages (abolished in the 90s). Final pay pensions. Job security, even if you were a manual worker. Your 15yo wasn't demanding an iPhone 6 to replace her iPhone 5 as it's SO much better! (Meanwhile I still used the Nexus 4).

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#69

Post by collyw »

ghaff wrote: post #61
collyw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would quite happily live in the mountains but there aren't any IT jobs there. Its seems difficult to get a remote working job. I imagine it is the same for many jobs - you need to live in a city.

You do often need to live in the vicinity of a city. However, in most cases (the Bay area being something of an exception), there's plenty of reasonably priced housing within commuting distance of large cities. (And, in fact, many of the jobs are not even in the urban cores anyway.) In the Boston area for example, most of the computer-related jobs are not actually in the city and there is plenty of reasonably priced…

Yes, but I did say the mountains, not the suburbs. There is stuff (for me) to do in the mountains. I would rather pay the extra rent to live in a city rather than the suburbs.

Re: Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary

#70

Post by protomyth »

jfaat wrote: post #48
protomyth wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plus a pretty high crime rate in the early 70's with talk of "super predators"

I'm pretty sure "super predator" was coined in the Clinton era

Reused, but the early 70's had its own fun with the term. The 90's were already on the down slope of crime.

The funner part of the 70's (and part of the 80's) is people doing analysis of the crimes now and finding a serial killer in the data.

Post reply on HN