Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.
For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”
But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.
She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?
Retire? Nah when I’m done with life I’m just going to blow my brains out all over a politician or millionaire hedge fund manager.
They want to fuck over my future, I’ll take their sanity and gift wrap enough PTSD that every sleep is a nightmare.
I like your idea
Optimism is thinking they’d even get PTSD. Nah, they’ll just be like “stupid millennials have crossed a line”
My plan is “hope the afterlife is real and then be a spooky ghost”
The same thing that’s on the first side, but in reverse.
can’t afford to buy a house
My simple solution to this problem: Just don’t buy a house then. Just accept you’ll never own real estate and move on.
houses are an asset that a lot of people leverage once they can’t work; unless you’re already rich, not having one you’ll end up dying due from things that cost money like healthcare, food, or shelter.
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The next forty years will look like absolute hell and the lack of proper services for the explosive number of diseases in the millennial cohort will directly contribute.
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Milliennials by and large don’t have enough money to retire, and they are experiencing in striking numbers high rates of immunodeficiency and cancers. (I was personally diagnosed with cancer at 42. You know, the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything…) This will mean they will need more elder care and sooner… and they won’t really be able to afford it.
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No Child Left Behind has properly fucked US education for the foreseeable future, and US education was abysmal before that already. The elderly are going to be being taken care of by adults who may be functionally illiterate and when you’re functionally illiterate, you can become anti-vax even if you got hired as caretaker for the elderly. (Not all will grow up to be functionally illiterate, but if we’re to take teachers at their word, the gap between the struggling kids and the smart kids is wider than ever. As in C students functionally don’t exist, only A students and F students, and the F students are the larger group who are being passed on to higher grades just to hit numbers.)
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On top of education being gutted and there being a dangerous future of incapable people being put in these jobs because there’s no one else to do them: The collapse in birth rate because nobody can afford to have fucking kids will also make this problem worse as fewer and fewer workers will be available to take care of more and more elderly and infirm people.
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Most of the places that take care of the elderly are being bought up at rapid pace by investment groups, private equity, hedge funds, and the like, and all they do is cut services, make things worse, and cause more suffering and death so they can wring more money out of people suffering at the end of their lives. How many of these businesses will even still exist in 20 years? Many of them are shutting down constantly because the numbers just don’t add up, or because the private equity group that bought it has finished hollowing it out and there’s simply no money left.
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Because of all of this, we will see an absolute explosion of homelessness in the elderly.
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You can bet your ass fuck-nothing will be done to prevent any of this. Especially if Trump wins in November, then we’re dealing with this process outright accelerating at a breakneck pace.
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Oh and just for “fun” we can expect to see a lot more police violence against poverty-striken old people. “STOP RESISTING OLD MAN!”
EDIT: Oh yeah, and that’s not even counting climate change, finite amounts of topsoil left, potential pandemics, and the fact that most of the world doesn’t even have access to clean water. I try to keep an eye on neat, simple engineering projects from poor countries because we may need to rely on similar options soon enough ourselves.
EDIT II: Get involved in Mutual Aid Groups. We all have skills. No one is coming to save us. No government or political party or corporation. We have to save each other, and that will be very difficult to achieve. I forget the writer, but she said something like “No dictator is ever going to bring about the revolution. It will always have to come from the bottom organizing together.” The only thing we can do is help one another. It will not be easy or fair or entirely successful.
US education was abysmal before that already
Solid points all around, but I wanted to add one historical tidbit: at one point the USA had literally the best edumacashiun in the world. After WWII, the other nations (like the UK + those in the EU) were bombed all to hell & back whereas the USA was relatively fine. People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
We have fallen FAR down the world rankings since then. Tbf, some of that may reflect changes in measurements e.g. does “every” kid need one, or can some be excused to go be a farmhand without needing to finish? (this affects averaged measurements, but not peak ones, or the previously thus-filtered ones)
After WWII, the other nations (like the UK + those in the EU) were bombed all to hell & back whereas the USA was relatively fine.
There was certain union in Europe(not European Union) that was bombed 9% by area and 55% by population.
does “every” kid need one, or can some be excused to go be a farmhand without needing to finish?
Translation: To have more you should produce more, to produce more you should know more.
Farmers need education too.
EDIT: lemmy broke my comment with link to image
Farmers need education. Farmhands do not.
Anyway I was just attempting to use it as an example - we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc. There are jobs where, for the job anyway while ignoring the quality of life for the actual person, formalized education is less necessary than for other jobs, e.g. doctor or lawyer.
But my example of using farmhand was not made up: farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not. But either way, the ways we use to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to - the farmhands will appear extremely low in such rankings.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
I accidentally wiped my comment. Now it will not be as good as it was.
Farmers need education. Farmhands do not.
Derp. Still, everyone needs education.
we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc.
Dull, mind numbing work that should have been automated long time ago. And we are talking about schools, not universities.
e.g. doctor
Schools are not medical universities. But even in school you will be taught first aid. And basic anotomy in biology class.
farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not.
This is bad. Terrible.
to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to
This question does not measure inteligence, it measures erudition. Inteligence, erudition and wisdom are different things. Question for intelligence would be like “bat and ball cost 1.1$, bat costs 1$ more than ball, how much ball costs?”.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
We are Homo sapiens, not Homo ergaster. Tractor better contributes “purely manual but not much intellectual labor”.
If you will allow me to say? Your premise seems incorrect. Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive. We “need” Oxygen, in order to breathe which itself is necessary in order to stay alive rather than convert into a corpse state of ‘existence’. However, as e.g. https://lemmy.zip/post/17644464 shows, we are not being allowed to have even that. And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
To a fascist, such as the current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary. And with climate change diminishing resources, possibly it is not even desirable or neutral anymore, so much as something to be either neutrally or perhaps actively pursued to demolish what has previously been built up. e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
So no, “everyone needs education” sounds like something that is not true… at least according to the likes of Elon Musk, who now controls Twitter. Not Bezos, nor Zuckerberg, etc. And they would really like it if we did not tax them in order to pay for such. And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not. See this fantastic description of it: https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=dAGHoctLiPimmTTQ.
Also for some reason I didn’t do first quote and my “derp” didn’t looked like reply to my obvious mistake. Sorry.
Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive.
I was talking more broadly as a goal to make everyone fully functioning member of society and citizens of their own country, preferably capable of finding cognitive biases in their and others’ statements and distinguishing science and medicine from pseudoscience and homeopathic antivax chiropractors.
However, as e.g. https://lemmy.zip/post/17644464 shows, we are not being allowed to have even that.
I was so often sangry lately(for last 2 years), that I’m just tired of bullshit happening everywhere.
And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
You know, from my sofa it seems everything sucks, just some countries like nordic ones suck slightly less. And it seems the world plunges into neofeudalism with celebrations by ignorant.
current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary.
Meanwhile they will do everything to keep internationalism and automations to themselves, but never for masses. I think I already mentioned DMCA as expample. Other examples are software patents(which are basically math patents), patents on nature(for example plant varieties, genes of existing organisms).
pursued to demolish what has previously been built up.
It seems it happens everywhere. How about subject called “basics of orthodox culture” in school? Secular state is so secular. Another reason to hate Putinism.
e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
This is so stupid. Human must not be considered a tool. And I feel stupid too because at start of pandemic my opinion wasn’t far from that, but more along the lines of “it doesn’t help that much, why bother” rather then economy part. To be fair it was during peak of police violence and fines printing press during lockdown.
And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not.
Damn. I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
It’s okay - that’s how I interpreted it:-). Lemmy formatting can also be weird sometimes and people access via different methods, so I try to remember that as well.
citizens of their own country
^This is the big one, particularly in a democracy this is so extremely crucial. But… we did not bother to secure it, so now we may be (are?) losing it all. Like someone who has lost their immune system, we are now vulnerable to not only lack of knowledge but outright presence of active disinformation. Wait… didn’t we need that - ooopsie daisy!? :-P
I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
If we had had more fear sooner, we might have avoided getting eaten alive by Russian disinformation campaigns. As it is… our lack of fear has definitely harmed us greatly, possibly fatally.
The good news is that whatever society rises out of our corpse will have learned lessons from the ordeal. Rome also fell too, but life goes on. Ours might not, and given climate change humans or even mammals + far more might not, but even so, all we can control is ourselves individually, right now. I for one take that as a charge to do whatever I can in however much time we have left. And maybe it’s not a foregone conclusion after all? So much the better. All we have is today - make it a good one.:-)
People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
Sounds like bill gates just wanted to steal more surplus labor value from his workers.
Then you understand correctly.
The difference is, people like Bezos also want to steal the value of our labor, but without allowing us to educate our children.
Hence it is worse.
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try to keep an eye on neat, simple engineering projects from poor countries because we may need to rely on similar options soon enough ourselves.
I am just sitting here as a infrastructure guy trying not to have a mental break of crying and laughing. It’s so fucking bad and getting so much worse. You know what was today’s item? I am working on one small system for a replacement wastewater treatment plant for a town of about 3,000 people that the pieces of shit general contractor has dragged out for 8 fucking years. 8 years for a project that should have taken 6 months. They haven’t done any work. Longer it goes on the more they get to bill. Oh and my favorite part? The general contractor is one of the bigger ones, they have a Wikipedia page.
Cost disease is going to break us. Entire country is going to be spending a trillion a year with the water supply of Flint.
Now if you excuse me I am going to drink now. Cause fuck it I can’t save anyone.
Cause fuck it I can’t save anyone.
You’ve done your best. It’s definitely not personally your job to save anyone anyway. If we can’t figure out how to do it collectively, well, maybe we just suck as a species. Thanks for doing what you could and can and don’t bemoan yourself for your inability to fight a broken system on your own. I don’t expect engineers and scientists and doctors who have been telling us this shit needs to be done for years to have any fucking patience for it anymore. You’ve all done your bit.
Also, thanks because I’ve just been assuming as much has been going on behind the scenes for a long time. I’ve been saying for years the entire nation gave up on any idea of long-term maintenance of anything in the 90’s. We’ve had failing infrastructure grades for bridges all over the country since at least 2010, if not earlier, and fuck-all has been done. I’m not even close to being an engineer, but I’ve helped some friends with some basic construction and I’m just floored at how many corners are cut on so many things in our country. It’s prevalent everywhere, it’s part of why there’s so many data breaches in the tech sector. They don’t want to pay to update old systems to bring them up to compliance. We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
Insecure outdated software AKA proprietary software. Fuck that shit.
Brought to you by Free Software Foundation.
Are lawyers involved? You should sue to get it for free, not to pay more, because contracts like that usually put a penalty on the supplier if they break their promises
I at first I expected you to work in IT infrastructure specifically, but sewage? When sewage can’t keep shit together - nothing in country can keep shit together. USSA is slowly turning from worse than Russia in some areas to worse than Russia in all areas.
I appreciate your efforts, but we as a nation were not guaranteed to make it. It was up to us to make it, and we failed ourselves by devolving into petty tribalism between two 1% owned political parties.
We some how got wedged between Idiocracy and Cyberpunk 2077.
Our dreams of technology didn’t meet with the realities/limits of materials science/engineering except for computing and the internet.
The technology was there; the humanity wasn’t.
You know, we live in “technology was there; the humanity wasn’t” since DMCA was legislated. We literally have information duping machine, but there is law that forbids it. When there will be everything duping machine, ruling class will its use by anyone outside of ruling class.
What do you mean somehow? Cyberpunk as a genre has always been a vision of a future of unchecked corporate power, it only became prescient because Americans gave corporations unchecked power.
Original comment mentioned game Cyberpunk 2077, not entire genre cyberpunk. But yes, unchecked corporate power leads to neofeudalism.
I didn’t think to word it “Walking into the future lubed up, bent over, and ready to pay for the patriotic right to get split roasted by Google and Blackrock” because that’s a bit of a mouth full.
This is kind of where I’m at. I don’t imagine any amount of cash in a bank account is going to prepare us for what’s to come. Even if you could put money aside, the money you typically put towards retirement might just be better off towards becoming a doomsday prepper. Probably wouldn’t save you either way, but it may buy you a little time that you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Like others have said, I imagine my “retirement” as bearing witness to the collapse of modern society and ultimately dying in some lousy brawl with other desperate refugees, or by some untreated bacterial infection.
I just know that my death will be something dumb in the coming collapse, like stubbing my toe and dying to infection when there is no remaining, effective antibiotics on our superheated hellhole.
If the orange man wins, America is over and none of your concerns will matter as we slip into a fascist dystopia. That is an existential threat we have to deal with right now, and it can actually be prevented.
Republicans moving to install a fascist government? Sounds serious!
So when will democrats drop gun control considering this imminent threat?
Because of all of this, we will see an absolute explosion of homelessness in the elderly.
And it can’t be fixed just through capitalism. Only either through policy or comand economy.
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Good post, but we really need to get out of the generational thinking.
I know rich and poor boomers. I know rich and poor millenials, and gen X/Z.
It’s a class struggle. Always has been.
Stop making it a generational battle. That only serves to divide the working class.
Yes, there is racism, ageism, sexism. We should debate those things and improve, but we can’t let those things divide us politically.
And since I’m ranting, let me end with a solution. We need to find themes that help all of us.
So perhaps we should say: for example, everyone with less than $1M in wealth gets a $20K tax deduction.
Who could oppose that? It doesn’t benefit home owners vs. renters. It doesn’t benefit students vs. retirees. It doesn’t benefit city dwellers vs. rural. Or white vs. black.
But it does benefit the class who owns nothing and gives them a better chance to own something.
there are a whole class of humans that actually think; ‘i had to suffer through student loans, everyone else should also’
The word “think” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there… plus how many conservative voters these days even have college degrees? The TV (or radio) man says to vote one way, so they do, end of the matter as far as they are concerned. (extraordinarily sadly, no /s on this one)
weirdly, its also older people who prolly paid <5k for their entire education whining about people getting ‘handouts’.
Exactly ^this. It makes sense to them that they “worked their way through college”, ignoring how that is no longer possible.
Tbh I’m not a fan of just handing out money to the predatory banks who screwed students over with those loans either, but damn we should do something. Like maybe educate ourselves on a topic prior to banning people from doing it, possibly, hopefully?
And then they go and say “that’s not how democracy works”, except when you win the majority so hard that you even overcome the electoral college effect then they simply overthrow democracy itself.:-(
There are indeed real facts, and real people, behind all those pithy sayings.
Stop making it a generational battle. That only serves to divide the working class.
That’s difficult when a lot of the news media is owned by *checks notes… the Capital class… and they have vested interest in keeping the conversation about a generational battle.
But yes, 100% agreed. The problem is we’re all commenting on news articles that will never stop presenting it that way.
Someone else could write news then? People started doing that on YouTube - e.g. CPG Grey, Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios, Hank & John Green, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Kurzgesagt, etc. It did not work out well I think, especially since people seek more immediate gratification i.e. Twitch dances or whatever rather than fully college-level subject matter provided entirely for free, oh except having to watch ads for the corporate overlords.
If we do not value i.e. take care of things, we will lose them. In this case - and here I will use a generational term, b/c it refers to the only people in charge at the time it occurred - the Boomer (+ Great) generations chose this for the legacy of everyone who came after. Which is only the history of how we came to be here, but it is our choice to continue forward this way.
Someone else could write news then?
Well exactly, it’s an uphill battle, sadly. I’ve been upset at how weak our media has been since the Bush years, when I was working in local television for an NBC affiliate. I got to see all the behind the scenes of the beginnings of the War on Terror and how much our media purposefully pumped up both the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq and how they helped promote the outright lies of the Bush administration. It was eye opening as a twenty-something to say the least and made me incredibly distrustful of government overreach that was being exhorted by patriotism and nationalism. “Spy and snitch on your fellow Americans to prove how patriotic you are!” It was also part of the beginning of dropping the facade of “racism being over” because holy fuck did brown skinned immigrants all get put in the “dangerous radical Islamist” basket, no matter their real nationality or religion. It deeply colored my view of mainstream media as consistently right-wing, even back then, because of how often they would capitulate to Republican lies to support wars intended to enrich a small elite.
I’ve been wanting to see more independently successful media organizations most of my life, but most of what I have seen is media consolidation, and it’s certainly not like I have the capital to get into the business myself. It’s brutal.
Finally, just as you said, we’re competing with Twitch and TikTok and a lot of these issues really require text documents and references that can be checked more easily than needing to sift through a three-hour-Youtube-video of the issue. The problem is we’ve raised a generation that really doesn’t want to read much at all if it isn’t a subtitle for a video. That’s… distressing. (But not to act like it was much better in my generation, it’s not, it’s part of why we have so many shitty kids: their shitty millennial parents who shove a phone into their hand like Boomers shoved us in front of TVs.)
I wouldn’t even know where to start on how to fix it. I’m with Marshall McLuhan, we’re spitting out new communications mediums before we’ve even really understood the social impacts of the previous mediums. He argued we still didn’t understand writing and we had already jumped headlong into radio and television… Well, look at us now baybeee, shit’s spiraling with the internet, McLuhan. Maybe he’s spinning in his grave to match.
I guess I spoke too quickly as well. Probably people do write the news, but (a) how do you even find things these days, when searching is crap; and (b) it would perhaps do little to counteract the mis- (neutral), even active dis-information that is out there now. Also those sources I mentioned tend to be rather high-end, e.g. of the scale of intelligence required to make use of and especially to really enjoy watching them.
Speaking of the Bush administration, I recall hearing about the event where they pulled down Sadam Hussein’s statue (iirc?) but later when I watched it happen with my own eyes - with the audio ON mind you - it told a 100% different story. Crowds cheering, or booing, or something, but the important thing is that with the audio OFF they can say whatever they wish to, and we’d believe it b/c how else could we know the reality? Unless someone happened to have the original source… except even then, what if they swapped the audio out, how could we tell!?
The only real way to tell a counterfeit is to know the real thing so well that nobody can tell you otherwise. So what, I am supposed to know about the entire history of the Middle East, and all of the machinations of the US government within that!? I have a fucking job you know, and as a not-Boomer, may never see retirement or own a home even then - who has time to add all of that to their schedule, on top of every single other thing like climate change, ThE eCoNoMy ThO, Covid and/or vaccines, and all of the other myriad things out there (like gay frogs for some damn reason, I dunno)?!
Highly ironically then, the internet may have slowed down the pace of systemic and active disinformation - by providing an “alternate” source of real, true facts - even as in other ways it also sped it up (by providing a source of “alternative facts” that are not true).
And in response to all of that, the Democrats choose to nominate… HRC, smdh. Remember, Trump did not win, so much as she lost - worse than any candidate in modern history, and the second-worst btw was… him. Conservatives, liberals, voters, apathetic people - we brought this upon ourselves. I really hope that we get to live, but if we die, I cannot really blame anyone else? The wealthy elites, ahem excuse me, the Democrat politicians, don’t really exist within the same world as 99.999999% of the rest of Americans, which might be fine except neither do they seem to bother even so much as learning about them - except, you know, enough to carry hot sauce in her purse I suppose.
What you are describing sounds an awful lot to me like the mantra of “move fast and break things”, which as I understand it was popularized by Mark Zuckerberg of
FacismFaceBook, and refers basically to the fact that we can move so quickly nowadays - with the abilities of code monkies hopped up on crack (one presumes, this on top of the Red Bull and Dorritos combo:-P) that even if we screw up, we can still move quickly enough to fix it. Now, you might say that even one second’s thought would be enough to dispell that rumor, however my counter to that is… he’s rich. (and!? WTF does that even have to do with anything!? oh wait, he took all that money from society regardless of the harm that it did to us all, okay then)Anyway, there have always been the elites - the idea of the Illuminati, regardless of whether they are “really” real or not, like seriously, how could they not be, that’s simply how the world works!? - who have controlled society. The problem is, the elites feel like they no longer need the backing of irl human beings, b/c of (a) globalism (so humans here don’t need educating, if you can get sufficient number of coders somewhere, who are willing to work for bananas and cocaine), and (b) automation (so… do we really need human beings at all? and also climate change makes it unlikely that we’ll all survive? welp, better start killing them off in mass numbers, or better yet just let them do it to themselves, whilst *I* simply accumulate all of the wealth that I possibly can until then).
We are all so damn naive - and yes I include myself first and foremost among that set.:-P I am not sure that this problem even is fixable, but if it were, it would take an amount of collective effort that… I am not certain exists any longer. Or the backing of an elite. I guess we’ll see what happens. :-|
with the abilities of code monkies hopped up on crack (one presumes, this on top of the Red Bull and Dorritos combo:-P)
You underestimate coffee and power of Ballmer’s Peak.
automation (so… do we really need human beings at all? and also climate change makes it unlikely that we’ll all survive? welp, better start killing them off in mass numbers, or better yet just let them do it to themselves, whilst *I* simply accumulate all of the wealth that I possibly can until then).
I hate neofeudalism. They use what can be used for societal progress for social regress.
Their decision, whether they have spent even one second’s thought about it or not, is “strategic” as in one that will get them personally some benefits, but it is also short-sighted as in one that may doom us all. On the other hand, my naivite is perhaps far worse so I should be careful throwing stones in glass houses.
I rarely like popular TV shows but one that does make me think is The 100 that illustrates thougher choices needing to be made and all the gamesmanship going on surrounding those. e.g. will neoliberals survive whereas progressivism was too impractical to ever have a chance? I don’t know the answer but those seem like the kinds of questions that needed to be explored by people far smarter in such matters than I. Unfortunately, they instead have been explored by people who are fairly smart but whose defining characteristic may be a desire to become personally richer, which again far exceeds my own.
“Spy and snitch on your fellow Americans to prove how patriotic you are!”
Sounds very stalinism.
CPG Grey
CGP Grey right?
Seriously the best content creator I’ve ever witnessed. His video on First Past the Post voting should be mandatory to watch.
So tired of people thinking inside the world’s smallest box, the two party system.
His video on First Past the Post voting should be mandatory to watch.
he doesn’t actually state in that video what should be the biggest takeaway: strategic voting is what leads to consolidation of parties, so your best interest longterm is to vote your values, even if doing so has a likelihood of losing short term.
It did not work out well I think, especially since people seek more immediate gratification i.e. Twitch dances or whatever rather than fully college-level subject matter provided entirely for free, oh except having to watch ads for the corporate overlords.
I can’t completely agree with it. There are a lot of college-level-only channels. From English youtube I know only The Efficient Engieneer(engieneering), Thought Emporium(molecular biology, close to popsci), Marco Reps(engieneering), Breaking Taps(engieneering, close to popsci). From popsci Veritasium(mix), Practical Engieneering(engieneering), numberphile(math), computerphile(applied math).
From Russian youtube I can only think of popsci mixed with college-level: Ekaterina Shulman(politology, mix), Chemistry - Easy(chemistry, mostly college-level). From popsci: Physics with Pobedinsky(physics), SciOne(multiple hosts), QWERTY(multiple hosts, originally was about astronomy), Alexandr Panchin(biology), Vert Dider(mix, only translated from english), Artur Sharifov(mix).
Perhaps I am being unfair with my language, so here’s an example if it helps clarify: this is a video combating vaccine disinformation campaigns. It is cute, slow paced enough, but also keeps moving fast enough, it aims low but at the same time it contains high levels of content, and basically answers anyone’s questions about the situation. It is as perfect a video as I think can possibly exist - extremely bold words, but… accurate imho? Edit: oops, this is the one I meant, but notably the fact that there are multiple that fit this criteria also serves a different point as well!?:-)
However, instead of watching this, more people died in the USA from the pandemic than from all wars combined, and like so many other scenarios (e.g. gun violence) we will forever be ignorant of the true numbers because we are actively prevented from counting them.
This is literally, actually, full-on life vs. death, but people cannot be bothered to watch even so much as a 10-minute video to save their life, or the life of everyone around them including their entire family. And the nation that they claim to love and be patriotic for.
Knowledge can easily cure ignorance, but not much if anything can be done about obstinacy. Maybe if they suffer enough pain they may finally start to care enough to open up to listen a real answer, but brainwashing is so tough to attempt to break through.
That channel also deals with climate change, technology, etc. But to switch to a very different example, another one is the rise of fascism all around the world. Ian Danskin’s Innuendo Studios has a playlist for his series on The Alt Right Playbook that is as comprehensive and deep a collection on that topic as I have ever seen. One example of the series is I hate Mondays and another is There’s always a bigger fish. These in some ways are more important than knowledge about climate change or vaccines or gun control or whatever, bc it discusses what we as a society will do about those matters. But instead of watching such, and/or even reading the Constitution that they claim to love, people instead show up at the White House with the idea to literally behead people (January 6), and on the other side liberals always seem shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!?! at the actions of conservatives, despite how remarkably consistent they are.
With so much free, virtually instant knowledge (okay so less than an hour?) available to us all, and with an ad blocker needs nothing at all in return but even without one having to watch a handful of ads is nothing in the grand scheme of things - with all that is available, I can only conclude that people do not want that knowledge. i.e. people in both sides - liberal and conservative - remain in their ignorance by choice, bc it’s easier to watch something akin to a TikTok dance.
It is cute, slow paced enough, but also keeps moving fast enough, it aims low but at the same time it contains high levels of content, and basically answers anyone’s questions about the situation.
That I call Kurzgesagt popsci, not college-level. Not that their video lacks research, just I think such format is not collage level. I consider even this(has autotranslated subtitles, I recommend watching) to be popsci.
Examples of scientific videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Examples of engieneering videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5(closer to popsci).
Examples of popsci: 1, 2(well, scientific journalism, but close enough), 3, 4.
Knowledge can easily cure ignorance
“Knowledge is the light in the darkness of ignorance”.
bc it’s easier to watch something akin to a TikTok dance.
Sometimes clip formats bring up discussions about society and culture too.
Yes the purpose of Kurzgesagt is pop-sci. Hank and John Green are more college level (remember: American college is often equivalent to high school elsewhere in the world) and the likes of Innuendo Studios and CGP Grey can get fairly far away from dancing and deeper into philosophy.
The reason I brought up Kurzgesagt was that even that level is beyond what people want to see.
(remember: American college is often equivalent to high school elsewhere in the world)
Really? Are there any examples? I like laughing at America for not having healthcare, but I don’t think education can be that bad.
The reason I brought up Kurzgesagt was that even that level is beyond what people want to see.
This is very saddening.
Who could oppose that?
I think you know who… there is one class that seems to go FAR out of their way to control the conversation to the end of “there is no class struggle” (or even “there is no such thing as class”?).
So perhaps we should say: for example, everyone with less than $1M in wealth gets a $20K tax deduction.
As long as you a) have a robust enforcement mechanism (otherwise it will just be another PPP scenario), and b) offset that tax break with new taxes on the wealthy.
Good post, but we really need to get out of the generational thinking.
I know rich and poor boomers. I know rich and poor millenials, and gen X/Z.
It’s a class struggle. Always has been.
As I said somewhere else, it is not that boomers are rich. It’s just
allmost rich are boomers.TIL Taylor Swift and Elon Musk are boomers.
Replaced all with most.
That’s better.
But most rich people are old, that’s not new.
That’s just how wealth accumulation and inheritance works.
That’s the thing. “It’s a class struggle. Always has been.”
Electoral reform is needed to do away with First Past The Post voting so people can be free to vote outside the two party system with no spoiler effect.
My wife has a job with an awesome pension and as a result there is basically no situation she will ever leave. I pointed out to her that the golden handcuffs are still golden.
One day some MBAs are going to learn that if you don’t want constant turn over you give workers a pension so great they would crawl over their mother’s corpse to get it.
What am I saying? MBAs learning? Hahaha I love being silly.
One day some MBAs are going to learn that if you don’t want constant turn over you give workers a pension so great they would crawl over their mother’s corpse to get it.
Plus, modern MBAs see turnover as a good things because it makes the short-term investors happy.
Wtf why?
Sociopathy, lack of long term planning skills, drugs (metaphorical and physical). Some combination of those I suspect.
For some, you get the Jack Walsh thinking that some employees are going to be statistically bad performers, so it is good to get rid of them.
You also have other cases where lowering the time to train means you can expand faster since you don’t need to find quality staff. The original McDonald’s trained its staff to be able to be high output restaurants. The business model changed to needing less worker training to help fuel expansion.
You also have the case where some managers believe some jobs only require a commodity level labor. At that point, there is no value in training.
So tired of hearing that shitstain’s name. I admit there is some wisdom to the up or out approach. You know for very very high level workers. Like C-suite or a rank below. Doing it across the company just promises misery and failure.
Christ…
Faust…
This is an appropriate reaction, in my opinion. Modern economic philosophy is entirely myopic with no apparent perceived value in anything beyond the next quarter. From that perspective, if your employees have already created value and you’ve budgeted more than severance would cost (or think you can get away with constructive dismissal), then, for the quarter, getting rid of employees looks like a financial positive.
Wasn’t there a study that said MBAs don’t have object permanence nor a real conscious understanding of the passage of time?
Money today. That’s all these businesses understand.
Just give them a box of crayons to eat so the adults can get some work done for once.
Unfortunately, living in the US, I would not take a job with a pension because the (private) pension system cannot be trusted. I remember the 00s when many company pension accounts went bankrupt, because companies were no longer offering it as a benefit and it was easy enough to screw over retired past employees. Companies would take poorly performing divisions and their pension plans, spin them off as a new company that would quickly file for bankruptcy.
I would not trust a pension without it being insured by an organization like the FDIC. Even then, I would be afraid that my pension would not cover living costs due to inflation.
Luckily there are alternatives. I have a 401k, which should give me a steady flow of inflation proof dividends… until a market downturn wipes it out. If that happens, I can fall back to Social Security. Don’t believe the baloney that the government will ever let Social Security go bankrupt. They will just cut down benefits.
I don’t deny things like that happened. You heard about them right? So did I. But that’s the thing, these are the stories you heard. It’s man bites dog, it is observation bias.
Also her pension is insured. And I am pretty sure the bankruptcy thing you mentioned was one particular case with a car part maker.
I searched what MBA actually means. Fuck that shit. Degree in “Business Administration” sounds like degree in praying. Wait, there is one! Fuck!
It doesn’t matter if any specific MBA learns a lesson. Some other douche canoe will swing by and have their single brain cell fire off just this one time and they’ll start hacking away at the pensions to make Q3 look better.
Boeing style.
No more moon shots, contract out everything, slash pensions, fight a war against your union, move corporate away from production, buy your own stock.
I’m a late gen-Xer (born in '80, so I’m more of a “Xennial”). I have a stable job, pension, matching 401k, no kids, no debt (paid off my car and student loans), make 6 figures, and I am STILL convinced that I will never be able to retire. I feel horrible for all those who are in a worse financial situation than me, but we are all really fucked in the next 20 years.
I have a stable job, pension, matching 401k, no kids, no debt (paid off my car and student loans), make 6 figures, and I am STILL convinced that I will never be able to retire.
If this is your reality, there’s more wrong with your expectations than your situation.
Social Security is set to run out in the 2030s, and I fully expect the stock market to crash, effectively wiping out my 401k. As others have mentioned, resources like water will start to become scarce, inciting instability.
SSI isn’t set to run out. It will have to be reduced if they don’t take the income cap off of it, however.
But all the other things you said will happen.
SSI isn’t set to run out. It will have to be reduced if they don’t take the income cap off of it, however.
that’s as realistic as single payer healthcare; or universal basic income; or sensible gun control legislation; or abolishing the electoral college, they all have super majority support of everyone in this country but there’s too much monied political interest against ever allowing it happen.
Exactly. SS is too popular. There will be some sort of reform/funding, but congress will wait to the least minute to fix a problem. See any sort of continuing resolution government funding bill or the last time SS had problems back in the 80s. The '83 reform only occurred a mere months prior to insolvency. The fact that SS is still years/decades from major problems means it’s someone else’s problem to our elected representatives.
The one thing you can count on conservatives paying attention to is messing with their money.
What happens might not be pretty, but if they try to day “fuck it, guess we are ending the program” there will be hell to pay.
Nah. They’ll be happy that minorities are hurt too.
With enough propaganda anything is possible.
It will probably happen once the cut triggers. You are going to immediately see a lot of angry voters.
Considering how one party is hellbent on getting rid of social security and the other party just shrugs and let’s them get what they want; id expect the shrugging party to be left holding to bag and suffer the political consequences once the cut hits with nothing happening
Correct. IIRC there’s an auto mechanism that will cut all benefits by 23% or something. So you’re mom/dad getting $2,000 a month would now only get about $1,500.
If you think the stock market crashing wipes your 401k to 0 and that’s realistic you need to get your head checked.
In 2020 it only dropped 20% and bounced back within 3 years.
Where do you chicken littles come from? Lol
That’s very pessimistic.
Not for the entire southwestern United States. There’s 5 major cities off the top of my head getting ready to face a zero day. If you don’t think the stock market is going to react when that happens…
What’s a “zero day” in this context?
Zero day is the day a city runs out of water and must literally truck it in.
Gotcha, thank you!
I call it realistic. If you think everything is going to work out, you’re delusional, man. But I hope you prove me wrong some day, I really do.
Yeah, I’m not going to live my life like that.
i want to live like you; what evidence to you use to shore up this viewpoint?
Faith baby! pure, Colombian uncut hopium
Jumping in here with a couple cents. Background: Old millennial, paid off home, pension, 401K, 6 figs. I’ll be able to retire. My viewpoint: Automation and AI will accelerate. “Safe” jobs will be gone. In fact most jobs will be gone by 2029 (my guess). Goal: keep working and investing until I lose my job.
Hard times will hit because government is slow and wealthy people won’t care until it affects them. Once jobs are cut, profits for many businesses will fall because no one will be buying anything with the money they aren’t making. As big companies begin to fail, stocks will have already begun dropping. Wealthy will go after government and government will have to do something. Only good option to keep things running: Universal Basic Income. Question is where does the money come from? Answer: AI/robots will be taxed and taxed almost 100% more than a human. Why? They won’t care.
This leads us into humans have free-time to do whatever they like. Some can work where AI/robots fail for whatever reason, some can create new things using all the new tools. Businesses will still try and make the best products so the wealthy can still feel better with all the money that really won’t matter as much anymore. They’ll enjoy some exclusive things but it will likely be just locations and not technology.
TL;DR: Hell at first, then modern day renaissance.
No evidence. I just choose to live with a positive world view and not like every day is doom. I face problems head-on when they appear and I don’t collect sorrows in advance. But you do you. I know my approach is hard for most people.
Invest in water you say…
and I fully expect the stock market to crash, effectively wiping out my 401k.
You only lose money if you sell. Those who were able to stay the course after '08 made it all back and then some.
The risk is a huge crash right before you retire, or you have to pull from your 401k to fund living expenses.
I think the fear is it stays crashed. Like a new paradigm takes over that is hard to plan for
Well that’s a silly fear.
Same exact boat. Zero confidence I can retire. My best case plan is to move to South America at so. E point and hope I can make it until I die.
Weird flex, but ok
He’s lying.
I’m almost exactly same as you and you’re full of shit.
If you’re honestly making 100k with no debt and one mortgage around 300k you can save 2k a month if your wife makes a decent wage.
Who said they have a wife?
What’s on the other side of middle age? Well, I’m not there yet, but it sure looks like the answer is “more work”.
Meanwhile your grandparents were golfing at 65 and are living comfortably on their reverse mortgages up to 95 years old.
What are we calling middle age? because 35 is about middle age on a global average
Well, going by the article: 40.
As someone born in '82, I plan to feel a strong dispassion for human society, and then die.
‘85 … I expect to die in the water wars.
Bless the maker and his water, Bless the coming and going of him, may his passing cleanse the world.
00s, I hope to not die for Putin’s palaces and yachts.
I just need to do the dying part.
Am millennial… xenniel or “elder millennial to be exact… I have completely given up on ever owning a home or being able to retire. Short of some major acts of public disruption at unprecedented, economy-toppling, billionaire-eating scale, my entire generation - and those after us - are fucked.
And yet we act like boiled frogs, each generation making fun of the prior one for expecting things to be better than they are. Gen z is so used to things being like shit that they think that all older generations are entitled fuckers And that we should get used to everything being worse because Right now it’s the best they’ve ever known.
You only need like 5% down for a home. Zero if you are a veteran for some reason. Mortgage is almost always cheaper than renting.
Zero down also for USDA home loans
Unfortunately, this age-old folk wisdom just isn’t true any more.
Near Los Angeles (and many/most big cities these days) even “fixer-upper””starter” homes cost $1,000,000.
5% down ($50k) would result in a monthly mortgage payment of $7,939.88 which more than twice my rent payment, which is already high.
And saving is nearly impossible given the rate at which the basic costs of living (including rent) have skyrocketed in recent decades.
It worked for me last year. Put 5% on a home near a major city, purchase price $425k
Some areas like LA are just a special kind of fucked, but you don’t have to live there.
The lesson here is do the calculations for your area. There are a lot of “buy vs rent” calculators online.
Yeah, I bought fairly recently (as interest rates were starting to climb) and it was 100% a qol decision rather than a financial one. I’m paying more in interest now than I was paying in rent before, so instead of giving my money away to a landlord, I’m giving it away to my mortgage company.
The only way I’ll come out ahead financially is if the value goes up. But I have mixed feelings on that, too, because the housing situation is fucked here and value continuing to go up will mean that the situation is still fucked. I don’t want this place to be my home forever, so if the price here goes up, then the price of better places will also go up and it ends up being a wash until I don’t need to own and can sell, but even that would be tough because inheritance is probably going to be my daughter’s only way of ever owning her own place.
Or, on the other hand, if they fix the housing issue here by limiting the number of residences any person can own and barring corporations from owning at all (or at least not having them count as new people for number of places they can own), then prices will crash and most people who currently has a mortgage will end up owing more than their house is worth and will still be fucked in that way. Unless the government makes the banks eat some of that or does a bailout for homeowners.
But anything in the above paragraph would probably take a revolution to actually happen because all of these bugs for regular people are features for those that have the wealth to influence the political power.
Or best option, rather than a crash we massage the housing market into stagnation for a decade or two with a combination of increased supply and gradual regulation. Stagnation in housing prices will over time let wages catch up.
Even at 425 PMI is killing you to the tune of an extra 300/ month
$61/mo actually.
LOL I’m never retiring. I’ve already accepted that I’ll be working until I’m dead. There are those who get dealt the right cards and will get to retire comfortably. I’m just not one of them.
Now try being a mid 30s millenial that couldn’t even make it running a business
For real. I’m over here having a mid-life crisis since I was 27.
That was your “quarter-life crisis”. Don’t worry your mid-life crisis is still on its way :D
Goddamn right, I thought the quarter was rough, I was wrong
i felt like that at 28 after my 3rd layoff, i’m in my early 40’s now and still feel this way and wish the article had something to share besides describing my life using other people as an examples.
Running a business is way harder than just being a worker. I don’t understand what you mean by this.
in the article someone with a successful business is worried about home affordability and retirement. elsewhere someone with an unsuccessful business is worried about both of those things plus the business bleeding money. I’m referring to myself. I ended my so called business, quitting while I was behind because there is no getting ahead of the explotative big players without drowning in stress and never having time to relax or enkoy life.
Aw shit I did the classic reddit thing and only read the headline. Sorry, that’s my bad.
I do that all the time too.
X’er here. I have what most would consider a good job, with good pay, and a good boss. I consider it a good job with good pay and a good boss. My spouse is unable to work, and we have two children. I’m currently seeking some skill or product I can develop without taking time away from my existing responsibilities such that I have a chance of not having to work until I die at my desk one day.
With no shade against millenials, this is the only time I’m grumpy about being forgotten in the generational sniping that goes on. All these articles (like OP) about this very valid angst from older millenials and I identify with it pretty much every time. I know I’m not the only X’er who does.
It’s the trouble with attributing it to any specific generation. It’s like people forgot that Gen Xers grew up reading the same dystopian sci-fi that we did that predicted this corporate shithole world. Neuromancer was written in 1984, when I was three years old. People forget that the cynicism of Gen X explicitly came from being such a small generation compared to the Boomers that it was just always a given that they wouldn’t ever have much political influence. Hell, it even affects a lot of Boomers, because this has been going on for a long time.
Gen X gets forgotten, but they were honestly the first to really bear the brunt of this disease that’s eating at all of us, and thus it’s sad that they get forgotten. Cheers mate, and I hope you find that skill and succeed in your goals.
Thanks buddy. 🥹
I leave this parting gift…
And then the money is used for regulatory capture and influencing the government in the 1%'s behalf.
Aka capitalism progressing through it’s innate path towards end stage.
First, the 1% gets all the money and then the piss trickles down.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to piss. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence
I fall just at that borderline of the two and have the same sort of spot. Took too long to get to a decent career-class job, managed to buy a basic house but only just and not much of one, savings of an amount to be confident of retirement are a fantasy from a bygone time. Spent many years with the mantra of show up, do your job, don’t cause trouble, the promotions and raises will follow and in 50 years you get a nice gold watch and a permanent vacation. BS…
You know it. At least we’re not alone. :)
I have noticed that the titles of many articles, yes even at The Guardian that generally has good content once you get past that, are written to generate maximum clicks.
You were not ignored by accident. It was a calculated decision to maximize profits, in a manner that controls the conversation and leaves you out in the cold.
Fuck corporate greed:-(.
But for you, my fellow human being who isn’t a hollowed-out shell i.e. CEO, I wish the absolute best outcome possible. (And me too.)
Maybe house prices will go down someday? I really am genuinely surprised at all that Biden('s administration) has managed to accomplish, but it was set back years before it even started by the pandemic, greedflation, and other economic and other forms of unrest. If we can get past this next election without a literal and actual bloody civil war… well then most of us will still die of climate change (gee, I am just full of positivity today aren’t I? sadly, that is the most positive take possible on that one:-|), but we might be able to make some headway? e.g. start incentivizing building houses further away from city centers, which WFH should help make possible - and even if you want to live in a city, the decrease in demand should help lower prices?
Anyway, all we can do is what we can do (aka not everything is within our control), so don’t stress too awfully much about it. We’ll die - we can’t change that - but hopefully we’ll have some good days between now and then:-).
Thanks!
I remember your username primarily because you are always so courteous even when we disagree. (not that we do here)
I’m grumpy about being forgotten in the generational sniping
Every generation grows up, settles down, and starts quarrels with its parents.
In 10-15 years, Zoomers will remember you.
not having to work until I die at my desk
Lol this guy thinks there is a chance he will die at his desk. I wish I could feel that optimism.
Chances are better that at best you will die in gig or part time job like Walmart. The most likely is in you kids house, really yours but you will give it to them, and without medical support beyond basic hospice.
Many of your peers and friends will die in homeless camps or from police violence.
You were jacking off when you wrote this, weren’t you.
X too, steady job, ok pay, lucky enough to have bought a house before COVID, but not enough to save thousands of $ for retreat.
For the last 10 years when I’ve been asked about my career goals during job interviews I always respond, “I would like to retire.” I then clarify that I don’t mean tomorrow, next year, or even 5 years down the road. I just don’t want to die a wage slave.
What’s the typical reaction to that? Bring honest like that doesn’t sound like a winning strategy, unless you pass it off as a joke maybe.
I don’t say the wage slave part outright like that. I say the part about retiring with a smile like I’m joking but then use the opportunity to point out that I think about and plan for the future and that I’m financially responsible. Then I ask about the company’s benefits package.
Covid made thing weird for a while but my career has had a generally upward trend. My current job is a pretty serious step up for me in both salary and benefits and has a pretty clear path for future progression. I lost out on some of the creativity that I enjoyed in prior positions but I gained more free time to engage with my hobbies.
I’d say it’s been working for me but your mileage may vary based on your delivery and what kind of job you’re interviewing for.
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
