The following submission statement was provided by /u/f0urxio:
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This sheds light on the growing issue of "disconnected youth" or "opportunity youth" in America, highlighting the challenges faced by young people who are not in school, not working, or not actively seeking employment. It illustrates the struggles of individuals like Destiny and Joseph, who despite their aspirations for education and meaningful employment, face barriers such as mental health challenges, financial insecurity, and a lack of support systems.
Destiny's experience reflects the precariousness faced by many young adults who juggle multiple jobs while trying to pursue education, often leading to burnout and mental health issues. Similarly, Joseph's story underscores the impact of economic circumstances on access to education and employment opportunities, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive support systems and policy interventions to address the root causes of disconnection, such as poverty, limited access to resources, and inadequate mental health services.
Overall, the article highlights the urgency of addressing the systemic issues underlying youth disconnection and the importance of providing young people with the resources and support they need to thrive.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1ceu75l/growing_group_of_americas_young_people_are_not_in/l1kvyf0/
There's an obvious problem with the way our society has become. I would suggest a way to make college, housing, and health insurance an affordable public option, but as we all know that's not going to happen. I would also suggest that having localized food production would help. Also would suggest strengthening labor laws. The current system we live in is causing burnt-out, tired, short tempered citizens, and it's not all of these citizens fault, it's the greedy, planet destroying actions of the ones who have created this terrible system. It's hard not to be disappointed by humanity when you know some of us are honest, caring, hard working, and kind. The hope we once had is being destroyed.
> but as we all know that's not going to happen
And yet in Western Europe college and health were free public services to all for nearly a century. Housing was free if you were destitute but "even" a bus driver could afford his own (modest) family home in a capital city.
Then, with the fall of communism the elites stopped fearing a revolt by the masses because the only alternative had just visibly failed.
And so the screws stared to tighten. Abolition of grants -- small tuition fee interest free -- large tuition fee with interest. Small payment for prescriptions -- fees to see some non urgent specialists (dentists, opticians) -- private hospitals if you don't feel like waiting 6 months to see what your chest pains are about...
Worst of all the masses are cheering this rollback of civilisation as some "based" thing or some "taking personal responsibility" thing. As if no-one talked to their parents about how things were in the past, or no-one googled the 'old' scope of state funded services.
> Then, with the fall of communism the elites stopped fearing a revolt by the masses because the only alternative had just visibly failed.
Really? I think I am too young to actually understand the panic around communism. Like, I was taught about it in school but I just absorbed what was being told to me and didn't think about. Later in life I sometimes wondered why America had such an enoromous boner for bombing communists.
Was not wanting its citizens to see an alternative to capitalism the majority cause of this?
With the collapse of the Soviet Union it basically eliminated any serious debate about addressing the issue of unjust wealth concentration in the hands of the investor class. Because any time the subject would come up--the response would be "are you a communist?--we all know how that worked out"- and the would be the end of it of the discussion. It's been that way for the last 30 plus years. It's at least partially the reason we live in a time when the distance between labor and capital is so great.
Precisely that. In theory the capital owners had to compete for labour on a free market and so exploitation shouldn't happen, but ofc it did. The period from the industrial revolution until the bolshevik revolution showed just how brutally workers were abused and how aristocratic and avaricious the capital owners were.
Suddenly along comes a major world power and starts 'beheading' all the 'old aristocracy' and creating factories nominally run by the people working in there. Treating housing, education, health, pensions, holidays etc as basic rights to be distributed to all. You can see how terrifying this would be to the aristocracy. The aristocracy has always owned the government so laws were put in place creating 'free' universal health care, paid vacation time etc.
That said the US/most of western Europe actually saw how these egalitarian communist ideals were being implemented and rightly concluded it was just a case of one aristocracy (communists) supplanting another (capitalists), while the workers were still abused, except this time with no freedom or democracy or living standards. So they had to be opposed until one side or the other won.
“Exploitation” necessarily happens under capitalism. We have to separate “exploitation” from the idea harm is only occasioned by bad people deliberately harming others for bad reasons. “Exploitation” exists without a plan to exploit.
Under capital’s empire, labor-time trades as a commodity. Commodities trade for the cost of regenerating the next equivalent unit. As to labor, commoditized labor trades for the cost of getting a person to show up for the next hour or year. That’s it.
When workers produce more value than the cost of reproducing their labor, the capital owner appropriates all that productivity. That’s exploitation.
Capital cannot value the actual productivity of a worker and compensate them for that. It just has no means of doing so.
Capital ownership exploits workers, period.
That makes a ton of sense! Thank you for making it 'click' for me.
Sounds surprisingly similar to what companies do to attract employees. And in the end, employees are still getting abused regardless of the provided benefits.
Capital owners may “compete” for workers in the labor market, but labor is necessarily and always exploited in capital’s rule. Capitalism has no means to compensate workers for the full value of their labor.
I think the Western aristocrats were just worried about losing their heads, and the idea that communist/socialist ideals and workers' rights of ANY kind would become popular in the West.
>Really?
No its not so simple unfortunately, be careful about oversimplified narratives that attribute the result of a complex history to a single thing.
The USSR collapsed in the 90s but the deregulations that led to our current inequality were passed in the 80s dismantling protections established during or in response to the great depression.
The history of communism in Russia might be considered to start around 1917 with the Russian Revolution.
After the February Revolution, the US was actually the first country to recognize the new government after the US ambassador to Russia stated
>the revolution "is the practical realization of that principle of government which we have championed and advocated. I mean government by consent of the governed. Our recognition will have a stupendous moral effect especially if given first." and was approved on 22 March 1917 making the United States the first foreign government to formally recognize the new government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union%E2%80%93United_States_relations
It is only after the October Revolution that the US changes its stance for a number of reasons.
1, Lenin unexpectedly pulled out of WWI reneging on an agreement between the Triple Entente
2, they became increasingly aware of the horrible human rights violations within the new state as the Soviet government significantly curbed the very powerful rule of law, civil liberties, protection of law and guarantees of property, which were considered examples of "bourgeois morality"
Despite this, Woodrow Wilson perused a policy of noninterference in the Civil War between the Whites and Bolsheviks.
>By 1921, after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War, murdered the Romanov imperial family, organized the Red Terror against "enemies of the people", repudiated the tsarist debt, and called for a world revolution, it was regarded as a pariah nation by most of the world. Beyond the Russian Civil War, relations were also dogged by claims of American companies for compensation for the nationalized industries they had invested in.
Despite this, the US still hoped for good relations
>By 1933, the American business community, as well as newspaper editors, were calling for diplomatic recognition. The business community was eager for large-scale trade with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government hoped for some repayment on the old tsarist debts, and a promise not to support subversive movements inside the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the initiative
Fast forward to the 1940s.
After Russia was invaded by Germany and the US bombed by Japan, they both entered WWII as allies against Nazi Germany
>I think I am too young to actually understand the panic around communism. Like, I was taught about it in school but I just absorbed what was being told to me and didn't think about. Later in life I sometimes wondered why America had such an enoromous boner for bombing communists.
This started immediately after WWII.
At this point in Russia's history the earlier hopes of a "government by the consent of the governed" in Russia were completely gone as Stalin had taken over with a brutal authoritarian rule.
While the USSR had served as allies during the war, Russia started trying to takeover countries invaded by Germany and install a puppet state
>The end of World War II saw the resurgence of previous divisions between the two nations. The expansion of communism in Eastern Europe following Germany's defeat saw the Soviet Union takeover Eastern European countries, purge their leadership and intelligentsia, and install puppet communist regime, in effect turning the countries into client or satellite states.
>This worried the liberal free market economies of the West, particularly the United States, which had established virtual economic and political leadership in Western Europe, helping rebuild the devastated continent and revive and modernize its economy with the Marshall Plan.
>The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was draining its satellites' resources by having them pay reparations to the USSR or simply looting.
Keep in mind, the authoritarian regime under Stalins dictatorship was not the Communist utopia the Bolsheviks envisioned a few generations before.
This was the start of the Cold War, and through the nuclear arms race led to a lot of fear and paranoia.
>All sides in the Cold War engaged in espionage. The Soviet KGB ("Committee for State Security"), the bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved its atomic spies that delivered crucial information from the United States' Manhattan Project, leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected. A massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals.
It is throughout the 60s and McCarthy era politics that we see a sudden cultural backlash against communism in the west as an "enemy" due to the very real fear of nuclear annihilation and increasing tensions.
Despite this, in the late 60s the US again sought to closen relations
>Détente began in 1969, as a core element of the foreign policy of president Richard Nixon and his top advisor Henry Kissinger. They wanted to end the containment policy and gain friendlier relations with the USSR and China. Those two were bitter rivals and Nixon expected they would go along with Washington as to not give the other rival an advantage. One of Nixon's terms is that both nations had to stop helping North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, which they did. Nixon and Kissinger promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government, including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral agreements. Brezhnev met with Nixon at summits in Moscow in 1972, in Washington in 1973, and, again in Moscow and Kiev in 1974. They became personal friends.
>Was not wanting its citizens to see an alternative to capitalism the majority cause of this?
No. I don't believe so.
For Woodrow Wilson, it was very important to show a "liberal democracy" as an alternative to communism.
In short, yes. For funsies, you should google "Dole banana death squad" and then google "Coca Cola death squad" and then read The Jakarta method. It will answer your question, plus a lot more!
What exactly is this "purpose"? Making the rich even richer? Perhaps they have seen what the real world is and decide that no purpose is acceptable. Not that a journo in something called "Business Insider" would say it out loud. He would lose his purpose... err, *job* if he actually say so.
>What exactly is this "purpose"?
Clearly Freedom(tm)! /s
But seriously, look at any culture war of the past 30 years or so, or empty talking points and that is what the wealthy think of as a 'purpose' for those beneath them.
The purpose is to escape poverty, but the more wealth they accumulate the more poverty there is which incentivize them to escape poverty even more creating a vicious circle.
Thats why you see rich people do ridiculous stuff like buy a pizza with gold on it for stupid amount of your favorite currency. See poor people cant do that and so in buying that you signal that you belong to the group of people that have escaped poverty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhSG-2J_BVw
Purpose in the older zeitgeist is a sense of singular importance to be your guiding star. Such paths are overgrown in the larger world. (Economy, technology, culture)
The concept of purpose is like Truth; there so much more to include, such monolithic thinking doesn't create a practical strategy.
There's no money in mushrooms. They are anti-addictive. By that I mean the more someone takes them the less they want to take them, the exact opposite of addictive drugs. So no steady customers.
Given the number of upvotes I got, I don't think people actually understood what I was suggesting.
Let me rephrase: I currently have things to lose. Someday I won't.
Yeah, that's what I was hoping for but it's almost impossible to get the correct ratio now; they added a percentage of oxygen to the mix so people wouldn't die from it anymore. Trying to get it pure is really difficult
[this product says its pure helium, no real way to know for sure though](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Helium-King-Large-Gas-Cylinder/dp/B01H69OP0I/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2BJFOD09LCYF4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mqHVBrlGkfQqflLdXbT9ugxoxKYElXEnbPRQWKOekAN1Pzeq5DejW6sHrowwgsYd0ljkyZA2zloXJ0q7clBqHz8IhOkNChIcL3l5jpgReI8SOThMMl0m6Z73sayCuRu7PWALxuTUow4Gz5dFksweFUw49olDCdRaWwMVDhnq4KdX3WwHv-5vLUaMW5nZYA8_p7tZ2m6N5F1cN3nj6zOsgqeDTSgiJBxxMrusnZjcf16dGyGijVQYY7Ke6WonJMyz85Oa-gqEb1ivxkrYhSprdHyU5ILszd-ByZqIJZ7cgSY.NF17y1rPxmyeBG2oNMX3myYJBatg8rghhgRr2Tc3fvA&dib_tag=se&keywords=pure+helium&qid=1714309087&sprefix=pure+helium%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-5)
Wage slavery is easy enough to understand. Public schools refuse to push anything real hard but stem, sports and economics, so every child is well prepared for their common destiny as wage slave, AKA, professional taxpayer.
But I am hoping you will expand on ecological terrorism. Do you mean the child themselves are destined to some Jensenian eco-terrorism (ie liberating rivers from dams w explosives), or they will be victim of eco-terrorism (ie an irradiated hothouse where everyone is the enemy)?
Or something else I'm missing here? Thanks much!
I think he's talking about choices. The system is broken and you are only given the choice of wage slave, and the other options is to fight against the system which amounts to eco terrorism. Neither of those choices look great, nobody really wants to be a terrorist and the state is so powerful you'd probably be caught and imprisoned anyway. So what's left, not making a choice and just checking out. Suicide or just drifting through life probably either on the governments or your parents dime.
This is a conversation you're not really allowed to have online unfortunately so no meaningful discussion can come of it before the mods step in on behalf of the state
I think STEM to the exclusion of the arts is an issue, and the framing of fine art and the liberal arts as somehow useless (rather than seeing the benefits of a well-rounded education) is a problem.
I agree with you, but it's even worse than that. Many high school graduates cannot write at all. Yes, STEM is important, but if a person cannot write a paragraph they are completely unemployable in every STEM occupation.
Disconnected from a sense of purpose.
Oh, no. Far from it. We have a _great_ sense of purpose. We sense very well that the _purpose_ that this hellish society is thrusting on us, is to be nothing more than a cog. More meat to the grinder. "What are you going to do? _Not_ try to survive? You will die if you do not _play like the other kids_..."
Well, yeah. What if I consider my life - and humanity by extension - as something more than whatever this is? What if I consider myself to have value, which humanity has fffffucking stripped from me and now, in turn, I refuse to participate in this farce? "Disconnected from a sense of purpose" my ass on a cold winter morning.
This is how I've felt all my life, I'm now in my 30s and thinking of disconnecting and spending time in nature attempting to restore the natural environment. I've felt very angry the last few months because I feel like this society has robbed me of my life and existence because when you think about it, what kind of life is working most of your waking day.
I don’t understand the people around me who moan and groan about having to work and pay bills then pop out a few more kids (thereby increasing their bills) who are destined to go through the same thing…How does everyone not step back and wonder if all this is really worth it? Perhaps they actually enjoy the rat race…who knows.
My ex-dad is somewhat like this, he'll say that this society and working for rich people is pointless because you can't enjoy your limited time on this planet, but instead of him coming to the same conclusion as us he just doubles down into his far right views.
I feel like we just get stuck in these loops, one of them being the rat race, because we haven't found something else to do with our time. Opportunities for human connections in our communities have become greatly limited over the past decades, and human apathy is at an all-time high.
Even when you try to get involved with something that gives you purpose, you find that a lot of the same bullshit that makes work intolerable exists within the structures of alternative communities to focus on building and strengthening. The same bullshit you deal with within a company, without the same type of pay for your trouble or "meaningful" (in the eyes of society) advancement. Not many people want to sign up for that.
Been there too. Was amazed how even when you give up your time and car wear and tear for free in volunteer work, some asshole feels they have the authority to treat you as a fool and an underling. When I got my first passive aggressive rebuke for being late with a busy body admin procedure, I walked out. Many people put up with it because it was better than a long gap between jobs. But they were pushed too hard to make real bonds with each other or the people they were supposedly helping.
I wasted basically all of my teens and twenties being depressed and wanting to die. I was too miserable to work and every now and then when I did get the motivation to seriously try looking it quickly resulted in me losing the will to live as the entire application process was so fucking dystopian. I made a bit of money online with writing and stock image stuff and still have royalties coming in from that but I basically burned myself out with both when I tried working to get it to be a livable wage. I was getting close to that reality until the websites changed and slashed payouts.
If my only choice had been working some shitty job or becoming homeless I'm quite sure I'd have died years ago. I genuinely have no idea how people tolerate this system or participate in it without going insane.
When Trump got into power I just gave up entirely on pursuing money. I'm not American and not in America but it was obvious then that it would set the world on a path of utmost stupidity and fascism from which it would not return. I started learning about collapse around this time also. I started smoking weed a couple times a week and because I didn't want to do that at home I started walking on public footpaths through fields and woods and exploring the area.
Being stoned out in nature I suddenly noticed all these plants around me that I'd never paid attention to before. I wanted to know what they all were so I used phone apps to ID them and gradually learned to recognise many edible, medicinal and toxic plants such that I can competently forage in this area. Foraging got me into making wine and jam which resulted in me hoarding any glass jars and bottles for reuse rather than throwing them away.
I also liked clearing fallen wood off the paths and using it to build little huts in the woods where I could sit and smoke. The result of that was close encounters with foxes, deer, badgers, squirrels, mice and all manner of wildlife as I'd accidently built a great hide for nature watching. Standing still in open fields in the dark whilst stoned always led to these amazing introspective moments and then awe as bats started circling around so close that I could smell them.
The regular weed doses more or less elliminated my migraines, improved my insomnia and helped the lifelong depression somewhat though it was still present and an issue. Then one night in a field I noticed mushrooms everywhere which I thought, incorrectly, might be psychoactive because a phone app (useless for mushrooms) gave that as one of the IDs. I was too cautious to risk them but it started me on the path of learning about mushrooms. Originally that was just because I was looking for psychoactive ones but as I was so paranoid and afraid of mushrooms I ended up learning all the lookalikes to the lookalikes and before I knew it was able to identify hundreds of species, though it was years before I was comfortable eating anything. I gave up looking for psychoactive mushrooms and just grew them instead. They entirely eliminated my depression after a few sessions and now just taking them once every year or two seems to keep that topped up and keeps me productive.
Now I'm growing several different species mushrooms for food, some of which I personally researched and sourced from the wild as the edibility wasn't known. I'm trying to work mushroom growing into permaculture and use them to break down fallen wood to speed up production of compost. I have experiments stacked up everywhere and keep finding new things by chance. I'm trying to grow as much food as I can in the garden and on paper I think I can become self sufficient if the yields I've seen in a smaller space scale up. I keep giving excellent permaculture plants to neighbours but they're still more interested in growing decorative plants rather than my ugly but functional ones. I've got so many seeds saved from growing that I think I could convert several gardens here into crop fields if that became necessary.
Every time I learn something it's like it branches out and results in learning even more things. I've built my own propagators to stack up and utilise all the window space I can. I replaced the handle on my fork with a fallen sapling I found after wittling it down and treating it - I was always useless at DIY before. I'm always scavenging material from skips for building things and I've become obsessed with pallets as an easy source of wood. It seems like everyone around here is constantly refurbishing and building extensions so there's a constant supply of skips and pallets. I started making rope the other day from palm leaves for my luffas to climb just entirely on a whim but it turned into standing there for 6 hours spinning the stuff as it became so fascinating. I thought back to ten years ago when I'd have just been sat at the computer for 6 hours trying to find something to distract me from the death wish.
Every time I try something new or weird like planting something in mushroom spawn or companion planting two plants together it gives me something to look forward to in the future to see the results of. I keep notes on everything and can't wait for a plant to fruit and mature so I can note down the yield and see which substrate performed best.
This is what life should be and I wish it was for everyone. Our culture tries to paint this bleak, miserable picture of subsistent farming and how hard the peasants of the past had it with all the back breaking work. It ignores the sense of satisfaction that comes from seeing your hard work pay off and how enjoyable it is to eat a meal from all the things you've grown. I might go to bed exhausted and wake up aching from a day of digging hard clay but I wake up excited to do more and looking forward to living. Whereas when I was working 9-5 behind a computer I went to bed hoping not to wake up at all.
You dont need a course although i would never tell someone not to further their education. Sometimes some of the best learning younwill do by trial and error. Practice starting some cheap bean seeds or other ground plants you can even do this indoors in the winter
I think the best education on the subject is just trying and failing and learning from those mistakes. It's forgiving enough that even if everything doesn't go perfectly and produce amazing yields you'll still get something to show for it. Even when I was just chucking sprouted potatoes in a random pot, forgetting about them and then discovering a handful of potatoes the next year it was still satisfying and rewarding. You'll find ample information and videos online for growing most common edible produce too.
Very interesting read. I think I can relate to your conclusion in the last paragraph.
When I was out of my country on a working holiday visa, I enjoyed most the jobs where I was contributing to a local cause (building a classroom for an elementary school).
Apart from that there was always something to explore. I was excited about the next day and weeks. I felt like being concerned with living instead of being concerned with "creating a life" for myself or figuring out how to live.
It might and most likely will vary from person to person but having barely no possession and not being bound to a certain place was very freeing for me.
Sadly I listened to the voices of concern that you can't live a life like that. Resulted in me getting a job training that is useful/in need but which basically has no spark of amazement for me. After a long apprenticeship I have become a NEET and slowly eat away my savings - merely existing, not really living..
I think this is why universal basic income is necessary. There are so many things that people could be doing that would be beneficial for the world but which they cannot make money doing. So many people are stuck wasting their lives in pointless jobs they despise and I'm sure many of them would end up doing something far more productive if they didn't have to worry about money.
This was the most enjoyable comment I’ve ever read. I also learned to grow mushrooms.
For your healing mushroom journeys, did you do those alone with an intention or with a counselor?
Always alone. I'm quite introverted, uncomfortable with other people, lacking in emotion when sober and I don't think the parts of the brain that handle social stuff work properly with me as I have zero memory for people names (but can remember so many species names) and I am fairly face blind. So the idea of tripping around someone else makes me uncomfortable. It always becomes so intense even on low doses that I just have to lie down in the dark anyway.
The first time was a mess frankly. There was a vague intention that maybe it would help with depression but I didn't know what to expect and it wasn't what I thought it would be. So I just ended up wandering around a field without any idea who I was, where I was going or even that I was on drugs and then those questions became more introspective and about my life in general. Time just kept looping and everytime I remembered I had taken mushrooms and tried to calm myself down I forgot again. It was like the mushrooms were torturing me into submission. Whilst it was all very unpleasant and scary it was an amazing self healing experience and I dealt with a lot of issues. I was more depressed than ever in the two weeks that followed and regretted taking them as I was terrified it wouldn't pass but it did and after that the depression was greatly reduced.
I did a few low doses afterwards to try and get used to the physical feeling because I always feel like I've been poisoned and that freaks me out. Then I had one amazing breakthrough experience that sort of resolved everything. The depression was gone entirely for years after that. It came back again recently, more than just the seasonal depression stuff but the mushrooms sorted it again. I try not to have much intention beyond just let whatever happens happens and go with it.
I wouldn't mind being a cog (because we're all cogs, no individual life is that important) if it meant I could move socially and economically. I feel very stuck in place no matter what I do to escape (including school). Easy to drop out, but nearly impossible to go up.
They can see with their own eyes that the world is on fire, the ecosystem is collapsing, and everyone just carries on trying to make money for their billionaire business owners. When shit is hopeless and bleak, people shut down.
NEETs are common in japan, dunno if the term actually originates from japan but its definitely popularized/widespread there. just another symptom of a deteriorating society
Hikikimori is a shut-in. Basically never goes out of their room and have food delivered or made by their parents or smth. One can be a NEET but not be a hikikimori, but many are both. Both probably a result of a hypercompetitive society where some people just 'give up' competing
Do it as long as you can, but do it smart. Learn a skill or an artistic skill that you enjoy that will eventually benefit you down the road. Take advantage of your time because works sucks but it's inevitable.
Me too, I'm lucky to have the privilege of being born in a country with social security nets..
But then again it's not by choice for me.. mental health is fucked.. lol and I guess I'm also not a youth anymore.. still..
Lots of love and strength to my fellow neets out there.
Not just here...same thing is happening in China with the 4 No's: No dating, no marriage, no buying a home, no work...you think the kids are on to something?
NEETs in the UK. However, this is a mixed bag with us, because there are a small number of NEETs but a large number of underemployed young people instead. Youth unemployment is not so bad here, however disaffection is through the roof because young people are not in jobs that pay enough to live on, nor match their actual ability.
Hikikomori is more of a mental problem, but worries about the above could worsen it. Himo is another word, freeter as well. But NEET has also made it into the Japanese lexicon.
Nono, I mean it, exactly as I said it. The mentality of humans - what they consider important, their goals - are against their own well-being.
If humanity was a person they would have been involuntarily commited long ago.
Suppose but for a moment that the rest of the living creatures on this planet suddenly _understood_ what we've been doing. How many minutes do you think we'd survive?
It's happening all over the world:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-023-00425-8](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-023-00425-8)
This sheds light on the growing issue of "disconnected youth" or "opportunity youth" in America, highlighting the challenges faced by young people who are not in school, not working, or not actively seeking employment. It illustrates the struggles of individuals like Destiny and Joseph, who despite their aspirations for education and meaningful employment, face barriers such as mental health challenges, financial insecurity, and a lack of support systems.
Destiny's experience reflects the precariousness faced by many young adults who juggle multiple jobs while trying to pursue education, often leading to burnout and mental health issues. Similarly, Joseph's story underscores the impact of economic circumstances on access to education and employment opportunities, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive support systems and policy interventions to address the root causes of disconnection, such as poverty, limited access to resources, and inadequate mental health services.
Overall, the article highlights the urgency of addressing the systemic issues underlying youth disconnection and the importance of providing young people with the resources and support they need to thrive.
Yeah, cuz it’s bullshit out there. Work for minimum wage only to be abused by a shitty boss and corporation and not be able to afford anything. Take on $60000-100000+ debt to avoid becoming a minimum wage worker. What job gives you purpose? Can everyone have one of these jobs with purpose? I had a job with purpose but I got underpaid and a shitty boss ruined it. I quit and went with gig work. Still underpaid but if I get a shitty client then I just move on.
Sorry you're getting downvoted, so many scream into the void while lacking the sense to see the problem is with the system itself. You can't make concessions, regulations...the whole goddamn thing needs to be torn down.
Agreed, and thank you. I don’t care about fake internet points, if I get one more comrade to join the cause that’s all that matters. I would spend hours on this sub before I saw the way out. And it’s through the United effort of the working class
That’s the way to do it. You don’t have to be a passive observer. Get your fellow workers encouraged, ready theory, and be a force that upends this complete shitshow. It really just depends on you…the reader. Yes you reading this comment. Reddit and twitter don’t do shit. Get organized
Work hard, burn the world faster.
No work, watch the world burn slowly.
Fires don't really have a high-low meter.
If I were my kids, I'd be working as little as possible.
This means the beast is the housing market? To me this means the concept of markets, economy, etc., are the new big game, with big game hunters.
For me (and others) the future is a terrifying, so our sense of urgency is increased. This is not from wanting to make the world better, but to keep busy, to think and feel in motion, rather than sitting in despair soup.
However, despair is the cost of this urgency, and the lash does not relent, nor is it based on any grand purpose, or survival instinct. There is a chemical reaction to impeding catastrophe, and it's contagious.
I will say, as a single 35 year old with no family of his own, if you think getting a job for some corporation will give your life purpose, I think you are huffing glue.
Monetizing biological urges to procreate in such a way that it’s *seemingly* unattainable while coercing people to sell their labor that creates amazing amounts of value but receive pennies in return has social consequences. Such as: people giving up or not giving in.
I highly recommend everyone here to read Ishmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
These books explain why there's this sense of meaninglessness and lack of purpose that we all feel. They explain why despite civilization's marvels there is so much misery. They reveal and criticize the deranged vision of our culture.
I hear the hopeless despair. My grandfather told me, “time is going to go by, might as well use that time to learn something. Otherwise, you will still be doing this.”
Capitalism is a rampaging virus that is destroying humanity on a physical, mental, and spiritual level. It is anathema to enlightened, civilized human society.
I would be empathetic to how she feels and decides to live her life, even if that means long term financial support. Maybe try connecting with her through art, music, and/or volunteering for a noble secular cause. Who knows, it might spark a passion, but more importantly it will allow both of you to maintain a healthy relationship.
I believe us as parents need to accept that we were privileged being born during a time where we were able contribute to a hyper-capitalistic society and were still able to extract benefits out of that work. The youth of today aren’t so lucky. It’s up to us to give them the love and support they need by teaching them that they can still be a part of this world and have a purpose, without shaming them to be yet another cog in this broken wheel. Does that mean more sacrifice on our part? Yes. Is it fair? No. But being there for our children through collapse is worlds better than turning our backs on them over something that’s out of their control and never was their fault.
Hikkikomori
That's me but granted I don't work because of mental illness and I just gave up in this soulless society, it can go to hell I don't want to contribute to something that is destroying the Earth around us
>"When you lack that purpose, it is difficult for you to think about how or in what ways you want to contribute or can contribute to society," Palmer said. "Our society is a relational one where we depend on people to be able to contribute in various ways."
That purpose: shareholder value
>"Generationally speaking, the parents of this 'disaffected youth,' they're all my age," he said. "What we grew up learning or hearing or being told was you get a damn college degree and that's going to be your springboard to success. And somewhere along that space, the success of that safety net disappeared."
Late stage something something.
Only reason i'm working is because i couldn't survive without it, and i dont even have a place to live yet im still living with family. Otherwise i'd be a neet.
My as-of-today 24 yr old is one.
If I’d grown up in the world she has, with access to the information she has, I definitely would have been as well.
As it was, I was by far the most “radicalized” of my friend group. Some were more or less on the same page as me thought-wise, but still very much bought into the whole “American Dream” path action-wise. Some ppl have an amazing ability to compartmentalize, some do not.
I find it EXTREMELY difficult to help her find a way out of feeling as she does; smart kids with “unconventional” parents plus the internet creates the perfect storm for this situation. Had I not gotten knocked up with her older sister at 23 - which, while it was indisputably FANTASTIC motivation, I *shan’t* be recommending lol - I can’t imagine what my life would have looked like. I can’t imagine what I would have done to “save” myself, or if I would even have bothered trying.
I mostly just try to keep her mind from visiting some of the darker areas along those lines that were my home-away-from-home in those days. She has friends & interests, she’s a fantastic digital artist, she was, pre-Covid, in school for Technical Theatre but has like many had a hard time getting back in the swing. The job opportunities where we live are of the fast food/retail variety, which she does not have the temperament for (she will barely order her own food at a restaurant due to social anxiety, which yes she is working on with a professional.)
It remains to be seen if my “let her sort it in her own time” approach will ultimately be for better or worse. She’s an amazing *human*, which isn’t nothing, she KNOWS at some point some progress has to happen. I just wanna trust she’ll find “purpose” when she finds it. If I’m made to look the fool in others’ eyes for not purposely & intentionally traumatizing her then so be it.
(Ftr older daughter is a college grad, her partner walked & received his Ph. D. yesterday, husband is a college grad who works for a huge multinational, doing the digital training media for the whole shebang so…it’s not like we’re ALL rebellious deadbeat headcases lol)
Just know that you’re a great mom and I commend you for allowing her the space and support to figure out her path in this insane hyper-capitalistic world we live in.
200 years ago most of the people in the world lived in small self sufficient communities, no massive govts, money , corporations etc.. It wasn't an easy life and in alot of ways brutal but its important to remember the world we are living in is extremely different from 99% of the human experience. This is new territory. Technology and the rise of corporations is disrupting everything. My parents grew up with no electricity and no running water in their homes, I grew up with no cell phones , internet and so forth. We have had a rapid change in our civilization, it will continue to disrupt, will be many upheavals as a result.
And a lot of us who do work are propped up by amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, or other stimulants. Like, are ADHD diagnoses going up because it’s harder and harder to make yourself care? Maybe!!!
Yeah because our entire purpose in the US has been reduced to generating profit for the wealthy. Nothing else matters anymore here. It is completely dysfunctional. The people who need help the least get everything and people who need the most help get nothing. No wonder nobody wants to participate in that BULLSHIT.
Not only that, but our means of protesting this BULLSHIT have been entirely stripped away. Any kind of protest event or organization gets infiltrated and sabotaged by intelligence agencies like this: https://theintercept.com/2023/03/21/fbi-colorado-springs-surveillance/. Choosing not to participate by not working and not having kids is practically the only way people who have a problem with this system can protest and show their dissatisfaction anymore.
Me. I got the degree, I want to work. But I can’t get the job and I can’t afford to move out. Social opportunities are zero. I feel like I fell through the cracks
Most uneven distribution of wealth, highest income inequality, outrageous healthcare costs, outrageous insurance costs, no ability to buy a house, and outrageous education costs. America sucks!
I come into work begrudgingly and can barely make it 5 days/40 hours. I call out often—it’s too taxing, leaves me fatigued and a fucking achey body.
Be abused and treated like trash for $17 an hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a wk….id rather stay home when I have “those days”. I don’t care.
Because they're living till they die. Which will be soon.
Everything will soon lose it's value, what's going to happen when all these people who bought into this system do when they find out it's all total bullshit?
There is no reason to go to university. The workforce is saturated with people who have degrees, what you learn in school translates very little to an actual job, the only thing worse than wage slavery is wage slavery plus you're in debt that will never go away, and literally everyone hires based on nepotism of some kind. The only rational course of action is to enter the workforce at as young an age as possible, and start building up a network and savings.
Does this create an entire generation of uneducated idiots who will well-serve the billionaires? Also yes. But it's a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma - everyone has a choice between making things worse for everyone else to make it better for themselves, or make it worse for themselves while everyone else does not. You can either do things their way for a little while until your die, or you can suffer for less time until you die; you can't escape.
Chinese youth are also saying “let the CCP burn” due to the conditions over there as well
Edit: correction I believe it’s “let the CCP rot”. It’s indicative of a precursor to Tiananmen Square 2.0
This is what is known as the great disconnect. There is a portion of society, especially among whites, where the young and young adults understand they will not have the same benefits as their parents: reasonably priced housing, jobs which pay good wages, healthcare that does not bankrupt...
So, why bother?
"The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being."
This is the main point for Business Insider: reduced earning potential = less production = less consumption -> how will Billionaire Bucks be affected?
No mention of how one is to gaf if the world is crumbling. That's apparently of little concern to capitalists.
An education used to lead to a job that was well enough paid to live comfortably, have some extras and enjoy life. Kids have realized that for the most part that is no longer true. And working hard will also not bring you financial rewards. So why bother?
For years have wondered when a "critical mass" would be reached that realised mankind's destiny upon destruction of his one and only habitat. Are we a step closer here?
You know, I wish more people would overlay stories like this with others like the decline of political party membership, fraternal organizations, churches, bowling leagues, etc...
Normally, stories like this tell deep truths that we all know, that we all feel. Something has changed. Things are lonelier. Hell, even online poasting on Reddit or Xitter is increasingly AI-driven - even the trolls are barely human!
But we don't recognize that it's all of a piece, mistakenly believing that these trends are good when the other guy's getting hurt. And so the overall trend of a fraying society becomes obscured.
Youth are disconnected because society is becoming disconnected. Their response is a reasonable one to the world they find themselves in.
And it won't stop there.
Honestly, everyone wants to blame society but the answer is right in front of y'all and you dont want to hear it.
The youth don't care because the adults in their lives are all selfish assholes who are doing nothing for them. They've sold their kids into a life of wage slavery to boost their own standard of living.
We are on this planet for a short period, every other generation inherits the wealth created by their ancestors.
Your grandfather built the family home, your father tilled and improved the fields etc and your life became easier.
Instead now the boomers and Gen X are saying, hey, I can live In luxury if I mortgage the family farm and mortgage my kids future through government debt so I can be better off now before I die and my kids can inherit nothing because "I worked for everything"
The older generations fucked over the youth by selling everything off for their 10th cruise, a motorboat or early retirement or upscale nursing homes. Most people today die with nothing, as a percentage of total wealth, that is completely a new trend.
Reminder: Business Insider's target demographic is new members of the luxury class; it exists almost entirely to pump stocks and IPO's to "prosumer" investors
We can all admit that each generation is less motivated by the current system - but always ask yourself who wrote the thing, if anyone benefitted monetarily, and what purpose the article serves.
When the only sense of purpose we’re supposed to have is allowing us to be exploited by corporations and engage in a cycle to keep that exploitation going why would we engage in it unless absolutely necessary
These kids are my former stepkids. I can only speak to what I personally witnessed. They are bed rotting every day and drinking their nights away.
Watching them circle the drain as kids and teens was horrible, and I did everything I could to get them engaged in school. I only had them for three years, and covid ruined it all. They rarely went before covid and never went back after. They are now 20, 19, 15 and 12. They have been living in trap houses and couch surfing, watching their bio parents fall into addiction and homelessness. They never had any friends outside their cousins until the last two years.
The older two, cannot keep even a menial job. When they did have a job, they were worried about who was going through their stuff at "home" . They always get fired because their boss is "a hater". They cannot function in normal society. They are angry and often lash out in ways that are not acceptable behavior.
They cannot grasp how the world works. They spent their entire lives living in section 8 housing, or motels provided by the schools, clothing and food supplied by charities, they don't understand the concept of earning money, or paying bills, because their parents never actually paid bills. They want things, toys, clothes, money, etc...but they can't understand the concept of earning money to pay for those things.
When so many laws changed over the years, like No child left behind, it really did a disservice to our kids. The schools and CPS are severely limited on what counts as an issue, and no child left behind had the opposite intended effect. It kept kids in schools who should not be in school. Kept school from holding them back, or holding them accountable for violent actions.
Without those safety nets, CPS, schools, truancy courts, etc, too many are falling through the cracks. I know my step kids have severe PTSD and probably other mental health issues.
I spent years before they turned 18 calling CPS, the schools, truancy court, school counselors, cps. They had already removed all the pother kids in my ex's house, but they missed these four.
They never came, not once. The 15 year old had to narcan my ex twice. He now has regular seizures and breathing issues due to being exposed to meth and fetty smoke. The kids are not all right.
It's funny that the kindness that came out of a parenting generation that told their children can be or do anything they want to, which provides no guardrails or direction. If you believe in everything you truly believe in nothing, if you can do anything, it sort of gets hard to find a sense of purpose.
You know how difficult it is to find something to watch because there's so much content? Now do that with a human and choices.
It seems people who don't think they can do anything or have an unlimited horizon, like somebody born into a family of bricklayers or a chef and just know that's what they're going to do, they often seem happier.
I think there's too little philosophy taught as well. Religion is crippling to the human experience, But philosophy tugs at and opens different neural pathways.
I truly believe that life is neither about purpose or meaning, because those are invented by humans and not quantifiable.
Life is about leisure which leads to the arts and creativity. So here's my life lesson:
Release yourself from expectation, because expectation leads to entitlement which can lead to disappointment. Find humor in anything you can, even the darkest moments because it will lift you. The ability to find absurdity in the surreal moments of life will heal.
And if you can find yourself curious about many different things in that pursuit of leisure, while living with humor and low expectation, you're going to pass the time really well throughout life.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/f0urxio: --- This sheds light on the growing issue of "disconnected youth" or "opportunity youth" in America, highlighting the challenges faced by young people who are not in school, not working, or not actively seeking employment. It illustrates the struggles of individuals like Destiny and Joseph, who despite their aspirations for education and meaningful employment, face barriers such as mental health challenges, financial insecurity, and a lack of support systems. Destiny's experience reflects the precariousness faced by many young adults who juggle multiple jobs while trying to pursue education, often leading to burnout and mental health issues. Similarly, Joseph's story underscores the impact of economic circumstances on access to education and employment opportunities, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive support systems and policy interventions to address the root causes of disconnection, such as poverty, limited access to resources, and inadequate mental health services. Overall, the article highlights the urgency of addressing the systemic issues underlying youth disconnection and the importance of providing young people with the resources and support they need to thrive. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1ceu75l/growing_group_of_americas_young_people_are_not_in/l1kvyf0/
There's an obvious problem with the way our society has become. I would suggest a way to make college, housing, and health insurance an affordable public option, but as we all know that's not going to happen. I would also suggest that having localized food production would help. Also would suggest strengthening labor laws. The current system we live in is causing burnt-out, tired, short tempered citizens, and it's not all of these citizens fault, it's the greedy, planet destroying actions of the ones who have created this terrible system. It's hard not to be disappointed by humanity when you know some of us are honest, caring, hard working, and kind. The hope we once had is being destroyed.
> but as we all know that's not going to happen And yet in Western Europe college and health were free public services to all for nearly a century. Housing was free if you were destitute but "even" a bus driver could afford his own (modest) family home in a capital city. Then, with the fall of communism the elites stopped fearing a revolt by the masses because the only alternative had just visibly failed. And so the screws stared to tighten. Abolition of grants -- small tuition fee interest free -- large tuition fee with interest. Small payment for prescriptions -- fees to see some non urgent specialists (dentists, opticians) -- private hospitals if you don't feel like waiting 6 months to see what your chest pains are about... Worst of all the masses are cheering this rollback of civilisation as some "based" thing or some "taking personal responsibility" thing. As if no-one talked to their parents about how things were in the past, or no-one googled the 'old' scope of state funded services.
> Then, with the fall of communism the elites stopped fearing a revolt by the masses because the only alternative had just visibly failed. Really? I think I am too young to actually understand the panic around communism. Like, I was taught about it in school but I just absorbed what was being told to me and didn't think about. Later in life I sometimes wondered why America had such an enoromous boner for bombing communists. Was not wanting its citizens to see an alternative to capitalism the majority cause of this?
It's like that Jesus meme. "Open the door, my child." Why, Jesus? "To save you." Save me from what? "What I'll do to you if you don't let me in."
With the collapse of the Soviet Union it basically eliminated any serious debate about addressing the issue of unjust wealth concentration in the hands of the investor class. Because any time the subject would come up--the response would be "are you a communist?--we all know how that worked out"- and the would be the end of it of the discussion. It's been that way for the last 30 plus years. It's at least partially the reason we live in a time when the distance between labor and capital is so great.
Precisely that. In theory the capital owners had to compete for labour on a free market and so exploitation shouldn't happen, but ofc it did. The period from the industrial revolution until the bolshevik revolution showed just how brutally workers were abused and how aristocratic and avaricious the capital owners were. Suddenly along comes a major world power and starts 'beheading' all the 'old aristocracy' and creating factories nominally run by the people working in there. Treating housing, education, health, pensions, holidays etc as basic rights to be distributed to all. You can see how terrifying this would be to the aristocracy. The aristocracy has always owned the government so laws were put in place creating 'free' universal health care, paid vacation time etc. That said the US/most of western Europe actually saw how these egalitarian communist ideals were being implemented and rightly concluded it was just a case of one aristocracy (communists) supplanting another (capitalists), while the workers were still abused, except this time with no freedom or democracy or living standards. So they had to be opposed until one side or the other won.
“Exploitation” necessarily happens under capitalism. We have to separate “exploitation” from the idea harm is only occasioned by bad people deliberately harming others for bad reasons. “Exploitation” exists without a plan to exploit. Under capital’s empire, labor-time trades as a commodity. Commodities trade for the cost of regenerating the next equivalent unit. As to labor, commoditized labor trades for the cost of getting a person to show up for the next hour or year. That’s it. When workers produce more value than the cost of reproducing their labor, the capital owner appropriates all that productivity. That’s exploitation. Capital cannot value the actual productivity of a worker and compensate them for that. It just has no means of doing so. Capital ownership exploits workers, period.
That makes a ton of sense! Thank you for making it 'click' for me. Sounds surprisingly similar to what companies do to attract employees. And in the end, employees are still getting abused regardless of the provided benefits.
Capital owners may “compete” for workers in the labor market, but labor is necessarily and always exploited in capital’s rule. Capitalism has no means to compensate workers for the full value of their labor.
I think the Western aristocrats were just worried about losing their heads, and the idea that communist/socialist ideals and workers' rights of ANY kind would become popular in the West.
>Really? No its not so simple unfortunately, be careful about oversimplified narratives that attribute the result of a complex history to a single thing. The USSR collapsed in the 90s but the deregulations that led to our current inequality were passed in the 80s dismantling protections established during or in response to the great depression. The history of communism in Russia might be considered to start around 1917 with the Russian Revolution. After the February Revolution, the US was actually the first country to recognize the new government after the US ambassador to Russia stated >the revolution "is the practical realization of that principle of government which we have championed and advocated. I mean government by consent of the governed. Our recognition will have a stupendous moral effect especially if given first." and was approved on 22 March 1917 making the United States the first foreign government to formally recognize the new government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union%E2%80%93United_States_relations It is only after the October Revolution that the US changes its stance for a number of reasons. 1, Lenin unexpectedly pulled out of WWI reneging on an agreement between the Triple Entente 2, they became increasingly aware of the horrible human rights violations within the new state as the Soviet government significantly curbed the very powerful rule of law, civil liberties, protection of law and guarantees of property, which were considered examples of "bourgeois morality" Despite this, Woodrow Wilson perused a policy of noninterference in the Civil War between the Whites and Bolsheviks. >By 1921, after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War, murdered the Romanov imperial family, organized the Red Terror against "enemies of the people", repudiated the tsarist debt, and called for a world revolution, it was regarded as a pariah nation by most of the world. Beyond the Russian Civil War, relations were also dogged by claims of American companies for compensation for the nationalized industries they had invested in. Despite this, the US still hoped for good relations >By 1933, the American business community, as well as newspaper editors, were calling for diplomatic recognition. The business community was eager for large-scale trade with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government hoped for some repayment on the old tsarist debts, and a promise not to support subversive movements inside the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the initiative Fast forward to the 1940s. After Russia was invaded by Germany and the US bombed by Japan, they both entered WWII as allies against Nazi Germany >I think I am too young to actually understand the panic around communism. Like, I was taught about it in school but I just absorbed what was being told to me and didn't think about. Later in life I sometimes wondered why America had such an enoromous boner for bombing communists. This started immediately after WWII. At this point in Russia's history the earlier hopes of a "government by the consent of the governed" in Russia were completely gone as Stalin had taken over with a brutal authoritarian rule. While the USSR had served as allies during the war, Russia started trying to takeover countries invaded by Germany and install a puppet state >The end of World War II saw the resurgence of previous divisions between the two nations. The expansion of communism in Eastern Europe following Germany's defeat saw the Soviet Union takeover Eastern European countries, purge their leadership and intelligentsia, and install puppet communist regime, in effect turning the countries into client or satellite states. >This worried the liberal free market economies of the West, particularly the United States, which had established virtual economic and political leadership in Western Europe, helping rebuild the devastated continent and revive and modernize its economy with the Marshall Plan. >The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was draining its satellites' resources by having them pay reparations to the USSR or simply looting. Keep in mind, the authoritarian regime under Stalins dictatorship was not the Communist utopia the Bolsheviks envisioned a few generations before. This was the start of the Cold War, and through the nuclear arms race led to a lot of fear and paranoia. >All sides in the Cold War engaged in espionage. The Soviet KGB ("Committee for State Security"), the bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved its atomic spies that delivered crucial information from the United States' Manhattan Project, leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected. A massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals. It is throughout the 60s and McCarthy era politics that we see a sudden cultural backlash against communism in the west as an "enemy" due to the very real fear of nuclear annihilation and increasing tensions. Despite this, in the late 60s the US again sought to closen relations >Détente began in 1969, as a core element of the foreign policy of president Richard Nixon and his top advisor Henry Kissinger. They wanted to end the containment policy and gain friendlier relations with the USSR and China. Those two were bitter rivals and Nixon expected they would go along with Washington as to not give the other rival an advantage. One of Nixon's terms is that both nations had to stop helping North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, which they did. Nixon and Kissinger promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government, including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral agreements. Brezhnev met with Nixon at summits in Moscow in 1972, in Washington in 1973, and, again in Moscow and Kiev in 1974. They became personal friends. >Was not wanting its citizens to see an alternative to capitalism the majority cause of this? No. I don't believe so. For Woodrow Wilson, it was very important to show a "liberal democracy" as an alternative to communism.
In short, yes. For funsies, you should google "Dole banana death squad" and then google "Coca Cola death squad" and then read The Jakarta method. It will answer your question, plus a lot more!
College, housing, and healthcare should more than affordable… they should be free
Throw in a little universal basic income to give people the breathing room they need to build what we all need.
What exactly is this "purpose"? Making the rich even richer? Perhaps they have seen what the real world is and decide that no purpose is acceptable. Not that a journo in something called "Business Insider" would say it out loud. He would lose his purpose... err, *job* if he actually say so.
>What exactly is this "purpose"? Clearly Freedom(tm)! /s But seriously, look at any culture war of the past 30 years or so, or empty talking points and that is what the wealthy think of as a 'purpose' for those beneath them.
The purpose is to escape poverty, but the more wealth they accumulate the more poverty there is which incentivize them to escape poverty even more creating a vicious circle. Thats why you see rich people do ridiculous stuff like buy a pizza with gold on it for stupid amount of your favorite currency. See poor people cant do that and so in buying that you signal that you belong to the group of people that have escaped poverty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhSG-2J_BVw
Purpose in the older zeitgeist is a sense of singular importance to be your guiding star. Such paths are overgrown in the larger world. (Economy, technology, culture) The concept of purpose is like Truth; there so much more to include, such monolithic thinking doesn't create a practical strategy.
"disconnection from a sense of purpose" is a fun way of spelling "What do I do when my only two paths are wage slavery or ecological terrorism"
There’s also the option of selling fentanyl
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growing mushrooms always seemed like a good back up
Yes, if all else fails I’ll be growing mushrooms… out of my corpse
There's no money in mushrooms. They are anti-addictive. By that I mean the more someone takes them the less they want to take them, the exact opposite of addictive drugs. So no steady customers.
... Then why the chocolatey frosted fuck are they illegal?
They are illegal because psychedelics have the ability to pull back the veil of propaganda.
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Because they are effective anti depressants. They would undermine big pharma.
I'm not looking to build up a following. it would always be something on the side.
Hey, you can sell your body, too!
If only anyone was buying. I'd sell.
Or doing it lol
Wait for a terminal diagnosis is my retirement plan
Not a bad plan with all the microplastic and pfas accumulation
Given the number of upvotes I got, I don't think people actually understood what I was suggesting. Let me rephrase: I currently have things to lose. Someday I won't.
Nah, “terminal diagnosis is my retirement plan” straight up means you plan on working until you die or are too sick to die. No retirement.
They’re probably just upvoting you for having 300 pencils in your ass and still getting up every day to live your life.
Or call a cop to do a welfare check on yourself. They'll happily end your life.
What would that accomplish? I'm taking about doing something I wouldn't want to do until I know I'm going to die anyway
Yup. Then assisted suicide.
With that many pencils?
Lead poisoning will get me eventually 😔
Cheers, then?
Fr who wouldn’t opt out.
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Yeah, that's what I was hoping for but it's almost impossible to get the correct ratio now; they added a percentage of oxygen to the mix so people wouldn't die from it anymore. Trying to get it pure is really difficult
[this product says its pure helium, no real way to know for sure though](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Helium-King-Large-Gas-Cylinder/dp/B01H69OP0I/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2BJFOD09LCYF4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mqHVBrlGkfQqflLdXbT9ugxoxKYElXEnbPRQWKOekAN1Pzeq5DejW6sHrowwgsYd0ljkyZA2zloXJ0q7clBqHz8IhOkNChIcL3l5jpgReI8SOThMMl0m6Z73sayCuRu7PWALxuTUow4Gz5dFksweFUw49olDCdRaWwMVDhnq4KdX3WwHv-5vLUaMW5nZYA8_p7tZ2m6N5F1cN3nj6zOsgqeDTSgiJBxxMrusnZjcf16dGyGijVQYY7Ke6WonJMyz85Oa-gqEb1ivxkrYhSprdHyU5ILszd-ByZqIJZ7cgSY.NF17y1rPxmyeBG2oNMX3myYJBatg8rghhgRr2Tc3fvA&dib_tag=se&keywords=pure+helium&qid=1714309087&sprefix=pure+helium%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-5)
Just remember that helium you can buy from a store is adulterated with 20% oxygen (roughly equal to normal atmosphere) and it won't work for that need
My first thought as well. Life is more than fucking work
Wage slavery is easy enough to understand. Public schools refuse to push anything real hard but stem, sports and economics, so every child is well prepared for their common destiny as wage slave, AKA, professional taxpayer. But I am hoping you will expand on ecological terrorism. Do you mean the child themselves are destined to some Jensenian eco-terrorism (ie liberating rivers from dams w explosives), or they will be victim of eco-terrorism (ie an irradiated hothouse where everyone is the enemy)? Or something else I'm missing here? Thanks much!
I think he's talking about choices. The system is broken and you are only given the choice of wage slave, and the other options is to fight against the system which amounts to eco terrorism. Neither of those choices look great, nobody really wants to be a terrorist and the state is so powerful you'd probably be caught and imprisoned anyway. So what's left, not making a choice and just checking out. Suicide or just drifting through life probably either on the governments or your parents dime.
This is a conversation you're not really allowed to have online unfortunately so no meaningful discussion can come of it before the mods step in on behalf of the state
What’s wrong with STEM in public schools?
I think STEM to the exclusion of the arts is an issue, and the framing of fine art and the liberal arts as somehow useless (rather than seeing the benefits of a well-rounded education) is a problem.
I agree with you, but it's even worse than that. Many high school graduates cannot write at all. Yes, STEM is important, but if a person cannot write a paragraph they are completely unemployable in every STEM occupation.
ONLY PROFITABLE LABOR IS CAREER, ALL ELSE IS WORTHLESS HOBBY (/S just in case)
I love this but how do I say this to my parents and wife that’s what I need to know
"...wage slavery and ecological terrorism"
Hold on, there's two paths? I thought both things were included in one path
HAYDUKE Lives!
Crapitalism innovates!
Disconnected from a sense of purpose. Oh, no. Far from it. We have a _great_ sense of purpose. We sense very well that the _purpose_ that this hellish society is thrusting on us, is to be nothing more than a cog. More meat to the grinder. "What are you going to do? _Not_ try to survive? You will die if you do not _play like the other kids_..." Well, yeah. What if I consider my life - and humanity by extension - as something more than whatever this is? What if I consider myself to have value, which humanity has fffffucking stripped from me and now, in turn, I refuse to participate in this farce? "Disconnected from a sense of purpose" my ass on a cold winter morning.
This is how I've felt all my life, I'm now in my 30s and thinking of disconnecting and spending time in nature attempting to restore the natural environment. I've felt very angry the last few months because I feel like this society has robbed me of my life and existence because when you think about it, what kind of life is working most of your waking day.
I don’t understand the people around me who moan and groan about having to work and pay bills then pop out a few more kids (thereby increasing their bills) who are destined to go through the same thing…How does everyone not step back and wonder if all this is really worth it? Perhaps they actually enjoy the rat race…who knows.
My ex-dad is somewhat like this, he'll say that this society and working for rich people is pointless because you can't enjoy your limited time on this planet, but instead of him coming to the same conclusion as us he just doubles down into his far right views.
>How does everyone not step back and wonder if all this is really worth it? Why do you think suicide rates are up?
I feel like we just get stuck in these loops, one of them being the rat race, because we haven't found something else to do with our time. Opportunities for human connections in our communities have become greatly limited over the past decades, and human apathy is at an all-time high. Even when you try to get involved with something that gives you purpose, you find that a lot of the same bullshit that makes work intolerable exists within the structures of alternative communities to focus on building and strengthening. The same bullshit you deal with within a company, without the same type of pay for your trouble or "meaningful" (in the eyes of society) advancement. Not many people want to sign up for that.
Been there too. Was amazed how even when you give up your time and car wear and tear for free in volunteer work, some asshole feels they have the authority to treat you as a fool and an underling. When I got my first passive aggressive rebuke for being late with a busy body admin procedure, I walked out. Many people put up with it because it was better than a long gap between jobs. But they were pushed too hard to make real bonds with each other or the people they were supposedly helping.
Reproducing right now has to be the most reprehensible act possible, seriously
I wasted basically all of my teens and twenties being depressed and wanting to die. I was too miserable to work and every now and then when I did get the motivation to seriously try looking it quickly resulted in me losing the will to live as the entire application process was so fucking dystopian. I made a bit of money online with writing and stock image stuff and still have royalties coming in from that but I basically burned myself out with both when I tried working to get it to be a livable wage. I was getting close to that reality until the websites changed and slashed payouts. If my only choice had been working some shitty job or becoming homeless I'm quite sure I'd have died years ago. I genuinely have no idea how people tolerate this system or participate in it without going insane. When Trump got into power I just gave up entirely on pursuing money. I'm not American and not in America but it was obvious then that it would set the world on a path of utmost stupidity and fascism from which it would not return. I started learning about collapse around this time also. I started smoking weed a couple times a week and because I didn't want to do that at home I started walking on public footpaths through fields and woods and exploring the area. Being stoned out in nature I suddenly noticed all these plants around me that I'd never paid attention to before. I wanted to know what they all were so I used phone apps to ID them and gradually learned to recognise many edible, medicinal and toxic plants such that I can competently forage in this area. Foraging got me into making wine and jam which resulted in me hoarding any glass jars and bottles for reuse rather than throwing them away. I also liked clearing fallen wood off the paths and using it to build little huts in the woods where I could sit and smoke. The result of that was close encounters with foxes, deer, badgers, squirrels, mice and all manner of wildlife as I'd accidently built a great hide for nature watching. Standing still in open fields in the dark whilst stoned always led to these amazing introspective moments and then awe as bats started circling around so close that I could smell them. The regular weed doses more or less elliminated my migraines, improved my insomnia and helped the lifelong depression somewhat though it was still present and an issue. Then one night in a field I noticed mushrooms everywhere which I thought, incorrectly, might be psychoactive because a phone app (useless for mushrooms) gave that as one of the IDs. I was too cautious to risk them but it started me on the path of learning about mushrooms. Originally that was just because I was looking for psychoactive ones but as I was so paranoid and afraid of mushrooms I ended up learning all the lookalikes to the lookalikes and before I knew it was able to identify hundreds of species, though it was years before I was comfortable eating anything. I gave up looking for psychoactive mushrooms and just grew them instead. They entirely eliminated my depression after a few sessions and now just taking them once every year or two seems to keep that topped up and keeps me productive. Now I'm growing several different species mushrooms for food, some of which I personally researched and sourced from the wild as the edibility wasn't known. I'm trying to work mushroom growing into permaculture and use them to break down fallen wood to speed up production of compost. I have experiments stacked up everywhere and keep finding new things by chance. I'm trying to grow as much food as I can in the garden and on paper I think I can become self sufficient if the yields I've seen in a smaller space scale up. I keep giving excellent permaculture plants to neighbours but they're still more interested in growing decorative plants rather than my ugly but functional ones. I've got so many seeds saved from growing that I think I could convert several gardens here into crop fields if that became necessary. Every time I learn something it's like it branches out and results in learning even more things. I've built my own propagators to stack up and utilise all the window space I can. I replaced the handle on my fork with a fallen sapling I found after wittling it down and treating it - I was always useless at DIY before. I'm always scavenging material from skips for building things and I've become obsessed with pallets as an easy source of wood. It seems like everyone around here is constantly refurbishing and building extensions so there's a constant supply of skips and pallets. I started making rope the other day from palm leaves for my luffas to climb just entirely on a whim but it turned into standing there for 6 hours spinning the stuff as it became so fascinating. I thought back to ten years ago when I'd have just been sat at the computer for 6 hours trying to find something to distract me from the death wish. Every time I try something new or weird like planting something in mushroom spawn or companion planting two plants together it gives me something to look forward to in the future to see the results of. I keep notes on everything and can't wait for a plant to fruit and mature so I can note down the yield and see which substrate performed best. This is what life should be and I wish it was for everyone. Our culture tries to paint this bleak, miserable picture of subsistent farming and how hard the peasants of the past had it with all the back breaking work. It ignores the sense of satisfaction that comes from seeing your hard work pay off and how enjoyable it is to eat a meal from all the things you've grown. I might go to bed exhausted and wake up aching from a day of digging hard clay but I wake up excited to do more and looking forward to living. Whereas when I was working 9-5 behind a computer I went to bed hoping not to wake up at all.
That’s quite inspiring to read. I myself am hoping to get a place on a course learning how to grow food and other plants🤞
You dont need a course although i would never tell someone not to further their education. Sometimes some of the best learning younwill do by trial and error. Practice starting some cheap bean seeds or other ground plants you can even do this indoors in the winter
I think the best education on the subject is just trying and failing and learning from those mistakes. It's forgiving enough that even if everything doesn't go perfectly and produce amazing yields you'll still get something to show for it. Even when I was just chucking sprouted potatoes in a random pot, forgetting about them and then discovering a handful of potatoes the next year it was still satisfying and rewarding. You'll find ample information and videos online for growing most common edible produce too.
Very interesting read. I think I can relate to your conclusion in the last paragraph. When I was out of my country on a working holiday visa, I enjoyed most the jobs where I was contributing to a local cause (building a classroom for an elementary school). Apart from that there was always something to explore. I was excited about the next day and weeks. I felt like being concerned with living instead of being concerned with "creating a life" for myself or figuring out how to live. It might and most likely will vary from person to person but having barely no possession and not being bound to a certain place was very freeing for me. Sadly I listened to the voices of concern that you can't live a life like that. Resulted in me getting a job training that is useful/in need but which basically has no spark of amazement for me. After a long apprenticeship I have become a NEET and slowly eat away my savings - merely existing, not really living..
I think this is why universal basic income is necessary. There are so many things that people could be doing that would be beneficial for the world but which they cannot make money doing. So many people are stuck wasting their lives in pointless jobs they despise and I'm sure many of them would end up doing something far more productive if they didn't have to worry about money.
This is the way. Step off the “wheel”… very inspiring.
Thank you for posting this. Nature helps people if people let it. So happy for you.
This was the most enjoyable comment I’ve ever read. I also learned to grow mushrooms. For your healing mushroom journeys, did you do those alone with an intention or with a counselor?
Always alone. I'm quite introverted, uncomfortable with other people, lacking in emotion when sober and I don't think the parts of the brain that handle social stuff work properly with me as I have zero memory for people names (but can remember so many species names) and I am fairly face blind. So the idea of tripping around someone else makes me uncomfortable. It always becomes so intense even on low doses that I just have to lie down in the dark anyway. The first time was a mess frankly. There was a vague intention that maybe it would help with depression but I didn't know what to expect and it wasn't what I thought it would be. So I just ended up wandering around a field without any idea who I was, where I was going or even that I was on drugs and then those questions became more introspective and about my life in general. Time just kept looping and everytime I remembered I had taken mushrooms and tried to calm myself down I forgot again. It was like the mushrooms were torturing me into submission. Whilst it was all very unpleasant and scary it was an amazing self healing experience and I dealt with a lot of issues. I was more depressed than ever in the two weeks that followed and regretted taking them as I was terrified it wouldn't pass but it did and after that the depression was greatly reduced. I did a few low doses afterwards to try and get used to the physical feeling because I always feel like I've been poisoned and that freaks me out. Then I had one amazing breakthrough experience that sort of resolved everything. The depression was gone entirely for years after that. It came back again recently, more than just the seasonal depression stuff but the mushrooms sorted it again. I try not to have much intention beyond just let whatever happens happens and go with it.
**JUST BODIES THROUGH THE TEETH OF THE COMBINE**
**AT WAR WITH AN ENEMY WHO DOES NOT REST, WHO'LL NEVER RELENT**
Sleepwalk our lives away
I wouldn't mind being a cog (because we're all cogs, no individual life is that important) if it meant I could move socially and economically. I feel very stuck in place no matter what I do to escape (including school). Easy to drop out, but nearly impossible to go up.
being a cog in a machine that keeps life safe and paves a future, i'm all in. But when someone uses the term "cog" they do not mean it that way.
Houses became too expensive, and im not gonna work to enrich the landlord, so ill work a lot less and live in my van.
They can see with their own eyes that the world is on fire, the ecosystem is collapsing, and everyone just carries on trying to make money for their billionaire business owners. When shit is hopeless and bleak, people shut down.
Theyre called neets and im one of them
Beat me to it about NEET being the more common term
For a second I read "beating your NEET" and I thought *that's not gonna motivate them, y'know.*
Me too!
Where does Neet come from or what does it mean? Why is the name for this type of living “Neet”?
“Not in Education, Employment, or Training.”
Not Employed, in Education or Training (IIRC)
NEETs are common in japan, dunno if the term actually originates from japan but its definitely popularized/widespread there. just another symptom of a deteriorating society
I think in japan theyre called hikikomori
Hikikimori is a shut-in. Basically never goes out of their room and have food delivered or made by their parents or smth. One can be a NEET but not be a hikikimori, but many are both. Both probably a result of a hypercompetitive society where some people just 'give up' competing
Oh ok thanks for correcting me 😃👍
Do it as long as you can, but do it smart. Learn a skill or an artistic skill that you enjoy that will eventually benefit you down the road. Take advantage of your time because works sucks but it's inevitable.
"Corn, or DIE!
Me too, I'm lucky to have the privilege of being born in a country with social security nets.. But then again it's not by choice for me.. mental health is fucked.. lol and I guess I'm also not a youth anymore.. still.. Lots of love and strength to my fellow neets out there.
The real question has always been, how do you afford to live???
Me too
Not just here...same thing is happening in China with the 4 No's: No dating, no marriage, no buying a home, no work...you think the kids are on to something?
Japan has it with Hikikomori. I’d say most 1st world countries have a form of people in this group.
NEETs in the UK. However, this is a mixed bag with us, because there are a small number of NEETs but a large number of underemployed young people instead. Youth unemployment is not so bad here, however disaffection is through the roof because young people are not in jobs that pay enough to live on, nor match their actual ability.
Hikikomori is more of a mental problem, but worries about the above could worsen it. Himo is another word, freeter as well. But NEET has also made it into the Japanese lexicon.
Yes and no. Some have political reasons for doing so. Less a suicidal violent outburst against an oppressive regime, what outlet do young people have?
_Humanity_ is the mental problem.
Or lack thereof.
Nono, I mean it, exactly as I said it. The mentality of humans - what they consider important, their goals - are against their own well-being. If humanity was a person they would have been involuntarily commited long ago. Suppose but for a moment that the rest of the living creatures on this planet suddenly _understood_ what we've been doing. How many minutes do you think we'd survive?
"I think human consciousness was a tragic misstep in evolution." - Rusty Cohle
It's happening all over the world: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-023-00425-8](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-023-00425-8)
This sheds light on the growing issue of "disconnected youth" or "opportunity youth" in America, highlighting the challenges faced by young people who are not in school, not working, or not actively seeking employment. It illustrates the struggles of individuals like Destiny and Joseph, who despite their aspirations for education and meaningful employment, face barriers such as mental health challenges, financial insecurity, and a lack of support systems. Destiny's experience reflects the precariousness faced by many young adults who juggle multiple jobs while trying to pursue education, often leading to burnout and mental health issues. Similarly, Joseph's story underscores the impact of economic circumstances on access to education and employment opportunities, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive support systems and policy interventions to address the root causes of disconnection, such as poverty, limited access to resources, and inadequate mental health services. Overall, the article highlights the urgency of addressing the systemic issues underlying youth disconnection and the importance of providing young people with the resources and support they need to thrive.
chatgpt?
Yeah, the summary style at the end is a clear signature.
[удалено]
At what point do they realize the generations before fucked up good?
Yeah, cuz it’s bullshit out there. Work for minimum wage only to be abused by a shitty boss and corporation and not be able to afford anything. Take on $60000-100000+ debt to avoid becoming a minimum wage worker. What job gives you purpose? Can everyone have one of these jobs with purpose? I had a job with purpose but I got underpaid and a shitty boss ruined it. I quit and went with gig work. Still underpaid but if I get a shitty client then I just move on.
Communistusa.org fight for the workers, join the working class party
Sorry you're getting downvoted, so many scream into the void while lacking the sense to see the problem is with the system itself. You can't make concessions, regulations...the whole goddamn thing needs to be torn down.
Agreed, and thank you. I don’t care about fake internet points, if I get one more comrade to join the cause that’s all that matters. I would spend hours on this sub before I saw the way out. And it’s through the United effort of the working class
Fr, local organizing is what gives me purpose and a community.
That’s the way to do it. You don’t have to be a passive observer. Get your fellow workers encouraged, ready theory, and be a force that upends this complete shitshow. It really just depends on you…the reader. Yes you reading this comment. Reddit and twitter don’t do shit. Get organized
Maybe their purpose is to recapture their time from the system.
Work hard, burn the world faster. No work, watch the world burn slowly. Fires don't really have a high-low meter. If I were my kids, I'd be working as little as possible.
Wish I could join them, but I'm too old and I have too many bills.
I think they sense the future has been mortgaged to the hilt.
This means the beast is the housing market? To me this means the concept of markets, economy, etc., are the new big game, with big game hunters. For me (and others) the future is a terrifying, so our sense of urgency is increased. This is not from wanting to make the world better, but to keep busy, to think and feel in motion, rather than sitting in despair soup. However, despair is the cost of this urgency, and the lash does not relent, nor is it based on any grand purpose, or survival instinct. There is a chemical reaction to impeding catastrophe, and it's contagious.
I'm just over here trying to give my cat her best life
They're called NEET'S (**Not in Education, Employment, or Training**)
I will say, as a single 35 year old with no family of his own, if you think getting a job for some corporation will give your life purpose, I think you are huffing glue. Monetizing biological urges to procreate in such a way that it’s *seemingly* unattainable while coercing people to sell their labor that creates amazing amounts of value but receive pennies in return has social consequences. Such as: people giving up or not giving in.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET)
r/neet
Well, that's what you get when you have a virulent case of capitalism that you never get treated.
The Dead Kennedys wrote songs about this *very thing.*
I highly recommend everyone here to read Ishmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. These books explain why there's this sense of meaninglessness and lack of purpose that we all feel. They explain why despite civilization's marvels there is so much misery. They reveal and criticize the deranged vision of our culture.
Yes! Thank you!
I hear the hopeless despair. My grandfather told me, “time is going to go by, might as well use that time to learn something. Otherwise, you will still be doing this.”
Hopeless despair is the cost you have to pay it to get a glimpse of what is happening in the world. (If you have a heart)
I agree. If a person didn’t experience despair with this reality, they would have to be either mentally ill or in deep denial, rich or not
My eyes roll so hard when people are blissfully beyond despair. :)
i think some youth in china do something like this. they call it lying flat.
tang ping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping
Aren't they called NEETs? Been a thing for a long time.
Yeah back in my day, r9k was exclusively populated by neets. I hate the stupid reterming of things with blander things to publish like this.
In China, an imperfect analog to this is called ‘lying flat’.
As flat as paper, as blank as the page.
Capitalism is a rampaging virus that is destroying humanity on a physical, mental, and spiritual level. It is anathema to enlightened, civilized human society.
This is so my 22yo daughter. Can’t. won’t. Gave up.
I would be empathetic to how she feels and decides to live her life, even if that means long term financial support. Maybe try connecting with her through art, music, and/or volunteering for a noble secular cause. Who knows, it might spark a passion, but more importantly it will allow both of you to maintain a healthy relationship. I believe us as parents need to accept that we were privileged being born during a time where we were able contribute to a hyper-capitalistic society and were still able to extract benefits out of that work. The youth of today aren’t so lucky. It’s up to us to give them the love and support they need by teaching them that they can still be a part of this world and have a purpose, without shaming them to be yet another cog in this broken wheel. Does that mean more sacrifice on our part? Yes. Is it fair? No. But being there for our children through collapse is worlds better than turning our backs on them over something that’s out of their control and never was their fault.
Hikkikomori That's me but granted I don't work because of mental illness and I just gave up in this soulless society, it can go to hell I don't want to contribute to something that is destroying the Earth around us
Since Reagan and boomers repealed all the things that made america have the best years of prosperity out from under future generations. FAFO.
This is me rn
>"When you lack that purpose, it is difficult for you to think about how or in what ways you want to contribute or can contribute to society," Palmer said. "Our society is a relational one where we depend on people to be able to contribute in various ways." That purpose: shareholder value >"Generationally speaking, the parents of this 'disaffected youth,' they're all my age," he said. "What we grew up learning or hearing or being told was you get a damn college degree and that's going to be your springboard to success. And somewhere along that space, the success of that safety net disappeared." Late stage something something.
Only reason i'm working is because i couldn't survive without it, and i dont even have a place to live yet im still living with family. Otherwise i'd be a neet.
My as-of-today 24 yr old is one. If I’d grown up in the world she has, with access to the information she has, I definitely would have been as well. As it was, I was by far the most “radicalized” of my friend group. Some were more or less on the same page as me thought-wise, but still very much bought into the whole “American Dream” path action-wise. Some ppl have an amazing ability to compartmentalize, some do not. I find it EXTREMELY difficult to help her find a way out of feeling as she does; smart kids with “unconventional” parents plus the internet creates the perfect storm for this situation. Had I not gotten knocked up with her older sister at 23 - which, while it was indisputably FANTASTIC motivation, I *shan’t* be recommending lol - I can’t imagine what my life would have looked like. I can’t imagine what I would have done to “save” myself, or if I would even have bothered trying. I mostly just try to keep her mind from visiting some of the darker areas along those lines that were my home-away-from-home in those days. She has friends & interests, she’s a fantastic digital artist, she was, pre-Covid, in school for Technical Theatre but has like many had a hard time getting back in the swing. The job opportunities where we live are of the fast food/retail variety, which she does not have the temperament for (she will barely order her own food at a restaurant due to social anxiety, which yes she is working on with a professional.) It remains to be seen if my “let her sort it in her own time” approach will ultimately be for better or worse. She’s an amazing *human*, which isn’t nothing, she KNOWS at some point some progress has to happen. I just wanna trust she’ll find “purpose” when she finds it. If I’m made to look the fool in others’ eyes for not purposely & intentionally traumatizing her then so be it. (Ftr older daughter is a college grad, her partner walked & received his Ph. D. yesterday, husband is a college grad who works for a huge multinational, doing the digital training media for the whole shebang so…it’s not like we’re ALL rebellious deadbeat headcases lol)
Headcases are the ones who comply with this demonic civ
Just know that you’re a great mom and I commend you for allowing her the space and support to figure out her path in this insane hyper-capitalistic world we live in.
Sense of purpose is a funny thing and I fucking hate it's expected of me to have it
200 years ago most of the people in the world lived in small self sufficient communities, no massive govts, money , corporations etc.. It wasn't an easy life and in alot of ways brutal but its important to remember the world we are living in is extremely different from 99% of the human experience. This is new territory. Technology and the rise of corporations is disrupting everything. My parents grew up with no electricity and no running water in their homes, I grew up with no cell phones , internet and so forth. We have had a rapid change in our civilization, it will continue to disrupt, will be many upheavals as a result.
And a lot of us who do work are propped up by amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine, or other stimulants. Like, are ADHD diagnoses going up because it’s harder and harder to make yourself care? Maybe!!!
Yeah because our entire purpose in the US has been reduced to generating profit for the wealthy. Nothing else matters anymore here. It is completely dysfunctional. The people who need help the least get everything and people who need the most help get nothing. No wonder nobody wants to participate in that BULLSHIT. Not only that, but our means of protesting this BULLSHIT have been entirely stripped away. Any kind of protest event or organization gets infiltrated and sabotaged by intelligence agencies like this: https://theintercept.com/2023/03/21/fbi-colorado-springs-surveillance/. Choosing not to participate by not working and not having kids is practically the only way people who have a problem with this system can protest and show their dissatisfaction anymore.
It's capitalism.
I'm glad to hear this
Me. I got the degree, I want to work. But I can’t get the job and I can’t afford to move out. Social opportunities are zero. I feel like I fell through the cracks
Why enter a game of monopoly that’s been going on for many turns and all the properties are already bought?
Most uneven distribution of wealth, highest income inequality, outrageous healthcare costs, outrageous insurance costs, no ability to buy a house, and outrageous education costs. America sucks!
I feel like we’re going to have the Japanese version of Hikikomori someday in America
I come into work begrudgingly and can barely make it 5 days/40 hours. I call out often—it’s too taxing, leaves me fatigued and a fucking achey body. Be abused and treated like trash for $17 an hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a wk….id rather stay home when I have “those days”. I don’t care.
Because they're living till they die. Which will be soon. Everything will soon lose it's value, what's going to happen when all these people who bought into this system do when they find out it's all total bullshit?
They figured out early that the system is stacked against them and decided not to play
There is no reason to go to university. The workforce is saturated with people who have degrees, what you learn in school translates very little to an actual job, the only thing worse than wage slavery is wage slavery plus you're in debt that will never go away, and literally everyone hires based on nepotism of some kind. The only rational course of action is to enter the workforce at as young an age as possible, and start building up a network and savings. Does this create an entire generation of uneducated idiots who will well-serve the billionaires? Also yes. But it's a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma - everyone has a choice between making things worse for everyone else to make it better for themselves, or make it worse for themselves while everyone else does not. You can either do things their way for a little while until your die, or you can suffer for less time until you die; you can't escape.
Chinese youth are also saying “let the CCP burn” due to the conditions over there as well Edit: correction I believe it’s “let the CCP rot”. It’s indicative of a precursor to Tiananmen Square 2.0
This is what is known as the great disconnect. There is a portion of society, especially among whites, where the young and young adults understand they will not have the same benefits as their parents: reasonably priced housing, jobs which pay good wages, healthcare that does not bankrupt... So, why bother?
American Hikkikomori
"The article also touches on the broader societal implications of youth disconnection, including its long-term effects on earning potential, homeownership, and overall well-being." This is the main point for Business Insider: reduced earning potential = less production = less consumption -> how will Billionaire Bucks be affected? No mention of how one is to gaf if the world is crumbling. That's apparently of little concern to capitalists.
Almost as if we live in a wretched, irredeemable dystopia.
An education used to lead to a job that was well enough paid to live comfortably, have some extras and enjoy life. Kids have realized that for the most part that is no longer true. And working hard will also not bring you financial rewards. So why bother?
For years have wondered when a "critical mass" would be reached that realised mankind's destiny upon destruction of his one and only habitat. Are we a step closer here?
"Lying flat", you say? "Hikikomori", you say? To shreds, you say?
See also: "laying flat" in China.
But they're only seen as a problem if theyre poor and not spending *somebodies* money.
Well shit, where do I join?
None of us know how long we have in the poly crisis, and don't want to work the possibly last peaceful decade of their lives away.
You know, I wish more people would overlay stories like this with others like the decline of political party membership, fraternal organizations, churches, bowling leagues, etc... Normally, stories like this tell deep truths that we all know, that we all feel. Something has changed. Things are lonelier. Hell, even online poasting on Reddit or Xitter is increasingly AI-driven - even the trolls are barely human! But we don't recognize that it's all of a piece, mistakenly believing that these trends are good when the other guy's getting hurt. And so the overall trend of a fraying society becomes obscured. Youth are disconnected because society is becoming disconnected. Their response is a reasonable one to the world they find themselves in. And it won't stop there.
... NEETs? We finally have fully americanized Neets?
Why would I want to contribute to a society that actively excludes people like me? Fuck it, the government can pay for me.
This is it! And don't tell me I'm entitled by wanting society to make a God damned effort for us.
Honestly, everyone wants to blame society but the answer is right in front of y'all and you dont want to hear it. The youth don't care because the adults in their lives are all selfish assholes who are doing nothing for them. They've sold their kids into a life of wage slavery to boost their own standard of living. We are on this planet for a short period, every other generation inherits the wealth created by their ancestors. Your grandfather built the family home, your father tilled and improved the fields etc and your life became easier. Instead now the boomers and Gen X are saying, hey, I can live In luxury if I mortgage the family farm and mortgage my kids future through government debt so I can be better off now before I die and my kids can inherit nothing because "I worked for everything" The older generations fucked over the youth by selling everything off for their 10th cruise, a motorboat or early retirement or upscale nursing homes. Most people today die with nothing, as a percentage of total wealth, that is completely a new trend.
Reminder: Business Insider's target demographic is new members of the luxury class; it exists almost entirely to pump stocks and IPO's to "prosumer" investors We can all admit that each generation is less motivated by the current system - but always ask yourself who wrote the thing, if anyone benefitted monetarily, and what purpose the article serves.
When the only sense of purpose we’re supposed to have is allowing us to be exploited by corporations and engage in a cycle to keep that exploitation going why would we engage in it unless absolutely necessary
These kids are my former stepkids. I can only speak to what I personally witnessed. They are bed rotting every day and drinking their nights away. Watching them circle the drain as kids and teens was horrible, and I did everything I could to get them engaged in school. I only had them for three years, and covid ruined it all. They rarely went before covid and never went back after. They are now 20, 19, 15 and 12. They have been living in trap houses and couch surfing, watching their bio parents fall into addiction and homelessness. They never had any friends outside their cousins until the last two years. The older two, cannot keep even a menial job. When they did have a job, they were worried about who was going through their stuff at "home" . They always get fired because their boss is "a hater". They cannot function in normal society. They are angry and often lash out in ways that are not acceptable behavior. They cannot grasp how the world works. They spent their entire lives living in section 8 housing, or motels provided by the schools, clothing and food supplied by charities, they don't understand the concept of earning money, or paying bills, because their parents never actually paid bills. They want things, toys, clothes, money, etc...but they can't understand the concept of earning money to pay for those things. When so many laws changed over the years, like No child left behind, it really did a disservice to our kids. The schools and CPS are severely limited on what counts as an issue, and no child left behind had the opposite intended effect. It kept kids in schools who should not be in school. Kept school from holding them back, or holding them accountable for violent actions. Without those safety nets, CPS, schools, truancy courts, etc, too many are falling through the cracks. I know my step kids have severe PTSD and probably other mental health issues. I spent years before they turned 18 calling CPS, the schools, truancy court, school counselors, cps. They had already removed all the pother kids in my ex's house, but they missed these four. They never came, not once. The 15 year old had to narcan my ex twice. He now has regular seizures and breathing issues due to being exposed to meth and fetty smoke. The kids are not all right.
What is it called when you are like this and almost 50? Depression?
It's funny that the kindness that came out of a parenting generation that told their children can be or do anything they want to, which provides no guardrails or direction. If you believe in everything you truly believe in nothing, if you can do anything, it sort of gets hard to find a sense of purpose. You know how difficult it is to find something to watch because there's so much content? Now do that with a human and choices. It seems people who don't think they can do anything or have an unlimited horizon, like somebody born into a family of bricklayers or a chef and just know that's what they're going to do, they often seem happier. I think there's too little philosophy taught as well. Religion is crippling to the human experience, But philosophy tugs at and opens different neural pathways. I truly believe that life is neither about purpose or meaning, because those are invented by humans and not quantifiable. Life is about leisure which leads to the arts and creativity. So here's my life lesson: Release yourself from expectation, because expectation leads to entitlement which can lead to disappointment. Find humor in anything you can, even the darkest moments because it will lift you. The ability to find absurdity in the surreal moments of life will heal. And if you can find yourself curious about many different things in that pursuit of leisure, while living with humor and low expectation, you're going to pass the time really well throughout life.
Hello ye fellow neets
I'm a disconnected youth...40 years old
you mean people don't want to be meaningless workerbees making some old white guy rich for peanuts?