4 ms·

I think the "illusion" referenced in the article is the sentiment that "things will just work out." Frankly I see this sentiment alot with today's millennial g

I think the "illusion" referenced in the article is the sentiment that "things will just work out." Frankly I see this sentiment alot with today's millennial generation (really anyone from early 20s to mid/late 30s). Everyone thinks they'll have that dream job, life, marriage, kds, etc.... even the uber drivers and starbucks baristas. The "oh things will work out" attitude is especially prevalent given the popular parenting slogans of the past few decades: everyone's a winner; every child is special; you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to; etc.

iphonethrowaway 9y ago
Maybe we will see a rise is suicides? Oh wait, we already see that in decreased life expectancy via alcahol, drug abuse, and less access to medicine.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  Hah, why do you think weed is so popular?
sandworm101 9y ago
It is only an illusion if you actually believe it. There is a fine line between an illusion that something will come, and hope that it will. I cannot fault people for hope.
wtvanhest 9y ago
Frankly, millennials were completely robbed by the generation before them in the United States. Incredible escalation in college costs, with the requirement that you need to go to college to get jobs that in no way require collegiate training. Severally penalizing even small mistakes by basically giving people as the OP put it, a life sentence for a single crime. Disgusting. I am one of the oldest millennials (born in 82) and my age group was the last to have it somewhat easy. People born in 92 are in a pressure cooking from every angle. The only answer is to transfer wealth from baby boomers to millennials through inflation. I have zero idea if it will happen, but as the pressure builds on this generation, they will surely look for political solutions, one of which is printing money.
- deciplex 9y ago
  Reading ithinkinstereo's post ridiculing the increasingly unsteady optimism / deluded thinking of "millennials" (it's always millennials now isn't it) I couldn't help but think "once that optimism or whatever-you-want-to-call-it is gone, all that's left is a 21st century American Reign of Terror". Like whatever the reason for it: bad parenting, trashy culture, Bill Clinton, or maybe - maybe - that their parents pissed away the legacy of their forebears and the birthright of their progeny - whatever the reason, there are consequences to flushing an entire generation of people down the toilet. Consequences like mass revolt and death. It's really not good to leave large numbers of people with little to lose.
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    I'm not blaming any of this on "millennials". I hope that's not how my comment reads. I agree that some of the blame should be directed towards the prior generation; I was trying to allude to that with my criticism of their parenting technique, which I think is inherently hypocritical, given the advantages they enjoyed that kids today don't have.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  I am a Gen Xer born in the early 70s, and I have to say I totally agree with you. I feel lucky I was able to go to college before it was basically expected that you'd be paying off college loans for 20 years or so.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Economically this is not at all what happened though. The baby boomer generation was simply exceptionally lucky, economically speaking. Gen X and Y are still in the very lucky category. Compared to the generation that actually went to war, we still have it much better economically. Unfortunately that mostly means that our kids will likely have it worse, not better. Starting with baby boomers we simply had too few children to keep growing GDP. GDP, and economic activity in general shows a remarkable and extremely direct relation to two things : total amount of energy used, and total amount of people. For the first time in over 70 years, both are stagnating, slowly. And it's too late : to fix the population growth rate, gen X should have been having lots of kids one to two decades ago, and that has decidedly not happened. For the foreseeable future, we'll have to do more with less, both in terms of energy, but especially in terms of labor available. You might say "but machine learning", "but robots", etc. Well that's exactly what they said in the 80s with the car plant closings. That was patently false. Then they said it again with Japan crashing and then stagnating. Again, not true. Now we're saying it about ourselves (but doubly so for China). I don't think this time it will be right either.
viraptor 9y ago
What's the alternative? Things can work out in many ways. Surviving may be things working out. What would you prefer they thought instead? "I'm not special, I'm average, my upbringing and economy will restrict my life forever"? Even if it's true, that's definitely not helping in making decisions.
devwastaken 9y ago
I have experienced the exact opposite. Its rare to find a 'millenial' that truly believes they're going to get that dream job. If anything, they know they'll be working retail for a long time, and maybe they might get something they like better, but the jobs and lives that they looked up to when they were young are quite far away. Its the parents and age 40+ that think everything will just 'work out' for them, because they're 'hard workers', who are themselves stuck in manual labor/retail and do not have any career or education outside of that. They ignore job trends and stick to what they've been doing, then cry when they're retired after 5-8 years of working there, scapegoating with leftist politics and 'millenials who don't know anything.'. Even my own parents succumbed to that one. If I had my own kids, I would tell them that things /will/ work out for them, if they put in the effort, because I know my parents were quite wrong. On the flip side, even if you don't get what you want, atleast you put in a lot of effort, and that will get you something.

iphonethrowaway 9y ago

Maybe we will see a rise is suicides? Oh wait, we already see that in decreased life expectancy via alcahol, drug abuse, and less access to medicine.

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
Hah, why do you think weed is so popular?

sandworm101 9y ago

It is only an illusion if you actually believe it. There is a fine line between an illusion that something will come, and hope that it will. I cannot fault people for hope.

wtvanhest 9y ago

Frankly, millennials were completely robbed by the generation before them in the United States. Incredible escalation in college costs, with the requirement that you need to go to college to get jobs that in no way require collegiate training. Severally penalizing even small mistakes by basically giving people as the OP put it, a life sentence for a single crime. Disgusting. I am one of the oldest millennials (born in 82) and my age group was the last to have it somewhat easy. People born in 92 are in a pressure cooking from every angle. The only answer is to transfer wealth from baby boomers to millennials through inflation. I have zero idea if it will happen, but as the pressure builds on this generation, they will surely look for political solutions, one of which is printing money.

deciplex 9y ago
Reading ithinkinstereo's post ridiculing the increasingly unsteady optimism / deluded thinking of "millennials" (it's always millennials now isn't it) I couldn't help but think "once that optimism or whatever-you-want-to-call-it is gone, all that's left is a 21st century American Reign of Terror". Like whatever the reason for it: bad parenting, trashy culture, Bill Clinton, or maybe - maybe - that their parents pissed away the legacy of their forebears and the birthright of their progeny - whatever the reason, there are consequences to flushing an entire generation of people down the toilet. Consequences like mass revolt and death. It's really not good to leave large numbers of people with little to lose.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  I'm not blaming any of this on "millennials". I hope that's not how my comment reads. I agree that some of the blame should be directed towards the prior generation; I was trying to allude to that with my criticism of their parenting technique, which I think is inherently hypocritical, given the advantages they enjoyed that kids today don't have.
hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
I am a Gen Xer born in the early 70s, and I have to say I totally agree with you. I feel lucky I was able to go to college before it was basically expected that you'd be paying off college loans for 20 years or so.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Economically this is not at all what happened though. The baby boomer generation was simply exceptionally lucky, economically speaking. Gen X and Y are still in the very lucky category. Compared to the generation that actually went to war, we still have it much better economically. Unfortunately that mostly means that our kids will likely have it worse, not better. Starting with baby boomers we simply had too few children to keep growing GDP. GDP, and economic activity in general shows a remarkable and extremely direct relation to two things : total amount of energy used, and total amount of people. For the first time in over 70 years, both are stagnating, slowly. And it's too late : to fix the population growth rate, gen X should have been having lots of kids one to two decades ago, and that has decidedly not happened. For the foreseeable future, we'll have to do more with less, both in terms of energy, but especially in terms of labor available. You might say "but machine learning", "but robots", etc. Well that's exactly what they said in the 80s with the car plant closings. That was patently false. Then they said it again with Japan crashing and then stagnating. Again, not true. Now we're saying it about ourselves (but doubly so for China). I don't think this time it will be right either.

viraptor 9y ago

What's the alternative? Things can work out in many ways. Surviving may be things working out. What would you prefer they thought instead? "I'm not special, I'm average, my upbringing and economy will restrict my life forever"? Even if it's true, that's definitely not helping in making decisions.

devwastaken 9y ago

I have experienced the exact opposite. Its rare to find a 'millenial' that truly believes they're going to get that dream job. If anything, they know they'll be working retail for a long time, and maybe they might get something they like better, but the jobs and lives that they looked up to when they were young are quite far away. Its the parents and age 40+ that think everything will just 'work out' for them, because they're 'hard workers', who are themselves stuck in manual labor/retail and do not have any career or education outside of that. They ignore job trends and stick to what they've been doing, then cry when they're retired after 5-8 years of working there, scapegoating with leftist politics and 'millenials who don't know anything.'. Even my own parents succumbed to that one. If I had my own kids, I would tell them that things /will/ work out for them, if they put in the effort, because I know my parents were quite wrong. On the flip side, even if you don't get what you want, atleast you put in a lot of effort, and that will get you something.