7 ms·

I'm a new immigrant millennial to the US (from the UK of all places) and for me the American dream is dead. I know I'm playing the world's smallest violin and

I'm a new immigrant millennial to the US (from the UK of all places) and for me the American dream is dead. I know I'm playing the world's smallest violin and I will gather little sympathy since I am one of those tech workers with a big fat paycheck, but the fact that someone like me isn't thriving might be another symptom of how fucked up things are. It seems that my timing has played a big role. We moved here last year when the tech market was on fire and people were jumping companies getting obscene amounts of money. Things turned south very quickly. Companies stopped hiring and started laying off people instead. My company virtually froze my salary at the same time that inflation was soaring. Combined with a tumbling stock price, I’ll be taking home less money this year than last. Also my wife has been unable to find a stable job, which has further affected our household income. Buying a home? Give me a break. I love to share the Zillow home price index graph to visually show people how Covid has screwed the housing market [1]. And at least before we had the option to move far from the city to a cheaper location and work remotely, but now employers are forcing us to go back to the office, so the choice is between unaffordable rent or multi-hour daily commutes (I’m in the second camp). I know this comment sounds whiny but I can’t help to feel that we are just getting dealt a shit sandwich after another. We might be in a world of extravagant productivity but I’m sure as hell not reaping the benefits. I’m supposed to be a top 5% earner and yet I don’t feel my standard of living is much better than my working class upbringing - at least back then we owned our apartment and weren’t told how privileged we were. [1] https://www.zillow.com/home-values/102001/united-states/ https://www.zillow.com/home-values/102001/united-states/

908B64B197 3y ago
... and that's still a better deal than the UK, where the norm is no equity and an capped salaries for "IT personnel" (their words, not mine). Anecdotally, seems there's a lot of British and European expats here in the Valley and they don't seem too keen on returning. We've been getting a lot of international applicants (but work from home was supposed to mean Europeans could avoid moving to the "dangerous" US but work for American companies?). Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones benefiting from a brain drain of Americans leaving the country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreign talent. I recall someone pitching the "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going to be the new Stanford and MIT. It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these predictions were. Top destination for UK nationals in Academia was, and still is... the US [0]. [0] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...
- anotherhue 3y ago
  They trot out that shite anytime they can, it doesn't change the economics of "we have a small market mindset and can't value tech from a global perspective". Also eco-classism means tech is surpressed by finance anywhere it can be.
- rcarr 3y ago
  > Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreign talent. Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the UK/Rishi Sunak keeps trying to push the UK as the potential world leader in AI regulation despite the UK having no world leading AI company?
stanford_labrat 3y ago
I’m going to assume you live near the coast, probably in the Bay Area or NYC or Seattle? I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized the American Dream has changed. The coastal cities are no longer available even for relatively middle class families, you’ll have to move inland if you want land and property consistently and for relatively cheap.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  Yep - was barely scraping by it felt like, while in a coastal city. After we had kids, it was way worse. We moved inland, bought a house, and can afford an in-home nanny. It feels closer to what the cumulative household income we have is supposed to feel like. I think it was always supposed to be "work hard, adapt, and you'll have a good life." This is out of reach for many, certainly, but it's not so far out of reach that a BLS.gov average tech salary can't live comfortably. I'm always reminded of my sister in law who, with her husband, has a 5 bedroom house, two kids, brand new cars, hunting land, and a family lake cabin ... off a teacher and electrician salary. Her father has even more and sold cattle feed. The secret sauce was location. They live in southern Minnesota and never bothered to chase the coastal dream.
  - kiklion 3y ago
    People tend to underestimate the cost of living in a high demand place. You could make top 10% incomes globally, but if you are living in a top 1% location then you are being priced out by the 9% of the population making more than you. If you want to live with a certain lifestyle of cars/vacations/personal services etc then you can’t be spending up on the other parts of your budget like housing location.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      While not unique, the Bay Area is also something of an outlier in that it's hard to drive out of extremely high housing prices from not only SF but the South Bay generally. I live 60-90 minutes outside of the Boston metro and, while were I am isn't many areas of the Midwest cheap, it's pretty affordable. Except for one short stint, I've never had to commute into the city, so living in the city would be a lifestyle choice which has historically not been one that a lot of middle class families made--even when a lot of urban CoL was lower.
kiklion 3y ago
I would be cautious how much of your frustration is because of the US changing or not meeting your expectations vs you happening to make major life decision right when there happened to be major world changing events. (Covid, Russia/Ukraine primarily.) Since you aren’t in your old life anymore, you don’t know exactly how good or bad it would have been had you stayed. Moving on beyond that, some places are definitely worse off than others within the US. Housing where I live is getting more expensive, but incomes are also going up substantially. And they are building thousands of new housing. You mention being a top 5% earner. Unless that is top 5% locally, you are probably using up a lot of that top 5% income to live in a top 1% location.
- angarg12 3y ago
  According to the stats, we make top 5% income of our area. It sure doesn't feel like it. Makes me wonder how people in much lower income who hasn't inherited their home can make ends meet here (the answer is probably not very well). Regarding your first point, you are right, you can't A/B test your life. In any event I'm reporting my current experience, which is both not better than my previous and expected one.
  - kryogen1c 3y ago
    >> Buying a home? Give me a break > According to the stats, we make top 5% income of our area Well one of those two things isnt true. It's not possible to be 95%ile income and not afford a house.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      Do you have the corresponding statistics (income percentiles vs. average house cost) for all areas in the US handy, allowing you to quickly determine this is not possible? Or do you not like the idea and therefore reject it?
      - kryogen1c 3y ago
        Do you have a single example where it is possible?
alex_lav 3y ago
> I know I'm playing the world's smallest violin and I will gather little sympathy since I am one of those tech workers with a big fat paycheck, but the fact that someone like me isn't thriving might be another symptom of how fucked up things are. You don't have to preface your struggles and frustrations like this. Everybody's problems are real to them and diminishing them doesn't do anybody any good. > Buying a home? Give me a break. I love to share the Zillow home price index graph to visually show people how Covid has screwed the housing market [1]. And at least before we had the option to move far from the city to a cheaper location and work remotely, but now employers are forcing us to go back to the office, so the choice is between unaffordable rent or multi-hour daily commutes (I’m in the second camp). For reference, I purchased a home and I believe it to have been a huge mistake. I'll be looking to sell it basically at-cost in about a year or so. The homebuying gold rush made a lot of people, including me, buy houses because they thought it was their chance, only to then realize that many houses were deceptively priced/kinda shitty. I think your feelings around commuting are valid, and I don't mean to diminish the desire to own a home, I'm just trying to be a voice of "it's not always better". I didn't really have anybody in my life when I bought, saying that type of thing, so I'm trying to advocate for homebuying-realism when I can. > I know this comment sounds whiny but I can’t help to feel that we are just getting dealt a shit sandwich after another. We might be in a world of extravagant productivity but I’m sure as hell not reaping the benefits. I’m supposed to be a top 5% earner and yet I don’t feel my standard of living is much better than my working class upbringing - at least back then we owned our apartment and weren’t told how privileged we were. I feel this big time too. I make pretty far above my city's "upper tier" of income for tech workers and still generally feel strapped. I have gotten a handful of bad beats in a row.
- angarg12 3y ago
  Thanks for your comment, I think the HN crowd might be more understanding. In the general population, someone making 6 figures complaining about cost of living (particularly tech workers, since we are usually blamed for the problem) is frowned upon.
  - alex_lav 3y ago
stiray 3y ago
I have encountered this video and it is worth to take a look. The conditions for living are never going to be the same as they were, but not due to "boomers" or whatever the favorite scapegoat is but... well watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  No, I'm not going to watch some random youtube video, of unknown length, to try to find out what your point is. If you want to say something, say it.
  - erikerikson 3y ago
    13 minutes, 20 seconds. I've felt like you but I was glad I clicked. TL;DW: wealthy people own most things and their incomes are from what they own/control. They earn more than they spend and buy more control with the excess leading to ever more consolidation of wealth.
  - stiray 3y ago
    Sorry, no. The guy has a multi-million background behind him and I am just a nick here. If you dont want to watch, dont.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > Sorry, no. The guy has a multi-million background behind him and I am just a nick here. If you dont want to watch, dont. I have encountered this video and it is worth to take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvV4SNeH-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvV4SNeH-U. If you dont want to watch, dont. ---- You may be "just a nick," but with links in general and video links especially, it's considerate of others' time to give more information to help them understand what you're linking and decide if it's worth viewing. Just dropping a link to a video is almost always just noise.
      - stiray 3y ago
dpflan 3y ago
Timing is a big deal; the economic system favored those of earlier generations (also when fewer people lived), and now I think we basically have to wait for Boomer generation to cede influence -- they were dealt a nice economic hand and capitalism thrived to where we are now, maybe a variant of "peak capitalism", which younger generations are rebelling against because they can't participate as much and the negative externalities of such a system are apparent (e.g. oligarchic control, regulatory capture, weakening of federal governments, and just plain classic corruption allowed within legal bounds...).
- pydry 3y ago
  This isnt about generation vs generation. It's elite vs. the proletariat and the pain is just distributed unevenly across generations. Obviously theyre more than happy with millenials blaming their parents as it exculpates them for turning the crank on the dynastic, parasitic wealth extraction engine.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    It is generational. The boomers could afford a house in the suburbs (owned, not rented), a car, and steak for dinner for themselves, a wife, and a couple kids on a factory workers salary.
    - dasil003 3y ago
      Sorry, but this mentality is counter-productive and plays right into the hands of oligarchs. Instead of recognizing that wealth and power is increasingly accruing to a smaller and smaller set of uber-wealthy (who pass that wealth on and otherwise rig the game for their offspring), we allow ourselves to be distracted by culture wars and generation wars rather than recognizing it as a smokescreen from the concentration of wealth and power that is driving the bad outcomes.
      - jstarfish 3y ago
        Yeah...grandpa could afford a middle-class lifestyle working in the finger-cutting factory. Maybe even making Management one day--with training paid for by the parent company--if he worked hard enough! Jeff Bezos would have you working under the same conditions, pissing in bottles and living in his parking lot. Grandpa's earned wealth isn't why you can't afford a house.
rcarr 3y ago
As a UK person who always dreamed of moving to the US, how have you found it from a social perspective? I always imagined it would be a much friendlier place than the UK and that there were more things to do regardless of whether you had geek or jock interests, does it match that expectation?
- angarg12 3y ago
  I moved from the UK but I'm not british, so not sure how useful my experience will be to you. Since I am married and an introvert I haven't really socialized that much since we moved. People seem pretty open although it seems to me you need to get into some kind of shared hobby to meet people (isn't that just true about making friends as an adult?). However I never had a bad experience socializing in the UK, in fact I made several good friends there.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >isn't that just true about making friends as an adult? For people without kids, I think that's generally true. Pretty much everyone I socialize with locally is associated with a local outdoor club. There are still people from school and professional acquaintances I keep in touch with, but that's usually not local.
  - bradlys 3y ago
    Something that is specifically different than Europe - from what I’ve heard - is that while going out and doing social hobbies is still an excellent way to make friends… it’s not the only way to make friends in Europe. Whereas in the US, I’d say it’s about the only thing available. Third spaces are almost nonexistent in the US and spaces overall where you can just easily socialize with strangers are incredibly uncommon in the US. Go out to most any bar in places like NYC or SF and you’ll have a hard time making any new friends. The same cannot be said in Europe. While in Europe, folks would just chat me up at random whereas in the US - this has never happened. It’s a different culture and the atmosphere of most bars here is to make money off expensive drinks - not to make you happy. It’s one of the things where I find it funny how folks recommend chatting up the bartender as a way to get introduced to the regulars. Any bar I’ve gone to - the bartenders are too busy to even know anyone. I’ve got to some bars for 6+ months and ordered regularly from the exact same bartender - they didn’t know my name or even recognize me. It’s a different culture in the US. It’s capitalistic.
amerkhalid 3y ago
> Buying a home? Give me a break. I love to share the Zillow home price index graph to visually show people how Covid has screwed the housing market [1]. And at least before we had the option to move far from the city to a cheaper location and work remotely, but now employers are forcing us to go back to the office, so the choice is between unaffordable rent or multi-hour daily commutes (I’m in the second camp). Remote work also screwed a lot of low cost cities as tech workers moved there, outbid everyone, and priced out local residents from housing market. However, remote work is here to stay. Live where you want and look for remote jobs while working your current job. Recently, two of my friends switched their jobs to fully-remote positions. (I know in the news it is layoffs all the time but there are still many companies hiring fully remote workers.)
- angarg12 3y ago
  Sure, but why would I move to the boonies in the US to get a remote job? I might as well move back to my home country, with my family, friends, and no worries about immigration status. If the solution is to move to a rural area, I double down on my point of the American dream being dead.
johnea 3y ago
"We’ve strayed so far from the original intentions of our economic model..."? I think this demonstrates that "young people", or at least this author, aren't really participating in "reality" at all. The economic system is doing exactly what it was intended to do: scrape the financial assetts of the masses of the unwashed herd into the bank accounts of the predetary rich. It's a win-win-win for the rich, the richer, and the richest. Exactly as it was "intended". As long as "young people" of all ages continue to throw themselves gushingly at every corporate exploit that crawls out from under a rock, expect the expoitation to continue. Perhaps consider how much your "lifestyle" depends directly on corporate platforms?

908B64B197 3y ago

... and that's still a better deal than the UK, where the norm is no equity and an capped salaries for "IT personnel" (their words, not mine). Anecdotally, seems there's a lot of British and European expats here in the Valley and they don't seem too keen on returning. We've been getting a lot of international applicants (but work from home was supposed to mean Europeans could avoid moving to the "dangerous" US but work for American companies?). Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones benefiting from a brain drain of Americans leaving the country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreign talent. I recall someone pitching the "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going to be the new Stanford and MIT. It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these predictions were. Top destination for UK nationals in Academia was, and still is... the US [0]. [0] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...

anotherhue 3y ago
They trot out that shite anytime they can, it doesn't change the economics of "we have a small market mindset and can't value tech from a global perspective". Also eco-classism means tech is surpressed by finance anywhere it can be.
rcarr 3y ago
> Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreign talent. Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the UK/Rishi Sunak keeps trying to push the UK as the potential world leader in AI regulation despite the UK having no world leading AI company?

stanford_labrat 3y ago

I’m going to assume you live near the coast, probably in the Bay Area or NYC or Seattle? I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized the American Dream has changed. The coastal cities are no longer available even for relatively middle class families, you’ll have to move inland if you want land and property consistently and for relatively cheap.

jvanderbot 3y ago
Yep - was barely scraping by it felt like, while in a coastal city. After we had kids, it was way worse. We moved inland, bought a house, and can afford an in-home nanny. It feels closer to what the cumulative household income we have is supposed to feel like. I think it was always supposed to be "work hard, adapt, and you'll have a good life." This is out of reach for many, certainly, but it's not so far out of reach that a BLS.gov average tech salary can't live comfortably. I'm always reminded of my sister in law who, with her husband, has a 5 bedroom house, two kids, brand new cars, hunting land, and a family lake cabin ... off a teacher and electrician salary. Her father has even more and sold cattle feed. The secret sauce was location. They live in southern Minnesota and never bothered to chase the coastal dream.
- kiklion 3y ago
  People tend to underestimate the cost of living in a high demand place. You could make top 10% incomes globally, but if you are living in a top 1% location then you are being priced out by the 9% of the population making more than you. If you want to live with a certain lifestyle of cars/vacations/personal services etc then you can’t be spending up on the other parts of your budget like housing location.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    While not unique, the Bay Area is also something of an outlier in that it's hard to drive out of extremely high housing prices from not only SF but the South Bay generally. I live 60-90 minutes outside of the Boston metro and, while were I am isn't many areas of the Midwest cheap, it's pretty affordable. Except for one short stint, I've never had to commute into the city, so living in the city would be a lifestyle choice which has historically not been one that a lot of middle class families made--even when a lot of urban CoL was lower.

kiklion 3y ago

I would be cautious how much of your frustration is because of the US changing or not meeting your expectations vs you happening to make major life decision right when there happened to be major world changing events. (Covid, Russia/Ukraine primarily.) Since you aren’t in your old life anymore, you don’t know exactly how good or bad it would have been had you stayed. Moving on beyond that, some places are definitely worse off than others within the US. Housing where I live is getting more expensive, but incomes are also going up substantially. And they are building thousands of new housing. You mention being a top 5% earner. Unless that is top 5% locally, you are probably using up a lot of that top 5% income to live in a top 1% location.

angarg12 3y ago
According to the stats, we make top 5% income of our area. It sure doesn't feel like it. Makes me wonder how people in much lower income who hasn't inherited their home can make ends meet here (the answer is probably not very well). Regarding your first point, you are right, you can't A/B test your life. In any event I'm reporting my current experience, which is both not better than my previous and expected one.
- kryogen1c 3y ago
  >> Buying a home? Give me a break > According to the stats, we make top 5% income of our area Well one of those two things isnt true. It's not possible to be 95%ile income and not afford a house.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    Do you have the corresponding statistics (income percentiles vs. average house cost) for all areas in the US handy, allowing you to quickly determine this is not possible? Or do you not like the idea and therefore reject it?
    - kryogen1c 3y ago
      Do you have a single example where it is possible?

alex_lav 3y ago

> I know I'm playing the world's smallest violin and I will gather little sympathy since I am one of those tech workers with a big fat paycheck, but the fact that someone like me isn't thriving might be another symptom of how fucked up things are. You don't have to preface your struggles and frustrations like this. Everybody's problems are real to them and diminishing them doesn't do anybody any good. > Buying a home? Give me a break. I love to share the Zillow home price index graph to visually show people how Covid has screwed the housing market [1]. And at least before we had the option to move far from the city to a cheaper location and work remotely, but now employers are forcing us to go back to the office, so the choice is between unaffordable rent or multi-hour daily commutes (I’m in the second camp). For reference, I purchased a home and I believe it to have been a huge mistake. I'll be looking to sell it basically at-cost in about a year or so. The homebuying gold rush made a lot of people, including me, buy houses because they thought it was their chance, only to then realize that many houses were deceptively priced/kinda shitty. I think your feelings around commuting are valid, and I don't mean to diminish the desire to own a home, I'm just trying to be a voice of "it's not always better". I didn't really have anybody in my life when I bought, saying that type of thing, so I'm trying to advocate for homebuying-realism when I can. > I know this comment sounds whiny but I can’t help to feel that we are just getting dealt a shit sandwich after another. We might be in a world of extravagant productivity but I’m sure as hell not reaping the benefits. I’m supposed to be a top 5% earner and yet I don’t feel my standard of living is much better than my working class upbringing - at least back then we owned our apartment and weren’t told how privileged we were. I feel this big time too. I make pretty far above my city's "upper tier" of income for tech workers and still generally feel strapped. I have gotten a handful of bad beats in a row.

angarg12 3y ago
Thanks for your comment, I think the HN crowd might be more understanding. In the general population, someone making 6 figures complaining about cost of living (particularly tech workers, since we are usually blamed for the problem) is frowned upon.
- alex_lav 3y ago

stiray 3y ago

I have encountered this video and it is worth to take a look. The conditions for living are never going to be the same as they were, but not due to "boomers" or whatever the favorite scapegoat is but... well watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
No, I'm not going to watch some random youtube video, of unknown length, to try to find out what your point is. If you want to say something, say it.
- erikerikson 3y ago
  13 minutes, 20 seconds. I've felt like you but I was glad I clicked. TL;DW: wealthy people own most things and their incomes are from what they own/control. They earn more than they spend and buy more control with the excess leading to ever more consolidation of wealth.
- stiray 3y ago
  Sorry, no. The guy has a multi-million background behind him and I am just a nick here. If you dont want to watch, dont.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Sorry, no. The guy has a multi-million background behind him and I am just a nick here. If you dont want to watch, dont. I have encountered this video and it is worth to take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvV4SNeH-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvV4SNeH-U. If you dont want to watch, dont. ---- You may be "just a nick," but with links in general and video links especially, it's considerate of others' time to give more information to help them understand what you're linking and decide if it's worth viewing. Just dropping a link to a video is almost always just noise.
    - stiray 3y ago

dpflan 3y ago

Timing is a big deal; the economic system favored those of earlier generations (also when fewer people lived), and now I think we basically have to wait for Boomer generation to cede influence -- they were dealt a nice economic hand and capitalism thrived to where we are now, maybe a variant of "peak capitalism", which younger generations are rebelling against because they can't participate as much and the negative externalities of such a system are apparent (e.g. oligarchic control, regulatory capture, weakening of federal governments, and just plain classic corruption allowed within legal bounds...).

pydry 3y ago
This isnt about generation vs generation. It's elite vs. the proletariat and the pain is just distributed unevenly across generations. Obviously theyre more than happy with millenials blaming their parents as it exculpates them for turning the crank on the dynastic, parasitic wealth extraction engine.
- TylerE 3y ago
  It is generational. The boomers could afford a house in the suburbs (owned, not rented), a car, and steak for dinner for themselves, a wife, and a couple kids on a factory workers salary.
  - dasil003 3y ago
    Sorry, but this mentality is counter-productive and plays right into the hands of oligarchs. Instead of recognizing that wealth and power is increasingly accruing to a smaller and smaller set of uber-wealthy (who pass that wealth on and otherwise rig the game for their offspring), we allow ourselves to be distracted by culture wars and generation wars rather than recognizing it as a smokescreen from the concentration of wealth and power that is driving the bad outcomes.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      Yeah...grandpa could afford a middle-class lifestyle working in the finger-cutting factory. Maybe even making Management one day--with training paid for by the parent company--if he worked hard enough! Jeff Bezos would have you working under the same conditions, pissing in bottles and living in his parking lot. Grandpa's earned wealth isn't why you can't afford a house.

rcarr 3y ago

As a UK person who always dreamed of moving to the US, how have you found it from a social perspective? I always imagined it would be a much friendlier place than the UK and that there were more things to do regardless of whether you had geek or jock interests, does it match that expectation?

angarg12 3y ago
I moved from the UK but I'm not british, so not sure how useful my experience will be to you. Since I am married and an introvert I haven't really socialized that much since we moved. People seem pretty open although it seems to me you need to get into some kind of shared hobby to meet people (isn't that just true about making friends as an adult?). However I never had a bad experience socializing in the UK, in fact I made several good friends there.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >isn't that just true about making friends as an adult? For people without kids, I think that's generally true. Pretty much everyone I socialize with locally is associated with a local outdoor club. There are still people from school and professional acquaintances I keep in touch with, but that's usually not local.
- bradlys 3y ago
  Something that is specifically different than Europe - from what I’ve heard - is that while going out and doing social hobbies is still an excellent way to make friends… it’s not the only way to make friends in Europe. Whereas in the US, I’d say it’s about the only thing available. Third spaces are almost nonexistent in the US and spaces overall where you can just easily socialize with strangers are incredibly uncommon in the US. Go out to most any bar in places like NYC or SF and you’ll have a hard time making any new friends. The same cannot be said in Europe. While in Europe, folks would just chat me up at random whereas in the US - this has never happened. It’s a different culture and the atmosphere of most bars here is to make money off expensive drinks - not to make you happy. It’s one of the things where I find it funny how folks recommend chatting up the bartender as a way to get introduced to the regulars. Any bar I’ve gone to - the bartenders are too busy to even know anyone. I’ve got to some bars for 6+ months and ordered regularly from the exact same bartender - they didn’t know my name or even recognize me. It’s a different culture in the US. It’s capitalistic.

amerkhalid 3y ago

> Buying a home? Give me a break. I love to share the Zillow home price index graph to visually show people how Covid has screwed the housing market [1]. And at least before we had the option to move far from the city to a cheaper location and work remotely, but now employers are forcing us to go back to the office, so the choice is between unaffordable rent or multi-hour daily commutes (I’m in the second camp). Remote work also screwed a lot of low cost cities as tech workers moved there, outbid everyone, and priced out local residents from housing market. However, remote work is here to stay. Live where you want and look for remote jobs while working your current job. Recently, two of my friends switched their jobs to fully-remote positions. (I know in the news it is layoffs all the time but there are still many companies hiring fully remote workers.)

angarg12 3y ago
Sure, but why would I move to the boonies in the US to get a remote job? I might as well move back to my home country, with my family, friends, and no worries about immigration status. If the solution is to move to a rural area, I double down on my point of the American dream being dead.

johnea 3y ago

"We’ve strayed so far from the original intentions of our economic model..."? I think this demonstrates that "young people", or at least this author, aren't really participating in "reality" at all. The economic system is doing exactly what it was intended to do: scrape the financial assetts of the masses of the unwashed herd into the bank accounts of the predetary rich. It's a win-win-win for the rich, the richer, and the richest. Exactly as it was "intended". As long as "young people" of all ages continue to throw themselves gushingly at every corporate exploit that crawls out from under a rock, expect the expoitation to continue. Perhaps consider how much your "lifestyle" depends directly on corporate platforms?