10 ms·

With respect, "quality of life" is extremely vague. On the one hand: - Better hospitals/vaccines/doctors/dentists/optometrists - Fewer wars / more freedom* /

With respect, "quality of life" is extremely vague. On the one hand: - Better hospitals/vaccines/doctors/dentists/optometrists - Fewer wars / more freedom* / better sense of equality* - Cheaper/More effective modes to access knowledge or communicate over distance - Cleaner/Cheaper water, heat, electricity - Robots do increasingly more "mundane" work. Vacuum, drive*, wash dishes, wash clothes - Cheaper, higher quality, entertainment. TV, Movies, Video-Games, Twitch, Youtube On the other hand: - I live in a tiny apartment / Less privacy overall (surveillance included) - I work a lot / had to move cities in order to get an appropriate job (three times now) - Other people can't even get jobs / don't get paid enough to live in small apartments - The environment is in a crappier state - The media is more negative, fear-mongering even. Forcing comedians to tell the news such that the tone balances to neutral Which is objectively better?

collyw 11y ago
better sense of equality, but greater inequality
- Chris2048 11y ago
  By "sense of equality", do you mean "conscience/moral compass" or "perception of how equal society is"?
  - collyw 10y ago
    I took that from the parent post.
marincounty 11y ago
I'd say neither. I don't understand these generation labels? I guess I'm a baby boomer. I was born in the 70's. I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War. Growing up, I was scared of Russia, and the bomb. As a college student, I was glad I didn't have to deal with a draft, only signing up for selective service. The thought of owning a home always seemed like a pipe dream. I thought the only way I could own a home is maybe in Lake County. In other words, a vacation home in the middle of nowhere. I could no way afford my dad's home. I can still buy a hot box in Lake county for what it cost 20 years ago. Unless you were a networking, butt sniffer you didn't just automatically land that great job out of college. Oh yea, guys like me thought little of networking. "Why would I like a person, just because they could do something for me?" On the other hand, my wealthy sister went after those who could further her career like Sheen to drugs. She is a bit of an odd ball though. She was so greedy, she took all my mother's money. I'm so tempted to out her, but can't. Growing up, we did have access to more jobs--mainly lousy jobs. Even the college corporate jobs were not great. I had two, and traveled a lot. It was not fun. I hate hotel rooms, and airlines. The real stepping stone in life was a wealthy father. I don't think that's changed much. Those kids got the right advice. Those kids got the right loans. They got to take on risk? They are in houses, and have stock portfolios now. The way I see it, the labels are not productive. At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938. If you didn't want to go to college, you just went into a union trade. You bought a house, and had kids. You drank, and smoked a lot--and didn't have to worry about dying from sex. Life wasen't bad. My generation and my father's were completely different. I looked at my father as a spoiled kid. I thought he had all the opportunities, and he didn't explore them. Again, as to generation labels, I wish we would stop using them, or at least get the dates in order. My best friend is a gen X'er--I guess. I recall the first time we even talked about our "different" generations. There were no differences. I will admit there's a difference between my generation and Millenials. Millenials know much more than I did growing up. We were Naive. Housing was always terrible for all of us. Wasen't it my generation that coined "living in the parent's basement?". Believe me--housing has always been bad. Now--in the Bay Area it is beyond bad. I will give Millenials that, I have never seen housing prices like this, but as Stanley Druckenmiller pointed out today, he sees a big kaboom comming up. You rich kids will get your house. (I won't be back to argue. I don't think I said anything worth arguing over. I'm getting over Shingles. I can pass this along. If you ever get a weird pain in your back, and notice a weird rash; go right to a doctor--if you have one. Mine is 20 miles away. I'd even go to the emergency room, and ask for the antiviral. It cuts the infection down to 50 percent, and side effects, like neuropathy. You have around three days. I've been down for 3.5 weeks now. In a lot of pain. I used to think I could handle physical pain, but this malady is really irritating.)
- rskar 11y ago
  If you don't see yourself or your dad in their labels, that's OK. But there's no need for guessing. Per Wikipedia: Baby boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. So neither you nor your dad are in that cohort. Lord knows if the marketing industry has ever found these conjectures from their gurus to have ever been useful. Mostly they're hoping to find some generalized commonality based on presumed shared experiences that come from being born into then living through a certain span of history, however recent. And from that they further hope to be more effective at selling things, from soaps to political candidates. It's hardly science, they're simply reaching for a good "80/20" rule.
- tristor 11y ago
  To clarify generational labels, if you were born in the 70s, you were likely the child of a baby boomer, not one yourself. You were most likely part of Generation X.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > I guess I'm a baby boomer. I was born in the 70's. You're Gen-X, not a Baby Boomer. Lots of generational discussions these days focus on Millenials vs. Boomers and ignore Gen-X entirely, but insofar as the contrasts drawn have validity, Gen-X is in many ways a lot more like the Millenials than the Boomers. > I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War. Unless this a technical reference to the fact that the Korean War never formally ended, this contradicts the preceding: the armistice which ended the active phase of the Korean War was signed in 1953. If you were born in the 1970s, you weren't a kid during the Korean War, as that term is usually used. > At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938. Baby Boomer refers to the post WWII baby boom, those born 1946-1964.
Kuiper 11y ago
It seems worth mentioning that for all of the advances we have made in medical science, and all of the reduction we have seen in violent crime, for perhaps the first time in history we are actually seeing lifespans in the United States actually <i>decrease</i> for certain demographics. The life expectancy for uneducated white Americans today is lower than it was in 1990. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-les...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hnal943 11y ago
  True, and that seems to be largely because of drugs and nihilism
  - manopeace 11y ago
    Wow drugs were invented in 1990?
  - justratsinacoat 11y ago
    Not because of food desertification and disappearance of traditional safety nets?
  - nugget 11y ago
    They call it hopelessness and with relatives in this same situation, I think that's an excellent name for it.
ljf 11y ago
@marincounty - I think your account is dead. Read back in your comments to find out why.
- ryanwaggoner 11y ago
  I can't seem to find anything worthy of the hellban...
  - ljf 11y ago
    The comment from dang is pretty far back. Seems he kept turning comments into speeches about ex girlfriends. But I didn't spot anything terrible but then again I didn't read many and don't know how those comments read in context.
b3550943 11y ago
TL;DR The pie is bigger but more unequally distributed.
roymurdock 11y ago
I'm 23. I think it can be summarized thusly: Our lives are a lot more comfortable - relatively painless and full of entertainment. Our lives are a lot more disappointing - expectations of continued economic progress and social advancement fostered by parents and observations of the last 100 years of stupendous growth have fallen flat.
- kpennell 11y ago
  thanks for the succinct summary.
- antisthenes 11y ago
  The economic progress and social advancement of the mid 20th century can largely be attributed to the explosive growth of consumption and exploitation of fossil fuels. To give you some perspective, between 1955 and 1977, oil production has quadrupled, with consumption mostly going towards developed countries, out of which US was in a majorly advantageous position after WWII. The time period coincides perfectly with Boomers coming to maturity, starting their first adult jobs, buying houses and starting families. The problem here is that we have experienced an anomalous amount of general wealth growth, and have internalized it as the norm, whereas nothing could be further from the truth and it still remains just an anomaly.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    But wealth growth didn't slow down after that period. Wage growth (in the US, at least) stopped, but wealth (and productivity) growth kept right on. It just that the returns of that growth aren't going to labor. So, maybe look at the policy and other changes that redirected the wealth growth (which has continued) rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth.
    - antisthenes 11y ago
      > It just that the returns of that growth aren't going to labor. You're absolutely right. I was merely pointing out that we are viewing that short period of wage growth as the norm, whereas the entire system is not sustainable because it depends on finite and destructive fossil fuels. It doesn't matter if our generation got a bigger cut of the wealth on the historic scale - in this case it would have been the next generation (Z? Z 2.0 ?) that would be forced with a rude awakening and stagnating wages. > rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth. But that's the part that's not really under dispute. Wealth grew as a result of fossil fuel exploitation. Wages grew for a time until the marginal product of labor started going down in relation to capital (that doesn't mean productivity or output stayed constant) and it became more advantageous to accrue wealth.
mistermann 11y ago
Speaking as a middle aged dude that works in tech in a big City and didn't buy a house before the never-ending bubble in Canada started.....I would have been far better off living in a smaller town and working an unsexy lower paying "whatever" job and buying a house. The wage differential (after taxes especially) falls far short of compensating for the differential in real estate prices in most major hubs now, moreso for kids starting out as they are starting out in a bubble.
- tsunamifury 11y ago
  I tell my peers now that an offer in San Francisco should be north of 400k to make it worth it. They laugh and sign for the 2x their paycheck in Kansas City then end up back there in a year.
  - duderific 11y ago
    400K? You might be able to get a porta-potty for that much. Try $1M.
    - tsunamifury 11y ago
      $400K/Y in salary, not an offer on a house.
  - HillaryBriss 11y ago
    I once heard the advice "You're better off making X in a second or third tier city than moving to a first tier city to make 1.1X because housing costs twice as much." The statement is basically still true today, but I guess the coefficients are a lot higher. Salary Multiplier: 1.1 is now 2.0 Housing Cost Multiplier: 2.0 is now 3.0 (or maybe 4.0?)
    - tsunamifury 10y ago
      Average US Home value: 225,000 Average SF Home Sale: 1,200,000 (Condo) So factoring it the fact that the SF condo likely has one less bedroom the HCM is 6.0!
tmnvix 11y ago
The things that make a solid foundation for a fulfilling life are harder to obtain; education in a profession or trade, job security, accommodation, and - most important and noticeable amongst my cohort - the time and money necessary to raise a family. Who cares if you can buy a television 10x the size and 10x cheaper than your parents generation if you can't secure the things you need to lead a satisfying life?

collyw 11y ago

better sense of equality, but greater inequality

Chris2048 11y ago
By "sense of equality", do you mean "conscience/moral compass" or "perception of how equal society is"?
- collyw 10y ago
  I took that from the parent post.

marincounty 11y ago

I'd say neither. I don't understand these generation labels? I guess I'm a baby boomer. I was born in the 70's. I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War. Growing up, I was scared of Russia, and the bomb. As a college student, I was glad I didn't have to deal with a draft, only signing up for selective service. The thought of owning a home always seemed like a pipe dream. I thought the only way I could own a home is maybe in Lake County. In other words, a vacation home in the middle of nowhere. I could no way afford my dad's home. I can still buy a hot box in Lake county for what it cost 20 years ago. Unless you were a networking, butt sniffer you didn't just automatically land that great job out of college. Oh yea, guys like me thought little of networking. "Why would I like a person, just because they could do something for me?" On the other hand, my wealthy sister went after those who could further her career like Sheen to drugs. She is a bit of an odd ball though. She was so greedy, she took all my mother's money. I'm so tempted to out her, but can't. Growing up, we did have access to more jobs--mainly lousy jobs. Even the college corporate jobs were not great. I had two, and traveled a lot. It was not fun. I hate hotel rooms, and airlines. The real stepping stone in life was a wealthy father. I don't think that's changed much. Those kids got the right advice. Those kids got the right loans. They got to take on risk? They are in houses, and have stock portfolios now. The way I see it, the labels are not productive. At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938. If you didn't want to go to college, you just went into a union trade. You bought a house, and had kids. You drank, and smoked a lot--and didn't have to worry about dying from sex. Life wasen't bad. My generation and my father's were completely different. I looked at my father as a spoiled kid. I thought he had all the opportunities, and he didn't explore them. Again, as to generation labels, I wish we would stop using them, or at least get the dates in order. My best friend is a gen X'er--I guess. I recall the first time we even talked about our "different" generations. There were no differences. I will admit there's a difference between my generation and Millenials. Millenials know much more than I did growing up. We were Naive. Housing was always terrible for all of us. Wasen't it my generation that coined "living in the parent's basement?". Believe me--housing has always been bad. Now--in the Bay Area it is beyond bad. I will give Millenials that, I have never seen housing prices like this, but as Stanley Druckenmiller pointed out today, he sees a big kaboom comming up. You rich kids will get your house. (I won't be back to argue. I don't think I said anything worth arguing over. I'm getting over Shingles. I can pass this along. If you ever get a weird pain in your back, and notice a weird rash; go right to a doctor--if you have one. Mine is 20 miles away. I'd even go to the emergency room, and ask for the antiviral. It cuts the infection down to 50 percent, and side effects, like neuropathy. You have around three days. I've been down for 3.5 weeks now. In a lot of pain. I used to think I could handle physical pain, but this malady is really irritating.)

rskar 11y ago
If you don't see yourself or your dad in their labels, that's OK. But there's no need for guessing. Per Wikipedia: Baby boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. So neither you nor your dad are in that cohort. Lord knows if the marketing industry has ever found these conjectures from their gurus to have ever been useful. Mostly they're hoping to find some generalized commonality based on presumed shared experiences that come from being born into then living through a certain span of history, however recent. And from that they further hope to be more effective at selling things, from soaps to political candidates. It's hardly science, they're simply reaching for a good "80/20" rule.
tristor 11y ago
To clarify generational labels, if you were born in the 70s, you were likely the child of a baby boomer, not one yourself. You were most likely part of Generation X.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I guess I'm a baby boomer. I was born in the 70's. You're Gen-X, not a Baby Boomer. Lots of generational discussions these days focus on Millenials vs. Boomers and ignore Gen-X entirely, but insofar as the contrasts drawn have validity, Gen-X is in many ways a lot more like the Millenials than the Boomers. > I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War. Unless this a technical reference to the fact that the Korean War never formally ended, this contradicts the preceding: the armistice which ended the active phase of the Korean War was signed in 1953. If you were born in the 1970s, you weren't a kid during the Korean War, as that term is usually used. > At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938. Baby Boomer refers to the post WWII baby boom, those born 1946-1964.

Kuiper 11y ago

It seems worth mentioning that for all of the advances we have made in medical science, and all of the reduction we have seen in violent crime, for perhaps the first time in history we are actually seeing lifespans in the United States actually <i>decrease</i> for certain demographics. The life expectancy for uneducated white Americans today is lower than it was in 1990. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-les...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
hnal943 11y ago
True, and that seems to be largely because of drugs and nihilism
- manopeace 11y ago
  Wow drugs were invented in 1990?
- justratsinacoat 11y ago
  Not because of food desertification and disappearance of traditional safety nets?
- nugget 11y ago
  They call it hopelessness and with relatives in this same situation, I think that's an excellent name for it.

ljf 11y ago

@marincounty - I think your account is dead. Read back in your comments to find out why.

ryanwaggoner 11y ago
I can't seem to find anything worthy of the hellban...
- ljf 11y ago
  The comment from dang is pretty far back. Seems he kept turning comments into speeches about ex girlfriends. But I didn't spot anything terrible but then again I didn't read many and don't know how those comments read in context.

b3550943 11y ago

TL;DR The pie is bigger but more unequally distributed.

roymurdock 11y ago

I'm 23. I think it can be summarized thusly: Our lives are a lot more comfortable - relatively painless and full of entertainment. Our lives are a lot more disappointing - expectations of continued economic progress and social advancement fostered by parents and observations of the last 100 years of stupendous growth have fallen flat.

kpennell 11y ago
thanks for the succinct summary.
antisthenes 11y ago
The economic progress and social advancement of the mid 20th century can largely be attributed to the explosive growth of consumption and exploitation of fossil fuels. To give you some perspective, between 1955 and 1977, oil production has quadrupled, with consumption mostly going towards developed countries, out of which US was in a majorly advantageous position after WWII. The time period coincides perfectly with Boomers coming to maturity, starting their first adult jobs, buying houses and starting families. The problem here is that we have experienced an anomalous amount of general wealth growth, and have internalized it as the norm, whereas nothing could be further from the truth and it still remains just an anomaly.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  But wealth growth didn't slow down after that period. Wage growth (in the US, at least) stopped, but wealth (and productivity) growth kept right on. It just that the returns of that growth aren't going to labor. So, maybe look at the policy and other changes that redirected the wealth growth (which has continued) rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth.
  - antisthenes 11y ago
    > It just that the returns of that growth aren't going to labor. You're absolutely right. I was merely pointing out that we are viewing that short period of wage growth as the norm, whereas the entire system is not sustainable because it depends on finite and destructive fossil fuels. It doesn't matter if our generation got a bigger cut of the wealth on the historic scale - in this case it would have been the next generation (Z? Z 2.0 ?) that would be forced with a rude awakening and stagnating wages. > rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth. But that's the part that's not really under dispute. Wealth grew as a result of fossil fuel exploitation. Wages grew for a time until the marginal product of labor started going down in relation to capital (that doesn't mean productivity or output stayed constant) and it became more advantageous to accrue wealth.

mistermann 11y ago

Speaking as a middle aged dude that works in tech in a big City and didn't buy a house before the never-ending bubble in Canada started.....I would have been far better off living in a smaller town and working an unsexy lower paying "whatever" job and buying a house. The wage differential (after taxes especially) falls far short of compensating for the differential in real estate prices in most major hubs now, moreso for kids starting out as they are starting out in a bubble.

tsunamifury 11y ago
I tell my peers now that an offer in San Francisco should be north of 400k to make it worth it. They laugh and sign for the 2x their paycheck in Kansas City then end up back there in a year.
- duderific 11y ago
  400K? You might be able to get a porta-potty for that much. Try $1M.
  - tsunamifury 11y ago
    $400K/Y in salary, not an offer on a house.
- HillaryBriss 11y ago
  I once heard the advice "You're better off making X in a second or third tier city than moving to a first tier city to make 1.1X because housing costs twice as much." The statement is basically still true today, but I guess the coefficients are a lot higher. Salary Multiplier: 1.1 is now 2.0 Housing Cost Multiplier: 2.0 is now 3.0 (or maybe 4.0?)
  - tsunamifury 10y ago
    Average US Home value: 225,000 Average SF Home Sale: 1,200,000 (Condo) So factoring it the fact that the SF condo likely has one less bedroom the HCM is 6.0!

tmnvix 11y ago

The things that make a solid foundation for a fulfilling life are harder to obtain; education in a profession or trade, job security, accommodation, and - most important and noticeable amongst my cohort - the time and money necessary to raise a family. Who cares if you can buy a television 10x the size and 10x cheaper than your parents generation if you can't secure the things you need to lead a satisfying life?