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Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. How do you expect them to feel? This is amplifi

Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. How do you expect them to feel? This is amplified on social media and shown with "proof" from all corners of the world. We've evolved from a place where hearing about bad news from the tribe was an advantage. It allowed us to adjust our life to take into account risks _seen_ by other folks in the tribe. On a world scale that is broken, but our brains haven't adjust yet. If you're in the US is little value in knowing there was a shark attack in New Zealand, or a mass shooting in London. The world is amazing and beautiful. Of course there are atrocities, there always are, but the developed world is living a pretty amazing life. Even the poor relatively speaking. If someone is living a sad, scared life and projects that on to the youth then that person is the problem (again, social media makes this incredibly easy). Kids are unbelievably impressionable and impressing them with your knowledge about random atrocities in the world does no good for their psyche.

standardUser 4y ago
Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Well maybe only 50% of women
  - standardUser 4y ago
    At least until the next case hits SCOTUS. With a far-right majority like that, anything is possible.
- carlgreene 4y ago
  Sure it is. It mostly always is. Of course we have more work to do for women, POCs, whatever the other oppressed groups are out there, but ignoring and brushing off the progress made in the last century is sad. We've made great strides and will continue to.
- basisword 4y ago
  >> Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. This is the exact kind of BS the parent comment is referring too. The world is full of problems but it’s never been better for most people in most ways.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Your comment represents the same worthless platitude. It doesn't make sense to say "yea your life is significantly worse than your parents, but hey at least you aren't a slave building the pyramids at Giza." The fact is it's relative. People are, in general, worse off than their parents were in the west at this point in time. That matters.
    - basisword 4y ago
      Being slightly economically less well off (although still doing exceedingly well and having lots of opportunity) is not the same thing as “boomers wrecked the world”. There are people in very tough situations and as a society we need to help them more but the vast majority of young people (and I say this as one who isn’t doing exceedingly well) need to grow up, cheer up, and start taking more responsibility for things. My parents may have been able to buy a house, but there is much much more about their younger lives that I am glad I don’t have to deal with.
      - standardUser 4y ago
        Younger people will be the ones enduring a transformation of our economy as they attempt to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. Also, not sure what "grow up" means in this context. Quietly endure injustices and environmental catastrophe instead of speaking out and taking action?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- brightball 4y ago
  I sincerely hope you don't actually believe this. Reductionist statements like this which attempt to blame an entire generation for a world that few if any of them had any control over. "Boomers" tried to scrape together a life and provide for a family within the rules of the world where they lived. They elected people to solve the problems that they knew about at the time, just like every other generation.
  - standardUser 4y ago
    "Boomers" is just shorthand for the older generation who treated the environment like a toilet, pillaged the welfare state, jailed anyone who wanted to get high in their free time and made hating/mocking LGBTQ people a national pastime (to name a few examples). I'd say #notallboomers but it's implied unless you're being willfully obtuse.
    - drewcon 4y ago
      “Boomers” I suppose are responsible for passing the clean air and clean water act which had the effect of essentially ending pollution as we know it in the US. They also essentially created the welfare state… They were and are pretty bad on effective drug policy. LGB discourse went off the rails when progressives added all the other letters. To be fair, it’s not just boomers who are deeply concerned with the political religion of queerness.
      - naravara 4y ago
        > They also essentially created the welfare state… Nah the Silent Generation did that. But also most of our political gerontocrats are also either Silents or very early Boomers. They're not really the core of the Baby Boom generation.
      - standardUser 4y ago
        You forgot a couple letters, each of which represents actual human beings who have historically been denied fundamental rights and have been subject to violence, including state violence. Also, your understanding of the origin of the welfare state is way off the mark. Sometimes, the best thing a person can do is spend a little time studying basic history.
- drewcon 4y ago
  This is a non data based take. Support with information.
  - WHA8m 4y ago
    Climate change, increased Cost of living, etc. - Do you really need data for this? About the abortion thing, just visit the page of a random media outlet. It will be among the first 10 articles.
    - carlgreene 4y ago
      These are problems, yes. But how did they "wreck the world". It is these kind of outlandish takes that are pervasive on social media and give no context or relativism to the current problems of the world. Of course we have problems. There will always be problems. Instead focus on giving the younger generation confidence that they can solve the problems by being optimistic about these things. I'm not saying to ignore these things. But instead recognize how good we actually have it, and how powerful and creative we are in solving insanely hard problems.
      - juve1996 4y ago
        Some problems are worse than others. I don't think anyone would choose to live during World War 2 or the great depression. The idea that all generations are the same and there problems are the same is just a worthless platitude. Never before in history has humanity had the knowledge or capability of ending itself like it does now. That can't be ignored.
      - HEmanZ 4y ago
        Thank you. A lot of people I know act like the problems of today are somehow astronomically worse than they have ever been, unsolvable, completely new, and in-addition-to all previous generation's problems ("nothing has improved in a hundred years!"). An acquaintance of mine told me over drinks, after complaining a lot about the current world and in all seriousness, that "I don't think there has ever been a worse time to be alive." I've heard similar sentiments, less drastically put, from quite a few people in person and all over social media. He wouldn't even backtrack after I started pushing him to seriously describe why life is somehow worse now than it has ever been. It's infuriating, like seriously, you'd rather be born a random person 100 years ago instead of today? I can't even imagine someone wanting to be born a random person 50 years ago vs today (unless by random you mean "random middle class white heterosexual man in a western country" in which case, maybe your odds were better 50 years ago). You'd have to be completely ignorant of almost all human history AND brainwashed by social media to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately I think this describes way too many people.
- ThalesX 4y ago
  Boomers wrecked the world, Millenials are wrecking minds, I'm sure Gen Z will find plenty left to wreck. Thankfully, each generation also builds.
  - hn_version_0023 4y ago
    As usual GenX gets skipped. But whatever. Apathy is our lot in life.
    - ThalesX 4y ago
      Where I am from, we don't really use these terms. I'm sorry for offending you by ommiting something.
      - hn_version_0023 4y ago
        Ah, I was making a joke. In the US, “Generation X” was told repeatedly from its inception that it was apathetic, specifically. I also find these terms a bit maddening Edit: for the record, I was in no way offended, but I realize that probably didn’t come across well in my comment
- dotnet00 4y ago
  and young people know they need to fix it - by misrepresenting and blowing every issue out of proportion and throwing names around so when actual problems arise most people have little more than a deep sense of tired antipathy towards others.
eldaisfish 4y ago
this ignores the harsh realities for life as a young person in the west. Sure, they are not scrounging for food nor is there widespread famine but politics is increasingly polarised. There is a climate problem looming and the youngest will deal with it, western citizens or otherwise. Economies are tanking, job markets are topsy turvy not to mention the real estate problem in a lot of western countries. These problems, while not as dire as the problems faced by those in the developing world, are still problems. You cannot hand-wave this away by comparing one's lot in life to that of a person with no limbs. That is unfairly reductive. The challenge, as you point out, is how to deal with this information and that is where i feel modern society has failed.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  There is the matter of proportionality. There are challenges and problems, some worse than prior generations and some better. Putting the comparison aside. It is not healthy or helpful to teach children that they are doomed, the situation is hopeless, and their their future is destined to be miserable. I wouldn't tell my child "your life will suck, and you would be better off dead" every morning when they wake up. Pessimists preach this, and children believe it.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Children aren't being directly told these things. They are seeing it every day on blast from every source of media. It's not just kids. Its young adults choosing not to get married or have kids. The reality is grim. Progress is relative. Even if the young generation isn't that bad compared to the 1700s, it's bad compared to what it could directly be related to, which is the previous generation and the era of good and plenty and western hegemony.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      I'm not claiming that people tell their children this verbatim. I agree that this is what they are effectively being blasted by from media sources and this is very detrimental. I also think that the pessimism is vastly overstated. Constant comparison is a recipe for disappointment just as much as if you compared your life to a celebrity on social media. There are still vast sources for happiness and life satisfaction that are untappd
naravara 4y ago
> Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. A lot of people were saying exactly this right before Franz Ferdinand got shot.
iskander 4y ago
>when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive ...I liked the 90s a lot better, other than gizmos and means for distraction I can't really imagine why someone would prefer the 2020s.
- wilsonnb3 4y ago
  Infant mortality is down to 5.5 per 1000 from 7.5 in the US. People living in extreme poverty globally is down to 700 million from 1.9 billion. The world today is better than the 90s in many measurable ways.
  - iskander 4y ago
    ~50% increase in firearm deaths: https://www.statista.com/statistics/258913/number-of-firearm-deaths-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/258913/number-of-firearm... Major increase in pedestrian deaths and general trend away from walking: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... ~4x increase in obesity: https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/news/obesity-through-the-years https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/news/obesity-th... Major decrease in upward mobility through socioeconomic status: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar... ...and a general deterioration of civic institutions, shared culture, and mental health. Aside from the data, it's subjectively a more fractured and less pleasant country.
kar5pt 4y ago
If this was the cause I would have expected this trend to start when cable news started, not in the 2010s. How do you account for the delay?
barrikad 4y ago
"For it must be cried out, at a time when some have the audacity to neo-evangelise in the name of the ideal of a liberal democracy that has finally realised itself as the ideal of human history: never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of humanity. Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the ‘end of ideologies’ and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, have so many men, women and children been subjugated, starved or exterminated on the earth."

standardUser 4y ago

Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Well maybe only 50% of women
- standardUser 4y ago
  At least until the next case hits SCOTUS. With a far-right majority like that, anything is possible.
carlgreene 4y ago
Sure it is. It mostly always is. Of course we have more work to do for women, POCs, whatever the other oppressed groups are out there, but ignoring and brushing off the progress made in the last century is sad. We've made great strides and will continue to.
basisword 4y ago
>> Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. This is the exact kind of BS the parent comment is referring too. The world is full of problems but it’s never been better for most people in most ways.
- juve1996 4y ago
  Your comment represents the same worthless platitude. It doesn't make sense to say "yea your life is significantly worse than your parents, but hey at least you aren't a slave building the pyramids at Giza." The fact is it's relative. People are, in general, worse off than their parents were in the west at this point in time. That matters.
  - basisword 4y ago
    Being slightly economically less well off (although still doing exceedingly well and having lots of opportunity) is not the same thing as “boomers wrecked the world”. There are people in very tough situations and as a society we need to help them more but the vast majority of young people (and I say this as one who isn’t doing exceedingly well) need to grow up, cheer up, and start taking more responsibility for things. My parents may have been able to buy a house, but there is much much more about their younger lives that I am glad I don’t have to deal with.
    - standardUser 4y ago
      Younger people will be the ones enduring a transformation of our economy as they attempt to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. Also, not sure what "grow up" means in this context. Quietly endure injustices and environmental catastrophe instead of speaking out and taking action?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
brightball 4y ago
I sincerely hope you don't actually believe this. Reductionist statements like this which attempt to blame an entire generation for a world that few if any of them had any control over. "Boomers" tried to scrape together a life and provide for a family within the rules of the world where they lived. They elected people to solve the problems that they knew about at the time, just like every other generation.
- standardUser 4y ago
  "Boomers" is just shorthand for the older generation who treated the environment like a toilet, pillaged the welfare state, jailed anyone who wanted to get high in their free time and made hating/mocking LGBTQ people a national pastime (to name a few examples). I'd say #notallboomers but it's implied unless you're being willfully obtuse.
  - drewcon 4y ago
    “Boomers” I suppose are responsible for passing the clean air and clean water act which had the effect of essentially ending pollution as we know it in the US. They also essentially created the welfare state… They were and are pretty bad on effective drug policy. LGB discourse went off the rails when progressives added all the other letters. To be fair, it’s not just boomers who are deeply concerned with the political religion of queerness.
    - naravara 4y ago
      > They also essentially created the welfare state… Nah the Silent Generation did that. But also most of our political gerontocrats are also either Silents or very early Boomers. They're not really the core of the Baby Boom generation.
    - standardUser 4y ago
      You forgot a couple letters, each of which represents actual human beings who have historically been denied fundamental rights and have been subject to violence, including state violence. Also, your understanding of the origin of the welfare state is way off the mark. Sometimes, the best thing a person can do is spend a little time studying basic history.
drewcon 4y ago
This is a non data based take. Support with information.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  Climate change, increased Cost of living, etc. - Do you really need data for this? About the abortion thing, just visit the page of a random media outlet. It will be among the first 10 articles.
  - carlgreene 4y ago
    These are problems, yes. But how did they "wreck the world". It is these kind of outlandish takes that are pervasive on social media and give no context or relativism to the current problems of the world. Of course we have problems. There will always be problems. Instead focus on giving the younger generation confidence that they can solve the problems by being optimistic about these things. I'm not saying to ignore these things. But instead recognize how good we actually have it, and how powerful and creative we are in solving insanely hard problems.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      Some problems are worse than others. I don't think anyone would choose to live during World War 2 or the great depression. The idea that all generations are the same and there problems are the same is just a worthless platitude. Never before in history has humanity had the knowledge or capability of ending itself like it does now. That can't be ignored.
    - HEmanZ 4y ago
      Thank you. A lot of people I know act like the problems of today are somehow astronomically worse than they have ever been, unsolvable, completely new, and in-addition-to all previous generation's problems ("nothing has improved in a hundred years!"). An acquaintance of mine told me over drinks, after complaining a lot about the current world and in all seriousness, that "I don't think there has ever been a worse time to be alive." I've heard similar sentiments, less drastically put, from quite a few people in person and all over social media. He wouldn't even backtrack after I started pushing him to seriously describe why life is somehow worse now than it has ever been. It's infuriating, like seriously, you'd rather be born a random person 100 years ago instead of today? I can't even imagine someone wanting to be born a random person 50 years ago vs today (unless by random you mean "random middle class white heterosexual man in a western country" in which case, maybe your odds were better 50 years ago). You'd have to be completely ignorant of almost all human history AND brainwashed by social media to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately I think this describes way too many people.
ThalesX 4y ago
Boomers wrecked the world, Millenials are wrecking minds, I'm sure Gen Z will find plenty left to wreck. Thankfully, each generation also builds.
- hn_version_0023 4y ago
  As usual GenX gets skipped. But whatever. Apathy is our lot in life.
  - ThalesX 4y ago
    Where I am from, we don't really use these terms. I'm sorry for offending you by ommiting something.
    - hn_version_0023 4y ago
      Ah, I was making a joke. In the US, “Generation X” was told repeatedly from its inception that it was apathetic, specifically. I also find these terms a bit maddening Edit: for the record, I was in no way offended, but I realize that probably didn’t come across well in my comment
dotnet00 4y ago
and young people know they need to fix it - by misrepresenting and blowing every issue out of proportion and throwing names around so when actual problems arise most people have little more than a deep sense of tired antipathy towards others.

eldaisfish 4y ago

this ignores the harsh realities for life as a young person in the west. Sure, they are not scrounging for food nor is there widespread famine but politics is increasingly polarised. There is a climate problem looming and the youngest will deal with it, western citizens or otherwise. Economies are tanking, job markets are topsy turvy not to mention the real estate problem in a lot of western countries. These problems, while not as dire as the problems faced by those in the developing world, are still problems. You cannot hand-wave this away by comparing one's lot in life to that of a person with no limbs. That is unfairly reductive. The challenge, as you point out, is how to deal with this information and that is where i feel modern society has failed.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
There is the matter of proportionality. There are challenges and problems, some worse than prior generations and some better. Putting the comparison aside. It is not healthy or helpful to teach children that they are doomed, the situation is hopeless, and their their future is destined to be miserable. I wouldn't tell my child "your life will suck, and you would be better off dead" every morning when they wake up. Pessimists preach this, and children believe it.
- juve1996 4y ago
  Children aren't being directly told these things. They are seeing it every day on blast from every source of media. It's not just kids. Its young adults choosing not to get married or have kids. The reality is grim. Progress is relative. Even if the young generation isn't that bad compared to the 1700s, it's bad compared to what it could directly be related to, which is the previous generation and the era of good and plenty and western hegemony.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I'm not claiming that people tell their children this verbatim. I agree that this is what they are effectively being blasted by from media sources and this is very detrimental. I also think that the pessimism is vastly overstated. Constant comparison is a recipe for disappointment just as much as if you compared your life to a celebrity on social media. There are still vast sources for happiness and life satisfaction that are untappd

naravara 4y ago

> Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. A lot of people were saying exactly this right before Franz Ferdinand got shot.

iskander 4y ago

>when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive ...I liked the 90s a lot better, other than gizmos and means for distraction I can't really imagine why someone would prefer the 2020s.

wilsonnb3 4y ago
Infant mortality is down to 5.5 per 1000 from 7.5 in the US. People living in extreme poverty globally is down to 700 million from 1.9 billion. The world today is better than the 90s in many measurable ways.
- iskander 4y ago
  ~50% increase in firearm deaths: https://www.statista.com/statistics/258913/number-of-firearm-deaths-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/258913/number-of-firearm... Major increase in pedestrian deaths and general trend away from walking: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... ~4x increase in obesity: https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/news/obesity-through-the-years https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/news/obesity-th... Major decrease in upward mobility through socioeconomic status: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwar... ...and a general deterioration of civic institutions, shared culture, and mental health. Aside from the data, it's subjectively a more fractured and less pleasant country.

kar5pt 4y ago

If this was the cause I would have expected this trend to start when cable news started, not in the 2010s. How do you account for the delay?

barrikad 4y ago

"For it must be cried out, at a time when some have the audacity to neo-evangelise in the name of the ideal of a liberal democracy that has finally realised itself as the ideal of human history: never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of humanity. Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the ‘end of ideologies’ and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, have so many men, women and children been subjugated, starved or exterminated on the earth."