Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.
For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”
But in midlife, she can’t afford to buy a house, and she’s increasingly worried about what retirement would look like, or if it would even be possible. “Was I foolish to think this could work?” she now wonders.
She’s one of many millennials who, in their 40s, are panicking about the realities of midlife: financial precarity, housing insecurity, job instability and difficulty saving for the future. It’s a different kind of midlife crisis – less impulsive sports car purchase and more “will I ever retire?” In fact, a new survey of 1,000 millennials showed that 81% feel they can’t afford to have a midlife crisis. Our generation is the first to be downwardly mobile, at least in the US, and do less well than our parents financially. What will the next 40 years will look like?
Gonna leave a bit of advice for any young folks that might see this. Something I wish to god someone had told me when I was 20.
Start an annuity plan. They’re generally stable, all but guaranteed to accrue money. You can set a percentage of your paycheck to be deposited automatically into the account. If you have the option to do this through your employer, do it, find out if they match the deposit like mine. Put 10% of yorlur paycheck in there. After 10 years, I have $40,000 sitting in a retirement account with a series of low yield bonds set to mature in between now and my retirement age. Those bonds will roll back into shorter term bonds when they do, and add more value to the account. My projected retirement age is still 72, but at least I know that money is there.
Also, after 4 years, the account matures and you’re able to borrow against it, like collateral for a loan. So if I wanted to right now, I could take that money and use it as a down payment on a house. I’ll be expected to put it back, but the interest is generally lower than a home owner’s loan.
But what happens if you have an annuity and need cash noooooowwwwwww?
Call J.G. Wentworth!
877-CASH-NOW!
The downfall of every one of my savings plans. At a certain point rent takes priority
This sounds a lot like superannuation that we have in Australia and is mandatory. A certain amount of money from your paycheck is put with a super and they invest it for you, and the idea is that you should have a few hundred grand by the time you retire.
In the US that was Social Security but currently it’s broken
Generally speaking in the US annuities are horrible and significantly underperform a regular 401k/IRA invested in a broad total market index fund. The fees eat you alive. Don’t know how it is in other countries. But annuities here are damn near fraud.
Annuities have been bad because they invest in bonds and interest rates have been very low in recent years.
Over the next 10-20 years stocks could crash and rates increase.
I mean, if this is what you believe, you can still invest in bonds in a 401k or brokerage account. Even if I believed this about stocks crashing, I still wouldn’t put any $ in an annuity.
Also, predicting the stock market and making huge decisions based on that tends to not go well.
The main benefit of an annuity over bonds is that it will keep paying out until you die.
A small annuity that just covers you and your spouses essential living expenses is not a bad investment.
I agree, large annuities are a waste.
Hell. Gen X also are worried about retirement.
Will social security be here in 15 years? My 401k has not kept up at all… Everything today costs soooooooo much there’s no real room for saving.
Most recent social security trustees report says the trust fund will run out in 2035. What happens in 2035? Benefits are still funded at 83% in perpetuity. By the way, last year it was going to run out in 2033, and the year before that it was going to run out in 2031. And also by the way, the trust fund was specifically set up because they knew the baby boomers were going to stress the system, so it’s supposed to get depleted as the boomers use it.
Everything is working mostly as intended, and yet there’s all this anxiety around Social Security. Why? Because Republicans want you to think Social Security is fucked all on its own so that you don’t question it when they ratfuck it. That and they want to constantly frame the conversation as such so that the conversation doesn’t turn to “how do we make social security more robust and generous?” or some other radical socialist nonsense.
Right??
Early Gen Z / very tail end of millennial here.
Got a job that pays ~80k (with promotion potential to 100k in a year) and I’m just… dumbfounded at how yall are making it. I didn’t grow up wealthy at all, and struggled with homelessness for a time, so I’m not new to the frugal game, but being able to put away only a hundred or two bucks a month after taxes is crazy with the hours and time I put into existing. I’d rather just not work at all if the end result is the same.
Doordash is a crux in my life and something I’ve definitely splurged on in the past, but groceries are just as expensive outside of rice beans and chicken. Baffling. :(
being able to put away only a hundred or two bucks a month after taxes is crazy with the hours and time I put into existing.
Every little bit helps. Future you will thank you for even putting that amount away.
I try, but of course life finds a way to rip whatever savings I’ve got slowly but surely.
At this point, I’m still looking at working till the day I die.
What do you invest your 401k in?
This is another one of many things that the government should be taking care of for people (and they sort of tried to with Social Security) but of course the “privatize everything” sociopath elites killed that idea, and our culture expects everyone to just learn how to Warren Buffet better. Bro, do you even index fund?
Lol!
No.
You won’t retire, no. No longer work a job because everything is slowly falling apart as our climate apocalypse trudges on? Sure, but you’ll still be working hard to survive.
Retire? Nah when I’m done with life I’m just going to blow my brains out all over a politician or millionaire hedge fund manager.
They want to fuck over my future, I’ll take their sanity and gift wrap enough PTSD that every sleep is a nightmare.
I like your idea
Thus millennial thinks we will all die in 10 years or so from climate related disasters and none of us will live to retirement age as things currently stand.
Thus millennial
thinkshopes we will all die in 10 years or so from climate related disastersand none of us will live to retirement age as things currently standso they don’t have to worry about retirement.Ftfy. The entire “collapse” thing is a coping mechanism.
We can have different opinions. Imo climate change denialism is a cope. I also hedge my bets by also planning for retirement. But as it stands, we’re all on hospice.
Imo climate change denialism is a cope.
I agree. And I think both doomerism and denialism are encouraged by the fossil fuel industry, because they both lead to inaction.
The reality is:
- the climate is getting worse because of fossil fuels
- through action, we can make it less worse
- this action will be difficult
- this action will cause a lot of very rich people and companies to lose money
Maybe, but we’re getting into a classic discussion about nihilism here when it comes to doomerism - if nothing matters, how should I feel? Depressed, or finally free to do whatever since it doesn’t matter anyway?
The reality is:
- As it currently stands, with current technology and current input/output, we are facing literally 6 of 9 separate world ending catastrophes which are feeding into each other. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/07/recklessness-defined-breaking-6-of-9-planetary-boundaries-of-safety/
As of 2021, according to SRI, we had already gone beyond the safe limit for five of these planetary boundaries: • climate change; • biogeochemical flows (i.e., excessive phosphorus and nitrogen pollution from fertilizer use); • biosphere integrity (e.g., extinction rate and loss of insect pollination); • land-system change (e.g., deforestation); • and novel entities (e.g., pollution from plastics, heavy metals, and what are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals”).
In an April 2022 update, SRI found that a portion of a sixth planetary boundary – fresh water use – had also been crossed. In addition, in a June 2021 interview with the journal Globalizations, Dr. Will Stefan of SRI said that a seventh planetary boundary had also likely been crossed: ocean acidification (one that has been theorized as a key contributor to previous mass extinction events in geologic history). One other boundary has been too uncertain to judge: atmospheric aerosols from fine particle pollution caused by fossil fuel combustion. Yet, we are clearly pushing this boundary too, when considering that air pollution from burning fossil fuels has been blamed for 8.8 million deaths worldwide per year.
If a used car salesman said, “just get this baby a new engine, new transmission, new brakes, tires, and new radiator and she’ll be perfect!” Would you buy the car or trust that’s everything wrong with it? Or would you assume it’s “as is” or worse?
Best case scenario, we put up a gigantic aluminum or whatever space blanket in space to reflect a certain percentage of the sun’s energy to buy us some time. But it doesn’t appear to be happening.
Because the rich genuinely think they are immune to the laws of science. Look at the Titanic sub - they will bet their own lives on their hubris. Including with the planet.
If a used car salesman said, “just get this baby a new engine, new transmission, new brakes, tires, and new radiator and she’ll be perfect!” Would you buy the car or trust that’s everything wrong with it? Or would you assume it’s “as is” or worse?
I kinda did that. Not with a car, but a house. Bought my mom a cheap shitty house because she’s poor as shit and I’m trying to get her to be able to retire with some dignity.
But it’s a start. We have the house. We just redid the plumbing. Next the foundation. Next the electrical, then the hvac. Improving over time as we have the money and the capacity. Eventually, it will be a perfectly fine, liveable house.
It’s a LOT of work. And ridiculously expensive. But it’s DOABLE, and buying a “normal” house is NOT doable because they’re crazy expensive nowadays. We improve as we can, and over time things get better as long as we keep moving forward.
That’s what I think the best case scenario is for the planet. Renewables. Electric vehicles. Public transit. Carbon capture. Reforestation. Zero waste. I have a vision of a planet Earth in 500 years that is not an apocalyptic hellhole, but a green, vibrant, forward looking one, mildly embarrassed about how their ancestors let things get so bad before fixing it.
We can do that. A lot of us are working towards it.
Yes, with a house and just you and your mom, it’s doable. Even with a car, it’s doable. Why? Because it’s been done before (so parts are already made, how to guides, etc), not an entire planet of 8 billion people AND a completely new series of issues we have to engineer around and can’t fuck up or we all literally die. We also don’t have the time (like we are out of time) to implement much.
I think trying to fix it is completely imperative. I simply don’t believe it will get fixed. It should be fixed, yes, imo - but I doubt it will be. Partially because our government isn’t taking serious action to do so. Partially because every environmental scientist, environmental engineer, biologist, ecologist, I know is extremely depressed or suicidal.
The worst thing that would happen if you didn’t fix up that house, is that you’d be living in bad conditions but not unlivable ones. The amount of dissociation people have from the seriousness of what’s going on around us is stunning. I assume a profound lack of education about the environment or biology. Things are bad.
Partially because our government isn’t taking serious action to do so. Partially because every environmental scientist, environmental engineer, biologist, ecologist, I know is extremely depressed or suicidal.
Look, this is lemmy. Everyone and their fucking dog is suicidal here. It’s damn near a death cult.
it’s doable. Why? Because it’s been done before
That’s not an issue. We have the science. Sure, there are efficiency gains from improved science, but it’s not like we’re fumbling in the dark here. We know exactly what we need to do and how to do it. And it’s not a braindead simplistic soundbyte like “just do a revolution” or “everyone bike everywhere”. It’s complex, it’s complicated, but it is known. Stop using fossil fuels. Start using renewables. Capture the carbon that has already been released. It’s a super simple equation. It’s like dieting, you can have all the fancy diets in the world but the absolute core of it is that you need to take in less calories than you burn in order to lose weight.
or we all literally die.
That’s not true and I can tell you’re smart enough to know it, so I won’t dwell on it. But it dovetails into the next point
We also don’t have the time (like we are out of time)
It’s not a binary. We have passed the threshold where we can prevent negative effects. In that sense, we are out of time, yes. Species have gone extinct and we can’t get them back. Not like, “very soon this will happen”, but like “this has already happened”. It will keep getting worse. That’s how you have to think of it. Not like a video game. Not like “fix the problem in x years or else we all immediately die, game over!” It’s “the longer it takes to fix, the worse the world gets in the mean time.”
I believe, as long as the US doesn’t fall into a regressive fascist science-denying hellhole (which is a whole nother thing but bears mentioning), we will fix it. Possibly in my life time, or at least be on a trajectory to complete recovery (minus extinct species) within my lifetime. A lot of people are putting a lot of money and time and effort into it.
As someone born in '82, I plan to feel a strong dispassion for human society, and then die.
‘85 … I expect to die in the water wars.
Bless the maker and his water, Bless the coming and going of him, may his passing cleanse the world.
00s, I hope to not die for Putin’s palaces and yachts.
I just need to do the dying part.
The next forty years will look like absolute hell and the lack of proper services for the explosive number of diseases in the millennial cohort.
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Milliennials by and large don’t have enough money to retire, and they are experiencing in striking numbers high rates of immunodeficiency and cancers. (I was personally diagnosed with cancer at 42. You know, the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything…) This will mean they will need more elder care and sooner.
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No Child Left Behind has properly fucked US education for the foreseeable future, and US education was abysmal before that already. The elderly are going to be being taken care of by adults who may be functionally illiterate and when you’re functionally illiterate, you can become anti-vax even if you got hired as caretaker for the elderly.
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On top of education being gutted and there being a dangerous future of incapable people being put in these jobs because there’s no one else to do them: The collapse in birth rate because nobody can afford to have fucking kids will also make this problem worse as fewer and fewer workers will be available to take care of more and more elderly and infirm people.
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Most of the places that take care of the elderly are being bought up at rapid pace by investment groups, hedge funds, and the like, and all they do is cut services, make things worse, and cause more suffering and death so they can wring more money out of people suffering at the end of their lives. How many of these businesses will even still exist in 20 years? Many of them are shutting down constantly because the numbers just don’t add up.
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Because of all of this, we we will an absolute explosion of homelessness in the elderly.
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You can bet your ass fuck-nothing will be done to prevent any of this. Especially if Trump wins in November, then we’re dealing with this process outright accelerating at a breakneck pace.
Because of all of this, we will see an absolute explosion of homelessness in the elderly.
And it can’t be fixed just through capitalism. Only either through policy or comand economy.
try to keep an eye on neat, simple engineering projects from poor countries because we may need to rely on similar options soon enough ourselves.
I am just sitting here as a infrastructure guy trying not to have a mental break of crying and laughing. It’s so fucking bad and getting so much worse. You know what was today’s item? I am working on one small system for a replacement wastewater treatment plant for a town of about 3,000 people that the pieces of shit general contractor has dragged out for 8 fucking years. 8 years for a project that should have taken 6 months. They haven’t done any work. Longer it goes on the more they get to bill. Oh and my favorite part? The general contractor is one of the bigger ones, they have a Wikipedia page.
Cost disease is going to break us. Entire country is going to be spending a trillion a year with the water supply of Flint.
Now if you excuse me I am going to drink now. Cause fuck it I can’t save anyone.
I appreciate your efforts, but we as a nation were not guaranteed to make it. It was up to us to make it, and we failed ourselves by devolving into petty tribalism between two 1% owned political parties.
Are lawyers involved? You should sue to get it for free, not to pay more, because contracts like that usually put a penalty on the supplier if they break their promises
I at first I expected you to work in IT infrastructure specifically, but sewage? When sewage can’t keep shit together - nothing in country can keep shit together. USSA is slowly turning from worse than Russia in some areas to worse than Russia in all areas.
Cause fuck it I can’t save anyone.
You’ve done your best. It’s definitely not personally your job to save anyone anyway. If we can’t figure out how to do it collectively, well, maybe we just suck as a species. Thanks for doing what you could and can and don’t bemoan yourself for your inability to fight a broken system on your own. I don’t expect engineers and scientists and doctors who have been telling us this shit needs to be done for years to have any fucking patience for it anymore. You’ve all done your bit.
Also, thanks because I’ve just been assuming as much has been going on behind the scenes for a long time. I’ve been saying for years the entire nation gave up on any idea of long-term maintenance of anything in the 90’s. We’ve had failing infrastructure grades for bridges all over the country since at least 2010, if not earlier, and fuck-all has been done. I’m not even close to being an engineer, but I’ve helped some friends with some basic construction and I’m just floored at how many corners are cut on so many things in our country. It’s prevalent everywhere, it’s part of why there’s so many data breaches in the tech sector. They don’t want to pay to update old systems to bring them up to compliance. We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
Insecure outdated software AKA proprietary software. Fuck that shit.
Brought to you by Free Software Foundation.
If the orange man wins, America is over and none of your concerns will matter as we slip into a fascist dystopia. That is an existential threat we have to deal with right now, and it can actually be prevented.
Republicans moving to install a fascist government? Sounds serious!
So when will democrats drop gun control considering this imminent threat?
This is kind of where I’m at. I don’t imagine any amount of cash in a bank account is going to prepare us for what’s to come. Even if you could put money aside, the money you typically put towards retirement might just be better off towards becoming a doomsday prepper. Probably wouldn’t save you either way, but it may buy you a little time that you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Like others have said, I imagine my “retirement” as bearing witness to the collapse of modern society and ultimately dying in some lousy brawl with other desperate refugees, or by some untreated bacterial infection.
I just know that my death will be something dumb in the coming collapse, like stubbing my toe and dying to infection when there is no remaining, effective antibiotics on our superheated hellhole.
US education was abysmal before that already
Solid points all around, but I wanted to add one historical tidbit: at one point the USA had literally the best edumacashiun in the world. After WWII, the other nations (like the UK + those in the EU) were bombed all to hell & back whereas the USA was relatively fine. People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
We have fallen FAR down the world rankings since then. Tbf, some of that may reflect changes in measurements e.g. does “every” kid need one, or can some be excused to go be a farmhand without needing to finish? (this affects averaged measurements, but not peak ones, or the previously thus-filtered ones)
After WWII, the other nations (like the UK + those in the EU) were bombed all to hell & back whereas the USA was relatively fine.
There was certain union in Europe(not European Union) that was bombed 9% by area and 55% by population.
does “every” kid need one, or can some be excused to go be a farmhand without needing to finish?
Translation: To have more you should produce more, to produce more you should know more.
Farmers need education too.
EDIT: lemmy broke my comment with link to image
Farmers need education. Farmhands do not.
Anyway I was just attempting to use it as an example - we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc. There are jobs where, for the job anyway while ignoring the quality of life for the actual person, formalized education is less necessary than for other jobs, e.g. doctor or lawyer.
But my example of using farmhand was not made up: farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not. But either way, the ways we use to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to - the farmhands will appear extremely low in such rankings.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
I accidentally wiped my comment. Now it will not be as good as it was.
Derp. Still, everyone needs education.
we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc.
Dull, mind numbing work that should have been automated long time ago. And we are talking about schools, not universities.
e.g. doctor
Schools are not medical universities. But even in school you will be taught first aid. And basic anotomy in biology class.
farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not.
This is bad. Terrible.
to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to
This question does not measure inteligence, it measures erudition. Inteligence, erudition and wisdom are different things. Question for intelligence would be like “bat and ball cost 1.1$, bat costs 1$ more than ball, how much ball costs?”.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
We are Homo sapiens, not Homo ergaster. Tractor better contributes “purely manual but not much intellectual labor”.
If you will allow me to say? Your premise seems incorrect. Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive. We “need” Oxygen, in order to breathe which itself is necessary in order to stay alive rather than convert into a corpse state of ‘existence’. However, as e.g. https://lemmy.zip/post/17644464 shows, we are not being allowed to have even that. And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
To a fascist, such as the current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary. And with climate change diminishing resources, possibly it is not even desirable or neutral anymore, so much as something to be either neutrally or perhaps actively pursued to demolish what has previously been built up. e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
So no, “everyone needs education” sounds like something that is not true… at least according to the likes of Elon Musk, who now controls Twitter. Not Bezos, nor Zuckerberg, etc. And they would really like it if we did not tax them in order to pay for such. And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not. See this fantastic description of it: https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=dAGHoctLiPimmTTQ.
Also for some reason I didn’t do first quote and my “derp” didn’t looked like reply to my obvious mistake. Sorry.
Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive.
I was talking more broadly as a goal to make everyone fully functioning member of society and citizens of their own country, preferably capable of finding cognitive biases in their and others’ statements and distinguishing science and medicine from pseudoscience and homeopathic antivax chiropractors.
However, as e.g. https://lemmy.zip/post/17644464 shows, we are not being allowed to have even that.
I was so often sangry lately(for last 2 years), that I’m just tired of bullshit happening everywhere.
And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
You know, from my sofa it seems everything sucks, just some countries like nordic ones suck slightly less. And it seems the world plunges into neofeudalism with celebrations by ignorant.
current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary.
Meanwhile they will do everything to keep internationalism and automations to themselves, but never for masses. I think I already mentioned DMCA as expample. Other examples are software patents(which are basically math patents), patents on nature(for example plant varieties, genes of existing organisms).
pursued to demolish what has previously been built up.
It seems it happens everywhere. How about subject called “basics of orthodox culture” in school? Secular state is so secular. Another reason to hate Putinism.
e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
This is so stupid. Human must not be considered a tool. And I feel stupid too because at start of pandemic my opinion wasn’t far from that, but more along the lines of “it doesn’t help that much, why bother” rather then economy part. To be fair it was during peak of police violence and fines printing press during lockdown.
And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not.
Damn. I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
It’s okay - that’s how I interpreted it:-). Lemmy formatting can also be weird sometimes and people access via different methods, so I try to remember that as well.
citizens of their own country
^This is the big one, particularly in a democracy this is so extremely crucial. But… we did not bother to secure it, so now we may be (are?) losing it all. Like someone who has lost their immune system, we are now vulnerable to not only lack of knowledge but outright presence of active disinformation. Wait… didn’t we need that - ooopsie daisy!? :-P
I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
If we had had more fear sooner, we might have avoided getting eaten alive by Russian disinformation campaigns. As it is… our lack of fear has definitely harmed us greatly, possibly fatally.
The good news is that whatever society rises out of our corpse will have learned lessons from the ordeal. Rome also fell too, but life goes on. Ours might not, and given climate change humans or even mammals + far more might not, but even so, all we can control is ourselves individually, right now. I for one take that as a charge to do whatever I can in however much time we have left. And maybe it’s not a foregone conclusion after all? So much the better. All we have is today - make it a good one.:-)
People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
Sounds like bill gates just wanted to steal more surplus labor value from his workers.
Then you understand correctly.
The difference is, people like Bezos also want to steal the value of our labor, but without allowing us to educate our children.
Hence it is worse.
We some how got wedged between Idiocracy and Cyberpunk 2077.
Our dreams of technology didn’t meet with the realities/limits of materials science/engineering except for computing and the internet.
The technology was there; the humanity wasn’t.
You know, we live in “technology was there; the humanity wasn’t” since DMCA was legislated. We literally have information duping machine, but there is law that forbids it. When there will be everything duping machine, ruling class will its use by anyone outside of ruling class.
What do you mean somehow? Cyberpunk as a genre has always been a vision of a future of unchecked corporate power, it only became prescient because Americans gave corporations unchecked power.
Original comment mentioned game Cyberpunk 2077, not entire genre cyberpunk. But yes, unchecked corporate power leads to neofeudalism.
I didn’t think to word it “Walking into the future lubed up, bent over, and ready to pay for the patriotic right to get split roasted by Google and Blackrock” because that’s a bit of a mouth full.
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No.
But one day I will get so desperatly poor that taking out someone in siphoning wealth from the country and ending them might seem like a fitting end.
If we don’t change things anyways.
I always wonder why people shoot up schools and parks when their problems are caused by people in board rooms. Never see a mass shooting in a board room for some reason.
Maybe there’s a selection bias, and we only hear about the dumb ones who target innocent people and get caught.
Well one of the original mass shootings resulted in the expression ‘going postal’, but I don’t recall what was ever theorized as a motive there. Workplace frustration maybe?
Believe it or not, people willing to murder others aren’t the best at thinking clearly.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
- John F. Kennedy
Let’s make peaceful revolution possible by campaigning for electoral reform at the state level! We should all be free to vote for those who best represent us, secure in the knowledge that our vote will still be cast against those we don’t want in office.
We don’t need to wait for trump to have a hamburger heart attack, we dont need to wait for the republicans to stop existing. We can do this right now… and some states already have!
Yours can to, most especially the blue states. Who is stopping you in those blue states?
X’er here. I have what most would consider a good job, with good pay, and a good boss. I consider it a good job with good pay and a good boss. My spouse is unable to work, and we have two children. I’m currently seeking some skill or product I can develop without taking time away from my existing responsibilities such that I have a chance of not having to work until I die at my desk one day.
With no shade against millenials, this is the only time I’m grumpy about being forgotten in the generational sniping that goes on. All these articles (like OP) about this very valid angst from older millenials and I identify with it pretty much every time. I know I’m not the only X’er who does.
X too, steady job, ok pay, lucky enough to have bought a house before COVID, but not enough to save thousands of $ for retreat.
It’s the trouble with attributing it to any specific generation. It’s like people forgot that Gen Xers grew up reading the same dystopian sci-fi that we did that predicted this corporate shithole world. Neuromancer was written in 1984, when I was three years old. People forget that the cynicism of Gen X explicitly came from being such a small generation compared to the Boomers that it was just always a given that they wouldn’t ever have much political influence. Hell, it even affects a lot of Boomers, because this has been going on for a long time.
Gen X gets forgotten, but they were honestly the first to bear the brunt of this disease that’s eating at all of us, and thus it’s sad that they get forgotten. Cheers mate, and I hope you find that skill and succeed in your goals.
Thanks buddy. 🥹
I leave this parting gift…
And then the money is used for regulatory capture and influencing the government in the 1%'s behalf.
Aka capitalism progressing through it’s innate path towards end stage.
First, the 1% gets all the money and then the piss trickles down.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to piss. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence
I fall just at that borderline of the two and have the same sort of spot. Took too long to get to a decent career-class job, managed to buy a basic house but only just and not much of one, savings of an amount to be confident of retirement are a fantasy from a bygone time. Spent many years with the mantra of show up, do your job, don’t cause trouble, the promotions and raises will follow and in 50 years you get a nice gold watch and a permanent vacation. BS…
You know it. At least we’re not alone. :)
I have noticed that the titles of many articles, yes even at The Guardian that generally has good content once you get past that, are written to generate maximum clicks.
You were not ignored by accident. It was a calculated decision to maximize profits, in a manner that controls the conversation and leaves you out in the cold.
Fuck corporate greed:-(.
But for you, my fellow human being who isn’t a hollowed-out shell i.e. CEO, I wish the absolute best outcome possible. (And me too.)
Maybe house prices will go down someday? I really am genuinely surprised at all that Biden('s administration) has managed to accomplish, but it was set back years before it even started by the pandemic, greedflation, and other economic and other forms of unrest. If we can get past this next election without a literal and actual bloody civil war… well then most of us will still die of climate change (gee, I am just full of positivity today aren’t I? sadly, that is the most positive take possible on that one:-|), but we might be able to make some headway? e.g. start incentivizing building houses further away from city centers, which WFH should help make possible - and even if you want to live in a city, the decrease in demand should help lower prices?
Anyway, all we can do is what we can do (aka not everything is within our control), so don’t stress too awfully much about it. We’ll die - we can’t change that - but hopefully we’ll have some good days between now and then:-).
Thanks!
I remember your username primarily because you are always so courteous even when we disagree. (not that we do here)
not having to work until I die at my desk
Lol this guy thinks there is a chance he will die at his desk. I wish I could feel that optimism.
Chances are better that at best you will die in gig or part time job like Walmart. The most likely is in you kids house, really yours but you will give it to them, and without medical support beyond basic hospice.
Many of your peers and friends will die in homeless camps or from police violence.
You were jacking off when you wrote this, weren’t you.
I’m grumpy about being forgotten in the generational sniping
Every generation grows up, settles down, and starts quarrels with its parents.
In 10-15 years, Zoomers will remember you.
Good post, but we really need to get out of the generational thinking.
I know rich and poor boomers. I know rich and poor millenials, and gen X/Z.
It’s a class struggle. Always has been.
Stop making it a generational battle. That only serves to divide the working class.
Yes, there is racism, ageism, sexism. We should debate those things and improve, but we can’t let those things divide us politically.
And since I’m ranting, let me end with a solution. We need to find themes that help all of us.
So perhaps we should say: for example, everyone with less than $1M in wealth gets a $20K tax deduction.
Who could oppose that? It doesn’t benefit home owners vs. renters. It doesn’t benefit students vs. retirees. It doesn’t benefit city dwellers vs. rural. Or white vs. black.
But it does benefit the class who owns nothing and gives them a better chance to own something.
there are a whole class of humans that actually think; ‘i had to suffer through student loans, everyone else should also’
The word “think” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there… plus how many conservative voters these days even have college degrees? The TV (or radio) man says to vote one way, so they do, end of the matter as far as they are concerned. (extraordinarily sadly, no /s on this one)
weirdly, its also older people who prolly paid <5k for their entire education whining about people getting ‘handouts’.
Exactly ^this. It makes sense to them that they “worked their way through college”, ignoring how that is no longer possible.
Tbh I’m not a fan of just handing out money to the predatory banks who screwed students over with those loans either, but damn we should do something. Like maybe educate ourselves on a topic prior to banning people from doing it, possibly, hopefully?
And then they go and say “that’s not how democracy works”, except when you win the majority so hard that you even overcome the electoral college effect then they simply overthrow democracy itself.:-(
There are indeed real facts, and real people, behind all those pithy sayings.
So perhaps we should say: for example, everyone with less than $1M in wealth gets a $20K tax deduction.
As long as you a) have a robust enforcement mechanism (otherwise it will just be another PPP scenario), and b) offset that tax break with new taxes on the wealthy.
Who could oppose that?
I think you know who… there is one class that seems to go FAR out of their way to control the conversation to the end of “there is no class struggle” (or even “there is no such thing as class”?).
Good post, but we really need to get out of the generational thinking.
I know rich and poor boomers. I know rich and poor millenials, and gen X/Z.
It’s a class struggle. Always has been.
As I said somewhere else, it is not that boomers are rich. It’s just all rich are boomers.
TIL Taylor Swift and Elon Musk are boomers.
Replaced all with most.
That’s better.
But most rich people are old, that’s not new.
That’s just how wealth accumulation and inheritance works.
That’s the thing. “It’s a class struggle. Always has been.”
Stop making it a generational battle. That only serves to divide the working class.
That’s difficult when a lot of the news media is owned by *checks notes… the Capital class… and they have vested interest in keeping the conversation about a generational battle.
But yes, 100% agreed. The problem is we’re all commenting on news articles that will never stop presenting it that way.
Someone else could write news then? People started doing that on YouTube - e.g. CPG Grey, Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios, Hank & John Green, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Kurzgesagt, etc. It did not work out well I think, especially since people seek more immediate gratification i.e. Twitch dances or whatever rather than fully college-level subject matter provided entirely for free, oh except having to watch ads for the corporate overlords.
If we do not value i.e. take care of things, we will lose them. In this case - and here I will use a generational term, b/c it refers to the only people in charge at the time it occurred - the Boomer (+ Great) generations chose this for the legacy of everyone who came after. Which is only the history of how we came to be here, but it is our choice to continue forward this way.
Someone else could write news then?
Well exactly, it’s an uphill battle, sadly. I’ve been upset at how weak our media has been since the Bush years, when I was working in local television for an NBC affiliate. I got to see all the behind the scenes of the beginnings of the War on Terror and how much our media purposefully pumped up both the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq and how they helped promote the outright lies of the Bush administration. It was eye opening as a twenty-something to say the least and made me incredibly distrustful of government overreach that was being exhorted by patriotism and nationalism. “Spy and snitch on your fellow Americans to prove how patriotic you are!” It was also part of the beginning of dropping the facade of “racism being over” because holy fuck did brown skinned immigrants all get put in the “dangerous radical Islamist” basket, no matter their real nationality or religion. It deeply colored my view of mainstream media as consistently right-wing, even back then, because of how often they would capitulate to Republican lies to support wars intended to enrich a small elite.
I’ve been wanting to see more independently successful media organizations most of my life, but most of what I have seen is media consolidation, and it’s certainly not like I have the capital to get into the business myself. It’s brutal.
Finally, just as you said, we’re competing with Twitch and TikTok and a lot of these issues really require text documents and references that can be checked more easily than needing to sift through a three-hour-Youtube-video of the issue. The problem is we’ve raised a generation that really doesn’t want to read much at all if it isn’t a subtitle for a video. That’s… distressing. (But not to act like it was much better in my generation, it’s not, it’s part of why we have so many shitty kids: their shitty millennial parents who shove a phone into their hand like Boomers shoved us in front of TVs.)
I wouldn’t even know where to start on how to fix it. I’m with Marshall McLuhan, we’re spitting out new communications mediums before we’ve even really understood the social impacts of the previous mediums. He argued we still didn’t understand writing and we had already jumped headlong into radio and television… Well, look at us now baybeee, shit’s spiraling with the internet, McLuhan. Maybe he’s spinning in his grave to match.
“Spy and snitch on your fellow Americans to prove how patriotic you are!”
Sounds very stalinism.
I guess I spoke too quickly as well. Probably people do write the news, but (a) how do you even find things these days, when searching is crap; and (b) it would perhaps do little to counteract the mis- (neutral), even active dis-information that is out there now. Also those sources I mentioned tend to be rather high-end, e.g. of the scale of intelligence required to make use of and especially to really enjoy watching them.
Speaking of the Bush administration, I recall hearing about the event where they pulled down Sadam Hussein’s statue (iirc?) but later when I watched it happen with my own eyes - with the audio ON mind you - it told a 100% different story. Crowds cheering, or booing, or something, but the important thing is that with the audio OFF they can say whatever they wish to, and we’d believe it b/c how else could we know the reality? Unless someone happened to have the original source… except even then, what if they swapped the audio out, how could we tell!?
The only real way to tell a counterfeit is to know the real thing so well that nobody can tell you otherwise. So what, I am supposed to know about the entire history of the Middle East, and all of the machinations of the US government within that!? I have a fucking job you know, and as a not-Boomer, may never see retirement or own a home even then - who has time to add all of that to their schedule, on top of every single other thing like climate change, ThE eCoNoMy ThO, Covid and/or vaccines, and all of the other myriad things out there (like gay frogs for some damn reason, I dunno)?!
Highly ironically then, the internet may have slowed down the pace of systemic and active disinformation - by providing an “alternate” source of real, true facts - even as in other ways it also sped it up (by providing a source of “alternative facts” that are not true).
And in response to all of that, the Democrats choose to nominate… HRC, smdh. Remember, Trump did not win, so much as she lost - worse than any candidate in modern history, and the second-worst btw was… him. Conservatives, liberals, voters, apathetic people - we brought this upon ourselves. I really hope that we get to live, but if we die, I cannot really blame anyone else? The wealthy elites, ahem excuse me, the Democrat politicians, don’t really exist within the same world as 99.999999% of the rest of Americans, which might be fine except neither do they seem to bother even so much as learning about them - except, you know, enough to carry hot sauce in her purse I suppose.
What you are describing sounds an awful lot to me like the mantra of “move fast and break things”, which as I understand it was popularized by Mark Zuckerberg of
FacismFaceBook, and refers basically to the fact that we can move so quickly nowadays - with the abilities of code monkies hopped up on crack (one presumes, this on top of the Red Bull and Dorritos combo:-P) that even if we screw up, we can still move quickly enough to fix it. Now, you might say that even one second’s thought would be enough to dispell that rumor, however my counter to that is… he’s rich. (and!? WTF does that even have to do with anything!? oh wait, he took all that money from society regardless of the harm that it did to us all, okay then)Anyway, there have always been the elites - the idea of the Illuminati, regardless of whether they are “really” real or not, like seriously, how could they not be, that’s simply how the world works!? - who have controlled society. The problem is, the elites feel like they no longer need the backing of irl human beings, b/c of (a) globalism (so humans here don’t need educating, if you can get sufficient number of coders somewhere, who are willing to work for bananas and cocaine), and (b) automation (so… do we really need human beings at all? and also climate change makes it unlikely that we’ll all survive? welp, better start killing them off in mass numbers, or better yet just let them do it to themselves, whilst *I* simply accumulate all of the wealth that I possibly can until then).
We are all so damn naive - and yes I include myself first and foremost among that set.:-P I am not sure that this problem even is fixable, but if it were, it would take an amount of collective effort that… I am not certain exists any longer. Or the backing of an elite. I guess we’ll see what happens. :-|
with the abilities of code monkies hopped up on crack (one presumes, this on top of the Red Bull and Dorritos combo:-P)
You underestimate coffee and power of Ballmer’s Peak.
automation (so… do we really need human beings at all? and also climate change makes it unlikely that we’ll all survive? welp, better start killing them off in mass numbers, or better yet just let them do it to themselves, whilst *I* simply accumulate all of the wealth that I possibly can until then).
I hate neofeudalism. They use what can be used for societal progress for social regress.
CPG Grey
CGP Grey right?
Seriously the best content creator I’ve ever witnessed. His video on First Past the Post voting should be mandatory to watch.
So tired of people thinking inside the world’s smallest box, the two party system.
His video on First Past the Post voting should be mandatory to watch.
he doesn’t actually state in that video what should be the biggest takeaway: strategic voting is what leads to consolidation of parties, so your best interest longterm is to vote your values, even if doing so has a likelihood of losing short term.
It did not work out well I think, especially since people seek more immediate gratification i.e. Twitch dances or whatever rather than fully college-level subject matter provided entirely for free, oh except having to watch ads for the corporate overlords.
I can’t completely agree with it. There are a lot of college-level-only channels. From English youtube I know only The Efficient Engieneer(engieneering), Thought Emporium(molecular biology, close to popsci), Marco Reps(engieneering), Breaking Taps(engieneering, close to popsci). From popsci Veritasium(mix), Practical Engieneering(engieneering), numberphile(math), computerphile(applied math).
From Russian youtube I can only think of popsci mixed with college-level: Ekaterina Shulman(politology, mix), Chemistry - Easy(chemistry, mostly college-level). From popsci: Physics with Pobedinsky(physics), SciOne(multiple hosts), QWERTY(multiple hosts, originally was about astronomy), Alexandr Panchin(biology), Vert Dider(mix, only translated from english), Artur Sharifov(mix).
Perhaps I am being unfair with my language, so here’s an example if it helps clarify: this is a video combating vaccine disinformation campaigns. It is cute, slow paced enough, but also keeps moving fast enough, it aims low but at the same time it contains high levels of content, and basically answers anyone’s questions about the situation. It is as perfect a video as I think can possibly exist - extremely bold words, but… accurate imho? Edit: oops, this is the one I meant, but notably the fact that there are multiple that fit this criteria also serves a different point as well!?:-)
However, instead of watching this, more people died in the USA from the pandemic than from all wars combined, and like so many other scenarios (e.g. gun violence) we will forever be ignorant of the true numbers because we are actively prevented from counting them.
This is literally, actually, full-on life vs. death, but people cannot be bothered to watch even so much as a 10-minute video to save their life, or the life of everyone around them including their entire family. And the nation that they claim to love and be patriotic for.
Knowledge can easily cure ignorance, but not much if anything can be done about obstinacy. Maybe if they suffer enough pain they may finally start to care enough to open up to listen a real answer, but brainwashing is so tough to attempt to break through.
That channel also deals with climate change, technology, etc. But to switch to a very different example, another one is the rise of fascism all around the world. Ian Danskin’s Innuendo Studios has a playlist for his series on The Alt Right Playbook that is as comprehensive and deep a collection on that topic as I have ever seen. One example of the series is I hate Mondays and another is There’s always a bigger fish. These in some ways are more important than knowledge about climate change or vaccines or gun control or whatever, bc it discusses what we as a society will do about those matters. But instead of watching such, and/or even reading the Constitution that they claim to love, people instead show up at the White House with the idea to literally behead people (January 6), and on the other side liberals always seem shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!?! at the actions of conservatives, despite how remarkably consistent they are.
With so much free, virtually instant knowledge (okay so less than an hour?) available to us all, and with an ad blocker needs nothing at all in return but even without one having to watch a handful of ads is nothing in the grand scheme of things - with all that is available, I can only conclude that people do not want that knowledge. i.e. people in both sides - liberal and conservative - remain in their ignorance by choice, bc it’s easier to watch something akin to a TikTok dance.
It is cute, slow paced enough, but also keeps moving fast enough, it aims low but at the same time it contains high levels of content, and basically answers anyone’s questions about the situation.
That I call Kurzgesagt popsci, not college-level. Not that their video lacks research, just I think such format is not collage level. I consider even this(has autotranslated subtitles, I recommend watching) to be popsci.
Examples of scientific videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Examples of engieneering videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5(closer to popsci).
Examples of popsci: 1, 2(well, scientific journalism, but close enough), 3, 4.
Knowledge can easily cure ignorance
“Knowledge is the light in the darkness of ignorance”.
bc it’s easier to watch something akin to a TikTok dance.
Sometimes clip formats bring up discussions about society and culture too.
Yes the purpose of Kurzgesagt is pop-sci. Hank and John Green are more college level (remember: American college is often equivalent to high school elsewhere in the world) and the likes of Innuendo Studios and CGP Grey can get fairly far away from dancing and deeper into philosophy.
The reason I brought up Kurzgesagt was that even that level is beyond what people want to see.
(remember: American college is often equivalent to high school elsewhere in the world)
Really? Are there any examples? I like laughing at America for not having healthcare, but I don’t think education can be that bad.
The reason I brought up Kurzgesagt was that even that level is beyond what people want to see.
This is very saddening.
Retiring in a cheap country in South America seems like the best option. Makes the money stretch way farther.
I tried that, then it got gentrified and expensive.
Man, we really are more alike then different eh?
The same thing that’s on the first side, but in reverse.
My wife has a job with an awesome pension and as a result there is basically no situation she will ever leave. I pointed out to her that the golden handcuffs are still golden.
One day some MBAs are going to learn that if you don’t want constant turn over you give workers a pension so great they would crawl over their mother’s corpse to get it.
What am I saying? MBAs learning? Hahaha I love being silly.
Unfortunately, living in the US, I would not take a job with a pension because the (private) pension system cannot be trusted. I remember the 00s when many company pension accounts went bankrupt, because companies were no longer offering it as a benefit and it was easy enough to screw over retired past employees. Companies would take poorly performing divisions and their pension plans, spin them off as a new company that would quickly file for bankruptcy.
I would not trust a pension without it being insured by an organization like the FDIC. Even then, I would be afraid that my pension would not cover living costs due to inflation.
Luckily there are alternatives. I have a 401k, which should give me a steady flow of inflation proof dividends… until a market downturn wipes it out. If that happens, I can fall back to Social Security. Don’t believe the baloney that the government will ever let Social Security go bankrupt. They will just cut down benefits.
I don’t deny things like that happened. You heard about them right? So did I. But that’s the thing, these are the stories you heard. It’s man bites dog, it is observation bias.
Also her pension is insured. And I am pretty sure the bankruptcy thing you mentioned was one particular case with a car part maker.
I searched what MBA actually means. Fuck that shit. Degree in “Business Administration” sounds like degree in praying. Wait, there is one! Fuck!
Wasn’t there a study that said MBAs don’t have object permanence nor a real conscious understanding of the passage of time?
Money today. That’s all these businesses understand.
Just give them a box of crayons to eat so the adults can get some work done for once.
It doesn’t matter if any specific MBA learns a lesson. Some other douche canoe will swing by and have their single brain cell fire off just this one time and they’ll start hacking away at the pensions to make Q3 look better.
One day some MBAs are going to learn that if you don’t want constant turn over you give workers a pension so great they would crawl over their mother’s corpse to get it.
Plus, modern MBAs see turnover as a good things because it makes the short-term investors happy.
Wtf why?
For some, you get the Jack Walsh thinking that some employees are going to be statistically bad performers, so it is good to get rid of them.
You also have other cases where lowering the time to train means you can expand faster since you don’t need to find quality staff. The original McDonald’s trained its staff to be able to be high output restaurants. The business model changed to needing less worker training to help fuel expansion.
You also have the case where some managers believe some jobs only require a commodity level labor. At that point, there is no value in training.
So tired of hearing that shitstain’s name. I admit there is some wisdom to the up or out approach. You know for very very high level workers. Like C-suite or a rank below. Doing it across the company just promises misery and failure.
Christ…
Sociopathy, lack of long term planning skills, drugs (metaphorical and physical). Some combination of those I suspect.
This is an appropriate reaction, in my opinion. Modern economic philosophy is entirely myopic with no apparent perceived value in anything beyond the next quarter. From that perspective, if your employees have already created value and you’ve budgeted more than severance would cost (or think you can get away with constructive dismissal), then, for the quarter, getting rid of employees looks like a financial positive.
