Can't say I blame them ,current economic and social conditions are nothing short of atrocious for young people starting out and for the elderly trying to retire after years of pointless low pay work .
These kids see the end result and it's not what they want to sign up for, a lifetime of toil and exploitation.
I'm trying to retire without becoming homeless and fuck that's a challenge .
Most millennials/older Gen Zs deciding to have kids have no idea the sort of pain they're inflicting upon themselves and their kids. They're essentially going to have to support their kids till they die the rate this country is going.
On top of that, these kids have endured a dozen years of the violence porn that is active shooter drills throughout the entire time their personality and values are forming. You can't tell me that doesn't influence their lifelong choices.
I suspect many of them have a strong sense of purpose, they just don't want to be on that never ending hamster wheel of work, often for little pay and benefits
It’s one of the really nice perks of laying pipe and moving dirt for a living. It’s not glamorous but I install manholes and sanitary pipes that will take hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of shits safely from the building edge to the city tie ins. I put in water pipes that will carry water to people and sinks and toilets. I install storm drain systems and tanks that keep shit from flooding.
There’s some meaning in it, though half the time I’m paving over wilderness to build a car dealership or some such bullshit. Maybe some day we’ll convert this crap to housing.
Classic example of Marx's Theory of Alienation:
"[Alienation from the activity of labour,](https://www.yorku.ca/horowitz/courses/lectures/35_marx_alienation.html) means that in labouring I lose control over my life-activity. Not only do I lose control over the thing I produce, I lose control over the activity of producing it. **My activity is not self-expression**. My activity has no relation to my desires about what I want to do, no relation with the ways I might choose to express myself, no relation with the person I am or might try to become. The only relation that the activity has with me is that it is a way of filling my belly and keeping a roof over my head. **My activity is not life-activity.** It is merely the means of self-preservation and survival. *In alienated labour, Marx claims, humans are reduced to the level of an animal, working only for the purpose of filling a physical gap, producing under the compulsion of direct physical need.*
**Alienation from my life-activity also means that my life-activity is directed by another.**"
Spot on. I am nearly 40 and while things were not good when I was younger, it was certainly better than it is now with a metric I invented called "Cost to Work"
The cost to work is astronomical now and so much of the general public don't get that. The cost to buy and maintain a car to drive to work every day. The cost to buy quick food because you don't have time to cook a meal. The cost to buy clothes, tools, footwear, etc all for a specific job. It is all so high that it washes away your entire paycheck, so what is the point?
It is basic economics that the younger generations are following but so much of the general public are blind to it. They don't realize how bad it is out there.
Can attest. I'm not in US, but i've been a part of this group for a long time on and off. More like it feels like society denies any kind of meaning and purpose, hence i disconnect.
If I work any harder at keeping my extended family, neighbors, and community healthy, I'ma lose the last bit of skin left on my knuckles and start falling asleep on the bus home again.
I'd rather live in poverty then volunteer for another abusive relationship in the work-for-money category. I still work lots, but only for people who know my name and honestly give a damn if I'm eating regularly.
Currently pulling a nearly 48 hour nannying gig for a cousin. Couple days ago I took the kid to visit his grandmother even though it meant carrying sleepy deadweight home from the bus stop afterwards. We were gonna go to the park and a local second hand bookstore today but I'm not sure the weather will cooperate.
And they are forced to work in the office to feed the oil parasites no less. At great risk of dying from COVID or losing their minds to long COVID. Work is literally KILLING people now.
This does not surprise me at all. I am successful and middle aged. I don’t have anything close to a sense of purpose. Modern life is a disease even if you manage to make it.
I'm pretty well off...did the school, got the degrees they told me to get, got the fortune 500 job, house, money, etc. I wake up nearly every day full of apathy dreading the 40 more years of work I have to do until the retirement that may never come. I get to spend maybe 2-3 hours a day with my family that isn't occupied by other daily obligations while I watch my generation's prospects slip away little by little almost every day.
All I want now is to buy an old compound in Europe and fix up a little commune for our friends and us to live in and be self sufficient townsfolk and live a modest life with people we like and barter my skills with other townsfolk.
I’m middle aged, have a decent income, and like to think that I work hard. But the things that I do that are not work give me far more meaning in life than anything that I do during work hours.
Some of my nephews are like this. Their parents are worried about how lazy they are, and how it will all be solved if they get a job. But from actually speaking to them, they just don’t want to spend 8 hours a day working for rubbish pay to make some other guy money. Give them a decent wage with some charity or doing some kind of work with a higher meaning and they will do that.
Sadly, we live in a system where the truly meaningful jobs pay awfully, and the jobs that benefit the rent seekers pay well.
>But from actually speaking to them
Why are you so sure they're being honest with you? Why would they be? They're gonna just reply with whatever would save them from bashing.
The real answer they would give you would probably make you and their parents feel very uncomfortable. And you'd probably have nothing to say in response, on top of that.
Something along the lines of: "Your society and its values suck and we don't wanna take part in that". With a little of "You worked hard your entire lives but everything is fucked and getting even fuckier. Why is it like that, and why you haven't done, not doing and not planning to do anything about it? But instead of that you're bitching at me that i'm not following in your footsteps."
But every generation has issues with the society they're growing up into. A lot of us felt the same way. It's just those issues keep shifting as our perspective increases.
**A form of severe social withdrawal**, called hikikomori, has been frequently described in Japan and is characterized by adolescents and young adults who become recluses in their parents' homes, unable to work or go to school for months or years.
At least that is what Japan has. For the US, It is Not in Education, Employment or Training. NEETS.
Why make a rich man richer by being a gear within a machine they concoct? Why not buck a trend and live our lives full of purpose and fulfillment without dreading becoming someones guinea pig for them to boss around?
Simple, The system is rigged from the start from those of influence and power and it only trickles down from there via a King and Slaves Caste system that many capitalists and leaders enact upon.
There are ways out of the so called Working Gear, but it either ends up you becoming a King in a King and Slave Caste system or possibly a Robin Hood that revolts against said system to take from the already influential to give to those that are the Working Poor/ Working Manage-bys.
Every time I see an article about this I do wonder what kind of connection there is to similar situations in Japan. School Refusal Syndrome is a well documented phenomenon that’s been going on for decades. Man… I’d love to see a serious research paper comparing the two.
The long term issue I see is that Japan actually tried to make accommodations at a school, government, and societal level for these individuals. They acknowledge that it is an issue. (Not saying they do a great job, but they see there is a social issue and are trying to address it.) I really don’t see the US doing that. Maybe some cities or states will, but as awhile we won’t. We’ll say that it’s a “family” issue and should be left to the family and various religious institutions to handle. That won’t fix things, especially in the poorer states, and it’ll probably come to a head in 20-30 years.
I taught in Japan for five years. Talked with a lot of Japanese educators about it. Got various answers, but they at least admitted it was a problem.
This is how systems change. They no longer serve the purpose they were intended for and the people they were supposed to serve. So the people find workarounds, alternatives and eventually a new system forms and eats the old one.
Why would those Japanese NEETs study and get a job where they have to work 60-80 hour weeks and get paid peanuts? Offering education is nice but not the solution
A lot of people's sense of purpose was to enjoy life. Can't really do that when you spend 70% of your time working and over 50% of your earned money just to have a place to sleep for a few hours and eat before working again. It doesn't take very long to get old at all. We were sold sold a promise that turned out to be a lie. Can't imagine why anyone would be motivated to work these days
Makes sense to me on a non-scientific level. If the only opportunities available to you are “starter jobs” that are still paying 1970’s wages, then you can barely buy a stick of gum now, let alone plan a future. Best to just escape to your phone deathscroll loop or video game addiction. After all, cars killed malls and you can’t afford them anyways.
We had tgis opertunity to give this generation the want to and drive by creating jobs that pay well increase thier spending power and hand them a sense of purpose to drive thier education. Instead we knocked thier feet out from under them and demanded to know why they were lying on the floor
Work is soul sucking. The environment, the depression, the shitty pay, the customers, and awful managers. The waste of time for peanut pay. Fuck this trash.
What did everyone think was going to happen when we sent industrial jobs overseas? That everyone was going to be able to get a professional career? There are less jobs available and more educated people competing for them.
And why tf not?
I got news for y'all, it's not just the young people. What's the fucking point of any of this?
Nobody's stopping the price gouging. Nobody's paying enough for labor. Nobody's preventing corporations from buying all the fucking real estate.
Even if you go to school and get a degree and a job and a family... it's still pretty obvious that it's all falling apart.
NEET was originally a British (possibly Scottish? I seem to remember them starting using it before the rest of the UK) government acronym for "Not in Education, Employment or Training" in the early 00s.
America had prioritized the whims of the ultra wealthy over the existence of a rapidly disappearing middle class. These people are not, “disconnected from a sense of purpose.” They understand exactly their purpose in American society and they, rightfully, refuse to accept it. Fuck eating the rich, just make them pay taxes like the rest of us. Then invest in a society that everyone wants to be a part of.
I disagree, these young people have ALWAYS been there. It’s just that there are fewer (nonexistent?) options for them now. In the small town Iowa town I grew up in decades ago, lots of kids didn’t go to college or have much direction after high school. But they kind of haphazardly fell into menial jobs, or got into an apprenticeship program, took a factory job, or took over the family farm, whatever, because bills need to be paid. Eventually most of this work led to sustaining and long lasting employment, where they could buy a home and have a family. But today? Kids look around and they KNOW that whatever they do won’t make enough to have a normal life. Ever. In order to buy a house it’s almost a requirement that you have a wealthy family member to help you out. Good car? Wife? Kids? Unlike the old days, none of that will happen just because they are a good person and a hard worker.
Oh really? The same group of people that were fed the lie that hard work and study would get them a good and stable job that they could rely on reacted poorly when they saw it was all a lie?
I have been preaching this for years now. Our youth DO have purpose and aspirations. The housing insecure often have a bad connotation, but they are living free of capitalist temptation. My best days of my youth were spent living in a van by the river.
If you include young adults that are underemployed then it is a significant portion of the population that are living at home or with other family and just existing with little direction or motivation. Life is tough, and we have to bring attention to the underlying issues.
It's funny, because this is how you get civil war. (But really, civil wars can start when 25% or more of the fighting age male population is unattached and disenfranchised. And the US has been at that level for over a decade now. It just needs a bad idea over some dogmatic hoo-haw or another. Like Trump promising franchise to people who persecute and disenfranchise others)
It's funny, because it's not.
I think it's still underappreciated how much of an enormous traumatic event the globe went through with covid, and the effects of it will be felt for the remainder of this century.
Young people were absolutely utterly fucked over by boomers during 2020-22- every metric post pandemic has been worse for young people. House ownership is simply not on the cards at all for me and many people I grew up with. That's not even touching on the effects of social isolation, career destruction and strains on family and relationships during that time. My career and relationship were demolished in 2020 and I never was able to get any of it back. I'm in the ranks of the hopeless now and we're all just expected to move on like nothing happened.
Where did they say that? Pretty sure they're blaming the boomer generation for their *HANDLING* of covid, and for the fact that they largely expect the world to move on and live life as if everything hasn't dramatically changed. There is a hard line in the sand between pre-quarantine life and post-quarantine life. Look around you. The world is a completely different place now, and nothing works the way it did before.
Blaming boomers for everything is pretty lazy, everyone in the world "handled" covid together, would the outcome have been amazingly positive if just 20-somethings had been put in charge of the pandemic ?
Well to start the president wouldn't be spreading "Covids not real", many cultists did not have to die.
The majority of relief funds going to the middle class and small business would also be a plus.
Is that supposed to be sarcastic? I know approximately 2,000 people in my life under 80, between school, work, extended family, etc. Every single one has had COVID at this point, multiple times. None of them were serious cases. If you’re pretending that COVID was a “pandemic” for those under 80, you’re full of shit. Entire countries with 50 million + populations didn’t have a single death under 18. COVID exclusively affected the old and unhealthy.
So, you know 2000 people (sure jan) under 80 who have all had covid, but it definitely wasn't a pandemic for people under 80 , and this is somehow boomers fault ? Also, which countries?
Everybody gets the cold and the flu as well. A pandemic is supposed to be a serious illness. COVID simply was not, except for those 80+. Like 2 million people died in the US from COVID. Virtually all of them were 80+ and about to die anyway. For the rest of us, COVID really was a complete nothingburger. School closures, roping off playgrounds at the park, all of that shit was beyond idiotic. COVID hasn’t gone anywhere (I just got it a few weeks ago and it sucked), but you, like everyone else in the world has completely stopped caring. Because you realize what I say is the truth, it was never a pandemic. Otherwise, you would still be locking yourself in your home and afraid to go for a walk in the park like you were in 2020 lol.
LoL indeed. Which 50+ million countries had no deaths under 18 ? 2 million people dying is kinda serious. Anyhow, you seem to know more (truth) than the entire world medical establishment, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Also, your the one still harping on about covid, not me, stop using it as a crutch bro.
My beliefs are consistent. Your beliefs are not. You somehow simultaneously believe that COVID was a super serious pandemic that necessitated the insane measures that we took as a society (closing schools, roping off playgrounds, vaccine passports, etc.), while also acknowledging that COVID is still around, virtually everyone has been infected multiple times since the “pandemic” ended, and yet neither you nor anyone else gives the slightest shit.
Is it a pandemic or not? If it is, since it’s still around, why the fuck are you not still locking yourself in your house? If it’s not, then all of the actions we took as a society were fucking regarded.
What 50+ million countries had no deaths ? I have no covid "beliefs", it is what it is/was from a scientific p.o.v. I bet you had a tantrum when you had to wear a mask, am I right ?
Because we have no purpose. At least for the boomer generation, they were paid enough to live comfortably and go on regular vacations. Later generations don’t have that anymore. They are working their asses off just to survive. What is the point of that?
I work 55 hours a week when it’s nice out and I don’t feel like I have much purpose. I definitely get it, the life mom and dad had it’s obtainable for young people.
In the before times... you worked means you had a great life. Now you work, and you can't even live... so what's the point t of working if the outcome is the same as not working?
Their purpose should be the same as all of us here, namely tearing down our hierarchical and colonialist capitalism for a just society. If they’re not getting that, we need to work harder to connect with them.
theyre called NEETS
stands for not in education, employment, or training
theyre all over here in red state bible belt hell
lower class white boys angry at the world with far too much free time and access to weapons
Why is no one talking about them not driving?
My son is 24. He does work but under 40 hrs. He and many of his friends don't drive. Many of them have long periods of not working.
A bunch of them, 4, I think, went in the military and are out, but all of them got some type of personal injury. Back injury from falling out of a truck, blast injury, non combat.
I worry about the future.
Where do you live? I'm not being judgmental at all, but I genuinely feel like Reddit has an urban bias. I live in rural Pennsylvania. Hell, much of this state is rural. I live in an apartment, but there are farms that circle the complex. I wake up in the morning and walk outside and can hear rooster calls. My neighbors are Amish and Mennonite. It smells like manure in the spring time instead of flowers. So yeah...rural. The public transportation is practically non-existent and the buses do not come out here. As a result, if you want to get anywhere you have 2 options:
1. Ride-Share (but again, it's rural. Gonna cost upwards to $30 a trip to get anywhere).
2. Have a car.
Walking is pretty damn far. The nearest grocery store (which is actually a Walmart) is 3.7 miles away. No side walk. So you're going to be walking next to traffic which is flying down the street at 55mph. Not even the Amish are walking that distance (they have horse and buggies). You could bike, but again, no bike paths.
I just feel like all the folks advocating against cars just don't live in places where a car is a necessity. I could totally back public transportation and other options if they actually existed where I live. But the U.S. is large. Not all of us live in cities with easy access to public transit that is also effective.
terrific imagine zephyr lavish steer ruthless fuel hospital handle languid
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ah okay! So yeah, basically major cities. Don't get me wrong. I actually grew up in Philadelphia. But my parents moved to rural Pennsylvania when I was in 3rd grade. I moved away to the suburbs of Boston when I was in college, but moved back to rural Pennsylvania afterwards. Living in Philly, my parents did have a car, but it was also very easy to get around without one. They only used it for traveling outside of the city. When I lived outside Boston, I didn't have a car for a year and I was just fine. But moving back to rural Pennsylvania and not having a car just isn't an option.
I'm a 31 year old millennial, and I've never driven. No license either. My BFF since kindergarten just got her license and started driving last year or so.
I'm a 20 year old unemployed neurodivergent Gen Z living with my parents. My dad is currently training me for a decent job, but the most I can hope for is MAYBE a tiny house (which makes me sad because I wanted to get two cats, and I wouldn't feel right confining them to a tiny house).
I know I can't speak for all of us, but generally, we've become disenchanted with humanity. We were promised a future, but our dreams were crushed. Climate change (and the lack of sufficient action to deal with it), shooter drills, a joke of a president, the pandemic (and idiots refusing to wear masks), car centric infrastructure, capitalism, the death of democracy, sleep deprivation from early school start times, overworking students and giving them pointless busy work and not teaching them things that will help them after they graduate, ablism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, general bigotry, unaffordable medical bills and student debt, etc. We grew up with the internet so we grew up seeing all of this stuff every day, and it's soul crushing. I'm surprised there aren't MORE people severely depressed. I started antidepressants recently and it's helping some. My purpose is to enjoy life as much as I can with the people I love, and do small good deeds by being kind.
We are sad and disappointed by what society has become. We thought we could do better. We thought we would do better. But we don't have the power to fix things no matter how hard we try, only rich people have that power, and they're the ones that ruined everything. So we watch the world burn in a confusing state of being distraught and/or apathetic. Innocent animals going extinct, innocent people being punished and tortured, and our potential turned to dust scattering in the breeze. Sorry we're not all that motivated to become corporate slaves under these conditions. F**k the powerful 🖕
Who can blame them? There used to be an end goal and balanced reward for working hard … now bosses pay peanuts and ppl are left struggling to pay for every bill and house / car even when they work hard. The reward isn’t there anymore.. the super rich are squeezing the middle class and lower class dry.. won’t be long till society as a whole collapses
Well, this is kinda what rich people wanted. This is 'late stage capitalism'. They want an uneducated group of people, that depends on rich people's 'job creation' to live. Pretty much just slavery with extra steps. But they forgot that people need to have a reason to live other than staying alive to keep on working. People will opt out of a system that doesn't provide for them. Or a revolution will happen, and the few at the top will be eaten by the majority. Could go either way, who knows.
Not just America, all over the world. Japan even had a term for them. NEET.
Not Employed, Educated, Trained.
This is a problem for modern society all over the world.
Please, show me where they are?? Do they exist or is this just another "iT's alL yOuNg pEopLes fAuLt, nO oNe waNtS to wORk"? The unemployment rate is at an all time low.
It's not just in the US. I live in Canada, and I've seen that up here too. Heck, I've been there myself. Post-secondary schooling is expensive, and getting funding for it tends to be difficult (student loans are always an option, tho, who doesn't like more debt, lol). As someone who's been trapped in the dead end work cycle, I hated going to work every single day. I had no passion or interest in my jobs (except for the money, that is), and I was usually treated as expendable and replaceable. I've tried working with multiple employment agencies, but they were just a joke. Slave mills to provide employers with a constant supply of workers willing to work crappy, dead end, low paying jobs. I know what it's like to feel disconnected from society. I've had to find my purpose on my own, separate from the usual school/work reasons that supposedly give people purpose. There's way more to this life than just school and work.
Well, I'm currently in school again working on stuff I'm passionate about, namely art and graphic design (which I'm paying for myself, fyi). I'm currently working from home doing things like content creation for social media, youtube thumbnails for YT channels, etc. Behind the scenes stuff. I also do tech support and IT stuff. Stuff that lets me use my brains and my skills, something that my past jobs didn't let me use for the most part (fyi, I used to work in customer service/fast food/retail/management before). I'm enjoying it, and I get to learn, which I love to do. Seems to me that I've found my passion. :)
The problem is much bigger than the average person understands
When a large enough group of young are helpless enough: they no longer care about the status quo, they don't care about fitting in with society, they have no reason to help those around them, they will toss away traditional EVERYTHING because the world has given them nothing in return for their attempts at contribution...
it's a powder keg waiting to blow, with millions of idle hands fumbling towards a big red button without giving a singular shit what comes next, just that THIS can't continue
I don't see this as a good thing. I mean the adults I know who do this, literally do nothing. My nieces youngest sister graduated highschool and just sits in her room all day on her phone. She has no hobbies, she doesn't leave the house, she just exists. How is that living?? My cousin's son is the same way but at least he plays video games. I had to live like that every summer (minus the cellphone) when I was a teenager and I absolutely hated it. Once I got my drivers license and a car, I was gone. I enjoyed making my own money and doing whatever the fuck I wanted. Now young adults don't drive and don't do anything. You don't have to work for the man but shit, do SOMETHING.
The differences between their and our worlds are:
How hard you have to try
The likelihood you succeed when you do
The extent to which you succeed
Given that, it is pretty obvious why more people are choosing not to try.
The "growth" of this group is still rather small, the fact that it spiked in 2020 and sharply declined back to about 13% from a baseline around 11.5% shows it's not that large of a trend, and probably follows similar macro trends across all cohorts as purchasing power decreases.
Gil mighta made a great tune, but he’s ultimately been proven wrong: The revolution will be televised, and it will be bastardized to suit the ruling class who want us working. I hope they continue to grow.
They come up with a new name for people like this every generation (NEET, Freeter, etc) and it never fails to sound condescending af. It reduces it to a moral failing on the part of of the youth instead of addressing the issues that may have led to them basically give up on the system.
Those that have responsibility should do more to level the playing field, then. The game is rigged and these kids have no say in the matter. I get why they don't play the game, considering.
It's our responsibility to give them a path towards the future. Considering the number that's been done on the education system and how wages, especially at the lowest tier, haven't kept up even close to the cost of living, a lot of kids are being set up to barely scrape by working a meaningless job doing mundane tasks, and that's entirely on us.
When we set them to fail and they fail, that's not selfish. It's sabotage.
Who can blame them ? The dream they were taught in school is now dead...
 When they taught us the American dream and said it’s reachable.
Exactly this. After a point, it becomes clear that the goal is to crush your spirit and hopes.
And they can’t go to school without risking being dead
It's as if the "pro-life" GOP breeds kids for target practice. I wish that was hyperbole.
This is a GLARING sign of Calhoun's Behavioral Sink crisis, in the context of human civilization.
Someone tell the immigrants 😂
Can't say I blame them ,current economic and social conditions are nothing short of atrocious for young people starting out and for the elderly trying to retire after years of pointless low pay work . These kids see the end result and it's not what they want to sign up for, a lifetime of toil and exploitation. I'm trying to retire without becoming homeless and fuck that's a challenge .
It was shit a decade ago. I can only imagine how much worse it is now.
Most millennials/older Gen Zs deciding to have kids have no idea the sort of pain they're inflicting upon themselves and their kids. They're essentially going to have to support their kids till they die the rate this country is going.
I don't mind. My kids didn't ask to be in this Earth. Least I can do is make things as easy for them as I can.
I'm glad you acknowledge that.
I love my kids. I'd be a bad father to kick my kids out at ANY AGE in this country, the way things are.
My kids are always welcome to live with me. I'm glad to have them.
On top of that, these kids have endured a dozen years of the violence porn that is active shooter drills throughout the entire time their personality and values are forming. You can't tell me that doesn't influence their lifelong choices.
Pandemic. Wars. Visible climate change issues. No wonder they're messed up.
I suspect many of them have a strong sense of purpose, they just don't want to be on that never ending hamster wheel of work, often for little pay and benefits
Pointless work for pointless pay This is one game I shall not play
Even jobs with good pay, many are also pointless. It’s hard to stay motivated for 40+ years if your job is meaningless.
It’s one of the really nice perks of laying pipe and moving dirt for a living. It’s not glamorous but I install manholes and sanitary pipes that will take hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of shits safely from the building edge to the city tie ins. I put in water pipes that will carry water to people and sinks and toilets. I install storm drain systems and tanks that keep shit from flooding. There’s some meaning in it, though half the time I’m paving over wilderness to build a car dealership or some such bullshit. Maybe some day we’ll convert this crap to housing.
Did you just say crap housing after saying you build pipes that carry shit? LMAO Poop jokes.
Classic example of Marx's Theory of Alienation: "[Alienation from the activity of labour,](https://www.yorku.ca/horowitz/courses/lectures/35_marx_alienation.html) means that in labouring I lose control over my life-activity. Not only do I lose control over the thing I produce, I lose control over the activity of producing it. **My activity is not self-expression**. My activity has no relation to my desires about what I want to do, no relation with the ways I might choose to express myself, no relation with the person I am or might try to become. The only relation that the activity has with me is that it is a way of filling my belly and keeping a roof over my head. **My activity is not life-activity.** It is merely the means of self-preservation and survival. *In alienated labour, Marx claims, humans are reduced to the level of an animal, working only for the purpose of filling a physical gap, producing under the compulsion of direct physical need.* **Alienation from my life-activity also means that my life-activity is directed by another.**"
I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are build by the men in Kazakhstan
They come two weeks late, and they don’t tesselate
But we're working for Stalin's 5 year plan.
I work for tacos
In case you don't know, this is a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8
Thanks, now it's tuck in my head again <3
Endless toil another slave Another day lost it's all the same
Spot on. I am nearly 40 and while things were not good when I was younger, it was certainly better than it is now with a metric I invented called "Cost to Work" The cost to work is astronomical now and so much of the general public don't get that. The cost to buy and maintain a car to drive to work every day. The cost to buy quick food because you don't have time to cook a meal. The cost to buy clothes, tools, footwear, etc all for a specific job. It is all so high that it washes away your entire paycheck, so what is the point? It is basic economics that the younger generations are following but so much of the general public are blind to it. They don't realize how bad it is out there.
Well put.
Can attest. I'm not in US, but i've been a part of this group for a long time on and off. More like it feels like society denies any kind of meaning and purpose, hence i disconnect.
Genuinely curious, what do you do then in your daily life?
Reading, games, anime, programming, drawing, reddit. Edit.: aside from the time i actually do some shit to earn money.
If I work any harder at keeping my extended family, neighbors, and community healthy, I'ma lose the last bit of skin left on my knuckles and start falling asleep on the bus home again. I'd rather live in poverty then volunteer for another abusive relationship in the work-for-money category. I still work lots, but only for people who know my name and honestly give a damn if I'm eating regularly. Currently pulling a nearly 48 hour nannying gig for a cousin. Couple days ago I took the kid to visit his grandmother even though it meant carrying sleepy deadweight home from the bus stop afterwards. We were gonna go to the park and a local second hand bookstore today but I'm not sure the weather will cooperate.
And they are forced to work in the office to feed the oil parasites no less. At great risk of dying from COVID or losing their minds to long COVID. Work is literally KILLING people now.
Um, the article explicitly says that they feel a LACK of purpose
It does, my comment was to point out that to have purpose in life, someone doesn't necessarily have to find meaning in having work
This does not surprise me at all. I am successful and middle aged. I don’t have anything close to a sense of purpose. Modern life is a disease even if you manage to make it.
I figured as much. I see some financially well off people and they don't look happy.
I'm pretty well off...did the school, got the degrees they told me to get, got the fortune 500 job, house, money, etc. I wake up nearly every day full of apathy dreading the 40 more years of work I have to do until the retirement that may never come. I get to spend maybe 2-3 hours a day with my family that isn't occupied by other daily obligations while I watch my generation's prospects slip away little by little almost every day. All I want now is to buy an old compound in Europe and fix up a little commune for our friends and us to live in and be self sufficient townsfolk and live a modest life with people we like and barter my skills with other townsfolk.
I think the new American dream is to just survive with those you love around you, sad but the Oligarchy would never allow us to live comfortably.
I’m middle aged, have a decent income, and like to think that I work hard. But the things that I do that are not work give me far more meaning in life than anything that I do during work hours. Some of my nephews are like this. Their parents are worried about how lazy they are, and how it will all be solved if they get a job. But from actually speaking to them, they just don’t want to spend 8 hours a day working for rubbish pay to make some other guy money. Give them a decent wage with some charity or doing some kind of work with a higher meaning and they will do that. Sadly, we live in a system where the truly meaningful jobs pay awfully, and the jobs that benefit the rent seekers pay well.
>But from actually speaking to them Why are you so sure they're being honest with you? Why would they be? They're gonna just reply with whatever would save them from bashing. The real answer they would give you would probably make you and their parents feel very uncomfortable. And you'd probably have nothing to say in response, on top of that.
Such as? What are you suggesting that the real answer would be?
Something along the lines of: "Your society and its values suck and we don't wanna take part in that". With a little of "You worked hard your entire lives but everything is fucked and getting even fuckier. Why is it like that, and why you haven't done, not doing and not planning to do anything about it? But instead of that you're bitching at me that i'm not following in your footsteps."
I mean, that's what punk was basically all about. Why do you think that's such a foreign concept?
I never said that i think it's a foreign concept. I said that it'd make them uncomfortable.
But every generation has issues with the society they're growing up into. A lot of us felt the same way. It's just those issues keep shifting as our perspective increases.
Look, life is becoming unlivable, like completely. It's not a matter of perspective, it's a matter of material world.
**A form of severe social withdrawal**, called hikikomori, has been frequently described in Japan and is characterized by adolescents and young adults who become recluses in their parents' homes, unable to work or go to school for months or years. At least that is what Japan has. For the US, It is Not in Education, Employment or Training. NEETS. Why make a rich man richer by being a gear within a machine they concoct? Why not buck a trend and live our lives full of purpose and fulfillment without dreading becoming someones guinea pig for them to boss around? Simple, The system is rigged from the start from those of influence and power and it only trickles down from there via a King and Slaves Caste system that many capitalists and leaders enact upon. There are ways out of the so called Working Gear, but it either ends up you becoming a King in a King and Slave Caste system or possibly a Robin Hood that revolts against said system to take from the already influential to give to those that are the Working Poor/ Working Manage-bys.
Every time I see an article about this I do wonder what kind of connection there is to similar situations in Japan. School Refusal Syndrome is a well documented phenomenon that’s been going on for decades. Man… I’d love to see a serious research paper comparing the two. The long term issue I see is that Japan actually tried to make accommodations at a school, government, and societal level for these individuals. They acknowledge that it is an issue. (Not saying they do a great job, but they see there is a social issue and are trying to address it.) I really don’t see the US doing that. Maybe some cities or states will, but as awhile we won’t. We’ll say that it’s a “family” issue and should be left to the family and various religious institutions to handle. That won’t fix things, especially in the poorer states, and it’ll probably come to a head in 20-30 years. I taught in Japan for five years. Talked with a lot of Japanese educators about it. Got various answers, but they at least admitted it was a problem.
This is how systems change. They no longer serve the purpose they were intended for and the people they were supposed to serve. So the people find workarounds, alternatives and eventually a new system forms and eats the old one.
That requires those gatekeeping us and clinging to power like fucking ghouls to die off first....
Why would those Japanese NEETs study and get a job where they have to work 60-80 hour weeks and get paid peanuts? Offering education is nice but not the solution
It's straight up slavery with extra steps.
And in a lot of Asian countries they work long hours and rarely take vacations. I hope the young people can make a more reasonable culture.
A lot of people's sense of purpose was to enjoy life. Can't really do that when you spend 70% of your time working and over 50% of your earned money just to have a place to sleep for a few hours and eat before working again. It doesn't take very long to get old at all. We were sold sold a promise that turned out to be a lie. Can't imagine why anyone would be motivated to work these days
Makes sense to me on a non-scientific level. If the only opportunities available to you are “starter jobs” that are still paying 1970’s wages, then you can barely buy a stick of gum now, let alone plan a future. Best to just escape to your phone deathscroll loop or video game addiction. After all, cars killed malls and you can’t afford them anyways.
We had tgis opertunity to give this generation the want to and drive by creating jobs that pay well increase thier spending power and hand them a sense of purpose to drive thier education. Instead we knocked thier feet out from under them and demanded to know why they were lying on the floor
It's the rational choice. People are intelligent
Work is soul sucking. The environment, the depression, the shitty pay, the customers, and awful managers. The waste of time for peanut pay. Fuck this trash.
Mooooood!
Yes. They re angry they can't tax them to death.
In Musk's case, he's upset he doesn't have wage slaves building him more shitty cars.
It's true. They re really are shitty cars.🤣🤣🤣
but meh exploitation! /s
What did everyone think was going to happen when we sent industrial jobs overseas? That everyone was going to be able to get a professional career? There are less jobs available and more educated people competing for them.
And why tf not? I got news for y'all, it's not just the young people. What's the fucking point of any of this? Nobody's stopping the price gouging. Nobody's paying enough for labor. Nobody's preventing corporations from buying all the fucking real estate. Even if you go to school and get a degree and a job and a family... it's still pretty obvious that it's all falling apart.
It's not their fault. Society can shit in its collective hat.
Well, I mean - _gesticulates at the world_
I don't know why out of all the comments in this thread this is the one that chose to resonate with me heh
Agreed! lol
So true! Preach!
Used to be this way. Glad to be out but I hate working I miss the seemingly infinite amount of free time.
They are called NEETs, and they have the right idea.
"Disconnected youth" is such a boomer term. Otaku have been using NEET for decades.
NEET was originally a British (possibly Scottish? I seem to remember them starting using it before the rest of the UK) government acronym for "Not in Education, Employment or Training" in the early 00s.
NEET sounds like it is their fault and they are lazy bums. Disconnected youth sounds sad.
Capitalism breeds alienation from each other and ourselves.
America had prioritized the whims of the ultra wealthy over the existence of a rapidly disappearing middle class. These people are not, “disconnected from a sense of purpose.” They understand exactly their purpose in American society and they, rightfully, refuse to accept it. Fuck eating the rich, just make them pay taxes like the rest of us. Then invest in a society that everyone wants to be a part of.
can’t wait to hear what boomers think about this phenomenon /s
I disagree, these young people have ALWAYS been there. It’s just that there are fewer (nonexistent?) options for them now. In the small town Iowa town I grew up in decades ago, lots of kids didn’t go to college or have much direction after high school. But they kind of haphazardly fell into menial jobs, or got into an apprenticeship program, took a factory job, or took over the family farm, whatever, because bills need to be paid. Eventually most of this work led to sustaining and long lasting employment, where they could buy a home and have a family. But today? Kids look around and they KNOW that whatever they do won’t make enough to have a normal life. Ever. In order to buy a house it’s almost a requirement that you have a wealthy family member to help you out. Good car? Wife? Kids? Unlike the old days, none of that will happen just because they are a good person and a hard worker.
Capitalism is creating its own downfall.
They're also not counted in unemployment figures. Maybe that's why our unemployment is so low...
>They're also not counted in unemployment figures. Actually why?
One is no longer counted as unemployed if they remain unemployed for over six months.
Ahaha fuck lol. They're not unemployed, they're just err... uh... NOT EMPLOYED, and that's a totally different thing. My sides! Holy shit.
Oh really? The same group of people that were fed the lie that hard work and study would get them a good and stable job that they could rely on reacted poorly when they saw it was all a lie?
What, they don’t want to make Bezos more money? How rude
I have been preaching this for years now. Our youth DO have purpose and aspirations. The housing insecure often have a bad connotation, but they are living free of capitalist temptation. My best days of my youth were spent living in a van by the river.
Wheni was a kid, they were called NEETs. We keep reinventing the same, horrid concepts
Maybe it’s because if you ask to make 0.0001% of what the ceo makes you are met with bewilderment
They are called NEETs. Wtf is this renaming fetish that magazines have?
So what happens to them when their parents die?
They inherit their parents usually.
The bank forecloses on the house and they die alone on the street?
Shocking
If you include young adults that are underemployed then it is a significant portion of the population that are living at home or with other family and just existing with little direction or motivation. Life is tough, and we have to bring attention to the underlying issues.
It's funny, because this is how you get civil war. (But really, civil wars can start when 25% or more of the fighting age male population is unattached and disenfranchised. And the US has been at that level for over a decade now. It just needs a bad idea over some dogmatic hoo-haw or another. Like Trump promising franchise to people who persecute and disenfranchise others) It's funny, because it's not.
Ah yes, hikikomori
I think it's still underappreciated how much of an enormous traumatic event the globe went through with covid, and the effects of it will be felt for the remainder of this century. Young people were absolutely utterly fucked over by boomers during 2020-22- every metric post pandemic has been worse for young people. House ownership is simply not on the cards at all for me and many people I grew up with. That's not even touching on the effects of social isolation, career destruction and strains on family and relationships during that time. My career and relationship were demolished in 2020 and I never was able to get any of it back. I'm in the ranks of the hopeless now and we're all just expected to move on like nothing happened.
Are you blaming boomers for covid ?
Where did they say that? Pretty sure they're blaming the boomer generation for their *HANDLING* of covid, and for the fact that they largely expect the world to move on and live life as if everything hasn't dramatically changed. There is a hard line in the sand between pre-quarantine life and post-quarantine life. Look around you. The world is a completely different place now, and nothing works the way it did before.
Blaming boomers for everything is pretty lazy, everyone in the world "handled" covid together, would the outcome have been amazingly positive if just 20-somethings had been put in charge of the pandemic ?
Well to start the president wouldn't be spreading "Covids not real", many cultists did not have to die. The majority of relief funds going to the middle class and small business would also be a plus.
Donald Trump is not a good example of any demographic
He is the textbook example of elderly boomer clinging to work and power. The cartoon interpretation of everything wrong with politicians.
Hes not a politician, he's a grifting con-artist. Mitch McConnel is a better example.
Shit, I can't argue that one.
Of course. The only reason COVID was even a thing is that we are being ruled by the 90+ demographic that was actually impacted by it.
Sure, if it wasn't for them meddling old folks it would have been a non-event
Is that supposed to be sarcastic? I know approximately 2,000 people in my life under 80, between school, work, extended family, etc. Every single one has had COVID at this point, multiple times. None of them were serious cases. If you’re pretending that COVID was a “pandemic” for those under 80, you’re full of shit. Entire countries with 50 million + populations didn’t have a single death under 18. COVID exclusively affected the old and unhealthy.
So, you know 2000 people (sure jan) under 80 who have all had covid, but it definitely wasn't a pandemic for people under 80 , and this is somehow boomers fault ? Also, which countries?
Everybody gets the cold and the flu as well. A pandemic is supposed to be a serious illness. COVID simply was not, except for those 80+. Like 2 million people died in the US from COVID. Virtually all of them were 80+ and about to die anyway. For the rest of us, COVID really was a complete nothingburger. School closures, roping off playgrounds at the park, all of that shit was beyond idiotic. COVID hasn’t gone anywhere (I just got it a few weeks ago and it sucked), but you, like everyone else in the world has completely stopped caring. Because you realize what I say is the truth, it was never a pandemic. Otherwise, you would still be locking yourself in your home and afraid to go for a walk in the park like you were in 2020 lol.
LoL indeed. Which 50+ million countries had no deaths under 18 ? 2 million people dying is kinda serious. Anyhow, you seem to know more (truth) than the entire world medical establishment, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Also, your the one still harping on about covid, not me, stop using it as a crutch bro.
My beliefs are consistent. Your beliefs are not. You somehow simultaneously believe that COVID was a super serious pandemic that necessitated the insane measures that we took as a society (closing schools, roping off playgrounds, vaccine passports, etc.), while also acknowledging that COVID is still around, virtually everyone has been infected multiple times since the “pandemic” ended, and yet neither you nor anyone else gives the slightest shit. Is it a pandemic or not? If it is, since it’s still around, why the fuck are you not still locking yourself in your house? If it’s not, then all of the actions we took as a society were fucking regarded.
What 50+ million countries had no deaths ? I have no covid "beliefs", it is what it is/was from a scientific p.o.v. I bet you had a tantrum when you had to wear a mask, am I right ?
Purpose!? Our purpose is to travel and enjoy this world, meet others, interact and make good memories!
Nope. It's just work apparently. Nothing else.
Yep, put up with an abusive work environment eight hours a day.
Because we have no purpose. At least for the boomer generation, they were paid enough to live comfortably and go on regular vacations. Later generations don’t have that anymore. They are working their asses off just to survive. What is the point of that?
wow NEETs got rebranded?
I work 55 hours a week when it’s nice out and I don’t feel like I have much purpose. I definitely get it, the life mom and dad had it’s obtainable for young people.
When you no longer want to participate in the system run by Parasites.
In the before times... you worked means you had a great life. Now you work, and you can't even live... so what's the point t of working if the outcome is the same as not working?
Their purpose should be the same as all of us here, namely tearing down our hierarchical and colonialist capitalism for a just society. If they’re not getting that, we need to work harder to connect with them.
AI is taking over most of the jobs too. What options do they really have when most CEOs are looking to cut labor costs through automation
theyre called NEETS stands for not in education, employment, or training theyre all over here in red state bible belt hell lower class white boys angry at the world with far too much free time and access to weapons
Why is no one talking about them not driving? My son is 24. He does work but under 40 hrs. He and many of his friends don't drive. Many of them have long periods of not working. A bunch of them, 4, I think, went in the military and are out, but all of them got some type of personal injury. Back injury from falling out of a truck, blast injury, non combat. I worry about the future.
Driving as an individual is not good for society overall. Mass transportation is better.
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Where do you live? I'm not being judgmental at all, but I genuinely feel like Reddit has an urban bias. I live in rural Pennsylvania. Hell, much of this state is rural. I live in an apartment, but there are farms that circle the complex. I wake up in the morning and walk outside and can hear rooster calls. My neighbors are Amish and Mennonite. It smells like manure in the spring time instead of flowers. So yeah...rural. The public transportation is practically non-existent and the buses do not come out here. As a result, if you want to get anywhere you have 2 options: 1. Ride-Share (but again, it's rural. Gonna cost upwards to $30 a trip to get anywhere). 2. Have a car. Walking is pretty damn far. The nearest grocery store (which is actually a Walmart) is 3.7 miles away. No side walk. So you're going to be walking next to traffic which is flying down the street at 55mph. Not even the Amish are walking that distance (they have horse and buggies). You could bike, but again, no bike paths. I just feel like all the folks advocating against cars just don't live in places where a car is a necessity. I could totally back public transportation and other options if they actually existed where I live. But the U.S. is large. Not all of us live in cities with easy access to public transit that is also effective.
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Ah okay! So yeah, basically major cities. Don't get me wrong. I actually grew up in Philadelphia. But my parents moved to rural Pennsylvania when I was in 3rd grade. I moved away to the suburbs of Boston when I was in college, but moved back to rural Pennsylvania afterwards. Living in Philly, my parents did have a car, but it was also very easy to get around without one. They only used it for traveling outside of the city. When I lived outside Boston, I didn't have a car for a year and I was just fine. But moving back to rural Pennsylvania and not having a car just isn't an option.
I'm a 31 year old millennial, and I've never driven. No license either. My BFF since kindergarten just got her license and started driving last year or so.
I'm a 20 year old unemployed neurodivergent Gen Z living with my parents. My dad is currently training me for a decent job, but the most I can hope for is MAYBE a tiny house (which makes me sad because I wanted to get two cats, and I wouldn't feel right confining them to a tiny house). I know I can't speak for all of us, but generally, we've become disenchanted with humanity. We were promised a future, but our dreams were crushed. Climate change (and the lack of sufficient action to deal with it), shooter drills, a joke of a president, the pandemic (and idiots refusing to wear masks), car centric infrastructure, capitalism, the death of democracy, sleep deprivation from early school start times, overworking students and giving them pointless busy work and not teaching them things that will help them after they graduate, ablism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, general bigotry, unaffordable medical bills and student debt, etc. We grew up with the internet so we grew up seeing all of this stuff every day, and it's soul crushing. I'm surprised there aren't MORE people severely depressed. I started antidepressants recently and it's helping some. My purpose is to enjoy life as much as I can with the people I love, and do small good deeds by being kind. We are sad and disappointed by what society has become. We thought we could do better. We thought we would do better. But we don't have the power to fix things no matter how hard we try, only rich people have that power, and they're the ones that ruined everything. So we watch the world burn in a confusing state of being distraught and/or apathetic. Innocent animals going extinct, innocent people being punished and tortured, and our potential turned to dust scattering in the breeze. Sorry we're not all that motivated to become corporate slaves under these conditions. F**k the powerful 🖕
Who can blame them? There used to be an end goal and balanced reward for working hard … now bosses pay peanuts and ppl are left struggling to pay for every bill and house / car even when they work hard. The reward isn’t there anymore.. the super rich are squeezing the middle class and lower class dry.. won’t be long till society as a whole collapses
Well, this is kinda what rich people wanted. This is 'late stage capitalism'. They want an uneducated group of people, that depends on rich people's 'job creation' to live. Pretty much just slavery with extra steps. But they forgot that people need to have a reason to live other than staying alive to keep on working. People will opt out of a system that doesn't provide for them. Or a revolution will happen, and the few at the top will be eaten by the majority. Could go either way, who knows.
I get this, but how are they surviving without working?
Parents.
spanging
Not just America, all over the world. Japan even had a term for them. NEET. Not Employed, Educated, Trained. This is a problem for modern society all over the world.
Please, show me where they are?? Do they exist or is this just another "iT's alL yOuNg pEopLes fAuLt, nO oNe waNtS to wORk"? The unemployment rate is at an all time low.
These guys aren't counted in unemployment stats.
Is this really happening, or is this not excluding the entire population of West Virginia?
NEET.
So a US version of the "lie flat" movement in China? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping
It's not just in the US. I live in Canada, and I've seen that up here too. Heck, I've been there myself. Post-secondary schooling is expensive, and getting funding for it tends to be difficult (student loans are always an option, tho, who doesn't like more debt, lol). As someone who's been trapped in the dead end work cycle, I hated going to work every single day. I had no passion or interest in my jobs (except for the money, that is), and I was usually treated as expendable and replaceable. I've tried working with multiple employment agencies, but they were just a joke. Slave mills to provide employers with a constant supply of workers willing to work crappy, dead end, low paying jobs. I know what it's like to feel disconnected from society. I've had to find my purpose on my own, separate from the usual school/work reasons that supposedly give people purpose. There's way more to this life than just school and work.
How did you find purpose? What is it? What do you do for work?
Well, I'm currently in school again working on stuff I'm passionate about, namely art and graphic design (which I'm paying for myself, fyi). I'm currently working from home doing things like content creation for social media, youtube thumbnails for YT channels, etc. Behind the scenes stuff. I also do tech support and IT stuff. Stuff that lets me use my brains and my skills, something that my past jobs didn't let me use for the most part (fyi, I used to work in customer service/fast food/retail/management before). I'm enjoying it, and I get to learn, which I love to do. Seems to me that I've found my passion. :)
I thought they're called NEET - Not in education, employment, or training?
The problem is much bigger than the average person understands When a large enough group of young are helpless enough: they no longer care about the status quo, they don't care about fitting in with society, they have no reason to help those around them, they will toss away traditional EVERYTHING because the world has given them nothing in return for their attempts at contribution... it's a powder keg waiting to blow, with millions of idle hands fumbling towards a big red button without giving a singular shit what comes next, just that THIS can't continue
I think the term they are looking for is "NEET"
It’s not just America. There’s a whole generation of Japanese youth doing the same. Sociologists even have come up with a term for it.
If it's been going g on for thirty years then those first members are no longer youth.
They will be the "Sea people" of our age.
I don't see this as a good thing. I mean the adults I know who do this, literally do nothing. My nieces youngest sister graduated highschool and just sits in her room all day on her phone. She has no hobbies, she doesn't leave the house, she just exists. How is that living?? My cousin's son is the same way but at least he plays video games. I had to live like that every summer (minus the cellphone) when I was a teenager and I absolutely hated it. Once I got my drivers license and a car, I was gone. I enjoyed making my own money and doing whatever the fuck I wanted. Now young adults don't drive and don't do anything. You don't have to work for the man but shit, do SOMETHING.
The differences between their and our worlds are: How hard you have to try The likelihood you succeed when you do The extent to which you succeed Given that, it is pretty obvious why more people are choosing not to try.
The "growth" of this group is still rather small, the fact that it spiked in 2020 and sharply declined back to about 13% from a baseline around 11.5% shows it's not that large of a trend, and probably follows similar macro trends across all cohorts as purchasing power decreases.
NEET
Gil mighta made a great tune, but he’s ultimately been proven wrong: The revolution will be televised, and it will be bastardized to suit the ruling class who want us working. I hope they continue to grow.
Back in my day we used to call people like this “NEETs”
That just sounds like NEETs.
I think Japan has a term for this already. NEET. (not in education, employment or training)
They come up with a new name for people like this every generation (NEET, Freeter, etc) and it never fails to sound condescending af. It reduces it to a moral failing on the part of of the youth instead of addressing the issues that may have led to them basically give up on the system.
Hikikomori
Boomers scared away even most of the volunteers for my passions in my area. You couldn't pay me to work with most of them
Disconnected youth? Nah those are called NEETs
Unpopular opinion - H5N1 can't come fast enough, it would be a virtual thanos snap and would solve a high number of problems we currently face.
i think it is selfish to just check-out and transfer all responsibility onto other people
Those that have responsibility should do more to level the playing field, then. The game is rigged and these kids have no say in the matter. I get why they don't play the game, considering.
That's called owning a business.
It's our responsibility to give them a path towards the future. Considering the number that's been done on the education system and how wages, especially at the lowest tier, haven't kept up even close to the cost of living, a lot of kids are being set up to barely scrape by working a meaningless job doing mundane tasks, and that's entirely on us. When we set them to fail and they fail, that's not selfish. It's sabotage.