10 ms·

As someone who's part of the culture being attacked here, it's interesting to note the stylistic differences between this article from 1995 and more current sme

As someone who's part of the culture being attacked here, it's interesting to note the stylistic differences between this article from 1995 and more current smear pieces from the likes of the NYT. This reads like a conspiracy theory pamphlet although it brings up most of the same points we see in more modern attacks. What changed in the last ~20 years where arguments like this have hit the mainstream? Well for one, tech is even more powerful now and old media is on its deathbed. That leads to a certain amount of sour grapes and irrational defense of non-functional business models. Secondly I think millennials had a large part in moving away from techno libertarian ideals. Philosophy-wise they're basically baby boomers 2.0. I don't think they had enough direct exposure to that culture to understand the failings, thus are doomed to repeat them. Obviously this isn't true for everyone in that generation, just a generalization.

aalleavitch 9y ago
Millennials' ideals don't originate from their lack of exposure to the failings of the baby boomers, their ideals originate from their actual lived experience. To believe otherwise would be to dismiss the relevance of the things that have actually happened in their lifetimes and the economic situation they currently face. They saw their future prospects destroyed by a deregulated financial market, and now they're seeing the economic restoration that follows skipping them entirely and consolidating global wealth in the hands of a few while they struggle with basic necessities. All the while they're being perpetually maligned because prior generations lack the ability to relate to their day-to-day reality on a basic level and the fear of something different is a great driver of ad revenue. Millennials are moving away from techno-libertarian ideals because laissez faire attitudes towards the application of technology have placed fundamental aspects of their lives in the iron grasp of private corporations who regularly harvest their data for the explicit purpose of manipulating their behavior without their knowledge. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/ http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millenni... EDIT: As an aside, I find it kind of amazing that the myth of personal responsibility for outcomes is so prevalent among the very people who take the mass-scale manipulation of user behavior for granted. How can these people who spend massive amounts of money and resources studying how to best psychologically exploit their users and who can see directly how the most minute aspects of outside influence can reliably change behavior find it so easy to then turn around and claim that people are fundamentally responsible for their own situation? Do tech libertarians really believe that they're immune to the forces they use to manipulate others on a daily basis?
- spamizbad 9y ago
  I agree completely. And what's sad is that, for many millennials, they're stuck in a financial tar pit in large part by following the advice of their elders. As an older millennial, my generation had two pieces of advice drilled into our skulls by boomers: * What degree you get in college isn't that important, a B.A. will let an employer know your teachable * Student loan debt is the best debt you can have: better than mortgage debt even * (post dot-com crash) Don't bother trying to come a professional software developer -- it's the new textile industry: it's going overseas. This created a generation that didn't factor in their professional or economic trajectory when choosing schools, deciding loans, etc. I had peers that walked away from free rides to college to go to their school of choice because student loans were "no big deal" -- and their parents encouraged this! Boomers should have looked at their own jobs and paid attention how their own companies were hiring in the new economy: that new junior analyst? Makes less than the median income, despite an econ degree from top-tier school. Why did they think their kids, with a middling academics, could land the same job with a degree in english lit? The writing was on the wall even in the 90s that this wasn't a good idea: The world was more globalized and competitive. Labor's power was greatly diminished.
  - jordanb 9y ago
    > * What degree you get in college isn't that important, a B.A. will let an employer know your teachable And the lies we're telling the next generation are * Get a STEM degree, they're always in demand * Become a programmer, there will never be enough programmers.
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
      Generals always fight the last war.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  If their concerns are economic, then it makes even less sense to attack the tech industry. That's the one place where you can still achieve a middle to upper middle class lifestyle based on hard work. Going back to my comment about baby boomers, it seems to me that the 20th century idealized lifestyle was very much backed by the technology available at the time. Mainly mass media. Bandwidth was great enough to broadcast media to a massive amount of people, but not so great as to individualize content delivery. This limited "shelf space" for content lead to a market for high end content creators. The internet exponentially increased bandwidth and democratized (and devalued) content creation. It also created channels for publishing new types of content that require tech skills (apps, web...). You would think that millennials would embrace the 21st century technology driven reality, but instead it seems way too many people ended up chasing high value content roles via expensive liberal arts degrees. Or at least that anti-technology combative mindset that was foreshadowed in this piece.

aalleavitch 9y ago

Millennials' ideals don't originate from their lack of exposure to the failings of the baby boomers, their ideals originate from their actual lived experience. To believe otherwise would be to dismiss the relevance of the things that have actually happened in their lifetimes and the economic situation they currently face. They saw their future prospects destroyed by a deregulated financial market, and now they're seeing the economic restoration that follows skipping them entirely and consolidating global wealth in the hands of a few while they struggle with basic necessities. All the while they're being perpetually maligned because prior generations lack the ability to relate to their day-to-day reality on a basic level and the fear of something different is a great driver of ad revenue. Millennials are moving away from techno-libertarian ideals because laissez faire attitudes towards the application of technology have placed fundamental aspects of their lives in the iron grasp of private corporations who regularly harvest their data for the explicit purpose of manipulating their behavior without their knowledge. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/ http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millenni... EDIT: As an aside, I find it kind of amazing that the myth of personal responsibility for outcomes is so prevalent among the very people who take the mass-scale manipulation of user behavior for granted. How can these people who spend massive amounts of money and resources studying how to best psychologically exploit their users and who can see directly how the most minute aspects of outside influence can reliably change behavior find it so easy to then turn around and claim that people are fundamentally responsible for their own situation? Do tech libertarians really believe that they're immune to the forces they use to manipulate others on a daily basis?

spamizbad 9y ago
I agree completely. And what's sad is that, for many millennials, they're stuck in a financial tar pit in large part by following the advice of their elders. As an older millennial, my generation had two pieces of advice drilled into our skulls by boomers: * What degree you get in college isn't that important, a B.A. will let an employer know your teachable * Student loan debt is the best debt you can have: better than mortgage debt even * (post dot-com crash) Don't bother trying to come a professional software developer -- it's the new textile industry: it's going overseas. This created a generation that didn't factor in their professional or economic trajectory when choosing schools, deciding loans, etc. I had peers that walked away from free rides to college to go to their school of choice because student loans were "no big deal" -- and their parents encouraged this! Boomers should have looked at their own jobs and paid attention how their own companies were hiring in the new economy: that new junior analyst? Makes less than the median income, despite an econ degree from top-tier school. Why did they think their kids, with a middling academics, could land the same job with a degree in english lit? The writing was on the wall even in the 90s that this wasn't a good idea: The world was more globalized and competitive. Labor's power was greatly diminished.
- jordanb 9y ago
  > * What degree you get in college isn't that important, a B.A. will let an employer know your teachable And the lies we're telling the next generation are * Get a STEM degree, they're always in demand * Become a programmer, there will never be enough programmers.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    Generals always fight the last war.
malvosenior 9y ago
If their concerns are economic, then it makes even less sense to attack the tech industry. That's the one place where you can still achieve a middle to upper middle class lifestyle based on hard work. Going back to my comment about baby boomers, it seems to me that the 20th century idealized lifestyle was very much backed by the technology available at the time. Mainly mass media. Bandwidth was great enough to broadcast media to a massive amount of people, but not so great as to individualize content delivery. This limited "shelf space" for content lead to a market for high end content creators. The internet exponentially increased bandwidth and democratized (and devalued) content creation. It also created channels for publishing new types of content that require tech skills (apps, web...). You would think that millennials would embrace the 21st century technology driven reality, but instead it seems way too many people ended up chasing high value content roles via expensive liberal arts degrees. Or at least that anti-technology combative mindset that was foreshadowed in this piece.