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I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything

I guess I'm considered a millennial, but messages like this sound like misconceived pandering. Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations. But, even if we accept the premise, I am the beneficiary of absolutely mind-boggling amounts of technological advancement, culture, progress, infrastructure, science, and on and on and on even just over the course of my own lifetime (approaching 30 years). "Boo hoo, things aren't absolutely perfect in every way." That doesn't mean that any generation has "failed" another. Sure, there might be some setbacks and difficult problems to solve or adjust to in the future, but come on. As Steven Pinker has I think convincingly pointed out, things have been reliably getting better for a long time, and even when we think "the world is going to hell", it simply doesn't. Not to mention, there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people.

tedivm 7y ago
I think there are numerous ways in which Tim Cook's generation has failed the next generation (at least in the US). * Wages are flat, * Housing costs are up (in large part due to NIMBYism), * College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. Generally speaking the baby boomers, as a whole, have focused more on enriching themselves than any other previous generation. This is the first time in generations that, in the US, the newer generation is seen as worse off than the one before it.
- tux1968 7y ago
  It may be that a lot of the issues do not represent any especially egregious failing of any generation, but rather structural changes. The post-war exponential growth that fed unprecedented wealth generation simply could not continue, it has run its course. So while it is tempting to look back a generation or two and see how they had it much easier in a lot of ways, if you look back just a little bit further, it's easy to feel pretty damn lucky to be living today.
- NE2z2T9qi 7y ago
  What are you asking for? The world has changed drastically, culture and preferences have changed drastically, and new technological tools make the job and economic landscape entirely different than earlier. That's not Baby Boomers' fault. Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the future well enough? Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in cities more than suburbs. They're not maliciously causing robots and computers to be more reliable than humans at menial repetitive tasks. They're not forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist (and a world of knowledge for self-teaching is available through the internet). And even the global warming thing, our current prosperity--and don't kid yourself, America is pretty freaking prosperous--strongly depended on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades. And it's that prosperity which gives us the bandwidth and resources to think "hey, let's do something about this, either find a way to avoid or prepare or cope". Yes, it would have been nice if everyone in the previous generation had a crystal ball and selfless motives. But that is not something we are due as a right, nor is it something anyone should reasonably hold against them. They didn't blow up the world, and made it better in better in a bunch of ways, and maybe a bit worse in some ways. On net, that's still like a B+ or higher in my book.
  - peterwwillis 7y ago
    > Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the future well enough? They predicted it just fine. Then they failed to work together to prevent it. > Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in cities more than suburbs. Young people can only afford overpriced apartments because jobs have steadily migrated to cities, they don't have the credit or capital to afford a house and car in the suburbs, they're overburdened with debt and rising costs of living, not paid accordingly, and well-paying jobs for the lower and middle class are more scarce. Oh, and media conglomerates and advertising have been repeating since before they were born that what they really want is only found in glamorous cities. > They're not forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist That's all they've ever heard. "You have to go to college. You have to go to the best college. You can go to the best college, you'll just be in debt for 30 years once you do. Don't worry, here's a thing we invented in the 70s called a credit card." > our current prosperity [..] strongly depended on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades We have been the most powerful and wealthy nation since WWII, a generation or two before the boomers. The boomers were even hit by a major oil crisis and recession more than once, and rather than look to alternatives (which Congress literally declared they had to do), they doubled down.
- rb808 7y ago
  Imagine previous generations that were being drafted to the army to go off to WW2, Korea, Vietnam. Ah yes but Millennials have flat wages and expensive college. We've failed them all.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
    Personally, I'd rather be drafted than have to watch my kids and grand-kids go fight in pointless resource wars that will be the result of decades of unchecked climate change. Frankly, the attitude previous generations have had towards climate science has can best be described as criminally negligent.
  - themoonbus 7y ago
    So the bar you're setting is based on the some of the bloodiest conflicts in human history?
- skellington 7y ago
  Ah we found the true millenial! Boo hoo you guys haven't given us amazing wage growth in an era where we're all competing with cheap overseas labor so we can buy new homes at 25 plus Apple gadgets and endless media. And we had to pay :'( for our fancy degrees with housing included at elite schools in distant states because community college and nearby colleges aren't good enough for us...and you didn't solve all of the problems that didn't exist before your time (like global warming) and I feel sad sometimes too and I'm overwhelmed by social media....wha wha!!!! This is the kind of millenial we hate. The arrogant narcissists who can't understand why every measure of happiness hasn't gone up for them. Well, can you please forgive us? I, and the billions of other people in the past who suffered through wars, famines, plagues, witch hunts, slow progress, feudalism, and every other hardship, are sorry that world perfection didn't converge at the time of your birth and that you might have some hardships and might have to solve some hard problems. Maybe you can achieve perfection for your kids.
  - zbentley 7y ago
    Could you put that in terms that are less condescending and ad-hominem? My impression of HN is that it's not the place for that kind of tone.
    - stoppergoo 7y ago
      What if he’s just an aggressive person? He would perceive your comment as a micro aggression
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't post flamewar comments like this. We ban accounts that do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mc32 7y ago
  A lot of this is by-product of Globalization. Not that it can be contained, but with Globalization, wages seek their level, with Worldwide capital flows housing becomes a hot investment. College is more expensive, but greater numbers of people are going to college than before because it's thought a blue-collar job is insufficient to survive. More people and wealthier people means greater consumption which degrades the enviro. Now, if Boomers are seen as greedy, then wouldn't their successors be greedier if they wanted to out-earn them?
- lordlimecat 7y ago
  >* College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), College is more expensive because the government ensures that 18 year olds have uncapped credit cards for educational expenses and everyone tells them "dont worry about it right now". When you increase demand and defer all cost pressure by years, the cost will always skyrocket. Blaming this on a lack of subsidies is actually backwards; providing guaranteed funding for education would further boost costs. As long as schools are setting the price, demand is high, and the money is flowing like water, that cost is going to continue to increase. > * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. But renewables use is also way up. This is the parent's point: these claims utterly ignore the historical reality. We're greener than ever, we've stopped using CFCs and arsenic preservatives and lead paints and high particulate energy generation. We have more access to education than ever. And in the west, our wages are on average 5x that of the rest of the world. So many of these complaints look ignorant and petty when you zoom out a tiny bit from one's personal circumstances. You have college debt? Cry more, you have access to more opportunity than the preceeding 99% of your ancestors and than 95% of your current peers.
Animats 7y ago
Things are getting better. But many of the new things don't need people so much. What we're getting is a big underclass that isn't in the game at all. They're just dead weight. This is hitting the Arab world hard.[1] [1] https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/youth-unemployment-middle-east-teen-jobless https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/youth-unemployment-mi...
- umadon 7y ago
  Cool that you're out here deciding who is and isn't "dead weight."
  - Animats 7y ago
    The free market does that. People who can't generate more revenue than they cost are dead weight in a capitalistic system. It's not common to say that, but the US certainly works that way.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - lucasmullens 7y ago
      It's not about the definition of "dead weight", people are downvoting you because it's a fairly mean phrase to use to refer to your fellow human beings.
      - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        Animats may be saying thats what a capitalist system treats the downtrodden, but the actual actions are by that very capitalist system. In order to face a problem, you have to be able to talk about it. And capitalism stratifies the "work" and "cannot work" brutally. And as a killing blow, then proceeds to separate food/shelter/communications and the means to try to make oneself better. In this way, capitalism forces the poverty-stricken to rely on charity of others, for 'market forces' nearly removes the ability to climb the ladder of success. If you find using the term "dead weight" abhorrent (as I do), what are you doing about the root cause; capitalism?
silversconfused 7y ago
Your culture was completely robbed from you before you were born. What stories do you love? What music fills your head? What great deeds of the past inspire you? Are you allowed to share ANY of that freely?
pwinnski 7y ago
> there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people. I think he's only presuming to speak on behalf of US residents, which caps at 400 million, and even then only for his generation, which limits the number even more. In any case, I think one can make observations about a group of people of which one is a member without representing every single member of that group. His generation either did or did not fail current graduates, whether everybody agrees with that or not.
grecy 7y ago
> Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations Surely - at a bare minimum - it's everyone's responsibility to leave a habitable planet for future generations. Greed now is going to result in a very, very crappy place to live in the future.
- paulcole 7y ago
  Could you make an argument that speeding up human extinction is actually best for the planet in the long run?
dingdingdang 7y ago
>> Not to mention, there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people. Yep, more than anything else it is simply patronising. Reading Hans Gosling and Steven Pinker clarifies a lot in terms of this planet's development over the last 30 years - and it's pretty much all for the better for your average human being.
bulletsvshumans 7y ago
Every generation owes the next generation a world that is in as good of condition as when they received it. Anything else is taking out a loan in the next generation’s name.
- unsatchmo 7y ago
  Super underrated comment right here. I'll take it a step farther: we are of the world. The world barfed you and me up, and we are made out of the stuff that makes the world up. The world is not "ours" or "theirs". We are it, and it is us. We are under the mistaken impression that we are separate from the world and that we "own" it. Until we realize this fact, we will continue to poison ours and each other's children.
sharadov 7y ago
Yes, you got technological advancement, but resources are pretty much down to zero. You are saddled with debt up to your eyeballs. Most of you will never be able to afford a house, if you somehow manage to buy one, you will be paying it off till your last breath. You will have no social blanket, boomers would have plowed through that.
mixmastamyk 7y ago
They don't owe it as much as they stole more than their share, and continue to build deficits and prevent housing for younger generations.
scarface74 7y ago
One thing that the previous generation is not to make the world worse. At some point, the increased debt will hurt future generations.
impostir 7y ago
I have mixed feelings on discussing problems with "generations"; its so broad and imprecise that it feels meaningless. However, I can accept that it has some value when discussing broad social effects. I agree with Jobs; Gen X and further back generations, as groups, raped the planet for short-term economic growth. They aren't the first or last group to do so, but they did do it. My generation, I.e. gen Z, is looking at an abnormally bleak future. Yes, the past generations had the Cold War and possible Nuclear Armageddon. And while the Cold War is dead, possible Nuclear Armageddon is still very much alive. We also face, for the first time in US history, the likelihood that we will die poorer than our parents. We also face the fact that our middle age will come with practically certain catastrophic climate change. Any one of these problems is significant on a global scale, but their collective force is even more crippling. All these problems exist because of the collective decisions of past generations; thats what every present is. WW1 was a product of dumb alliances and treaties made decades before. And it wasn't the generation that decided on the treaties that were butchered on the Somme, it was their children. And as a group, I believe that they are soaked in the blood of their children. However, I will agree that blaming generations is at best unproductive and at worst needlessly divisive. Yes, the actions of past generations create the wars and disasters of today, but that is a simple fact of societies. Blaming a generation hides the specific culprits behind specific problems. We should blame the Tobacco lobby for the death of millions, we should blame oil companies for crippling greener alternatives for decades, we should blame the Military-Industrial complex for chaining America to eternal wars just to make an easy buck. This was more rambly than I intended, so I hope it still has some value.
drugme 7y ago
Even when we think "the world is going to hell", it simply doesn't Actually things are pretty much going to hell, as far as climate change (and its spillover effects) are foreseen to go. Or what is your prognosis of that situation?
PPPPPPPPr 7y ago
I'm doing better than my father but I had to get buttfucked twice as hard to do it. Fuck the boomers. I can't believe you'd keep licking that boot even as they're still robbing you of retirement benefits.

tedivm 7y ago

I think there are numerous ways in which Tim Cook's generation has failed the next generation (at least in the US). * Wages are flat, * Housing costs are up (in large part due to NIMBYism), * College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. Generally speaking the baby boomers, as a whole, have focused more on enriching themselves than any other previous generation. This is the first time in generations that, in the US, the newer generation is seen as worse off than the one before it.

tux1968 7y ago
It may be that a lot of the issues do not represent any especially egregious failing of any generation, but rather structural changes. The post-war exponential growth that fed unprecedented wealth generation simply could not continue, it has run its course. So while it is tempting to look back a generation or two and see how they had it much easier in a lot of ways, if you look back just a little bit further, it's easy to feel pretty damn lucky to be living today.
NE2z2T9qi 7y ago
What are you asking for? The world has changed drastically, culture and preferences have changed drastically, and new technological tools make the job and economic landscape entirely different than earlier. That's not Baby Boomers' fault. Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the future well enough? Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in cities more than suburbs. They're not maliciously causing robots and computers to be more reliable than humans at menial repetitive tasks. They're not forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist (and a world of knowledge for self-teaching is available through the internet). And even the global warming thing, our current prosperity--and don't kid yourself, America is pretty freaking prosperous--strongly depended on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades. And it's that prosperity which gives us the bandwidth and resources to think "hey, let's do something about this, either find a way to avoid or prepare or cope". Yes, it would have been nice if everyone in the previous generation had a crystal ball and selfless motives. But that is not something we are due as a right, nor is it something anyone should reasonably hold against them. They didn't blow up the world, and made it better in better in a bunch of ways, and maybe a bit worse in some ways. On net, that's still like a B+ or higher in my book.
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  > Are you really going to blame them for not predicting the future well enough? They predicted it just fine. Then they failed to work together to prevent it. > Baby boomers aren't forcing young folks to like living in cities more than suburbs. Young people can only afford overpriced apartments because jobs have steadily migrated to cities, they don't have the credit or capital to afford a house and car in the suburbs, they're overburdened with debt and rising costs of living, not paid accordingly, and well-paying jobs for the lower and middle class are more scarce. Oh, and media conglomerates and advertising have been repeating since before they were born that what they really want is only found in glamorous cities. > They're not forcing young folks to want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mediocre private universities when reasonably priced state universities exist That's all they've ever heard. "You have to go to college. You have to go to the best college. You can go to the best college, you'll just be in debt for 30 years once you do. Don't worry, here's a thing we invented in the 70s called a credit card." > our current prosperity [..] strongly depended on us exploiting cheap and reliable energy for decades We have been the most powerful and wealthy nation since WWII, a generation or two before the boomers. The boomers were even hit by a major oil crisis and recession more than once, and rather than look to alternatives (which Congress literally declared they had to do), they doubled down.
rb808 7y ago
Imagine previous generations that were being drafted to the army to go off to WW2, Korea, Vietnam. Ah yes but Millennials have flat wages and expensive college. We've failed them all.
- SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
  Personally, I'd rather be drafted than have to watch my kids and grand-kids go fight in pointless resource wars that will be the result of decades of unchecked climate change. Frankly, the attitude previous generations have had towards climate science has can best be described as criminally negligent.
- themoonbus 7y ago
  So the bar you're setting is based on the some of the bloodiest conflicts in human history?
skellington 7y ago
Ah we found the true millenial! Boo hoo you guys haven't given us amazing wage growth in an era where we're all competing with cheap overseas labor so we can buy new homes at 25 plus Apple gadgets and endless media. And we had to pay :'( for our fancy degrees with housing included at elite schools in distant states because community college and nearby colleges aren't good enough for us...and you didn't solve all of the problems that didn't exist before your time (like global warming) and I feel sad sometimes too and I'm overwhelmed by social media....wha wha!!!! This is the kind of millenial we hate. The arrogant narcissists who can't understand why every measure of happiness hasn't gone up for them. Well, can you please forgive us? I, and the billions of other people in the past who suffered through wars, famines, plagues, witch hunts, slow progress, feudalism, and every other hardship, are sorry that world perfection didn't converge at the time of your birth and that you might have some hardships and might have to solve some hard problems. Maybe you can achieve perfection for your kids.
- zbentley 7y ago
  Could you put that in terms that are less condescending and ad-hominem? My impression of HN is that it's not the place for that kind of tone.
  - stoppergoo 7y ago
    What if he’s just an aggressive person? He would perceive your comment as a micro aggression
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post flamewar comments like this. We ban accounts that do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mc32 7y ago
A lot of this is by-product of Globalization. Not that it can be contained, but with Globalization, wages seek their level, with Worldwide capital flows housing becomes a hot investment. College is more expensive, but greater numbers of people are going to college than before because it's thought a blue-collar job is insufficient to survive. More people and wealthier people means greater consumption which degrades the enviro. Now, if Boomers are seen as greedy, then wouldn't their successors be greedier if they wanted to out-earn them?
lordlimecat 7y ago
>* College is more expensive (in large part due to Cook's generation cutting subsidies that they got), College is more expensive because the government ensures that 18 year olds have uncapped credit cards for educational expenses and everyone tells them "dont worry about it right now". When you increase demand and defer all cost pressure by years, the cost will always skyrocket. Blaming this on a lack of subsidies is actually backwards; providing guaranteed funding for education would further boost costs. As long as schools are setting the price, demand is high, and the money is flowing like water, that cost is going to continue to increase. > * Environment is shot- that whole global warming thing isn't going away anytime soon. But renewables use is also way up. This is the parent's point: these claims utterly ignore the historical reality. We're greener than ever, we've stopped using CFCs and arsenic preservatives and lead paints and high particulate energy generation. We have more access to education than ever. And in the west, our wages are on average 5x that of the rest of the world. So many of these complaints look ignorant and petty when you zoom out a tiny bit from one's personal circumstances. You have college debt? Cry more, you have access to more opportunity than the preceeding 99% of your ancestors and than 95% of your current peers.

Animats 7y ago

Things are getting better. But many of the new things don't need people so much. What we're getting is a big underclass that isn't in the game at all. They're just dead weight. This is hitting the Arab world hard.[1] [1] https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/youth-unemployment-middle-east-teen-jobless https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/youth-unemployment-mi...

umadon 7y ago
Cool that you're out here deciding who is and isn't "dead weight."
- Animats 7y ago
  The free market does that. People who can't generate more revenue than they cost are dead weight in a capitalistic system. It's not common to say that, but the US certainly works that way.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lucasmullens 7y ago
    It's not about the definition of "dead weight", people are downvoting you because it's a fairly mean phrase to use to refer to your fellow human beings.
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Animats may be saying thats what a capitalist system treats the downtrodden, but the actual actions are by that very capitalist system. In order to face a problem, you have to be able to talk about it. And capitalism stratifies the "work" and "cannot work" brutally. And as a killing blow, then proceeds to separate food/shelter/communications and the means to try to make oneself better. In this way, capitalism forces the poverty-stricken to rely on charity of others, for 'market forces' nearly removes the ability to climb the ladder of success. If you find using the term "dead weight" abhorrent (as I do), what are you doing about the root cause; capitalism?

silversconfused 7y ago

Your culture was completely robbed from you before you were born. What stories do you love? What music fills your head? What great deeds of the past inspire you? Are you allowed to share ANY of that freely?

pwinnski 7y ago

> there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people. I think he's only presuming to speak on behalf of US residents, which caps at 400 million, and even then only for his generation, which limits the number even more. In any case, I think one can make observations about a group of people of which one is a member without representing every single member of that group. His generation either did or did not fail current graduates, whether everybody agrees with that or not.

grecy 7y ago

> Firstly, I don't think any generation necessarily "owes" anything to future generations Surely - at a bare minimum - it's everyone's responsibility to leave a habitable planet for future generations. Greed now is going to result in a very, very crappy place to live in the future.

paulcole 7y ago
Could you make an argument that speeding up human extinction is actually best for the planet in the long run?

dingdingdang 7y ago

>> Not to mention, there is something extraordinarily presumptuous about the CEO of one tech company thinking he has the standing to either criticize or speak on behalf of literally billions of people. Yep, more than anything else it is simply patronising. Reading Hans Gosling and Steven Pinker clarifies a lot in terms of this planet's development over the last 30 years - and it's pretty much all for the better for your average human being.

bulletsvshumans 7y ago

Every generation owes the next generation a world that is in as good of condition as when they received it. Anything else is taking out a loan in the next generation’s name.

unsatchmo 7y ago
Super underrated comment right here. I'll take it a step farther: we are of the world. The world barfed you and me up, and we are made out of the stuff that makes the world up. The world is not "ours" or "theirs". We are it, and it is us. We are under the mistaken impression that we are separate from the world and that we "own" it. Until we realize this fact, we will continue to poison ours and each other's children.

sharadov 7y ago

Yes, you got technological advancement, but resources are pretty much down to zero. You are saddled with debt up to your eyeballs. Most of you will never be able to afford a house, if you somehow manage to buy one, you will be paying it off till your last breath. You will have no social blanket, boomers would have plowed through that.

mixmastamyk 7y ago

They don't owe it as much as they stole more than their share, and continue to build deficits and prevent housing for younger generations.

scarface74 7y ago

One thing that the previous generation is not to make the world worse. At some point, the increased debt will hurt future generations.

impostir 7y ago

I have mixed feelings on discussing problems with "generations"; its so broad and imprecise that it feels meaningless. However, I can accept that it has some value when discussing broad social effects. I agree with Jobs; Gen X and further back generations, as groups, raped the planet for short-term economic growth. They aren't the first or last group to do so, but they did do it. My generation, I.e. gen Z, is looking at an abnormally bleak future. Yes, the past generations had the Cold War and possible Nuclear Armageddon. And while the Cold War is dead, possible Nuclear Armageddon is still very much alive. We also face, for the first time in US history, the likelihood that we will die poorer than our parents. We also face the fact that our middle age will come with practically certain catastrophic climate change. Any one of these problems is significant on a global scale, but their collective force is even more crippling. All these problems exist because of the collective decisions of past generations; thats what every present is. WW1 was a product of dumb alliances and treaties made decades before. And it wasn't the generation that decided on the treaties that were butchered on the Somme, it was their children. And as a group, I believe that they are soaked in the blood of their children. However, I will agree that blaming generations is at best unproductive and at worst needlessly divisive. Yes, the actions of past generations create the wars and disasters of today, but that is a simple fact of societies. Blaming a generation hides the specific culprits behind specific problems. We should blame the Tobacco lobby for the death of millions, we should blame oil companies for crippling greener alternatives for decades, we should blame the Military-Industrial complex for chaining America to eternal wars just to make an easy buck. This was more rambly than I intended, so I hope it still has some value.

drugme 7y ago

Even when we think "the world is going to hell", it simply doesn't Actually things are pretty much going to hell, as far as climate change (and its spillover effects) are foreseen to go. Or what is your prognosis of that situation?

PPPPPPPPr 7y ago

I'm doing better than my father but I had to get buttfucked twice as hard to do it. Fuck the boomers. I can't believe you'd keep licking that boot even as they're still robbing you of retirement benefits.