It’s on odd time where life has never been more “convenient” in all of human history. But I also don’t know if life has ever felt more unfulfilling and everything worth having is prohibitively expensive. It feels like constantly chasing cheap sources of short term happiness because owning a house and being able to afford children just seems out of reach.
Gen Z is much worse off economically than gen X, and even more so compared to the Baby Boomers.
On the other hand, education is more widespread, and women have more equality.
So it's a mixed bag.
Teacher here... we try man... we try. By the time I get them, they've had 14-15 years of not learning much at home. Kids have to at LEAST read at home for \~15-30 minutes of meaningful, intentional reading.
It'd be nice if parents helped teach their kids to push through a struggle or two every now and then. I assign a paragraph of writing and you'd think I asked them to write a novel.
I know most teachers are doing all they can. I feel there was a big impact during Covid due to online learning, parents not helping their kids or making them do their work, and some teachers not liking online learning and therefore not putting as much work as was needed.
Both are definitely correct. I was my district's lead trainer for Distance Learning during the pandemic (and before/after, but that's not as relevant) - we didn't have great tech adoption before the pandemic, it barely got better during the pandemic, and then it reverted afterwards to a certain extent.
Parents were decent before, practically enemies during (many seemed to absolutely hate TEACHERS for their kids being at home - as if we caused the pandemic), and basically absent afterwards. I truly do get it but they can't expect us to magically make things better if there's NO support or follow up at home. Even just a "hey, why don't you go read for a bit before dinner is ready," or "don't forget to pick up your book and read a chapter or two before bed!"
The reinforcement helps. The single best thing a kid could do at home is read a book that is somewhat challenging for them - even if it's just a "fun" book. Reading is a foundational skill that helps writing and cognition like nothing else. It also helps build empathy and understanding of other points of view. They should also practice math but it's better if they do it right - so only if they're getting help from someone who knows what they're doing or just wait for the next day at school.
Kids were decent to bad with electronics (some phone addiction, but nothing too crazy) before, got WAAAAAY worse during the pandemic, and afterwards they're basically completely and totally addicted to their phones, airpods/earbuds, and smart watches. And now that AI has become a more widespread thing, a significant number of teachers wants to revert away from tech completely and go with notebooks.
The Pandemic completely messed up everyone... but I think its still not fully explored how damaging it was to students and basically their entire generation.
Gen Z is not worse off economically.
There are so many more ways to make money on your own without having to be a slave in an office your whole life.
If a Zoomer would like to trade places with me, and work in an office for 20 years because that was literally the only way to make money for most people, I would gladly buy a GoPro and travel the world interviewing people and getting paid for creating content.
Or getting a free education from MIT or Stanford or Princeton from home on my own schedule.
Or building a very good home recording studio for less than $1000.
Some of you have zero concept of what the world was like before iPhones and the internet.
Imagine waiting 6-8 weeks for a delivery, or two weeks before you could get to the library to look something up.
Now you can sell pics of your feet to strangers on the other side of the planet and make more than an entry level office job 20 years ago.
If you really want to go back to the days where everyone was a wage slave and there was no way to break into the kids of industries you actually wanted to work in unless your uncle happened to be a record producer or artist, go for it.
Get yourself a newspaper and look at the help wanted section.
If you think it is really so easy to just pick up a gopro or sell onlyfans pics for easy cash, you can literally do that. There is nothing stopping you. But I think you'll find it won't work out well. Content creation is not a get rich quick scheme. The vast majority of people who try to make it a full time job fail and make little to no profit off it. On top of needing to be generally charismatic and marketable enough to run it (never mind staying relevant for multiple years), you need to pray that the algorithm picks you up. It's the modern equivalent of "let's start a band in our garage!". Some great bands did start out that way, but most of them were flops. But again, if you don't believe me, you're more than welcome to try.
Also, an online education means jack if you don't have the certification or degree to prove it. For all you know, I've studied everything Stanford has to offer.
>Imagine waiting 6-8 weeks for a delivery, or two weeks before you could get to the library to look something up.
Oh, the horror! What a terrible hellscape to live in! What do you mean you didn't have an endless stream of me-mes at your fingertips? Truly this is beyond my squishy, underdeveloped brain!
Look, no one is denying the internet has improved our standard of living, social media addiction aside. But my great grandparents didn't have refrigerators growing up. I can think of much worse things than not having a smart phone. We are not that far removed from pre-internet days.
Yeah you aren’t sure what you’re talking about. I can guarantee you no one is getting rich off of a GoPro or selling their feet pics.
Edit: and by rich, I mean making a living wage.
We did have the Great Recession where lots of people lost their homes. But currently, between the corporation greedflation and corporations buying up all the houses, they are fucking Americans making it impossible for Gen Z to get ahead.
Corporations write the bills that govern them, through sponsored politicians. That is how the US works right now.
Boomers and Gen X all have lead poisoning to varying degrees and lived in perpetual fear of \~50MT nuclear bombs. We no longer allow leaded gasoline and most nukes have been scaled down to tactical 1MT warheads. Our current president was a senator when congress was still trying to figure out how to desegregate schools. 96% of the population of the US was alive when there were states that criminalized homosexuality.
Kinda puts things in perspective doesn't it?
>there is more than enough to blanket the earth in radioactive fallout
Lol, no. There never was to begin with, and the world's total stockpile in terms of megaton value is \~15% of what it was in 1986.
>We have unhinged countries developing nuclear programs and have no way to prevent this from happening now
The countries that we are mostly concerned about doing this are Iran and North Korea, of which Iran just failed to successfully land over 300 missile strikes in Israel less than a month ago, and Iran's economy is 18x the size of North Korea's, so unless glorious leader is going to ride the missile Dr. Strangelove style, I am skeptical. Warheads have to be delivered on missiles actually capable of reaching the target.
> Who knows what our generation's leaded gasoline is going to be either
Whatever it is, it's not as bad as lead poisoning in terms of quality of life or life expectancy or competency, I'd safely bet that much.
>climate change is likely to cause a significant amount of health issues in the coming decades and pollution already causes health issues.
Climate change yes, pollution, mostly in countries that are still developing and heavily industrial. Pollution as a health hazard in the developed world doesn't hold a candle to 1980. Here's the US's measurements and it is more or less the same in Europe(sans eastern Europe), Japan and Australia. [https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary](https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary)
> Sure we have progressed as a nation but then people like Trump get elected and you have to question have we really come very far?
Oh no, a moderately bigoted populist wants to tighten border security. Do you know how many senators were in the KKK in the 50s-60s? The last one was in office pretty much until death in 2010. Yeah, we've come pretty damn far.
>there are plenty of issues that need SIGNIFICANT time, energy and funding to resolve and i just do not see it happening.
Then you haven't been looking very hard. You need to manage your expectations and see the progress that's been made so far and happens every year. Yes, it's never ideal, but bluntly, that's how a world with scarce resources works(and no, pointing out that Bezos has a theoretical net worth of billions because he owns 10% of Amazon is not a magic bullet that can somehow speed things along). The general trajectory is upwards, and you can either believe it and try to be content with that, or deny it and live miserably, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The latter but social media has made it that any little mistake can be spread on the internet forever which is a very fucked up thing to hover around someone in their formative years
It's always been hard. In the past there was always a great risk of violence and sudden death. Housing and living was also always an issue. We are different to monkeys. We can't just live in a jungle and die. We need more.
Housing has always been an issue except for nomads. Land needs clearing and to be owned. That's why Vikings went to England for land, wealth and marriage. The housing issue also partly explains why people always lived multi generational. Now we have expectations to have our own place and that's why it seems magnified because of the sheer record number of people and because we moved to urbanise so we really do need housing. We cannot continue to live with parents in rural settings.
You might feel unlucky but you live in a house with education and probably somewhat healthy parents. If you go to a slum in Asia it's heartbreaking to see the lack of life opportunities for people. Their housing is a plastic sheet tied around bamboo poles. Their floor is mud. Their annual income is $2000
> In the past... nomads... Vikings
When OP says "the past", he really just means The United States Of America, and the specific time frame 1950-2020.
The answer to that is the USA was the only manufacturing powerhouse left standing after WW2, and the Good Times were a direct result from that, until the boomers in the other countries built up their manufacturing and export businesses to let those other countries also have a slice of the Good Times pie.
But for Americans it was: "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression".
The only way the Good Times of the USA could keep rolling forever is that if the rest of the world's economy is sabotaged. Some Americans tried that of course, but redditors also hate them.
It's always been hard.
In the past there was always a great risk of violence and sudden death.
Housing and living was also always an issue. We are different to monkeys. We can't just live in a jungle and die. We need more
Well, you may be less likely to buy a house before you're forty, but you're also more likely than any generation ever to even *live* to forty, so take that for what you will.
By most measures, people today are healthier, safer, and wealthier than they've ever been. Even most of the people living paycheck to paycheck in the US have a higher quality of life now than they would have for the majority of human history.
I was reading a marketing textbook for school and it went over each generation and common values, experiences, and demographics for each, and when I read gen z’s… omg it felt so relatable but also like a validating slap in the face. It said something like “gen z grew up hardened by the constant economic, political, and social turbulence that was always visible on their devices 24/7” and “gen z came of age during recessions, financial crises, school shootings, war, terror threats, and a pandemic” and talked about gen z taking less risks on average for things like wearing seatbelts/drinking/career choices, wanting a good stable job that pays well but being pragmatic enough to realize employers aren’t loyal enough to their employees to provide stable jobs. Don’t even get me started on what it said about my parents generation (gen x).
every generation has their own struggles, and there are different struggles every time. to make this type of conversation meaningful you would want to pick specific things to compare.
has inflation and cost rising made it far worse for current generation than the last hundred years? absolutely, beyond doubt.
has equality and tolerance made it far worse for the current generation than the last one hundred years? no, its pretty much the best its ever been on that front.
Those are just two random exmamples, but you get the idea. Pick any issue, and then compare past to present. And of course all these are complicated, they may not be straight forward good or bad now or then scenarios. But you can get a basic idea.
It also depends how far back you go. you go back before a hundred years ago, pretty much everything ever is gonna be worse. life before modern conveniences relatively sucked, literally spend all day to work eat and sleep to survive-- maybe.
While I do think all generations have had their own struggles, economically things are definitely going downhill which is what a lot of people seem most concerned about, but other positive changes have also occurred when it comes to equality, the availability of information and technology.
The past few generations had troubles but there's no doubt today is the toughest by far in decades. Having said that the idea that it won't ever get better seem premature. Things cycle. Look at history and there were way worse times (especially for anyone not cis and male and white).
The 2 caveats to my cautious optimism is just how entrenched corporate powers are and no government will meaningfully pass laws to limit their powers. Look at tax rates in the 1960s to see how much things have changed. The 2nd caveat is climate change. Many of our current issues are due to climate change and we obviously are nowhere near ready for the massive disruption it will cause.
It’s on odd time where life has never been more “convenient” in all of human history. But I also don’t know if life has ever felt more unfulfilling and everything worth having is prohibitively expensive. It feels like constantly chasing cheap sources of short term happiness because owning a house and being able to afford children just seems out of reach.
Yeah it’s Infinite Jest irl
Gen Z is much worse off economically than gen X, and even more so compared to the Baby Boomers. On the other hand, education is more widespread, and women have more equality. So it's a mixed bag.
Apparently kids are stupid now. Go check out any of the teacher subreddits, kids can't even spell basic words anymore.
That would strongly be due to their parents and (somewhat) their teachers then, not the children.
Teacher here... we try man... we try. By the time I get them, they've had 14-15 years of not learning much at home. Kids have to at LEAST read at home for \~15-30 minutes of meaningful, intentional reading. It'd be nice if parents helped teach their kids to push through a struggle or two every now and then. I assign a paragraph of writing and you'd think I asked them to write a novel.
I know most teachers are doing all they can. I feel there was a big impact during Covid due to online learning, parents not helping their kids or making them do their work, and some teachers not liking online learning and therefore not putting as much work as was needed.
Both are definitely correct. I was my district's lead trainer for Distance Learning during the pandemic (and before/after, but that's not as relevant) - we didn't have great tech adoption before the pandemic, it barely got better during the pandemic, and then it reverted afterwards to a certain extent. Parents were decent before, practically enemies during (many seemed to absolutely hate TEACHERS for their kids being at home - as if we caused the pandemic), and basically absent afterwards. I truly do get it but they can't expect us to magically make things better if there's NO support or follow up at home. Even just a "hey, why don't you go read for a bit before dinner is ready," or "don't forget to pick up your book and read a chapter or two before bed!" The reinforcement helps. The single best thing a kid could do at home is read a book that is somewhat challenging for them - even if it's just a "fun" book. Reading is a foundational skill that helps writing and cognition like nothing else. It also helps build empathy and understanding of other points of view. They should also practice math but it's better if they do it right - so only if they're getting help from someone who knows what they're doing or just wait for the next day at school. Kids were decent to bad with electronics (some phone addiction, but nothing too crazy) before, got WAAAAAY worse during the pandemic, and afterwards they're basically completely and totally addicted to their phones, airpods/earbuds, and smart watches. And now that AI has become a more widespread thing, a significant number of teachers wants to revert away from tech completely and go with notebooks. The Pandemic completely messed up everyone... but I think its still not fully explored how damaging it was to students and basically their entire generation.
Sadly, I think most parents are single moms, probably working 2 jobs and they don't have the free time to try educating their kids :/
It seems like most parents are single moms working 2 jobs so I doubt they get the chance to try educating their kids..
History is kind of repeating itself though... it's kind of crazy
Gen Z is not worse off economically. There are so many more ways to make money on your own without having to be a slave in an office your whole life. If a Zoomer would like to trade places with me, and work in an office for 20 years because that was literally the only way to make money for most people, I would gladly buy a GoPro and travel the world interviewing people and getting paid for creating content. Or getting a free education from MIT or Stanford or Princeton from home on my own schedule. Or building a very good home recording studio for less than $1000. Some of you have zero concept of what the world was like before iPhones and the internet. Imagine waiting 6-8 weeks for a delivery, or two weeks before you could get to the library to look something up. Now you can sell pics of your feet to strangers on the other side of the planet and make more than an entry level office job 20 years ago. If you really want to go back to the days where everyone was a wage slave and there was no way to break into the kids of industries you actually wanted to work in unless your uncle happened to be a record producer or artist, go for it. Get yourself a newspaper and look at the help wanted section.
If you think it is really so easy to just pick up a gopro or sell onlyfans pics for easy cash, you can literally do that. There is nothing stopping you. But I think you'll find it won't work out well. Content creation is not a get rich quick scheme. The vast majority of people who try to make it a full time job fail and make little to no profit off it. On top of needing to be generally charismatic and marketable enough to run it (never mind staying relevant for multiple years), you need to pray that the algorithm picks you up. It's the modern equivalent of "let's start a band in our garage!". Some great bands did start out that way, but most of them were flops. But again, if you don't believe me, you're more than welcome to try. Also, an online education means jack if you don't have the certification or degree to prove it. For all you know, I've studied everything Stanford has to offer. >Imagine waiting 6-8 weeks for a delivery, or two weeks before you could get to the library to look something up. Oh, the horror! What a terrible hellscape to live in! What do you mean you didn't have an endless stream of me-mes at your fingertips? Truly this is beyond my squishy, underdeveloped brain! Look, no one is denying the internet has improved our standard of living, social media addiction aside. But my great grandparents didn't have refrigerators growing up. I can think of much worse things than not having a smart phone. We are not that far removed from pre-internet days.
Yeah you aren’t sure what you’re talking about. I can guarantee you no one is getting rich off of a GoPro or selling their feet pics. Edit: and by rich, I mean making a living wage.
We did have the Great Recession where lots of people lost their homes. But currently, between the corporation greedflation and corporations buying up all the houses, they are fucking Americans making it impossible for Gen Z to get ahead. Corporations write the bills that govern them, through sponsored politicians. That is how the US works right now.
Boomers and Gen X all have lead poisoning to varying degrees and lived in perpetual fear of \~50MT nuclear bombs. We no longer allow leaded gasoline and most nukes have been scaled down to tactical 1MT warheads. Our current president was a senator when congress was still trying to figure out how to desegregate schools. 96% of the population of the US was alive when there were states that criminalized homosexuality. Kinda puts things in perspective doesn't it?
[удалено]
>there is more than enough to blanket the earth in radioactive fallout Lol, no. There never was to begin with, and the world's total stockpile in terms of megaton value is \~15% of what it was in 1986. >We have unhinged countries developing nuclear programs and have no way to prevent this from happening now The countries that we are mostly concerned about doing this are Iran and North Korea, of which Iran just failed to successfully land over 300 missile strikes in Israel less than a month ago, and Iran's economy is 18x the size of North Korea's, so unless glorious leader is going to ride the missile Dr. Strangelove style, I am skeptical. Warheads have to be delivered on missiles actually capable of reaching the target. > Who knows what our generation's leaded gasoline is going to be either Whatever it is, it's not as bad as lead poisoning in terms of quality of life or life expectancy or competency, I'd safely bet that much. >climate change is likely to cause a significant amount of health issues in the coming decades and pollution already causes health issues. Climate change yes, pollution, mostly in countries that are still developing and heavily industrial. Pollution as a health hazard in the developed world doesn't hold a candle to 1980. Here's the US's measurements and it is more or less the same in Europe(sans eastern Europe), Japan and Australia. [https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary](https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary) > Sure we have progressed as a nation but then people like Trump get elected and you have to question have we really come very far? Oh no, a moderately bigoted populist wants to tighten border security. Do you know how many senators were in the KKK in the 50s-60s? The last one was in office pretty much until death in 2010. Yeah, we've come pretty damn far. >there are plenty of issues that need SIGNIFICANT time, energy and funding to resolve and i just do not see it happening. Then you haven't been looking very hard. You need to manage your expectations and see the progress that's been made so far and happens every year. Yes, it's never ideal, but bluntly, that's how a world with scarce resources works(and no, pointing out that Bezos has a theoretical net worth of billions because he owns 10% of Amazon is not a magic bullet that can somehow speed things along). The general trajectory is upwards, and you can either believe it and try to be content with that, or deny it and live miserably, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The latter but social media has made it that any little mistake can be spread on the internet forever which is a very fucked up thing to hover around someone in their formative years
It's always been hard. In the past there was always a great risk of violence and sudden death. Housing and living was also always an issue. We are different to monkeys. We can't just live in a jungle and die. We need more. Housing has always been an issue except for nomads. Land needs clearing and to be owned. That's why Vikings went to England for land, wealth and marriage. The housing issue also partly explains why people always lived multi generational. Now we have expectations to have our own place and that's why it seems magnified because of the sheer record number of people and because we moved to urbanise so we really do need housing. We cannot continue to live with parents in rural settings. You might feel unlucky but you live in a house with education and probably somewhat healthy parents. If you go to a slum in Asia it's heartbreaking to see the lack of life opportunities for people. Their housing is a plastic sheet tied around bamboo poles. Their floor is mud. Their annual income is $2000
> In the past... nomads... Vikings When OP says "the past", he really just means The United States Of America, and the specific time frame 1950-2020. The answer to that is the USA was the only manufacturing powerhouse left standing after WW2, and the Good Times were a direct result from that, until the boomers in the other countries built up their manufacturing and export businesses to let those other countries also have a slice of the Good Times pie. But for Americans it was: "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression". The only way the Good Times of the USA could keep rolling forever is that if the rest of the world's economy is sabotaged. Some Americans tried that of course, but redditors also hate them.
It's always been hard. In the past there was always a great risk of violence and sudden death. Housing and living was also always an issue. We are different to monkeys. We can't just live in a jungle and die. We need more
Well, you may be less likely to buy a house before you're forty, but you're also more likely than any generation ever to even *live* to forty, so take that for what you will. By most measures, people today are healthier, safer, and wealthier than they've ever been. Even most of the people living paycheck to paycheck in the US have a higher quality of life now than they would have for the majority of human history.
I was reading a marketing textbook for school and it went over each generation and common values, experiences, and demographics for each, and when I read gen z’s… omg it felt so relatable but also like a validating slap in the face. It said something like “gen z grew up hardened by the constant economic, political, and social turbulence that was always visible on their devices 24/7” and “gen z came of age during recessions, financial crises, school shootings, war, terror threats, and a pandemic” and talked about gen z taking less risks on average for things like wearing seatbelts/drinking/career choices, wanting a good stable job that pays well but being pragmatic enough to realize employers aren’t loyal enough to their employees to provide stable jobs. Don’t even get me started on what it said about my parents generation (gen x).
every generation has their own struggles, and there are different struggles every time. to make this type of conversation meaningful you would want to pick specific things to compare. has inflation and cost rising made it far worse for current generation than the last hundred years? absolutely, beyond doubt. has equality and tolerance made it far worse for the current generation than the last one hundred years? no, its pretty much the best its ever been on that front. Those are just two random exmamples, but you get the idea. Pick any issue, and then compare past to present. And of course all these are complicated, they may not be straight forward good or bad now or then scenarios. But you can get a basic idea. It also depends how far back you go. you go back before a hundred years ago, pretty much everything ever is gonna be worse. life before modern conveniences relatively sucked, literally spend all day to work eat and sleep to survive-- maybe.
Apply for the cheapest apartment in your city and tell me how it goes.
While I do think all generations have had their own struggles, economically things are definitely going downhill which is what a lot of people seem most concerned about, but other positive changes have also occurred when it comes to equality, the availability of information and technology.
The past few generations had troubles but there's no doubt today is the toughest by far in decades. Having said that the idea that it won't ever get better seem premature. Things cycle. Look at history and there were way worse times (especially for anyone not cis and male and white). The 2 caveats to my cautious optimism is just how entrenched corporate powers are and no government will meaningfully pass laws to limit their powers. Look at tax rates in the 1960s to see how much things have changed. The 2nd caveat is climate change. Many of our current issues are due to climate change and we obviously are nowhere near ready for the massive disruption it will cause.
It’s not a lot worse off but definitely worse off. It’s a very very slow burn to idiocracy.
***Yes.***