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Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive. No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most

Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive. No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US. So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?

notaustinpowers 3y ago
Damn, I can't even afford healthcare at my current wage in digital marketing. The plans I've found would take up about 10% of my yearly income and I'm late-20's, healthy, no pre-existing, non-smoker, etc. Even with that, the pay is barely enough to qualify me for my apartment, which is artificially low in rent since I moved in during peak COVID and have had low rent increases.
mhb 3y ago
The Ants and the Grasshopper - Aesop https://read.gov/aesop/052.html https://read.gov/aesop/052.html
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Obviously irrelevant
  - mhb 3y ago
    Oh. Do say more. People don't want to work hard because, in general, people don't like to work.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Your fable states that there is a time for work and a time for play, and contrasts a worker that did nothing vs workers that did work and can survive. The premise of the relevant discussion is that the marginal value of additional work and wages beyond the basic requirements is largely nothing. You cannot accrue meaningful savings, but still probably have enough disposable income to live comfortably enough, so it’s just a bad deal to work more. Very simply, the marginal utility of additional wages is much lower than the cost of working them at the rates being paid.
      - mhb 3y ago
        And the point of the fable is that the ants understand that the marginal value of working now includes future benefits, whereas the grasshopper doesn't. The original comment doesn't really seem worth debating. People would rather work less because they ascribe greater value to their contribution than potential employers. Fine.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        No it’s not equivalent. The young folks do want to work. They don’t want to work the last bit because they’re not being given anything of meaningful value. This is not the case of the grasshopper. Nor is it similar to the ants. Marginal utility changed with each unit.
        mhb 3y ago
        > So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard? They don't want to work some last x% because they're happy with their current condition. The ants work the last x% so that when they retire they can continue to live in the style to which they've become accustomed. The young folks are being offered money. They don't think it's meaningful because it doesn't enable them to afford some item now. So they can either decline the money or increase their estimate of its utility by taking their future into account.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        Nice, going full circle to the point of just ignoring the original point.
- jkestner 3y ago
  More like A Bug's Life.
- bonton89 3y ago
  The modern version has both the ant and the grasshopper freezing together as the ant was laid off and booted out at the start of winter after the larder stocking was finished. There just wasn't much work to be done in the winter and since productivity was down the hive would be more vital without the now useless ant. They both freeze to death but at least the grasshopper had fun during the short summer first.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
trident5000 3y ago
I keep hearing this but home ownership percentage is comparable to past generations when you actually look at the data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N Also gen z has surpassed millennials and genx in home ownership (with comparable timing). ""In 2022, 30% of 25-year-olds owned a home. At the same age 28% of millennials, and 27% of Gen Xers owned homes, according to real estate brokerage, Redfin."" https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buying-homes-already/ https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buyi... Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming. Its cool to not care or try. And according to instagram if you're not a millionaire by age 25 then you're a loser. So why even try? That being said I see nothing wrong with a 4 day work week.
- onion2k 3y ago
  Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming If this generation is on a par with previous generations, or even surpassing them, wouldn't that indicate they're less lazy? You can't have it both ways - either they're lazy and that explains why they're behind, or they're not behind and that has to mean they're not lazy. How can they be both lazy and ahead?
  - trident5000 3y ago
    I think its bifurcated. Theres ambitious and lazy people in every generation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- ethanbond 3y ago
  The data is completely unambiguous: housing prices are (and have been) rising much, much, much faster than wages.
  - trident5000 3y ago
Jackevansevo 3y ago
Exactly why bother participating when the whole thing is rigged against you. May as well try and claw some of your life back.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
So you're not going to be able to live where most people want to live. That's far different from having no house. "Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did. See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic. But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.
- trident5000 3y ago
  lol good luck telling that to this this community who are frustrated they cant afford a home in the most niche place on earth and refuse to live anywhere else.
  - doctorwho42 3y ago
    Is wanting to live less than an hour commute to work "the most niche place on earth"? Most people I know are renting because they can't afford anything within an hour commute and we have grown up hearing and seeing the pains of the commuter life. So why saddle ourselves with both a 30 year mortgage for a overpriced home that will also drain us of 10+hrs/week
    - trident5000 3y ago
      Sounds like a lifestyle choice. Stop packing into cities like a can of sardines and it wont be an issue. Being inflexible to literal physics and reality is a personal issue.
      - redserk 3y ago
        This is less a physics problem and more of a zoning/planning issue.
      - watwut 3y ago
bequanna 3y ago
As someone who considers themselves to be pretty motivated and entrepreneurial, I look around and see very little opportunity. Businesses that actually make money trade at all time high multiples while funding for a new business is non existent. Want to buy a business? Good luck, high interest rates squeeze margins to nothing. The financialization of housing means you’re competing with massive hedge funds when you want to buy a home or invest in real estate. Incredible government defect spending ensures more inflation which will outpace salary increases. This is how I’ve heard the late 70s/early 80s as being described: general malaise.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
13of40 3y ago
Probably the same as it's ever been. Out of three random employees, you have one who's just going through the motions, one who's working hard, and one who's actively hostile. Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV. I'm not saying it's an ideal situation to be faced with, but tuning out is just going to make it worse.
- nytesky 3y ago
  Of those 3, most likely who is a better “fit” to their manager. Promotions especially are more about personal relations than “metrics” hard to measure productivity.
- malka 3y ago
  >Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? Trick question. None of them.
- coldpie 3y ago
  > Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? The CEO.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  GP's point is that the extra money has little value, because your spending options are becoming bimodal in distribution: all the trinkets are priced at "approximately anyone with a job can afford some of it", while the important bits like housing are priced at "an order of magnitude more than people typically earn", and this gap just cannot be crossed by working hard to get salary raises.
  - 13of40 3y ago
    Let's consider some actual numbers, though: In 1999 I got my first "corporate" job at a starting salary of $50K. I was paying $800 a month for a two bedroom apartment, and what was left over was enough to comfortably support me and my wife. Entry level salary for the same job is now about $120K, meaning someone in that position can easily afford to pay $1920 a month for rent. According to Zillow, that same apartment is now renting for $2305 a month. So what we're hand-wringing about is a ~$385 increase in rent, which comes to about 4% more of the person's gross salary than 25 years ago. That sucks a little bit, but it's not a catastrophe. And on top of that, you can still make a ton of side money through bonuses and stock, in the industry that I assume we're mostly talking about. A few months ago I gave a $90K stock grant to a guy. Even if the stock price stagnates, that on its own is almost half his housing costs for the next five years, and it's all because he works harder than the guy in the next cube over.
VeejayRampay 3y ago
maybe young people don't want to work hard because history has proven time and time again that "working hard" doesn't make you happy, it's actually the opposite and they have now come to realize that balance is key?
slashdev 3y ago
It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead. I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board. Now not everything is sunshine and roses (well there is a lot of both, but you know what I mean). The price is I have to work remotely, I had to learn a new language, and Amazon delivery is more like two weeks than 2 days and the shipping is not free. There are definitely things that I miss, but nothing compared to what I gain.
- coldtrait 3y ago
  Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil ?
- tspike 3y ago
  Sure, and now you’re inflicting the same problems on the local population who don’t have the option of geographic arbitrage.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    That's a glass half full way to look at it. I'm creating jobs here and helping the local economy. I think it's a win-win.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      That's what the people say who tear down 3 4-plexes to build a triple-lot mansion in Chicago say. If you have the option, more power to you - literally.
      - QuarterReptile 3y ago
        That's a funny example; Chicago has the most stable housing prices of any major US city, from everything I've seen.
boringg 3y ago
To be clear - you can read the crystal ball much like the whole generation in terms of whats going to happen in the future? I'm glad everyone knows how the future is written, I for one don't know and am quite curious.
- jhanschoo 3y ago
  Of course you have predictions and some things are more probable than others. I'm pretty sure that fertility is going to keep dropping and extreme weather is going to get worse in the mid-term future.
  - boringg 3y ago
    Agree but building a whole narrative how definitely life will be worse in the future really binds yourself to a bad mental trajectory. The default option is to not put the effort in because why bother? Where would we be as humans if that was our internal resolve.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  You sound dismissive, not curious.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
This is precisely why fascism is on the rise, and I’m not being hyperbolic It’s reminiscent of the lead up to the drug war that was coinciding with the antiwar movement Young people looked around and said this society is not working for us, and instead of creating a new society that actually takes care of people, people voted for Nixon and doubled down on maximum alienation capitalism
usrusr 3y ago
Add in a certain amount of awareness that more consumption as in bigger car, more square feet and shorter product replacement cycles isn't just good. Sure, few people would actively reject an opportunity to have a high footprint life, but the relative attractivity between footprint maximization and having other priorities in life certainly aren't the same as they used to be in the days of infinite growth illusions. The effect you describe is much stronger I think, but they are not competing, they complement each other.
culopatin 3y ago
My theory is that compared to people in the 60s say, there are more things to do with your free time now, to the point where they are sometimes in conflict. Before you’d get home and all you could do was have a beer and maybe watch tv, listen to the radio, read a book. Now we are so connected to so many things, and we know about all the activities possible around us through social media, that work is in the way. Work would define life, now it’s just something to pay the bills. Sure, not universal, people still have professional goals, I want to change careers, I want to finish that project at work because I think it’s interesting and would benefit people, but I would not get in the way of working 4x8 instead of 5x8 for that. I want to play games, learn about AI, 3D printing, CAD, mountain bike, go to trivia, travel to Thailand, travel to Europe, see family across the globe, get more flexible, build muscle, etc etc etc. None of them are at work.
- pb7 3y ago
  Well said. Life is really freaking good. There is a never ending list of cool things to do. No matter what you choose, you will be missing out on something else that’s equally amazing. I wouldn’t trade my life now to be a billionaire 70 years ago.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Indeed. The list of things I want to do is so long that the only way I could ever make a dent in it is if I were to become financially independent and not need to work. That’s maybe a possibility in my particular case if I’m smart, but not remotely realistic for most people.
sghiassy 3y ago
Peasants under Feudalism had zero hope progressing. Upward mobility is probably something every generation has complained about throughout history. Economic nihilism isn’t the answer. Our future generations count on us to improve whatever cards we’re dealt
- zo1 3y ago
  I just see it as the system reaching equilibrium on some meta level. You have to do better than the norm to break out of the norm. And if everyone can do it, then it's the norm and not what you want. Now, whether that's right or if the norm is a good place for the majority of people - That's a different matter entirely.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Upward mobility is a very recent phenomenon. Pesants weren't told that if they worked hard they could be nobility. There were born peasants and were very aware they would die peasants. We're at a unique point in that there was a brief period in recent history where upward mobility was true, and now it's becoming untrue again and those for whom it was true don't believe its becoming untrue again.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Stories of past upward mobility was always a lie. People would have you think that somehow in the past, 50% of people were making it into the top 10%. Perceptions of the past are filtered through media that The life of the top 5% was the average.
- 3seashells 3y ago
  Eh, the default is usually society unrest with the hopeless defaulting to war and civil war, so that improvement window is tiny and closing.
flandish 3y ago
Why is wanting an improved work life balance (and thus improving things like health (mental/physical) and family and happiness) seen as not wanting to “work hard”? Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners. Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.
wnolens 3y ago
As someone who worked very hard for 10y and was paid in some top percentile, the incentives still ran out. I'm bored of the meaningless high paid work, single and likely socially stunted and emotionally blunted from workaholism. But at least I can buy a house where none of my loved ones can, and who will eventually be priced out of renting even basement apts nearby.
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  Your supposed to go off and buy a winery/farm and live the good life… :)
- Taurenking 3y ago
  [dead]
DontchaKnowit 3y ago
As someone living in a low cost of living area (happily) and working in an unsexy but profitable tech job that was basically begging to hire anyone with a degree, I really dont understand this rhetoric.
antisthenes 3y ago
> No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. That's not even true. I have a large set of anecdata, with people below median income buying houses, and people in the 5% being afraid to buy a house (too risk averse to the point of being detrimental). If owning a house is your priority, you will make it work. My conclusion is that a large set of people just don't have the basic skills to maintain a house, or simply don't want that responsibility, despite being able to afford it. > So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard? What's your plan for when you're 50, broke and almost unemployable due to ageism? Who's going to rent to you and how will you afford it? Are you going to be a squatter? Do you plan to wait until your parents die and live off the inheritance? That's cool if you don't have answers to those questions when you're 22-25, but what about 35+, like most millennials now are?

notaustinpowers 3y ago

Damn, I can't even afford healthcare at my current wage in digital marketing. The plans I've found would take up about 10% of my yearly income and I'm late-20's, healthy, no pre-existing, non-smoker, etc. Even with that, the pay is barely enough to qualify me for my apartment, which is artificially low in rent since I moved in during peak COVID and have had low rent increases.

mhb 3y ago

The Ants and the Grasshopper - Aesop https://read.gov/aesop/052.html https://read.gov/aesop/052.html

jncfhnb 3y ago
Obviously irrelevant
- mhb 3y ago
  Oh. Do say more. People don't want to work hard because, in general, people don't like to work.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Your fable states that there is a time for work and a time for play, and contrasts a worker that did nothing vs workers that did work and can survive. The premise of the relevant discussion is that the marginal value of additional work and wages beyond the basic requirements is largely nothing. You cannot accrue meaningful savings, but still probably have enough disposable income to live comfortably enough, so it’s just a bad deal to work more. Very simply, the marginal utility of additional wages is much lower than the cost of working them at the rates being paid.
    - mhb 3y ago
      And the point of the fable is that the ants understand that the marginal value of working now includes future benefits, whereas the grasshopper doesn't. The original comment doesn't really seem worth debating. People would rather work less because they ascribe greater value to their contribution than potential employers. Fine.
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        No it’s not equivalent. The young folks do want to work. They don’t want to work the last bit because they’re not being given anything of meaningful value. This is not the case of the grasshopper. Nor is it similar to the ants. Marginal utility changed with each unit.
        mhb 3y ago
        > So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard? They don't want to work some last x% because they're happy with their current condition. The ants work the last x% so that when they retire they can continue to live in the style to which they've become accustomed. The young folks are being offered money. They don't think it's meaningful because it doesn't enable them to afford some item now. So they can either decline the money or increase their estimate of its utility by taking their future into account.
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        Nice, going full circle to the point of just ignoring the original point.
jkestner 3y ago
More like A Bug's Life.
bonton89 3y ago
The modern version has both the ant and the grasshopper freezing together as the ant was laid off and booted out at the start of winter after the larder stocking was finished. There just wasn't much work to be done in the winter and since productivity was down the hive would be more vital without the now useless ant. They both freeze to death but at least the grasshopper had fun during the short summer first.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

trident5000 3y ago

I keep hearing this but home ownership percentage is comparable to past generations when you actually look at the data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N Also gen z has surpassed millennials and genx in home ownership (with comparable timing). ""In 2022, 30% of 25-year-olds owned a home. At the same age 28% of millennials, and 27% of Gen Xers owned homes, according to real estate brokerage, Redfin."" https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buying-homes-already/ https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buyi... Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming. Its cool to not care or try. And according to instagram if you're not a millionaire by age 25 then you're a loser. So why even try? That being said I see nothing wrong with a 4 day work week.

onion2k 3y ago
Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming If this generation is on a par with previous generations, or even surpassing them, wouldn't that indicate they're less lazy? You can't have it both ways - either they're lazy and that explains why they're behind, or they're not behind and that has to mean they're not lazy. How can they be both lazy and ahead?
- trident5000 3y ago
  I think its bifurcated. Theres ambitious and lazy people in every generation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
ethanbond 3y ago
The data is completely unambiguous: housing prices are (and have been) rising much, much, much faster than wages.
- trident5000 3y ago

Jackevansevo 3y ago

Exactly why bother participating when the whole thing is rigged against you. May as well try and claw some of your life back.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

So you're not going to be able to live where most people want to live. That's far different from having no house. "Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did. See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic. But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.

trident5000 3y ago
lol good luck telling that to this this community who are frustrated they cant afford a home in the most niche place on earth and refuse to live anywhere else.
- doctorwho42 3y ago
  Is wanting to live less than an hour commute to work "the most niche place on earth"? Most people I know are renting because they can't afford anything within an hour commute and we have grown up hearing and seeing the pains of the commuter life. So why saddle ourselves with both a 30 year mortgage for a overpriced home that will also drain us of 10+hrs/week
  - trident5000 3y ago
    Sounds like a lifestyle choice. Stop packing into cities like a can of sardines and it wont be an issue. Being inflexible to literal physics and reality is a personal issue.
    - redserk 3y ago
      This is less a physics problem and more of a zoning/planning issue.
    - watwut 3y ago

bequanna 3y ago

As someone who considers themselves to be pretty motivated and entrepreneurial, I look around and see very little opportunity. Businesses that actually make money trade at all time high multiples while funding for a new business is non existent. Want to buy a business? Good luck, high interest rates squeeze margins to nothing. The financialization of housing means you’re competing with massive hedge funds when you want to buy a home or invest in real estate. Incredible government defect spending ensures more inflation which will outpace salary increases. This is how I’ve heard the late 70s/early 80s as being described: general malaise.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

13of40 3y ago

Probably the same as it's ever been. Out of three random employees, you have one who's just going through the motions, one who's working hard, and one who's actively hostile. Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV. I'm not saying it's an ideal situation to be faced with, but tuning out is just going to make it worse.

nytesky 3y ago
Of those 3, most likely who is a better “fit” to their manager. Promotions especially are more about personal relations than “metrics” hard to measure productivity.
malka 3y ago
>Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? Trick question. None of them.
coldpie 3y ago
> Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? The CEO.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
GP's point is that the extra money has little value, because your spending options are becoming bimodal in distribution: all the trinkets are priced at "approximately anyone with a job can afford some of it", while the important bits like housing are priced at "an order of magnitude more than people typically earn", and this gap just cannot be crossed by working hard to get salary raises.
- 13of40 3y ago
  Let's consider some actual numbers, though: In 1999 I got my first "corporate" job at a starting salary of $50K. I was paying $800 a month for a two bedroom apartment, and what was left over was enough to comfortably support me and my wife. Entry level salary for the same job is now about $120K, meaning someone in that position can easily afford to pay $1920 a month for rent. According to Zillow, that same apartment is now renting for $2305 a month. So what we're hand-wringing about is a ~$385 increase in rent, which comes to about 4% more of the person's gross salary than 25 years ago. That sucks a little bit, but it's not a catastrophe. And on top of that, you can still make a ton of side money through bonuses and stock, in the industry that I assume we're mostly talking about. A few months ago I gave a $90K stock grant to a guy. Even if the stock price stagnates, that on its own is almost half his housing costs for the next five years, and it's all because he works harder than the guy in the next cube over.

VeejayRampay 3y ago

maybe young people don't want to work hard because history has proven time and time again that "working hard" doesn't make you happy, it's actually the opposite and they have now come to realize that balance is key?

slashdev 3y ago

It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead. I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board. Now not everything is sunshine and roses (well there is a lot of both, but you know what I mean). The price is I have to work remotely, I had to learn a new language, and Amazon delivery is more like two weeks than 2 days and the shipping is not free. There are definitely things that I miss, but nothing compared to what I gain.

coldtrait 3y ago
Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil ?
tspike 3y ago
Sure, and now you’re inflicting the same problems on the local population who don’t have the option of geographic arbitrage.
- slashdev 3y ago
  That's a glass half full way to look at it. I'm creating jobs here and helping the local economy. I think it's a win-win.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    That's what the people say who tear down 3 4-plexes to build a triple-lot mansion in Chicago say. If you have the option, more power to you - literally.
    - QuarterReptile 3y ago
      That's a funny example; Chicago has the most stable housing prices of any major US city, from everything I've seen.

boringg 3y ago

To be clear - you can read the crystal ball much like the whole generation in terms of whats going to happen in the future? I'm glad everyone knows how the future is written, I for one don't know and am quite curious.

jhanschoo 3y ago
Of course you have predictions and some things are more probable than others. I'm pretty sure that fertility is going to keep dropping and extreme weather is going to get worse in the mid-term future.
- boringg 3y ago
  Agree but building a whole narrative how definitely life will be worse in the future really binds yourself to a bad mental trajectory. The default option is to not put the effort in because why bother? Where would we be as humans if that was our internal resolve.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
You sound dismissive, not curious.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

This is precisely why fascism is on the rise, and I’m not being hyperbolic It’s reminiscent of the lead up to the drug war that was coinciding with the antiwar movement Young people looked around and said this society is not working for us, and instead of creating a new society that actually takes care of people, people voted for Nixon and doubled down on maximum alienation capitalism

usrusr 3y ago

Add in a certain amount of awareness that more consumption as in bigger car, more square feet and shorter product replacement cycles isn't just good. Sure, few people would actively reject an opportunity to have a high footprint life, but the relative attractivity between footprint maximization and having other priorities in life certainly aren't the same as they used to be in the days of infinite growth illusions. The effect you describe is much stronger I think, but they are not competing, they complement each other.

culopatin 3y ago

My theory is that compared to people in the 60s say, there are more things to do with your free time now, to the point where they are sometimes in conflict. Before you’d get home and all you could do was have a beer and maybe watch tv, listen to the radio, read a book. Now we are so connected to so many things, and we know about all the activities possible around us through social media, that work is in the way. Work would define life, now it’s just something to pay the bills. Sure, not universal, people still have professional goals, I want to change careers, I want to finish that project at work because I think it’s interesting and would benefit people, but I would not get in the way of working 4x8 instead of 5x8 for that. I want to play games, learn about AI, 3D printing, CAD, mountain bike, go to trivia, travel to Thailand, travel to Europe, see family across the globe, get more flexible, build muscle, etc etc etc. None of them are at work.

pb7 3y ago
Well said. Life is really freaking good. There is a never ending list of cool things to do. No matter what you choose, you will be missing out on something else that’s equally amazing. I wouldn’t trade my life now to be a billionaire 70 years ago.
jwells89 3y ago
Indeed. The list of things I want to do is so long that the only way I could ever make a dent in it is if I were to become financially independent and not need to work. That’s maybe a possibility in my particular case if I’m smart, but not remotely realistic for most people.

sghiassy 3y ago

Peasants under Feudalism had zero hope progressing. Upward mobility is probably something every generation has complained about throughout history. Economic nihilism isn’t the answer. Our future generations count on us to improve whatever cards we’re dealt

zo1 3y ago
I just see it as the system reaching equilibrium on some meta level. You have to do better than the norm to break out of the norm. And if everyone can do it, then it's the norm and not what you want. Now, whether that's right or if the norm is a good place for the majority of people - That's a different matter entirely.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Upward mobility is a very recent phenomenon. Pesants weren't told that if they worked hard they could be nobility. There were born peasants and were very aware they would die peasants. We're at a unique point in that there was a brief period in recent history where upward mobility was true, and now it's becoming untrue again and those for whom it was true don't believe its becoming untrue again.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Stories of past upward mobility was always a lie. People would have you think that somehow in the past, 50% of people were making it into the top 10%. Perceptions of the past are filtered through media that The life of the top 5% was the average.
3seashells 3y ago
Eh, the default is usually society unrest with the hopeless defaulting to war and civil war, so that improvement window is tiny and closing.

flandish 3y ago

Why is wanting an improved work life balance (and thus improving things like health (mental/physical) and family and happiness) seen as not wanting to “work hard”? Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners. Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.

wnolens 3y ago

As someone who worked very hard for 10y and was paid in some top percentile, the incentives still ran out. I'm bored of the meaningless high paid work, single and likely socially stunted and emotionally blunted from workaholism. But at least I can buy a house where none of my loved ones can, and who will eventually be priced out of renting even basement apts nearby.

theGnuMe 3y ago
Your supposed to go off and buy a winery/farm and live the good life… :)
Taurenking 3y ago
[dead]

DontchaKnowit 3y ago

As someone living in a low cost of living area (happily) and working in an unsexy but profitable tech job that was basically begging to hire anyone with a degree, I really dont understand this rhetoric.

antisthenes 3y ago

> No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. That's not even true. I have a large set of anecdata, with people below median income buying houses, and people in the 5% being afraid to buy a house (too risk averse to the point of being detrimental). If owning a house is your priority, you will make it work. My conclusion is that a large set of people just don't have the basic skills to maintain a house, or simply don't want that responsibility, despite being able to afford it. > So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard? What's your plan for when you're 50, broke and almost unemployable due to ageism? Who's going to rent to you and how will you afford it? Are you going to be a squatter? Do you plan to wait until your parents die and live off the inheritance? That's cool if you don't have answers to those questions when you're 22-25, but what about 35+, like most millennials now are?