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Speaking for myself (as a 22 year-old recent graduate) - I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass

Speaking for myself (as a 22 year-old recent graduate) - I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity with a conscience bent more towards justice and meritocracy than corruption and inequality. I believed that the older generation who shape and structure society through government, industry, and academia were doing their absolute best to set future generations up for success; after all, what else could be the ultimate aim and goal of life once you marry and have children of your own? Now, I'm not so sure this is the case. It seems like there is a lot less to go around, even for the older generation. I used to see teenagers bagging groceries and working menial service jobs. Now all I see are 50-60 year olds, and I wonder "how the hell did these people end up working minimum wage, 11pm shifts at the grocery store at age 58?". I see my landlord barely getting by on social security, rent income, and a sales job, unable to retire at age 65. Ageism is real, with layoffs at major companies (IBM, HP, etc.) affecting older workers disproportionately, many of whom are not yet able to retire and who don't have the time to retrain for a rapidly-changing economy that demands dramatically different skills than it did 20-30 years ago. So ultimately, I find that many in the older generation are simply trying to make ends meet in an environment of scarcity that is new for the US, with the youth subsequently becoming disillusioned because the system seems to be set up against them. Of course, as inequality grows, the shrinking proportion of families with money are largely exempt from these worries. But you would think "they" (the nameless, faceless, despised rich) would find it in their interests to give back to society; to give back to a system that had rewarded them with comfort and prosperity. To make sure it didn't rot from the greed, sloth, misplaced violence, weak guidance, and weaker morals that did away with the mighty Roman empire. It's all a matter of perspective though: at least we're not being conscripted to go fight in Vietnam or WWIII, which is the ultimate manifestation of the old using the young for profit and self-serving agenda pushing.

xrange 11y ago
>I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity with a conscience bent more towards justice and meritocracy Interesting. Do you see this as more of a failure in your upbringing, or of a failure of society to live up to your expectations? Has this realization changed your political thinking in any ways?
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I think young people should always respect their elders, even though they can and will be wrong at times. Doctors, engineers, politicians, teachers, parents - they're all fallible. I don't think my upbringing was a failure - I think it's pretty normal to be extremely idealistic when you're raised in a middle class, educated bubble like I was. Most of my friends had great, successful parents and I think we all just assumed that if we followed the rules, got good grades, kept our noses clean, and went to college like our parents wanted us to, that we would be happy and successful just like them. That was the magic formula for their generation. In fact, it allowed my mother to come to the US, get a good job at ROME Corp (later acquired by IBM in its heyday), and to pull her family out of poverty in Taiwan, where they had been so poor after her father's death that they had been forced to put 2 of her younger siblings into an orphanage. A college education allowed my dad to start his own law practice and to take out a mortgage in California, back when real estate was something people lived on, not invested in. Now, this paradigm of education=prosperity has shifted dramatically, leading to disillusionment. My domestic friends all want to go into either tech or finance, and some (with degrees from good universities) can't find any jobs. Many of my very intelligent, driven international friends are being forced out of the US post-graduation because nobody wants to sponsor them, when in many cases they would be 10x better than a domestic candidate. The ones who stay are the lucky ones with connections at large companies that are willing to trade visas for favors and personal connections. But sometimes I wonder how lucky they really are to be staying in the US with the trajectory we are currently on. Politically, the financial crisis and subsequent great recession has had a profound impact on me. When I studied economics in high school, I loved it because it presented such a clear path to efficiency and utility: free markets with no regulations, no distortions, no bullshit. Then 2008 came along, and I began to hear my parents argue about how they were going to afford to continue to pay for my high school, or send me to college. I didn't realize the magnitude of the event (the great recession) at the time, but became more aware of it as I started to look at the job market in college. My studies caused me to wonder why our system was set up in such a way that something so terrible could happen on such a large scale. How people were blinded or refused to see what was going on beneath the surface of the economy; how those who were supposed to protect us and our families from financial catastrophe failed miserably. Politically, it made me realize that we need to have a strong government to regulate the greed of the free market, and that when that system of checks and balances fails, people lose their jobs and their homes. They get sick. They become homeless. They rely even more on an already-weak state. Some die. My senior thesis was on the denationalization of currency (Friedrich Hayek's idea) through blockchain-based virtual currency, which would essentially end the government's control over the supply of money and put it into the hands of a regulated currency market. So that's where I ended up - tear down the current festering system, put better regulators into power, and let them steer the unparalleled engine of the free(ish) market. Not completely revolutionary, but definitely a bit weird and radical.
sjg007 11y ago
This is why young people need to vote.
- mygodtou 11y ago
  ? Voting for the corrupt does nothing but legitimizes the process. Only money matters. Come up with a real solution because voting isn't it and I'm sick of hearing the same faulty advice.
  - jleyank 11y ago
    Yeah, and if you don't vote you get what the money wants without a fight. If you work to create things like Uber, to solve a first-world problem such as "mediocre taxis" you should be able to work towards a communication system that can combat traditional marketing and its effect on voting patterns. Otherwise, you're just admitting it's "hard" and you don't want to work on "hard" problems...
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      Yup. A few lines of code and an app can totally bypass decades of psychological research regarding marketing.
      - jleyank 11y ago
        Worked for open-source software. In a relatively short time (10 years +/-?), the traditional capitalistic model which worked for centuries seems to have been supplanted to at least some degree. I was thinking of several things: 1) Modern technology to provide direct communication, 2) Sheer numbers of people in each age cohort and 3) The desire to effect change. Social media can slaughter a movie in a day or two. I would think it would have a useful effect on its users, assuming they were willing to make the effort.
        icebraining 11y ago
        Open Source was the capitalist response to Free Software, capturing the cost reduction of shared and unpaid voluntary work and reselling it as closed systems. If anything, it underlines the point that any change will be subverted and used against its originators.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
And it is up to your generation to do a better job of it (no pun intended) so run for office!
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I'm afraid I don't have the money to devote my life to politics and I'm much too idealistic to be a good politician. In any event, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to influence the system is to have a lot of money to throw around. Then you can hire a guy to go make speeches for you and spread your message, you can buy scientists to publish research that supports your agenda, you can buy lawyers to silence dissent and block action, you can buy your way into meetings of the other elitely wealthy that really decide where investments flow, how the economy works, who wins and who loses.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. We are the government, and if you choose not to help make it what you want, it gets made for you by people who don't appreciate your point of view. Look no further than the "hell no" Republican tea-party caucus in the US Congress for a really visible example of people making the government the way they want it made while we sit on the sidelines. You don't do it for the money, you do it because you believe the world can be better than it is. And if you do it right you can completely nullify the impact of people with a lot of money that try to force it to be different. My grandfather told me that when the country was threatened by a Japanese invasion, the young men and women flocked to sign up to preserve their way of life. But when their way of life is threatened by their lack of participation in the governing of the country, they do nothing. He was particularly disappointed with the youth of the 60's who would rather "drop out" than take their passion with them into public service and actually pull the US out of its sillyness in Vietnam. Its a time horizon thing, one of the greatest strengths of Martin Luther King was that he could help people see that while it would take time, more than they wanted, they could achieve meaningful change. But if someone believes themselves to be helpless, they will live up to their own expectations of helplessness.
    - 11y ago
maxerickson 11y ago
In some hand wavy statistical sense, those old people you see bagging groceries probably would have been dead 50 years ago. If that is true (I don't know if it is, I'm speculating), they aren't evidence of scarcity. It's hard to measure quality of life, but if you look at things like housing, people in the US have more households now, with the average dwelling having increased in size (I'm sure McMansions pull up the average, but again, oversized houses aren't evidence of scarcity).
- rsync 11y ago
  "In some hand wavy statistical sense, those old people you see bagging groceries probably would have been dead 50 years ago." No, some proportion of them would have been dead between 0 and 3 years old (which is what brings down the life expectancy numbers dramatically) but 100 years ago those 50 year olds would still be living to 60, just like they do now.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Life expectancy at middle ages has expanded quite a bit: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html A 20 year old can expect to live well into their 70s rather than just reaching 60 (so an expectancy of ~55 years compared to 40 years). But sure, the gains are mostly from early survival rates.
- marincounty 11y ago
  Fifty, and sixty year old's are not that old. I thought 50 was ancient in my twenties, but it comes quick. As to actuarial tables, we have not made that much progress in 50 years. I believe we added seven years to life expectancy, but that sounds high? I do see guys my age in menial jobs, and I believe it's the economy. Companies just fired people. They fired them for various reasons, but technology made it possible. It's result of decling availability of good unions, or any unions--hence no real retirement. A changing workplace. Less jobs. If anyone should be worried about their economic viability, I believe, young tech workers are high on the list. No unions. Training/work that can be farmed out. Training that can be learned over the Internet--well. I don't want to be an alarmist, but I know too many former Programmers. Too many unemployed/close to homeless Programmers from the 80's and 90's? I see a trend towards doing well with less employees, and no one cares as long as they get what they want. What's App has a handful of employees? Twitter will never have the amount of employees they had a week ago, even if they do really take off. We are making programming/Web developement easier daily. I'm happy with DRY. I like Bootstrap. What will it be like in another ten years? I don't have an answer, but I don't forsee a bunch of 50-60 year old employees bagging groceries. I just see the more Homeless. I believe it will get so bad, the rich won't be able to fully enjoy their wealth, unless they beef up entitlement programs? After all, driving your sport's car past homeless can't be fun, and then you have to think about where you can park it? It's kind of like eating a fancy dinner, while the person across the table is starving? And let's not turn into Mexico, where if you have some wealth, you can't leave the house unless you have body guards. Got off track, but the future does not look rosey. I do think we need to resind some of these treaties that make opening up shop overseas so easy, or at least raise tariffs? I know it's selfish, but the way we are moving is scary.
VLM 11y ago
"who don't have the time to retrain" The reason why we hear and repeat that old people need to retrain, is because employers don't want to hire older people and knowing that very few can afford the time and money to retrain, and that it's politically permissible to discriminate based on "retraining" then you're going to hear a lot about how its really important to retrain and old people need to work harder and its all the victims fault if they won't retrain and much hand wringing about those darn victims bringing it on themselves. If we had a magical (online?) way to retrain old people, the mantra would insta-shift to some other made up reason why old people can't be hired and no one would talk about training anymore. It the same thing with women or minorities who aren't cultural fits. Its not that there are no star wars fans in those demographics or that it truly matters, its just a way to say in polite company that blacks need not apply because of racism. Just go ahead, "change your culture" and we'll hire you. Oh you say that's impossible, oh so sad I guess we'll hire the white boy instead. What a shame we really wanted to hit our diversity quota, but, (shrugs shoulders) well you know how important culture is. I mean look at how important culture is at every other employer who coincidentally also doesn't hire black people. Oh it doesn't matter in the greater economy? We'll we're special snowflakes in this industry, you see, and you outsiders just don't understand, we really, really don't like women programmers or black programmers.
nostrademons 11y ago
You don't see the people who are doing much better than their parents. The more self-aware of them know that there is nothing good that comes out of drawing attention to their good fortune. The less self-aware just assume that's how it is for everybody and don't think it's remarkable.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  Sure, but if people were moving up on aggregate, we would see the middle class growing as children of the poor made their way up. Instead, we see the middle class shrinking, the poor growing, and the wealth collecting to a smaller proportion of the population as families are being pushed down due to the recession.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Be careful with the word "aggregate", it obscures a lot of the complexity of what's going on. In aggregate, for example, the average person will remain...average. That's not a useful conclusion when looking at absolute wealth (which nobody really cares about anyway - the working poor today have more information available to them than a corporate CEO did 20 years ago, yet it doesn't do much good for them), nor is it all that useful when predicting how to raise your social status (which a good number of people do care about). What's really happening is that the class structure of society is being replaced entirely, similar to what happened during the industrial revolution. During the Renaissance, the class system consisted of landed aristocrats => merchants => guilds => working poor. The Industrial Revolution raised the productivity of certain industries so much that the owners of these machines displaced the previously wealthy class, leading to a class system of industrialist/financiers => unionized workers => non-union & service workers. What's happening now is that "software is eating the world", and displacing the existing networks of production throughout the economy. That's leading to a class system of "those who own the data" (entrepreneurs & executives of large tech companies) => "those who work with the data" (software engineers, and likely hardware engineers & material scientists in the near future) => "everybody else". This transition has just begun, in the grand scheme of things; I'd estimate that we're at the equivalent of around 1900 on the Industrial Revolution timetable. The big losers likely won't be the middle class, who are probably the best positioned (in aggregate - see, it obscures a lot of relevant details) to move into the engineering class. The losers are likely to be the formerly wealthy, the descendants of the former owners & executives of old-line corporations. The landed aristocracy didn't make a great showing during the Industrial Revolution, and it's unlikely that the country-club set will make a great showing during the Information Revolution. Pick where you want to be in the new world order, and work hard to get there. One thing capitalism definitely does reward is action. The old economic order has just been blown up, but few people realize it yet; that makes it the best time to build the new one.
DaveWalk 11y ago
> So ultimately, I find that many in the older generation are simply trying to make ends meet in an environment of scarcity that is new for the US, with the youth subsequently becoming disillusioned because the system seems to be set up against them. Hey, welcome to the adult world! Do you think, if you asked the older generation to describe one another in confidence that they might say the same?
Domenic_S 11y ago
> to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity There is no mass of humanity in that way, just like "HN believes..." or "Reddit thinks..." is mostly impossible to say. Some folks of that generation did/do act in mostly-altruistic, benevolent ways, and some of them did/do not. The generational argument is a very clever red herring that shifts blame from a broken system to the previous generation -- print this comment out and put it somewhere safe; your future children will be blaming your generation, too. > "how the hell did these people end up working minimum wage, 11pm shifts at the grocery store at age 58?" Lots of times, sheer boredom. Folks like us might do freelance coding or something in our old age, but there's not a good market for freelance people managers (which a great deal of those 58-year-old bag boys probably were -- why not ask them next time?) Also, big grocery stores are typically union so it's not actually a terrible career for the kind of work it is. Your generation has a different idea of what a "good job" is, so that's probably informing a bit of your reaction too. > I find that many in the older generation are simply trying to make ends meet in an environment of scarcity Most people are simply trying to make ends meet. Some saved more, some saved less, some earned more, some earned less, but in the US if you worked and paid taxes, you'll get the bare minimum (social security + medicare) and won't ever starve or go cold. If your desire for retirement is more than "won't starve", start saving today and always live below your means. > with the youth subsequently becoming disillusioned because the system seems to be set up against them. Every generation back to the ancient Greeks felt that way. There's basically always been a counterculture movement based on youthful disillusionment, some more successful (hippies of the 60s) and some less (#occupywallst). But it's not anything new. This should tell you something important: the system is the problem, and the system is adverse to change. A lot of those hippies turned into middle managers. > But you would think "they" (the nameless, faceless, despised rich) would find it in their interests to give back to society They absolutely do. The top 1% of earners pay 50% of federal taxes. Those social programs I mentioned above that will keep you eating, clothed and warm even if you don't have a penny to your name? Thank the taxpayers, of whom top earners comprise disproportionately. Almost all charitable foundations are made possible by the rich. Did you take any grants, subsidized loans or scholarships? If so, thank taxpayers (mostly top earners) and private donators (again, mostly top earners). What's weird is that you understand the effect ("greed, sloth, misplaced violence, weak guidance, and weaker morals") but totally misunderstand the cause. Yours is the first generation of "everyone's special" come to adulthood. Instead of looking at the rich person and saying "wow, I want that, how can I get that for myself?" (and then doing it or at least trying), they'll say "wow, I want that, he has it, f* that guy". It's worse than greed, it's covetousness - wanting something so much you'd take it from someone else. That will be America's undoing.
raarts 11y ago
This touches me. I am 55, and I think this is a very astute observation. To me it seems the downfall of the 50+ generation was either caused or exacerbated by the financial crisis. On the other hand it seems that the top class wasn't really affected, on the contrary their wealth has grown substantially. That money must have come from somewhere. Politicians do not seem to offer real solutions, and the media seem to be obsessing over details instead of big picture issues. My generation may have given the greedy ones and sociopaths too much leeway.
nickbauman 11y ago
Peter Norvig's Economics Simulation is informative in this case. Without forced redistribution, most OECD nations will become 3rd world eventually. It's a mathematical certainty. Even with forced redistribution, the rich still get and stay rich. http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics...
- xrange 11y ago
  Am I missing something? It seems like all those transactions are merely exchanges, and no wealth has actually been created (i.e. new ipads, hepatitis treatments, Taylor Swift concert tickets, food grown, etc.).
  - nickbauman 11y ago
    Norvig uses the term level of wealth to describe what's being exchanged. I think that covers wealth being created (or destroyed, which, y'know, also happens, eh?)

xrange 11y ago

>I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity with a conscience bent more towards justice and meritocracy Interesting. Do you see this as more of a failure in your upbringing, or of a failure of society to live up to your expectations? Has this realization changed your political thinking in any ways?

roymurdock 11y ago
I think young people should always respect their elders, even though they can and will be wrong at times. Doctors, engineers, politicians, teachers, parents - they're all fallible. I don't think my upbringing was a failure - I think it's pretty normal to be extremely idealistic when you're raised in a middle class, educated bubble like I was. Most of my friends had great, successful parents and I think we all just assumed that if we followed the rules, got good grades, kept our noses clean, and went to college like our parents wanted us to, that we would be happy and successful just like them. That was the magic formula for their generation. In fact, it allowed my mother to come to the US, get a good job at ROME Corp (later acquired by IBM in its heyday), and to pull her family out of poverty in Taiwan, where they had been so poor after her father's death that they had been forced to put 2 of her younger siblings into an orphanage. A college education allowed my dad to start his own law practice and to take out a mortgage in California, back when real estate was something people lived on, not invested in. Now, this paradigm of education=prosperity has shifted dramatically, leading to disillusionment. My domestic friends all want to go into either tech or finance, and some (with degrees from good universities) can't find any jobs. Many of my very intelligent, driven international friends are being forced out of the US post-graduation because nobody wants to sponsor them, when in many cases they would be 10x better than a domestic candidate. The ones who stay are the lucky ones with connections at large companies that are willing to trade visas for favors and personal connections. But sometimes I wonder how lucky they really are to be staying in the US with the trajectory we are currently on. Politically, the financial crisis and subsequent great recession has had a profound impact on me. When I studied economics in high school, I loved it because it presented such a clear path to efficiency and utility: free markets with no regulations, no distortions, no bullshit. Then 2008 came along, and I began to hear my parents argue about how they were going to afford to continue to pay for my high school, or send me to college. I didn't realize the magnitude of the event (the great recession) at the time, but became more aware of it as I started to look at the job market in college. My studies caused me to wonder why our system was set up in such a way that something so terrible could happen on such a large scale. How people were blinded or refused to see what was going on beneath the surface of the economy; how those who were supposed to protect us and our families from financial catastrophe failed miserably. Politically, it made me realize that we need to have a strong government to regulate the greed of the free market, and that when that system of checks and balances fails, people lose their jobs and their homes. They get sick. They become homeless. They rely even more on an already-weak state. Some die. My senior thesis was on the denationalization of currency (Friedrich Hayek's idea) through blockchain-based virtual currency, which would essentially end the government's control over the supply of money and put it into the hands of a regulated currency market. So that's where I ended up - tear down the current festering system, put better regulators into power, and let them steer the unparalleled engine of the free(ish) market. Not completely revolutionary, but definitely a bit weird and radical.

sjg007 11y ago

This is why young people need to vote.

mygodtou 11y ago
? Voting for the corrupt does nothing but legitimizes the process. Only money matters. Come up with a real solution because voting isn't it and I'm sick of hearing the same faulty advice.
- jleyank 11y ago
  Yeah, and if you don't vote you get what the money wants without a fight. If you work to create things like Uber, to solve a first-world problem such as "mediocre taxis" you should be able to work towards a communication system that can combat traditional marketing and its effect on voting patterns. Otherwise, you're just admitting it's "hard" and you don't want to work on "hard" problems...
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Yup. A few lines of code and an app can totally bypass decades of psychological research regarding marketing.
    - jleyank 11y ago
      Worked for open-source software. In a relatively short time (10 years +/-?), the traditional capitalistic model which worked for centuries seems to have been supplanted to at least some degree. I was thinking of several things: 1) Modern technology to provide direct communication, 2) Sheer numbers of people in each age cohort and 3) The desire to effect change. Social media can slaughter a movie in a day or two. I would think it would have a useful effect on its users, assuming they were willing to make the effort.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        Open Source was the capitalist response to Free Software, capturing the cost reduction of shared and unpaid voluntary work and reselling it as closed systems. If anything, it underlines the point that any change will be subverted and used against its originators.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

And it is up to your generation to do a better job of it (no pun intended) so run for office!

roymurdock 11y ago
I'm afraid I don't have the money to devote my life to politics and I'm much too idealistic to be a good politician. In any event, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to influence the system is to have a lot of money to throw around. Then you can hire a guy to go make speeches for you and spread your message, you can buy scientists to publish research that supports your agenda, you can buy lawyers to silence dissent and block action, you can buy your way into meetings of the other elitely wealthy that really decide where investments flow, how the economy works, who wins and who loses.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. We are the government, and if you choose not to help make it what you want, it gets made for you by people who don't appreciate your point of view. Look no further than the "hell no" Republican tea-party caucus in the US Congress for a really visible example of people making the government the way they want it made while we sit on the sidelines. You don't do it for the money, you do it because you believe the world can be better than it is. And if you do it right you can completely nullify the impact of people with a lot of money that try to force it to be different. My grandfather told me that when the country was threatened by a Japanese invasion, the young men and women flocked to sign up to preserve their way of life. But when their way of life is threatened by their lack of participation in the governing of the country, they do nothing. He was particularly disappointed with the youth of the 60's who would rather "drop out" than take their passion with them into public service and actually pull the US out of its sillyness in Vietnam. Its a time horizon thing, one of the greatest strengths of Martin Luther King was that he could help people see that while it would take time, more than they wanted, they could achieve meaningful change. But if someone believes themselves to be helpless, they will live up to their own expectations of helplessness.
  - 11y ago

maxerickson 11y ago

In some hand wavy statistical sense, those old people you see bagging groceries probably would have been dead 50 years ago. If that is true (I don't know if it is, I'm speculating), they aren't evidence of scarcity. It's hard to measure quality of life, but if you look at things like housing, people in the US have more households now, with the average dwelling having increased in size (I'm sure McMansions pull up the average, but again, oversized houses aren't evidence of scarcity).

rsync 11y ago
"In some hand wavy statistical sense, those old people you see bagging groceries probably would have been dead 50 years ago." No, some proportion of them would have been dead between 0 and 3 years old (which is what brings down the life expectancy numbers dramatically) but 100 years ago those 50 year olds would still be living to 60, just like they do now.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Life expectancy at middle ages has expanded quite a bit: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html A 20 year old can expect to live well into their 70s rather than just reaching 60 (so an expectancy of ~55 years compared to 40 years). But sure, the gains are mostly from early survival rates.
marincounty 11y ago
Fifty, and sixty year old's are not that old. I thought 50 was ancient in my twenties, but it comes quick. As to actuarial tables, we have not made that much progress in 50 years. I believe we added seven years to life expectancy, but that sounds high? I do see guys my age in menial jobs, and I believe it's the economy. Companies just fired people. They fired them for various reasons, but technology made it possible. It's result of decling availability of good unions, or any unions--hence no real retirement. A changing workplace. Less jobs. If anyone should be worried about their economic viability, I believe, young tech workers are high on the list. No unions. Training/work that can be farmed out. Training that can be learned over the Internet--well. I don't want to be an alarmist, but I know too many former Programmers. Too many unemployed/close to homeless Programmers from the 80's and 90's? I see a trend towards doing well with less employees, and no one cares as long as they get what they want. What's App has a handful of employees? Twitter will never have the amount of employees they had a week ago, even if they do really take off. We are making programming/Web developement easier daily. I'm happy with DRY. I like Bootstrap. What will it be like in another ten years? I don't have an answer, but I don't forsee a bunch of 50-60 year old employees bagging groceries. I just see the more Homeless. I believe it will get so bad, the rich won't be able to fully enjoy their wealth, unless they beef up entitlement programs? After all, driving your sport's car past homeless can't be fun, and then you have to think about where you can park it? It's kind of like eating a fancy dinner, while the person across the table is starving? And let's not turn into Mexico, where if you have some wealth, you can't leave the house unless you have body guards. Got off track, but the future does not look rosey. I do think we need to resind some of these treaties that make opening up shop overseas so easy, or at least raise tariffs? I know it's selfish, but the way we are moving is scary.

VLM 11y ago

"who don't have the time to retrain" The reason why we hear and repeat that old people need to retrain, is because employers don't want to hire older people and knowing that very few can afford the time and money to retrain, and that it's politically permissible to discriminate based on "retraining" then you're going to hear a lot about how its really important to retrain and old people need to work harder and its all the victims fault if they won't retrain and much hand wringing about those darn victims bringing it on themselves. If we had a magical (online?) way to retrain old people, the mantra would insta-shift to some other made up reason why old people can't be hired and no one would talk about training anymore. It the same thing with women or minorities who aren't cultural fits. Its not that there are no star wars fans in those demographics or that it truly matters, its just a way to say in polite company that blacks need not apply because of racism. Just go ahead, "change your culture" and we'll hire you. Oh you say that's impossible, oh so sad I guess we'll hire the white boy instead. What a shame we really wanted to hit our diversity quota, but, (shrugs shoulders) well you know how important culture is. I mean look at how important culture is at every other employer who coincidentally also doesn't hire black people. Oh it doesn't matter in the greater economy? We'll we're special snowflakes in this industry, you see, and you outsiders just don't understand, we really, really don't like women programmers or black programmers.

nostrademons 11y ago

You don't see the people who are doing much better than their parents. The more self-aware of them know that there is nothing good that comes out of drawing attention to their good fortune. The less self-aware just assume that's how it is for everybody and don't think it's remarkable.

roymurdock 11y ago
Sure, but if people were moving up on aggregate, we would see the middle class growing as children of the poor made their way up. Instead, we see the middle class shrinking, the poor growing, and the wealth collecting to a smaller proportion of the population as families are being pushed down due to the recession.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Be careful with the word "aggregate", it obscures a lot of the complexity of what's going on. In aggregate, for example, the average person will remain...average. That's not a useful conclusion when looking at absolute wealth (which nobody really cares about anyway - the working poor today have more information available to them than a corporate CEO did 20 years ago, yet it doesn't do much good for them), nor is it all that useful when predicting how to raise your social status (which a good number of people do care about). What's really happening is that the class structure of society is being replaced entirely, similar to what happened during the industrial revolution. During the Renaissance, the class system consisted of landed aristocrats => merchants => guilds => working poor. The Industrial Revolution raised the productivity of certain industries so much that the owners of these machines displaced the previously wealthy class, leading to a class system of industrialist/financiers => unionized workers => non-union & service workers. What's happening now is that "software is eating the world", and displacing the existing networks of production throughout the economy. That's leading to a class system of "those who own the data" (entrepreneurs & executives of large tech companies) => "those who work with the data" (software engineers, and likely hardware engineers & material scientists in the near future) => "everybody else". This transition has just begun, in the grand scheme of things; I'd estimate that we're at the equivalent of around 1900 on the Industrial Revolution timetable. The big losers likely won't be the middle class, who are probably the best positioned (in aggregate - see, it obscures a lot of relevant details) to move into the engineering class. The losers are likely to be the formerly wealthy, the descendants of the former owners & executives of old-line corporations. The landed aristocracy didn't make a great showing during the Industrial Revolution, and it's unlikely that the country-club set will make a great showing during the Information Revolution. Pick where you want to be in the new world order, and work hard to get there. One thing capitalism definitely does reward is action. The old economic order has just been blown up, but few people realize it yet; that makes it the best time to build the new one.

DaveWalk 11y ago

> So ultimately, I find that many in the older generation are simply trying to make ends meet in an environment of scarcity that is new for the US, with the youth subsequently becoming disillusioned because the system seems to be set up against them. Hey, welcome to the adult world! Do you think, if you asked the older generation to describe one another in confidence that they might say the same?

Domenic_S 11y ago

> to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity There is no mass of humanity in that way, just like "HN believes..." or "Reddit thinks..." is mostly impossible to say. Some folks of that generation did/do act in mostly-altruistic, benevolent ways, and some of them did/do not. The generational argument is a very clever red herring that shifts blame from a broken system to the previous generation -- print this comment out and put it somewhere safe; your future children will be blaming your generation, too. > "how the hell did these people end up working minimum wage, 11pm shifts at the grocery store at age 58?" Lots of times, sheer boredom. Folks like us might do freelance coding or something in our old age, but there's not a good market for freelance people managers (which a great deal of those 58-year-old bag boys probably were -- why not ask them next time?) Also, big grocery stores are typically union so it's not actually a terrible career for the kind of work it is. Your generation has a different idea of what a "good job" is, so that's probably informing a bit of your reaction too. > I find that many in the older generation are simply trying to make ends meet in an environment of scarcity Most people are simply trying to make ends meet. Some saved more, some saved less, some earned more, some earned less, but in the US if you worked and paid taxes, you'll get the bare minimum (social security + medicare) and won't ever starve or go cold. If your desire for retirement is more than "won't starve", start saving today and always live below your means. > with the youth subsequently becoming disillusioned because the system seems to be set up against them. Every generation back to the ancient Greeks felt that way. There's basically always been a counterculture movement based on youthful disillusionment, some more successful (hippies of the 60s) and some less (#occupywallst). But it's not anything new. This should tell you something important: the system is the problem, and the system is adverse to change. A lot of those hippies turned into middle managers. > But you would think "they" (the nameless, faceless, despised rich) would find it in their interests to give back to society They absolutely do. The top 1% of earners pay 50% of federal taxes. Those social programs I mentioned above that will keep you eating, clothed and warm even if you don't have a penny to your name? Thank the taxpayers, of whom top earners comprise disproportionately. Almost all charitable foundations are made possible by the rich. Did you take any grants, subsidized loans or scholarships? If so, thank taxpayers (mostly top earners) and private donators (again, mostly top earners). What's weird is that you understand the effect ("greed, sloth, misplaced violence, weak guidance, and weaker morals") but totally misunderstand the cause. Yours is the first generation of "everyone's special" come to adulthood. Instead of looking at the rich person and saying "wow, I want that, how can I get that for myself?" (and then doing it or at least trying), they'll say "wow, I want that, he has it, f* that guy". It's worse than greed, it's covetousness - wanting something so much you'd take it from someone else. That will be America's undoing.

raarts 11y ago

This touches me. I am 55, and I think this is a very astute observation. To me it seems the downfall of the 50+ generation was either caused or exacerbated by the financial crisis. On the other hand it seems that the top class wasn't really affected, on the contrary their wealth has grown substantially. That money must have come from somewhere. Politicians do not seem to offer real solutions, and the media seem to be obsessing over details instead of big picture issues. My generation may have given the greedy ones and sociopaths too much leeway.

nickbauman 11y ago

Peter Norvig's Economics Simulation is informative in this case. Without forced redistribution, most OECD nations will become 3rd world eventually. It's a mathematical certainty. Even with forced redistribution, the rich still get and stay rich. http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics...

xrange 11y ago
Am I missing something? It seems like all those transactions are merely exchanges, and no wealth has actually been created (i.e. new ipads, hepatitis treatments, Taylor Swift concert tickets, food grown, etc.).
- nickbauman 11y ago
  Norvig uses the term level of wealth to describe what's being exchanged. I think that covers wealth being created (or destroyed, which, y'know, also happens, eh?)