6 ms·

It's because there's nothing for them to look forward to. People keep asking why is X group struggling? And there's been enough articles about different group

It's because there's nothing for them to look forward to. People keep asking why is X group struggling? And there's been enough articles about different groups that X is basically nearly everyone. Things are not getting better for anyone except the extremely wealthy.

olalonde 4y ago
That's objectively false for almost any metric you can come up with. Maybe the problem is that media gives such distorted view of reality?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  How about the mental health metrics?
- anonzzzies 4y ago
  Outside the people on HN etc, aren’t people objectively worse off payment wise than in the 80s? Cannot buy houses and having to live with their parents? Sure we live longer and healthier (well, this is also mostly the well off people) and we have tremendous tech advancements, but isn’t everything owned by a few people? I have to pay monthly for my car seat warmer. Movies and music that I bought are removed without me having anything to say about it. Everything is becoming rented and can be remotely terminated. Even our mental space is occupied by a handful of billion$ companies (and their billion$ owners). Then AI is changing the outlook for 100s of millions ‘knowledge workers’ and artists as they see what they were educated for or educated themselves with, rapidly become obsolete. Of course many here say that it will make more jobs as it always did; are those better? Will they pay more and have a better work/life balance, or, more likely when looking at the past, will they pay, generally far less and will the companies rich enough to run the AI be the only ones that benefit from that particular revolution, as they do now? You can deny climate change and pollution as many do, but that is a problem as well which the coming generations can look forward to reap the pain from through disasters and famine. Not you or your kids or friends, but the masses ‘elsewhere’ who are already suffering now from these things. So when you are young you look forward to having no possessions (everything shall be rented), a burning planet and no or crappy jobs. Throw in a war here and there and the bleak future arrived already for many. Except for a few, like now and many of those are in the HN echo chamber. And all of this and more is causing a clearly visible mental health crisis all around the globe. Which parts are distorted?
  - tmn 4y ago
    I’d argue distortion isn’t the ideal word. We are in a tough situation and strong narrative framing is needed to get through it. One narrative is different than another. It’s not so useful to call one distorted and the other not. Rather, which is more productive?
  - iopq 4y ago
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N actually very wrong, the real median household income is much higher
    - jacooper 4y ago
      Purchase power is a more useful metric here
- staticman2 4y ago
  Well here's a metric that's getting worse. https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-for-us-individuals-families-and-households/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/US_Gini_Coefficient_1967-2014.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/US_Gini_...
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Single earners with no post-secondary education used to be able to be a sole earner and afford a stay at home spouse, car, home and kids. You can't say "oh that's false" whilst giving no examples when it's extremely well known that life is getting extremely expensive, all the iPhones in the world don't actually make it better. Here's a well known metric: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/11/politics/millennials-income-stalled-upward-mobility-us/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/11/politics/millennials-income-s... And it's getting worse... Homes less affordable, entering recession, less socialeconomic mobility, etc...
escapedmoose 4y ago
The kids I know these days are fantastic. They’re empathetic, smart, polite, and all-around much better people than my friends and I were at their age. They’re so good and they give me so much hope. But they’re also troubled. They struggle with anxiety and depression (and younger) more deeply than anyone I knew growing up. My theory is that we’ve simply handed them a more difficult world to grow up in. They’re handling it admirably, but we really did them dirty.
- thebigman433 4y ago
  I teach outdoor ed for a program where kids come for a week at a time, so I get to see thousands of kids per semester. I would very much agree with this statement. Overall, Ive experienced that today's youth is largely very empathetic and kind, much moreso than I was as a kid, but anxiety absolutely plagues them. A very notable exception to this is the rich/well off kids Ive been with. They very much do not show the same empathy as even the middle class type kids (or upper middle class) that I work with. There is definitely a massive divide there. The location of the school also has a significant impact on this too.
  - granshaw 4y ago
    But I bet the wealthy kids have far less anxiety too?
    - dopeboy 4y ago
      I’d wager more. Heightened expectations and the resources to meet them = a lot of studying, extracurricular activities, etc.
    - thebigman433 4y ago
      This is mostly a mixed bag. Less kids with obvious outwards anxiety, but quite a few that share things that definitely lead you to believe they will have anxiety if they dont already. I would say generally the big differentiator is that the kids who are meaner/less empathetic are the ones with less anxiety, regardless of wealth status. Overall though, anxiety is definitely just a massive problem among youth.

olalonde 4y ago

That's objectively false for almost any metric you can come up with. Maybe the problem is that media gives such distorted view of reality?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hotpotamus 4y ago
How about the mental health metrics?
anonzzzies 4y ago
Outside the people on HN etc, aren’t people objectively worse off payment wise than in the 80s? Cannot buy houses and having to live with their parents? Sure we live longer and healthier (well, this is also mostly the well off people) and we have tremendous tech advancements, but isn’t everything owned by a few people? I have to pay monthly for my car seat warmer. Movies and music that I bought are removed without me having anything to say about it. Everything is becoming rented and can be remotely terminated. Even our mental space is occupied by a handful of billion$ companies (and their billion$ owners). Then AI is changing the outlook for 100s of millions ‘knowledge workers’ and artists as they see what they were educated for or educated themselves with, rapidly become obsolete. Of course many here say that it will make more jobs as it always did; are those better? Will they pay more and have a better work/life balance, or, more likely when looking at the past, will they pay, generally far less and will the companies rich enough to run the AI be the only ones that benefit from that particular revolution, as they do now? You can deny climate change and pollution as many do, but that is a problem as well which the coming generations can look forward to reap the pain from through disasters and famine. Not you or your kids or friends, but the masses ‘elsewhere’ who are already suffering now from these things. So when you are young you look forward to having no possessions (everything shall be rented), a burning planet and no or crappy jobs. Throw in a war here and there and the bleak future arrived already for many. Except for a few, like now and many of those are in the HN echo chamber. And all of this and more is causing a clearly visible mental health crisis all around the globe. Which parts are distorted?
- tmn 4y ago
  I’d argue distortion isn’t the ideal word. We are in a tough situation and strong narrative framing is needed to get through it. One narrative is different than another. It’s not so useful to call one distorted and the other not. Rather, which is more productive?
- iopq 4y ago
  https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N actually very wrong, the real median household income is much higher
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Purchase power is a more useful metric here
staticman2 4y ago
Well here's a metric that's getting worse. https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-for-us-individuals-families-and-households/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/US_Gini_Coefficient_1967-2014.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/US_Gini_...
Mikeb85 4y ago
Single earners with no post-secondary education used to be able to be a sole earner and afford a stay at home spouse, car, home and kids. You can't say "oh that's false" whilst giving no examples when it's extremely well known that life is getting extremely expensive, all the iPhones in the world don't actually make it better. Here's a well known metric: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/11/politics/millennials-income-stalled-upward-mobility-us/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/11/politics/millennials-income-s... And it's getting worse... Homes less affordable, entering recession, less socialeconomic mobility, etc...

escapedmoose 4y ago

The kids I know these days are fantastic. They’re empathetic, smart, polite, and all-around much better people than my friends and I were at their age. They’re so good and they give me so much hope. But they’re also troubled. They struggle with anxiety and depression (and younger) more deeply than anyone I knew growing up. My theory is that we’ve simply handed them a more difficult world to grow up in. They’re handling it admirably, but we really did them dirty.

thebigman433 4y ago
I teach outdoor ed for a program where kids come for a week at a time, so I get to see thousands of kids per semester. I would very much agree with this statement. Overall, Ive experienced that today's youth is largely very empathetic and kind, much moreso than I was as a kid, but anxiety absolutely plagues them. A very notable exception to this is the rich/well off kids Ive been with. They very much do not show the same empathy as even the middle class type kids (or upper middle class) that I work with. There is definitely a massive divide there. The location of the school also has a significant impact on this too.
- granshaw 4y ago
  But I bet the wealthy kids have far less anxiety too?
  - dopeboy 4y ago
    I’d wager more. Heightened expectations and the resources to meet them = a lot of studying, extracurricular activities, etc.
  - thebigman433 4y ago
    This is mostly a mixed bag. Less kids with obvious outwards anxiety, but quite a few that share things that definitely lead you to believe they will have anxiety if they dont already. I would say generally the big differentiator is that the kids who are meaner/less empathetic are the ones with less anxiety, regardless of wealth status. Overall though, anxiety is definitely just a massive problem among youth.