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I must say, as the child of immigrants, I'm mystified at why "They don’t get that Gen Z is going to be the first generation that has a lower quality of life tha

I must say, as the child of immigrants, I'm mystified at why "They don’t get that Gen Z is going to be the first generation that has a lower quality of life than those prior." is seen as a valid complaint. Is it some kind of American-only thing? The country of my forefathers had its cities leveled and millions of deaths in a war and, so those that survived it and the chaotic aftermath (which includes my parents) definitely had a lower quality of life than the preceding generation. And given the way the world is changing, the possibility of it happening again doesn't seem so remote as it once did. I can't recall ever having any certainty of the future being better than the past.

anigbrowl 7y ago
The last time the US saw across-the-board declines in the quality of life was during the Civil War, so yes. Also, American social scientists fetishize generational differences to an extreme degree, possibly because it allows for easy and relatively non-controversial statistical analyses.
krapp 7y ago
Assuming you're talking about World War 2, the US not only went through that relatively unscathed, but also made a ton of money bankrolling the reconstruction of Europe, Russia and Japan. So yes, it's basically a US thing.
- masonic 7y ago
  the US not only went through that relatively unscathed Well, sure, if you ignore the over 400,000 combat dead... which was more than double France's losses, and also greater than England's. Bear in mind that's mostly young men who never saw their peak earnings years, so consider their economic impact as well.
  - krapp 7y ago
    relatively unscathed. The rest of the world had their cities burned to the ground, and their infrastructures and economies destroyed. Russia lost millions of people. Japan was victim to the only atomic bombs thus far used in warfare. What the US went through, comparatively, while not nothing, was still a cakewalk.
weare138 7y ago
The issue is that many of the Baby Boomer generation seem unaware of this fact or just don't seem to care.

anigbrowl 7y ago

The last time the US saw across-the-board declines in the quality of life was during the Civil War, so yes. Also, American social scientists fetishize generational differences to an extreme degree, possibly because it allows for easy and relatively non-controversial statistical analyses.

krapp 7y ago

Assuming you're talking about World War 2, the US not only went through that relatively unscathed, but also made a ton of money bankrolling the reconstruction of Europe, Russia and Japan. So yes, it's basically a US thing.

masonic 7y ago
the US not only went through that relatively unscathed Well, sure, if you ignore the over 400,000 combat dead... which was more than double France's losses, and also greater than England's. Bear in mind that's mostly young men who never saw their peak earnings years, so consider their economic impact as well.
- krapp 7y ago
  relatively unscathed. The rest of the world had their cities burned to the ground, and their infrastructures and economies destroyed. Russia lost millions of people. Japan was victim to the only atomic bombs thus far used in warfare. What the US went through, comparatively, while not nothing, was still a cakewalk.

weare138 7y ago

The issue is that many of the Baby Boomer generation seem unaware of this fact or just don't seem to care.