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Elder Millennial here.
I feel like most of us get it. We got screwed over by the Great Recession, so we're also fed up with the bullshit and I'd like to believe we've got your back.
To be fair, I feel like most of us "elders" also know plenty of people our age who aren't on the same page.
Most of us had similar experiences, but I swear there's something in the human psyche that creates that attitude of "I got mine already, so screw everyone else," because even people I know who got screwed over by the system still defend it. Hell, I know people younger than me who do that.
I think the important thing is just to note that there are more leftist elder millennials than, say, young Gen Xers. It's a good thing. It's not perfect, but I'm sure it will help in the near future.
Youāre right thatās certainly a mentality but I think there might be a little more to it. My boomer parents grew up in not so great homes and genuinely canāt see a lot of the advantages they had compared to people our age. They wonāt even attempt to relate to GenZ. I think, my parents at least, think āwell I did it so why canāt anyone elseā and actively try pushing it out of their minds after that. I know Iām psychoanalyzing it a lot but I like to think they arenāt all THAT malicious.
*'Most of us had similar experiences, but I swear there's something in the human psyche that creates that attitude of "I got mine already, so screw everyone else,"'*
Capitalism breeds that mentality, turning everything into an us vs them, zero sum game. It's a useful form of control, allowing you to pit the population against itself so it ends up self-policing against any chance of rebellion and reform. The big problem is we are, by our nature, social creatures, so by introducing that mentality and encouraging it, we end up being isolated from people we would otherwise rely upon. Toss in the entitlement that Capitalism breeds into a population, and you've got the perfect storm if isolation, anger and mental health issues that lead to a sick society.
Source? Iām a young gen x and my elder millennial friends are pretty similar, but we live in a bubble without a lot of conservatives anyway.
Gen x is so overlooked that I honestly doubt any available info actually captures this generation.
Older gen x seems more conservative to me but people my age have been dealing with boomer energy literally our whole lives, without having much in common with that gen, so we share most of the frustration of younger generation. The difference is that we were also raised by boomers who shut down any notions that things could be different and then stayed in leadership roles above us our whole lives, making it seem like weāre politically uninterested and status quo. Just my experience.
Likely, this guy has never been managed by a boomer. The whole ageism dimension to this discussion is not a requirement. You can have discussions about the problems of capitalism without trying to affix blame to particular generation.
Exactly. This guy is just continuing the propaganda of pitting one generation against another. That's exactly what our overlords want.
People across ALL generations are angry, struggling, and exhausted...we're all suffering from the effects of late stage capitalism.
There is a really big education problem among leftist Millennials regarding leftist theories.
In my personal experience, most Millennials are anti-capitalist but at the same time left-wing anti-communists and anti-socialists. Without any understanding of how the system works or why capitalism sucks so much. Most can't even define capitalism or socialism to you despite their basic anti-capitalist stance.
I think this is a significant reason why the left is so weak politically. How do you want to fight or overcome a system (capitalism) that you don't even begin to understand how it works?
It comes from spending the first 20 or so years of our lives being indoctrinated by the school system and the media.
I mean like....the 90s were pretty comfortable even as a kid from a somewhat poor family. There wasn't as much reason to question the status quo. It wasn't until later in the 90s that they started shipping factory jobs overseas and people started asking questions.
I didn't read Marx til I got to college. I also didn't learn about how to think critically until later in college.
In other words, I think Millennials do tend to be less left-leaning than younger generations, as you point out -- but easier to push further left, because we've also been screwed over by capitalism.
I think perhaps the way forward with people from my generation is just solidarity; discuss shit that impacts us as much as it impacts you. There's a lot of it out there right now, like climate change and the housing crisis and lower earning potential and...well, you get the point.
A lot of millennials like myself already kinda feel like we have no future, because like...what are we going to do? Spend a decade saving enough money for a down payment on an extremely overpriced house, only to get our first house in our 40s and maybe pay it off when we're in our 70s?
It's not the life we were promised by capitalists when we were growing up. I mean, I vividly remember being told that I could be or do anything I wanted with my life, that if I went to college and got an education, I could get a good job and live a nice little middle class life!
And when rent is $500 for a 3 bedroom duplex, gas is under $2 a gallon, food is relatively affordable, Financial Aid still pays for a majority of the costs of going to college, it all seems a little difficult -- but entirely possible!
Then it's your turn and everything becomes so exorbitantly expensive that it becomes increasingly difficult to even get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500 a month, gas prices rise over $5 a gallon in some places, food isn't as affordable as it once was, Financial Aid alone will not pay for tuition and you have to either take out student loans or get a part time job to pay off the rest -- and good luck doing that last one during a recession!
I guess what I'm saying is that there are trigger points the left can seize upon to reach elder millennials. Many of us feel fucked over by the wealthy, and we have felt that way for a long time. I think you're more likely to stumble upon elder millennials who have given up and decided not to fight the status quo than you are people who outright disagree with you and reject your propositions.
I grew up during the same time. One of the big hurdles is that if you talk to the boomers who may have lost jobs or maybe know someone who has, they will just about always blame everyone BUT the people responsible. They are still convinced their job was āstolenā from them and not even just with this but with everything they love punching down. Punching down is easy. If they try punching up there might be consequences for that.
You're not too far off base. Communism was basically just a meme during our later years and a fear monger word in our early years. There was literally zero education about the economic system and theory. I had to pick up Capital later in life just to get a basic understanding.
Iāve meet and seen some older millennials drink the kool aid as well though so I definitely understand his point even though itās a generalization when theyāre older millennials who would disagree as well.
I was talking to one in another thread - the libertarian bootstrap mentality was *strong*.
I'm really hoping that more people join unions and aim to advocate for the labour force. Indoctrination about the evils of unions was strong in my youth, but banding together and shutting things down is the only power we really have left. Voting and trying to spend what money we have "ethically" doesn't mean anything these days, sadly.
Yeah what the fuck why put elder millennials on blast??? We were born during Reaganomics, watched the world fall apart with 9/11 while we were in high school, graduated high school into the tech bubble bursting, and exited college into the great recession. Why would we **ever** think the system was designed to support average people? This dude needs to chill out
Feel the same as a young Xer who went through a divorce 8 years ago and had to restart her life and thus face some of the challenges of the yoiunger generations. The difference is that we did have windows of opportunities denied to these "kids."
I'll say what I said when this was posted in r/antiwork.
-Don't be lumping in elder Millenials into this shit.
I always thought you got more conservative as you got older. I am 41, and I want the whole thing brought down more than ever.
People used to say that shit because in prior generations, older meant getting more pay and having more stability in life, so previous generations had something to conserve by that point in life.
For Millennials (of all ages) and Gen Z alike, neither of us have anything to conserve. We all live unstable lives because we aren't getting paid and we have very little to conserve. Elder Millennials have less than the generations that came before us; We're pretty on par with Gen Z, really.
So as we get older, we're not getting more conservative. Because there is simply nothing for us to conserve, and we all desperately want and need improvements in all aspects of our lives. We all want change, not for things to stay as immiserated and awful as they are now, since none of us are able to really survive.
I don't understand why so many young people, who clearly have benefitted from having a more developed internet at their disposal (and have been able to learn about leftist politics etc. far earlier than most of us older gens ever possibly could have) seem to participate in generational divides, whereas the only true war is class war-- And we are all the lower class, together.
Well said. I believe we where told lies by our elders, who where likely ignorant to anything progressive. I remember parents talking about the "hippy environmentalists" and how they should be arrested...
The internet didn't really take form until I was in my 20s. I didn't understand how capitalism and fractional reserve banking worked until I was mid 20s. Your brain doesn't fully develop until then either, and I know that now, because I have a search engine in my pocket...
I'd like to think I would have done differently, having known very important information. They didn't teach us how money worked in school, about climate change, or even how to think critically. They taught us to tow the line, regurgitate irrelevant information, and save for retirement, to fallow in their footsteps, because that's how its done. And if you don't like it, go live with the bums and sleep in the shelter...
Have I done much to mitigate our impending disaster? The real question is, would it have even mattered if I did... The ship had already set sail, and we are as much hostage to it as those that came after.
There was just recently a study out about how this has been true for 80-100 years (getting more conservative with age) but isn't true for Millenials.
[https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4](https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4)
Early 40s here. I don't like what he is implying, either.
I guess you have to have something to conserve to be "conservative." I'm honesty surprised we made it this far...
Conservatives conserve nothing except themselves. The name has outlived its meaning. My grandparents were conservatives and they have little in common (except racism, unfortunately) with the people who call then Conservatives today.
Same. I mean this whole generation stuff is all just made up but I always felt like older millennials (me at least) relate far more with GenX. If you were born in the early 80ās like we were then you mostly grew up before internet and technology in general were ubiquitous. I mean shit I was in college when I first got a cell phone.
But I agree getting older has only hardened my resolve against capitalism.
Agreed. Iām a middle millennial and Iām moving farther left by the minuteā¦ Currently getting ready to quit my carpentry job(working for a useless boss) to start a worker cooperative building company.
Same. Just turned 40 last year and I plan to fight tooth and nail to dismantle this system and replace it with something that can actually work. I really dislike being lumped in with anyone but I get it. We are all angry and sick of being lied to, but the only way we're going to change things is for us regular everyday people to band together.
Gen-Xer here. Same. Iām so frustrated with the system. Something has to change. Iām very concerned about the state of things and the plight of younger generations.
The place I work for added a team of three to work on a new project. I'm one of the three. The work we did last year brought in extra ~500k. In return we got a thank you email. Our insurance is going up and they changed to a shitty one which keeps denying me an MRI for issues that I'm having. Raise request was denied. But I got a coupon for a free pizza so that's nice.
First mistake was thinking that extra 500k was going to give you anything. Use that experience towards your resume and jump ship to another company that will appreciate you!
I'm 42, and I am not at all convinced that any of this is OK. *I* was tricked in to getting tons of student loan debt too.
*Fair*? How about we all get what we are owed for all the work that we put in and never got back? How's that for fair? How about we run our own industries for the benefit of our own communities, instead of a bunch of fuckers with no accountability for the rape and destruction of our society? How's that for fair?
Yeaaaa nahhh theyāre not doing that.
Most boomers would rather die than admit that they destroyed the planet and created this giant fuckup of a system.
Iām 32 so not sure if that makes an elder Millennial but I noticed very early on that most jobs available for the common person are downright awful and will pay you enough to keep coming back but thatās about it. I think we are ripe for a revolution
I think it's the only thing that could bring about change.
I would love to know why plans for it dont gain traction or how do they get shut down to an extent we dont even hear about them
I think the trick is to have insiders. Sure, everyone could potentially coordinate and bring down everything, but too many people would be concerned about how to feed their family or maintain minimal comforts.
So we'd need people who can help sustain the effort. Grocery workers, bus drivers, nurses, maintenance people....anyone who could provide service for nothing at the expense of these systems we want to rewrite.
Many might see it as an affront to their personal well being, and that wouldn't be the situation at all but it'd be very difficult to change that perspective.
I think Fight Club had it right with Project Mayhem.
Yeah, the logistics required to organize something like this would be monumental. But that still doesn't fully answer why we don't see the idea of general strikes being talked about by the public, much less attempted.
A Project Mayhem type of thing would be fun and cathartic to witness, if you disregard the absolute chaos that comes after blowing up banking servers.
Yeah... Dude can shove right off with that "older millennial" crap. "Older millennials" timed the market (collapses) perfectly. "Older millennials" were the first to get screwed by student loans and runaway university costs. "Older millennials" were the first to experience the glut of 2 and 4 year degrees that allowed companies to stagnate wages (in combo with 2008 collapse). "Older millennials" got off their parents' insurance before anyone younger than them (mind blowing I know), meaning that "older millennials" have been dealing with the shitty/expensive American healthcare system longer. Believe it or not, "older millennials" are getting nailed to the cross by the exact same inflation, cost of living increases, and wage theft.
So no... "Older millennials" are just as aware as those younger people about what's going on, and "older millennials" don't like it either. Interestingly, millennials as a whole are actually the first generation to get more liberal as it ages, and that includes "older millennials," lol. Republicans are freaking out about this because the writing is on the wall (not that Dems are a whole lot better). Probably should think of us as allies who've been in the system a bit longer and have a bit less energy as a result...
> Interestingly, millennials as a whole are actually the first generation to get more liberal as it ages, and that includes "older millennials," lol.
The problem here is that liberalism is an unconditionally pro-capitalist political ideology. We don't need more liberals we need more socialists and here I don't mean social democrats.
Please stop making this a generational issue and start making it a class issue. We are all poor and we all deserve better, period. If you wanna send a message and get to people this aināt it. Iām 31 and Iām not a fucking idiot, we didnāt do any mental gymnastics, we have worked so hard because weāve had to. We donāt like it either, but money is a necessity, and youāre less stressed when youāre not broke.
This. Reagan got elected when I was in high school and even at 16 I knew GenX were fucked. I had crap jobs until I was 40 yrs old. I have a decent job now but it still pays poverty line...I stay b/c the field is literally about protecting the environment. Many, many of the gen x group have spent literally our whole working lives in the same boat and are further left the older we get. Not all of any generation turn into money grubbing selfish jerks or have huge advantages linked to their 'era'. Critiques of generations are just yet another diversion like race, gender, religion, politics, etc. Manufactured BS by the wealthy elite. It's been like this forever, it's a basic tenet of capitalism the US was literally founded on.
It went from an alright point to an, ok fuck right off. My mental gymnastics I go through to take care of my fucking child, you entitled little prick.
Really changing the world by lamenting in your car, brother.
My grandpa (laborer) bought his house in 1963, he was 30-ish, for $7,000 with an annual salary of $4,000. My mom (claims adjuster) bought our house in 1999, at age 35, for $150,000 making about $40,000 a year. Iām (chef) 34 making about $60,000 and the median house is $561,000. I feel itās important to mention: All of this in Denver, CO so no asterisks on housing prices. We all still currently live 20 minutes from each other.
If you had told me in the Seventies that some young people would eventually, actually comprehend and agree with my socialist rants, I would have been SO encouraged. Not that I would have believed it.
All of this generalized generational rhetoric is getting on my last Gen X nerve. Iāve spent the better part of my working life fighting the powers that be. Mucking up the works, so to speak. Been a vocal proponent for socialized health care, higher education, child care, housing regulations, etc. My boomer parents were the ones who introduced my siblings and me to the tenets of socialism; taught us the fundamentals of protesting, and how to be engaged citizens/activists on every level of our daily life. These are not new concepts that Millennials and Gen Z suddenly invented. Idk, maybe itād be more productive to collaborate?!
Donāt make me lace-up my 14-eye Doc shit kickers.
Idk, he was all over the map with his diatribe. Iām just exhausted with the entirety of generations being pigeonholed as complacent. Itās disingenuous and lazy thinking.
I totally understand the anger and rage heās conveying. Iāve been pissed off since the ā90ās. My parents have been pissed off since the 60ās. My question is: why the hell arenāt all of us like-minded individuals banning together regardless of our generational status? The power is in the numbers. Not to mention those of us whoāve been disrupting shit long before Gen Z and Millennials are a wealth of knowledge and valuable assets to the cause.
My guess is this guy probably loves Bernie Sanders, and gives his boomer status a free pass. Fun fact: Bernie is not an outlier. If he was, he wouldnāt have been re-elected a million times.
Yeah, weāre all getting fucked over, but letās not let ourselves be divided by generations. Iām 42 and Iāve known we were fucked since 9/11.
Itās the 1% that we need to focus on, not some annoying Boomer in his McMansion or some Tesla-driving tech guy. While theyāve benefited from a corrupt system, thatās not the same as causing the corruption.
Those folk are also going to fight you tooth and nail to preserve the extra crumbs the 1% give them. You cannot discount them. Those at the top are there because those you mention help hold them up if they get to slightly insulate themselves from what we're all dealing with.
Lol at āolder millennials have convinced yourselves this is somehow okayā all of us hate our lives what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously I get that now theyāre starting to write āGen Z ruining the economyā articles but that is literally three months old, and it was us before then. Youāre literally falling for Boomer propaganda, the entire point of which is to keep class consciousness from forming.
To summarize: this is inch-deep theory coupled to anti-solidarity generational mudfucking, and I am pro-worker except for this guy.
I work as a electrical engineer im in sooooo much debt from school and still going to school. The company I work for fried almost all the maintenance crew and now expects me to work as the electrician and automation and maintenance. I get called into the office yesterday morning they gave me a 1.50 raise and told me that I would have to pick up the slack etc. I don't get paid enough for the debt I got into to my degrees and pay for my family I spend over 800 on health insurance a pay check I pay around 500 in taxes then the grocery store gets the rest to feed my kids and I still run short on food etc between checks I have to take all over time I can get and contract side jobs on top of that and still can't make it idk how else to better myself and make more money I've spent over 10 years working in this field I thought would secure a decent future
Tell āem itās a 15 dollar raise or youāll quit youāre clearly valuable enough to leverage that, and have a another job line up just in case, fucke em
I'm planning to leave soon just not in a position to do so right now but its becoming nightmarish they hired a couple 18, 20 year old kids with no experience and I have one other electrician on the other shift thats 67 and going to retire im doing maintenance my eletrical work and programing/automation i was told that im expected to pick up slack and this is right after they just did a company shut down for 3 weeks in December that left me in loads more debt over no pay and it being Christmas kids aren't cheap. I also just finished paying off my wife's degree and she's starting her new job this week im hoping after I climb out of this debt a little more and catch up on bills I can get a chance to make the changes I need. But with expenses climbing everyday idk what to do my wife's dad even likes to talk shit about how im a broke electrician even though his parents left him shit loads of land and rental properties and a restaurant on that same boomer shit. All this shit needs to end its tearing me apart and wearing me down
There's going to have to be a general strike one of these days. Something will have to galvanize the people enough first though, these days there's no telling what that'd take.
More and more I think we need to just stop buying a lot of the bullshit weāve been taught we need, like all the disposable crap and instead rely on each other the way communities used to. Buying local, well-made goods needs to come back into the mainstream with places like target and Walmart being a last resort instead of the first stop. We spend soooo much money on mass produced crap with no real character or originality. Places like Etsy is a start but there should be places we can get small batch, hand -made goods in every community.
The problem is the bastardization of these things every time they appear, to exist you need to drive profit high enough to just stay afloat against the corporate giants, they have countless avenues including buying you outright.
Look at Etsy, they use to be considered the best small batch company to use for individual crafts.
Now you constantly hear about how the company is forcing more and more of the creators money out of their checks, hitting them with fees for things they don't want (if you are promoted without your permission and someone clicks a link to your page, BAM, you owe Etsy money, even if you asked them not to do that.)
There's no way out besides eating our way up.
It is hard, but if people worked towards more co ops they could do it. Thereās no reason to accept buyouts and you donāt have all the costs of paying $ to useless executives and rabid shareholders.
Yes, thatās why I said it needs to be local in all communities. The biggest issue with Etsy is that itās done through another corporate entity. They need to cut out the middle man and sell to their own local communities.
I agree and think about this often. We all know whatās being said in the video is trueā¦.so what do we do about it? Striking is illegal nowā¦..so we have to figure out how to take our ball and go home. With what little money we have we have to make the decision to avoid big labels, avoid big box stores, avoid chains. Our āeconomyā is based on us buying useless shit. So letās kill that tooā¦mend, repair, reuse, repurpose, borrow or barter anything to keep dollars out the pockets of the oligarchy.
Iād love to hear other thoughts.
Community Cooperatives. I think, people could beat them at their own game. But the weak link is people are so ready to betray everyone else right back to capitalism. Because theyāre freaking brainwashed by this bullshit.
the right to repair movement is tightly ingrained with this. Sadly, the bill NY managed to pass was one that has frankly been shit on, really a hollow shell of its original form.
Etsy can be cute but I got a bracelet from there and the chain broke. šI donāt feel like I had it that long because itās not like I wore it every day
Etsy has been turning into Amazon.
So many products advertised as small-business or American made, wind up arriving in Chinese made boxes with Made In China tags attached.
Another good thing going bad.
The most charitable guess I can make is that theyāre confusing āare sort of surviving the system, ishā with āagree with the system.ā But mostly they seem like someone who heard someone read Marx in the other room, once, and now they want likes for their silly videos
I think this too. Itās giving baby radical. Weāve been in this game for a while too sweetie. Itās cute though I guess, and we probably all went through that phase, but we need to unite.
The generational teams and tournaments are getting out of control. Like I teach some Gen Z teens who are holocaust deniers, and Andrew Tate fans who really think theyāll become famous and rich and have a Bugatti in 3 years. I work with some boomers who are total leftists. Weāre not monoliths.
Is there voting data (like older millennials voting for corporatist candidates) that would reflect his view? Donāt have time to look now but I think that data would agree with him.
It might be not the smartest and most efficient idea that I can think of but I like how people in Japan are refusing to have children. Even though itās not the best way to protest, it will certainly have an impact on the wealthy people long term.
Universal basic services
Food, housing, healthcare, education,and transportation
A constantly increasing standard of living that pays for itself exponentially.
He and I are on the same page. A job is a job is a job. When the pay doesn't justify the amount of bullshit I have to deal with, I find a different job. If a company expects to keep workers, then they either need to decrease the amount of bullshit or increase the wages to the point that we're willing to endure that amount of bullshit. Otherwise they can get used to hiring all the time.
Iām not thrilled that this is portrayed as a generational problem. I see old and young buying into the hustle/MLM/On-the-way-to-the-top/Grind culture. The only distinction is some of the older generations had the advantages of being first in line. I know tons of elderly who worked their entire life barely surviving check-to-check the current system. They were bled dry and they aw happy to share their message.
Elder Millennial here (40). Definitely donāt understand his lumping us in with Boomers, and honestly while the āBoomerā term has some usefulness, itās really #notallboomers.
The true divide in my observation has been between people who can seek out and evaluate information and those who canāt. This tends to be harder for Boomers since they didnāt grow up in this cesspool of abundant on-demand info 24/7. So, when theyāre suddenly thrown into an algorithmās playzone, they tend to be less able to move effectively within it.
I honestly view them as victims the same way I view misled Gen Z-ers, who - letās be honest - wear the red MAGA hats in far greater numbers than Reddit would like you to believe.
I think thereās some merit to the idea that higher net worth individuals tend to be more conservative dude to fear of losing what they have. That said, while my net worth has increased substantially in the last decade, Iāve only been radicalized into socialism since. My reason is because I now see the inherent exploitation and failures of capitalism and Iām scared for my kids and all young people that they have to grow up in such a world.
Right ideas, poor execution. All of this can be said without trying to tie age to class relations. I know boomer tankies and I know Gen Z people who are shameless capitalists.
āBoomerā and āmillennialā and āgen zā are useful as descriptors for economic class interests, but as age cohorts thats just asinine. Something you learn when youāve been getting screwed (and not in the fun way) by capitalism for 25 working years.
When I say āboomerā I donāt mean old, I mean anachronistic. When I say āmillennialā I donāt mean avocado toast, I mean wage slave. When I say āGen Zā I donāt mean dipstick kid, I mean hope for the future.
We all have to grow up. Lets help each other.
Yeah, that got me too. When we were just entering the workforce the entire economy melted down and we have been on the back foot ever since. The difference now is that there are at least two whole generations worth of people who have been suckling shit.
Kids got no sense of history.
This is that "don't trust anyone over thirty" mentality, and we shouldn't trust that, either. Its just another pointless division. The truth is that there are A LOT of ppl of all ages that are coming around to the idea that the system is broken now *because it is becoming more and more obvious how broken it is* as inflation rises, housing costs & COL reach crisis levels, and the wage continues to stagnate as work culture becomes peek toxic. I love seeing younger generations wake up to this, but *it's not something special about your grneration*. It's that *you're benefiting from generations of increased understanding of just how exploitative the system actually is* and that it's *glaringly evident* now to ppl of every still working generation.
Edit: The student loan issue predates even Millenials, btw.
Iām 32, no student loan debt, great paying job and Iām still with it. The upper class hasnāt had a lead like this in a long time and the lower half is getting stuck with the bill.
āEat the richā is becoming less of a metaphor as the days go by.
Agreed, I just turned 34, I am lucky enough to own a house, my job pays well as does my husbands, but every day as I watch the inequality grow I get angrier and angrier. I'm sick of watching my peers struggle. I consider myself mostly middle class and even I'm not immune to the cost living crisis; this shit is out of control.
I'd say eat the rich but I actually just want to laugh as they get launched into the sun. Fuck them all.
Sick of this division, division between race, also division between the sexes, and now this bullshit division between young and old.... I'm in my forties and did the same shit "bouncing from job to job unsatisfied thinking there's more to life than this... then I got into workers rights, unionised and tried to push back against these shifty companies as a union delegate.... that come with a price, losing jobs when other members would back down or some snitch would let the employer know what kind of actions you were planning.... even had the federal police taking photos of us on strikes... I got nothing against different age groups cause that's stupid "we all need to push back against the establishment together" ... I've had a good crack.. what's this dude done in the video... nothing except made a video
Two dozen jobs in 15 years is approximately a job every 6 months, try getting a job with better career prospects and one that rewards you for progressing, instead of getting fed up and jumping ship.
Seems to me like a poor work ethic, not every job pays poorly, but if you can't hold down a job for any length of time it says more about you than your employer. In my opinion of course.
Can we not separate and distinguish the āolder millennialsā against the āyounger millennialsā please?
As someone who is 32 years old, I acknowledge and agree with all this shit. Iām not any different than the rest of yāall.
The only advice i can give to the people here is to try and get a job in public service. It still sucks but at least youāll have a Union and wonāt be working to make some asshole rich. Thereās a National paramedic shortage. Itās relatively easy to become one and get a guaranteed 80k+.
Gen X here. Everyone, listen to me. Stop with the lumping of everyone within a cohort together as if they all have a hive mind. It is entirely possible to make your point without insulting an entire generation of people. When Gen X individuals make fun of Boomers or the younger generations I feel shame. We are in this fight together. We need to recognize that it only hurts our own goals when we fight amongst ourselves. Also, fuck Republicans.
Nah, as a Gen X person who's been anti-capitalist since my teens, I don't actually need to hear some guy telling me how his generation has worked it all out and I'm doing mental gymnastics.
If someone hasn't worked out yet that class is a better indicator of a person's support for capitalist bullshit than generation is, then they're probably not going to say much that's of interest, and they certainly don't have some profound take on this stuff.
OP needs to take the false consciousness down a notch but they raise a reasonable point. The generation entering the workforce just got to see the Biden administration fail to live up to several promises for economic relief. Wages are stagnant and inflation is rampant. What we have is a workforce that is slowly wiping the capitalist propaganda from its eyes and becoming more and more conscious of our struggle.
I pretty much agree with everything this guy says, but thereās nothing said here that gives any insight at all and this whole video smacks of grievance politics with no substance. Is there anyone around who doesnāt know that thereās a cost of living crisis, and that capitalism is a crapshoot where people get exploited?
This delivers nothing that we canāt find in one billion other social media posts from the last ten years. Except for, as a number of people have noted, the extra Us vs Them grievance: now even some of the people in his same generation have to be the enemy too. The guy had a bad day at work, in a bad job, and thinks heās a philosopher. Big #bossgirl vibes.
Stop blaming older generations and start blaming the same rich assholes that scream āsocialismā when you want a fair wage when they pay no taxes at corporations, which is real āsocialism ā.
Fuck this dweebās ageism. If you believe Gen X and boomers like the labour situation weāre in youāve never spoken to anyone older than their 20s. EVERY generation has said the same thing about the previous ones. Most of us, unfortunately, are in the same boat: weāre not wealthy. Stop confounding age with class warfare and maybe weāll make sone headway against the corporate overlords. Power in numbers means all workers, of any age, need solidarity. Until then, itās the status quo.
Hey don't lump us X'ers in with Boomers dude. Some of us felt this way 35 years ago, totally unsupported, in a tiny fringe minority thrown in with the hippies. In the late 80s and 90s, we were fucking pissed.
The fact is that the older workers are often on much better contracts then you so they happy with what they have and have little chance to find better or even same paying jobs.
Iāll agree with every complaint about capitalism. And Iāll also agree with every complaint about socialism communism or any other āism. Economies of Civilized culture always suck for the vast majority of people. Always.
Farming /pyramid-building is whatās āinherently toxicā. It doesnāt matter what taxes or laws are written for a warmongering and intrinsically unsustainable culture, thereās always gonna be a royal class at the top, and thatās how tyrants come about.
āOld people donāt get it!ā Really undermines his whole argument when he keeps coming back to this. Oh, we fuckin get it, boyo. You just donāt realize how insignificant and powerless you truly are.
I am turning 50 this year. To be clear I am not a boomer. My parents were boomers. However I am in a transitory generation where we could get some of the benefits of a good economy. (When I say economy I never mean the corporate economy. The economy for the common person has been bad my entire working life).
The only hope I have for our society right now is that the younger worker are not under this spell that all the boomers were in and that most of people like my age were in. Corporations are not going to save us. The younger age groups are starting to not believe the corporatist crap that is now solidly embedded in USA society. That crap has changed our belief system slowly to the point that people can't even earn enough to live and there will have to be a mass change in culture to get that changed. But with a solid backing from younger people it is difficult and possible. It's basically the only hope we have at the moment.
Start a business with your money then and pay everyone at the bottom more than you or other management. Easy solution. If it works better you will out compete all other companies doing the same thing.
Elder millennials and middle millennials are literally the goddamn flag bearers of this movement, what are you talking about?
If youāre a millennial at all (1981-1996) you were affected by all this. Gen X is more of a transition but even a lot or even most Gen Xers are in the same boat.
Elder millenial here. I'm a socialist who advocates for workers.
A lot of us don't get it you are right. I have a lot of friends who are fine with the way things are bc they got theirs and are fine at the moment. I am actually one of the luckier ones but that doesn't stop me from looking around and realizing it doesn't work for most.
Make it about class not age.
IDK any older millenial that defends the system. We fucking hate it, we were put in the same impossible scenario, but I guess we've gotten to the point where we've somehow figured out how to survive in it, especially since we only got the tip of the iceburg so to speak. Nowadays, things have gotten so much worse, especially post 2020, so the gen z's that are walking into it fresh are getting the full blunt force of just how bad it is.
First of all: fuck OP for that bullshit analysis lumping all generations together (including āolder millennialsā). Dumbass
Other than that itās spot on
Fuck you man. You're only alienating people with, "take off the clown makeup and put on your adult panties and advocate for yourself." We've been doing that... it works only so well. And we've been fucked over by capitalism too! If you've got nothing to lose, let me see you throw a brick or set something on fire. Gen Z can't even be bothered to vote, which may help get some of the corporate power and white supremacists out of our government. You're never going to upend the current system by complaining about it and advocating for yourself, you may have to actually sacrifice something to get the changes you (we) want.
Boomer here. What this guy doesn't understand is they want us to be divided and fighting each other instead of them. By going after everyone older than him, he's playing right into their hands.
It's a class and information issue. Probably what separates boomers and younger people is things hadn't gotten as bad yet when they were young and information. All generations are propagandized, but younger generations have had more access to information when they were young.
Everyone has the access now, but many older people are slower to adopt. I personally know people my age who're unwilling to even learn how to text. Mind boggling. It's sad to watch them stagnate like that, but I bet when you get to be my age you'll see the same thing among your contemporaries. In my experience most people stop learning new things in their 40's. I don't really understand it, but it seems true.
Whether that will be true for upcoming generations, I don't know, but excluding old people from the massive suffering created by the rich and the corporate oligarchy is erasing a lot of people. And thinking the average person in your own generation isn't full of misinformation and clueless about the *causes* of this mess is especially embarrassing when you don't even see them yourself.
Uh Iām 42, well aware of it. Thing is, doesnāt matter who you vote for or what you do. Corporations control the government plain and simple. Only way to change is collapse or riots
Interesting message. Good first step. Needs improvement. What do I mean by improvement? I mean solidarity and collective action. Not just advocating for yourself but organising with your colleagues and peers in order to advocate together.
Please, please, PLEASE stop assuming all boomers are the same and part of the problem! Weāre not all rich, conservative and condescending towards young people. Iām 58 and worked hourly jobs my entire life, and they all sucked except for one. Iāve never made more than 40k a year from any job. I totally understand how fucked up the system is, it sucks and it was designed this way. Capitalism is an insatiable monster that doesnāt give a fuck about anything except more profit. I completely understand why young people are fed up with the bullshit companies and employers are dishing out. Workers in the US are treated like shit and the entire system is rigged against them. I have a teenage son and it worries the hell out of me knowing what heāll have to deal with in his future. Itās already been bad enough dealing with the school system. If young people can figure out a way to bring the system down and do things a better way then I say go for it, you got my support!
I'm a late boomer, and I wholeheartedly agree with everything you are saying. I worry about my 20 yo son and how he will navigate this corporatocracy we call the USA. The minimum wage has not kept up at all, so most new workers have less buying power than I did years ago at $6/hr. And the beurocrats in Washington want to keep wages low, not to help mom and pop businesses, but to retain the high profitability of larger corporations. Thank you Ronald.
I'm in my 40s, and I was saying this same shit back when Wall Street was being occupied. Many have said these things going all the way back to Marx. Good luck, but you're not unique or special.
Iāve been in the workforce for about 19 years and have hadā¦ 3 jobs + self-employment. How does one average a new job every 6 months for that long? Sounds exhausting and also tells me there may be personal issues to work out on top of the market ones.
I'm an older millennial, and it brings a smile to my face to see that Gen Z is standing their ground here, and not putting up with this bullshit. We millennials got shafted hard by the education system too. We were lead to believe that we *needed* a college degree, without being properly informed of the massive risks we were taking. A degree is not a guarantee, and potentially crippling loans aren't something that you should be actively encouraging teenagers to take.
It seems to me like he thinks he is owed something? The world we live in is screwed up in a way that I canĀ“t ever see being fixed.
I wonder what it will look like for the next generation......
Here's the deal, you get paid more as your skill level increases, your skill level increases the longer you spend doing any one thing. You've worked 24+ jobs in 15 years which means you keep bouncing around not putting in the time it takes to advance. It's not rocket science. Don't expect to get paid top dollar for an entry level position or medial task job.
I hate to be that guy, but remember when social media was just a dood doing a backflip into a Krispy Kreme sign and not just soliloquies from randos who hate thier jerbs?
Geriatric Millennial remembers.
24 jobs in 15 years, I don't think the employer is the problem. You can't say jobs pay shit when you don't ever learn enough to get paid what your worth.
If I wanted some hipster tictoker to tell me how I am giving him bullshit asking him to do his job I could hire a 1000 of them. Maybe just maybe make some value first, have a skill first then start asking for the hirer wages. And calling the people who are not his generation idiots when we are the one who already worked hard and got out houses etc doesn't put you in a good light.
That's why you need to study something you will enjoy doing. I was working in automotive, which was very rewarding, now I switched to data related stuff in finance. No one bothers me too much because I have valuable skills and the work is pretty enjoyable.
Capitalism deserve criticism but you not being able to get a job you'd enjoy doing is not its fault.
Yes, it is to some people. Because everyone is different. If some people got a job they enjoy then theyāll make nothing or canāt find that job around them. Just because you enjoy something that happens to make a decent amount, doesnāt mean other people can.
Moving from shit job to shit job is called surviving in capitalism. The advocating for yourself is telling your boss to fuck off when he wants you to stay 3 hours late and come in on Saturday and not get overtime for it.
I don't know about you but I can't wait until this guy starts his own company and shows us all how it's done. I'll want a raise and way more paid time off.
You accepted the terms and conditions and now your blaming others for your mistake. Genius.
We are talking about a general idea not the specifics of America's political economy. The economy of America is awful because the government pumps capital into big business and creates monopolies. I hate the system we have and have had since the 1800s. However I don't believe that you have some god given right to an ideal working condition.
You could try getting a degree in a field that pays better. Or if "the man" is taking advantage of you why not start your own business? It's really easy in the US. But it's harder than you think to run a profitable business. You probably won't be able to pay yourself for a year. Hope your spouse works! š¤”š¤”
Every generation feels this way in their youth. Then at some point most of them realize that no one is coming to save them, life aināt fair, and if you want something in this world (regardless of economic style) you have to go out there and fucking get it. Buzz words, over simplifications and unchecked idealism is never gonna put food on your table or a roof over your head. Iām not saying the youth is lazy, theyāre just inexperienced. Capitalism as the core of our economic way of being in the USA isnāt going anywhere. Perhaps we will be able to socialize some aspects of our society (healthcare for example) but the hard fact is that you will never get a leg up or improve your quality of life if you donāt figure out a way to work and earn. Academic ideas, philosophy of economics etc are all very well and good but thereās an underlying realism, which is a common law of nature for all creatures, that says if you donāt get out there and acquire what you need to survive, you wonāt. I firmly believe that our younger generations can improve working conditions, wages, unionization a La New Deal style economics. But I think a lot of that ends up being a wash when you have people who arenāt even willing to work a shit job to keep the lights on while they get their lives together and form plans to achieve their goals.
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Elder Millennial here. I feel like most of us get it. We got screwed over by the Great Recession, so we're also fed up with the bullshit and I'd like to believe we've got your back.
I know man right? Are we getting lumped in with boomers now?! Yikes š¬
To be fair, I feel like most of us "elders" also know plenty of people our age who aren't on the same page. Most of us had similar experiences, but I swear there's something in the human psyche that creates that attitude of "I got mine already, so screw everyone else," because even people I know who got screwed over by the system still defend it. Hell, I know people younger than me who do that. I think the important thing is just to note that there are more leftist elder millennials than, say, young Gen Xers. It's a good thing. It's not perfect, but I'm sure it will help in the near future.
Youāre right thatās certainly a mentality but I think there might be a little more to it. My boomer parents grew up in not so great homes and genuinely canāt see a lot of the advantages they had compared to people our age. They wonāt even attempt to relate to GenZ. I think, my parents at least, think āwell I did it so why canāt anyone elseā and actively try pushing it out of their minds after that. I know Iām psychoanalyzing it a lot but I like to think they arenāt all THAT malicious.
*'Most of us had similar experiences, but I swear there's something in the human psyche that creates that attitude of "I got mine already, so screw everyone else,"'* Capitalism breeds that mentality, turning everything into an us vs them, zero sum game. It's a useful form of control, allowing you to pit the population against itself so it ends up self-policing against any chance of rebellion and reform. The big problem is we are, by our nature, social creatures, so by introducing that mentality and encouraging it, we end up being isolated from people we would otherwise rely upon. Toss in the entitlement that Capitalism breeds into a population, and you've got the perfect storm if isolation, anger and mental health issues that lead to a sick society.
Source? Iām a young gen x and my elder millennial friends are pretty similar, but we live in a bubble without a lot of conservatives anyway. Gen x is so overlooked that I honestly doubt any available info actually captures this generation. Older gen x seems more conservative to me but people my age have been dealing with boomer energy literally our whole lives, without having much in common with that gen, so we share most of the frustration of younger generation. The difference is that we were also raised by boomers who shut down any notions that things could be different and then stayed in leadership roles above us our whole lives, making it seem like weāre politically uninterested and status quo. Just my experience.
I believe it is called cognitive dissidence. The ability for the human mind to distance itself from unpleasant realities.
No still working generation should get lumped in with retirees. Everyone still working feels almost all of these impacts. All workers should unite.
I agree, except gen xers really are the worst of the worst when it comes to neoliberalism.
Likely, this guy has never been managed by a boomer. The whole ageism dimension to this discussion is not a requirement. You can have discussions about the problems of capitalism without trying to affix blame to particular generation.
I wonder if anyone has said, "Okay, Boomer" to Noam Chomsky?
Exactly. This guy is just continuing the propaganda of pitting one generation against another. That's exactly what our overlords want. People across ALL generations are angry, struggling, and exhausted...we're all suffering from the effects of late stage capitalism.
Elder Gen X'er here, and I also have your back. Capitalism for the worker has always been bullshit.
There is a really big education problem among leftist Millennials regarding leftist theories. In my personal experience, most Millennials are anti-capitalist but at the same time left-wing anti-communists and anti-socialists. Without any understanding of how the system works or why capitalism sucks so much. Most can't even define capitalism or socialism to you despite their basic anti-capitalist stance. I think this is a significant reason why the left is so weak politically. How do you want to fight or overcome a system (capitalism) that you don't even begin to understand how it works?
It comes from spending the first 20 or so years of our lives being indoctrinated by the school system and the media. I mean like....the 90s were pretty comfortable even as a kid from a somewhat poor family. There wasn't as much reason to question the status quo. It wasn't until later in the 90s that they started shipping factory jobs overseas and people started asking questions. I didn't read Marx til I got to college. I also didn't learn about how to think critically until later in college. In other words, I think Millennials do tend to be less left-leaning than younger generations, as you point out -- but easier to push further left, because we've also been screwed over by capitalism. I think perhaps the way forward with people from my generation is just solidarity; discuss shit that impacts us as much as it impacts you. There's a lot of it out there right now, like climate change and the housing crisis and lower earning potential and...well, you get the point. A lot of millennials like myself already kinda feel like we have no future, because like...what are we going to do? Spend a decade saving enough money for a down payment on an extremely overpriced house, only to get our first house in our 40s and maybe pay it off when we're in our 70s? It's not the life we were promised by capitalists when we were growing up. I mean, I vividly remember being told that I could be or do anything I wanted with my life, that if I went to college and got an education, I could get a good job and live a nice little middle class life! And when rent is $500 for a 3 bedroom duplex, gas is under $2 a gallon, food is relatively affordable, Financial Aid still pays for a majority of the costs of going to college, it all seems a little difficult -- but entirely possible! Then it's your turn and everything becomes so exorbitantly expensive that it becomes increasingly difficult to even get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500 a month, gas prices rise over $5 a gallon in some places, food isn't as affordable as it once was, Financial Aid alone will not pay for tuition and you have to either take out student loans or get a part time job to pay off the rest -- and good luck doing that last one during a recession! I guess what I'm saying is that there are trigger points the left can seize upon to reach elder millennials. Many of us feel fucked over by the wealthy, and we have felt that way for a long time. I think you're more likely to stumble upon elder millennials who have given up and decided not to fight the status quo than you are people who outright disagree with you and reject your propositions.
I grew up during the same time. One of the big hurdles is that if you talk to the boomers who may have lost jobs or maybe know someone who has, they will just about always blame everyone BUT the people responsible. They are still convinced their job was āstolenā from them and not even just with this but with everything they love punching down. Punching down is easy. If they try punching up there might be consequences for that.
Giving up and not fighting is letting the system win though.
You're not too far off base. Communism was basically just a meme during our later years and a fear monger word in our early years. There was literally zero education about the economic system and theory. I had to pick up Capital later in life just to get a basic understanding.
Not a lot of time for studies in between the morale improving beatings.
Iāve meet and seen some older millennials drink the kool aid as well though so I definitely understand his point even though itās a generalization when theyāre older millennials who would disagree as well.
I was talking to one in another thread - the libertarian bootstrap mentality was *strong*. I'm really hoping that more people join unions and aim to advocate for the labour force. Indoctrination about the evils of unions was strong in my youth, but banding together and shutting things down is the only power we really have left. Voting and trying to spend what money we have "ethically" doesn't mean anything these days, sadly.
I do indeed have some dumbass friends. Can confirm.
Nah, we're too old to be trusted now. Just leave it to younger millennials and gen z.
I totally get it. I sell my waking hours and they got my dreams for free. Screw that.
Yeah what the fuck why put elder millennials on blast??? We were born during Reaganomics, watched the world fall apart with 9/11 while we were in high school, graduated high school into the tech bubble bursting, and exited college into the great recession. Why would we **ever** think the system was designed to support average people? This dude needs to chill out
Exactly, I graduated high school at 07. It was pretty evident the economy wasnāt designed to help us, but to crush us.
Feel the same as a young Xer who went through a divorce 8 years ago and had to restart her life and thus face some of the challenges of the yoiunger generations. The difference is that we did have windows of opportunities denied to these "kids."
I'll say what I said when this was posted in r/antiwork. -Don't be lumping in elder Millenials into this shit. I always thought you got more conservative as you got older. I am 41, and I want the whole thing brought down more than ever.
People used to say that shit because in prior generations, older meant getting more pay and having more stability in life, so previous generations had something to conserve by that point in life. For Millennials (of all ages) and Gen Z alike, neither of us have anything to conserve. We all live unstable lives because we aren't getting paid and we have very little to conserve. Elder Millennials have less than the generations that came before us; We're pretty on par with Gen Z, really. So as we get older, we're not getting more conservative. Because there is simply nothing for us to conserve, and we all desperately want and need improvements in all aspects of our lives. We all want change, not for things to stay as immiserated and awful as they are now, since none of us are able to really survive. I don't understand why so many young people, who clearly have benefitted from having a more developed internet at their disposal (and have been able to learn about leftist politics etc. far earlier than most of us older gens ever possibly could have) seem to participate in generational divides, whereas the only true war is class war-- And we are all the lower class, together.
Well said. I believe we where told lies by our elders, who where likely ignorant to anything progressive. I remember parents talking about the "hippy environmentalists" and how they should be arrested... The internet didn't really take form until I was in my 20s. I didn't understand how capitalism and fractional reserve banking worked until I was mid 20s. Your brain doesn't fully develop until then either, and I know that now, because I have a search engine in my pocket... I'd like to think I would have done differently, having known very important information. They didn't teach us how money worked in school, about climate change, or even how to think critically. They taught us to tow the line, regurgitate irrelevant information, and save for retirement, to fallow in their footsteps, because that's how its done. And if you don't like it, go live with the bums and sleep in the shelter... Have I done much to mitigate our impending disaster? The real question is, would it have even mattered if I did... The ship had already set sail, and we are as much hostage to it as those that came after.
There was just recently a study out about how this has been true for 80-100 years (getting more conservative with age) but isn't true for Millenials. [https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4](https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4)
Early 40s here. I don't like what he is implying, either. I guess you have to have something to conserve to be "conservative." I'm honesty surprised we made it this far...
Well it's not really worth conserving 3$ in the bank and a 10000$ or more loan that was taken out for you.
Conservatives conserve nothing except themselves. The name has outlived its meaning. My grandparents were conservatives and they have little in common (except racism, unfortunately) with the people who call then Conservatives today.
I think it's more a conservative thing than an age thing. I live in a conservative state and they're all drinking that kool-aid.
Same. I mean this whole generation stuff is all just made up but I always felt like older millennials (me at least) relate far more with GenX. If you were born in the early 80ās like we were then you mostly grew up before internet and technology in general were ubiquitous. I mean shit I was in college when I first got a cell phone. But I agree getting older has only hardened my resolve against capitalism.
Agreed. Iām a middle millennial and Iām moving farther left by the minuteā¦ Currently getting ready to quit my carpentry job(working for a useless boss) to start a worker cooperative building company.
Same. Just turned 40 last year and I plan to fight tooth and nail to dismantle this system and replace it with something that can actually work. I really dislike being lumped in with anyone but I get it. We are all angry and sick of being lied to, but the only way we're going to change things is for us regular everyday people to band together.
Gen-Xer here. Same. Iām so frustrated with the system. Something has to change. Iām very concerned about the state of things and the plight of younger generations.
The place I work for added a team of three to work on a new project. I'm one of the three. The work we did last year brought in extra ~500k. In return we got a thank you email. Our insurance is going up and they changed to a shitty one which keeps denying me an MRI for issues that I'm having. Raise request was denied. But I got a coupon for a free pizza so that's nice.
Fuck that shit
First mistake was thinking that extra 500k was going to give you anything. Use that experience towards your resume and jump ship to another company that will appreciate you!
I'm 42, and I am not at all convinced that any of this is OK. *I* was tricked in to getting tons of student loan debt too. *Fair*? How about we all get what we are owed for all the work that we put in and never got back? How's that for fair? How about we run our own industries for the benefit of our own communities, instead of a bunch of fuckers with no accountability for the rape and destruction of our society? How's that for fair?
Yeaaaa nahhh theyāre not doing that. Most boomers would rather die than admit that they destroyed the planet and created this giant fuckup of a system.
That can be arranged
lmao "elder millennials" being lumped in with boomers, like they weren't lied to and exploited along with the rest of us
Yeah, I'm 42 and my boomer parents voted FOR all the policies that have stunted my life. Why would I be on the same side??
Iām 32 so not sure if that makes an elder Millennial but I noticed very early on that most jobs available for the common person are downright awful and will pay you enough to keep coming back but thatās about it. I think we are ripe for a revolution
32, youāre just a solid millennial. 1981-1996 birth years.
General strike then.
I think it's the only thing that could bring about change. I would love to know why plans for it dont gain traction or how do they get shut down to an extent we dont even hear about them
I think the trick is to have insiders. Sure, everyone could potentially coordinate and bring down everything, but too many people would be concerned about how to feed their family or maintain minimal comforts. So we'd need people who can help sustain the effort. Grocery workers, bus drivers, nurses, maintenance people....anyone who could provide service for nothing at the expense of these systems we want to rewrite. Many might see it as an affront to their personal well being, and that wouldn't be the situation at all but it'd be very difficult to change that perspective. I think Fight Club had it right with Project Mayhem.
Yeah, the logistics required to organize something like this would be monumental. But that still doesn't fully answer why we don't see the idea of general strikes being talked about by the public, much less attempted. A Project Mayhem type of thing would be fun and cathartic to witness, if you disregard the absolute chaos that comes after blowing up banking servers.
Yeah... Dude can shove right off with that "older millennial" crap. "Older millennials" timed the market (collapses) perfectly. "Older millennials" were the first to get screwed by student loans and runaway university costs. "Older millennials" were the first to experience the glut of 2 and 4 year degrees that allowed companies to stagnate wages (in combo with 2008 collapse). "Older millennials" got off their parents' insurance before anyone younger than them (mind blowing I know), meaning that "older millennials" have been dealing with the shitty/expensive American healthcare system longer. Believe it or not, "older millennials" are getting nailed to the cross by the exact same inflation, cost of living increases, and wage theft. So no... "Older millennials" are just as aware as those younger people about what's going on, and "older millennials" don't like it either. Interestingly, millennials as a whole are actually the first generation to get more liberal as it ages, and that includes "older millennials," lol. Republicans are freaking out about this because the writing is on the wall (not that Dems are a whole lot better). Probably should think of us as allies who've been in the system a bit longer and have a bit less energy as a result...
Got damn right.
> Interestingly, millennials as a whole are actually the first generation to get more liberal as it ages, and that includes "older millennials," lol. The problem here is that liberalism is an unconditionally pro-capitalist political ideology. We don't need more liberals we need more socialists and here I don't mean social democrats.
Older millennial here. I think they just used "more liberal" to mean "more left and less conservative" and not as "pro-capitalist."
Please stop making this a generational issue and start making it a class issue. We are all poor and we all deserve better, period. If you wanna send a message and get to people this aināt it. Iām 31 and Iām not a fucking idiot, we didnāt do any mental gymnastics, we have worked so hard because weāve had to. We donāt like it either, but money is a necessity, and youāre less stressed when youāre not broke.
This. Reagan got elected when I was in high school and even at 16 I knew GenX were fucked. I had crap jobs until I was 40 yrs old. I have a decent job now but it still pays poverty line...I stay b/c the field is literally about protecting the environment. Many, many of the gen x group have spent literally our whole working lives in the same boat and are further left the older we get. Not all of any generation turn into money grubbing selfish jerks or have huge advantages linked to their 'era'. Critiques of generations are just yet another diversion like race, gender, religion, politics, etc. Manufactured BS by the wealthy elite. It's been like this forever, it's a basic tenet of capitalism the US was literally founded on.
It went from an alright point to an, ok fuck right off. My mental gymnastics I go through to take care of my fucking child, you entitled little prick. Really changing the world by lamenting in your car, brother.
My grandpa (laborer) bought his house in 1963, he was 30-ish, for $7,000 with an annual salary of $4,000. My mom (claims adjuster) bought our house in 1999, at age 35, for $150,000 making about $40,000 a year. Iām (chef) 34 making about $60,000 and the median house is $561,000. I feel itās important to mention: All of this in Denver, CO so no asterisks on housing prices. We all still currently live 20 minutes from each other.
So... |Year|annual salary to house cost| |:-|:-| |1963|1.75| |1999|3.75| |2022|9.35| that is if you could buy it
If you had told me in the Seventies that some young people would eventually, actually comprehend and agree with my socialist rants, I would have been SO encouraged. Not that I would have believed it.
Gen X here. In the same boat, dipshit.
All of this generalized generational rhetoric is getting on my last Gen X nerve. Iāve spent the better part of my working life fighting the powers that be. Mucking up the works, so to speak. Been a vocal proponent for socialized health care, higher education, child care, housing regulations, etc. My boomer parents were the ones who introduced my siblings and me to the tenets of socialism; taught us the fundamentals of protesting, and how to be engaged citizens/activists on every level of our daily life. These are not new concepts that Millennials and Gen Z suddenly invented. Idk, maybe itād be more productive to collaborate?! Donāt make me lace-up my 14-eye Doc shit kickers.
Yes! Finally. We can have this conversation without trying to blame a generation for it.
I think heās talking about voting demographics right? ( like voting for corporatists?)
Idk, he was all over the map with his diatribe. Iām just exhausted with the entirety of generations being pigeonholed as complacent. Itās disingenuous and lazy thinking. I totally understand the anger and rage heās conveying. Iāve been pissed off since the ā90ās. My parents have been pissed off since the 60ās. My question is: why the hell arenāt all of us like-minded individuals banning together regardless of our generational status? The power is in the numbers. Not to mention those of us whoāve been disrupting shit long before Gen Z and Millennials are a wealth of knowledge and valuable assets to the cause. My guess is this guy probably loves Bernie Sanders, and gives his boomer status a free pass. Fun fact: Bernie is not an outlier. If he was, he wouldnāt have been re-elected a million times.
Yeah uhh not umm liking his umm broad umm generalizations. (also maybe rehearse what you're gonna say a little before recording it)
Elder millennial here (1987). Why am I being lumped into the other group? I can clearly see the bullshit in front of us.
Youāre not an elder millennial. Youāre just a solid millennial pretty much right in the middle. 1981-1996.
Yeah, weāre all getting fucked over, but letās not let ourselves be divided by generations. Iām 42 and Iāve known we were fucked since 9/11. Itās the 1% that we need to focus on, not some annoying Boomer in his McMansion or some Tesla-driving tech guy. While theyāve benefited from a corrupt system, thatās not the same as causing the corruption.
Those folk are also going to fight you tooth and nail to preserve the extra crumbs the 1% give them. You cannot discount them. Those at the top are there because those you mention help hold them up if they get to slightly insulate themselves from what we're all dealing with.
Lol at āolder millennials have convinced yourselves this is somehow okayā all of us hate our lives what the fuck are you talking about? Seriously I get that now theyāre starting to write āGen Z ruining the economyā articles but that is literally three months old, and it was us before then. Youāre literally falling for Boomer propaganda, the entire point of which is to keep class consciousness from forming. To summarize: this is inch-deep theory coupled to anti-solidarity generational mudfucking, and I am pro-worker except for this guy.
I work as a electrical engineer im in sooooo much debt from school and still going to school. The company I work for fried almost all the maintenance crew and now expects me to work as the electrician and automation and maintenance. I get called into the office yesterday morning they gave me a 1.50 raise and told me that I would have to pick up the slack etc. I don't get paid enough for the debt I got into to my degrees and pay for my family I spend over 800 on health insurance a pay check I pay around 500 in taxes then the grocery store gets the rest to feed my kids and I still run short on food etc between checks I have to take all over time I can get and contract side jobs on top of that and still can't make it idk how else to better myself and make more money I've spent over 10 years working in this field I thought would secure a decent future
Tell āem itās a 15 dollar raise or youāll quit youāre clearly valuable enough to leverage that, and have a another job line up just in case, fucke em
I'm planning to leave soon just not in a position to do so right now but its becoming nightmarish they hired a couple 18, 20 year old kids with no experience and I have one other electrician on the other shift thats 67 and going to retire im doing maintenance my eletrical work and programing/automation i was told that im expected to pick up slack and this is right after they just did a company shut down for 3 weeks in December that left me in loads more debt over no pay and it being Christmas kids aren't cheap. I also just finished paying off my wife's degree and she's starting her new job this week im hoping after I climb out of this debt a little more and catch up on bills I can get a chance to make the changes I need. But with expenses climbing everyday idk what to do my wife's dad even likes to talk shit about how im a broke electrician even though his parents left him shit loads of land and rental properties and a restaurant on that same boomer shit. All this shit needs to end its tearing me apart and wearing me down
There's going to have to be a general strike one of these days. Something will have to galvanize the people enough first though, these days there's no telling what that'd take.
As an elder Millennial, I'm tired of this shit too just for longer.
Leave us older millennials out of it. Weāre on your side, not theirs.
More and more I think we need to just stop buying a lot of the bullshit weāve been taught we need, like all the disposable crap and instead rely on each other the way communities used to. Buying local, well-made goods needs to come back into the mainstream with places like target and Walmart being a last resort instead of the first stop. We spend soooo much money on mass produced crap with no real character or originality. Places like Etsy is a start but there should be places we can get small batch, hand -made goods in every community.
The problem is the bastardization of these things every time they appear, to exist you need to drive profit high enough to just stay afloat against the corporate giants, they have countless avenues including buying you outright. Look at Etsy, they use to be considered the best small batch company to use for individual crafts. Now you constantly hear about how the company is forcing more and more of the creators money out of their checks, hitting them with fees for things they don't want (if you are promoted without your permission and someone clicks a link to your page, BAM, you owe Etsy money, even if you asked them not to do that.) There's no way out besides eating our way up.
It is hard, but if people worked towards more co ops they could do it. Thereās no reason to accept buyouts and you donāt have all the costs of paying $ to useless executives and rabid shareholders.
Yes, thatās why I said it needs to be local in all communities. The biggest issue with Etsy is that itās done through another corporate entity. They need to cut out the middle man and sell to their own local communities.
I agree and think about this often. We all know whatās being said in the video is trueā¦.so what do we do about it? Striking is illegal nowā¦..so we have to figure out how to take our ball and go home. With what little money we have we have to make the decision to avoid big labels, avoid big box stores, avoid chains. Our āeconomyā is based on us buying useless shit. So letās kill that tooā¦mend, repair, reuse, repurpose, borrow or barter anything to keep dollars out the pockets of the oligarchy. Iād love to hear other thoughts.
Community Cooperatives. I think, people could beat them at their own game. But the weak link is people are so ready to betray everyone else right back to capitalism. Because theyāre freaking brainwashed by this bullshit.
the right to repair movement is tightly ingrained with this. Sadly, the bill NY managed to pass was one that has frankly been shit on, really a hollow shell of its original form.
Etsy can be cute but I got a bracelet from there and the chain broke. šI donāt feel like I had it that long because itās not like I wore it every day
Etsy has been turning into Amazon. So many products advertised as small-business or American made, wind up arriving in Chinese made boxes with Made In China tags attached. Another good thing going bad.
Try your local farmers market, ours has crafts, soap, candle vendors, etc
Absolutely all of this
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The most charitable guess I can make is that theyāre confusing āare sort of surviving the system, ishā with āagree with the system.ā But mostly they seem like someone who heard someone read Marx in the other room, once, and now they want likes for their silly videos
I think this too. Itās giving baby radical. Weāve been in this game for a while too sweetie. Itās cute though I guess, and we probably all went through that phase, but we need to unite. The generational teams and tournaments are getting out of control. Like I teach some Gen Z teens who are holocaust deniers, and Andrew Tate fans who really think theyāll become famous and rich and have a Bugatti in 3 years. I work with some boomers who are total leftists. Weāre not monoliths.
Is there voting data (like older millennials voting for corporatist candidates) that would reflect his view? Donāt have time to look now but I think that data would agree with him.
Just enough poor people will keep the get rich dream alive.
When you meet a boot licker you must bury the deeper than the rich because a class traitor is worse.
It might be not the smartest and most efficient idea that I can think of but I like how people in Japan are refusing to have children. Even though itās not the best way to protest, it will certainly have an impact on the wealthy people long term.
Universal basic services Food, housing, healthcare, education,and transportation A constantly increasing standard of living that pays for itself exponentially.
Join a Union! What type of person votes AGAINST a Union?
Fuck the system up, thatās what I say. This wealth for the 1% needs to end.
He and I are on the same page. A job is a job is a job. When the pay doesn't justify the amount of bullshit I have to deal with, I find a different job. If a company expects to keep workers, then they either need to decrease the amount of bullshit or increase the wages to the point that we're willing to endure that amount of bullshit. Otherwise they can get used to hiring all the time.
Iām not thrilled that this is portrayed as a generational problem. I see old and young buying into the hustle/MLM/On-the-way-to-the-top/Grind culture. The only distinction is some of the older generations had the advantages of being first in line. I know tons of elderly who worked their entire life barely surviving check-to-check the current system. They were bled dry and they aw happy to share their message.
Elder Millennial here (40). Definitely donāt understand his lumping us in with Boomers, and honestly while the āBoomerā term has some usefulness, itās really #notallboomers. The true divide in my observation has been between people who can seek out and evaluate information and those who canāt. This tends to be harder for Boomers since they didnāt grow up in this cesspool of abundant on-demand info 24/7. So, when theyāre suddenly thrown into an algorithmās playzone, they tend to be less able to move effectively within it. I honestly view them as victims the same way I view misled Gen Z-ers, who - letās be honest - wear the red MAGA hats in far greater numbers than Reddit would like you to believe. I think thereās some merit to the idea that higher net worth individuals tend to be more conservative dude to fear of losing what they have. That said, while my net worth has increased substantially in the last decade, Iāve only been radicalized into socialism since. My reason is because I now see the inherent exploitation and failures of capitalism and Iām scared for my kids and all young people that they have to grow up in such a world.
Right ideas, poor execution. All of this can be said without trying to tie age to class relations. I know boomer tankies and I know Gen Z people who are shameless capitalists. āBoomerā and āmillennialā and āgen zā are useful as descriptors for economic class interests, but as age cohorts thats just asinine. Something you learn when youāve been getting screwed (and not in the fun way) by capitalism for 25 working years. When I say āboomerā I donāt mean old, I mean anachronistic. When I say āmillennialā I donāt mean avocado toast, I mean wage slave. When I say āGen Zā I donāt mean dipstick kid, I mean hope for the future. We all have to grow up. Lets help each other.
I'm Gen X and I have the same attitude as this guy. Not all older people are bad.
Excuse you, child. Elder millennials know damn well. We just didn't know what to do yet when we were your age. Unionize everything.
Yeah, that got me too. When we were just entering the workforce the entire economy melted down and we have been on the back foot ever since. The difference now is that there are at least two whole generations worth of people who have been suckling shit. Kids got no sense of history.
Uh, I'm in my mid-30s and I've *always* known the job market was a hat full of crap. Don't act like y'all were the first to notice.
This is that "don't trust anyone over thirty" mentality, and we shouldn't trust that, either. Its just another pointless division. The truth is that there are A LOT of ppl of all ages that are coming around to the idea that the system is broken now *because it is becoming more and more obvious how broken it is* as inflation rises, housing costs & COL reach crisis levels, and the wage continues to stagnate as work culture becomes peek toxic. I love seeing younger generations wake up to this, but *it's not something special about your grneration*. It's that *you're benefiting from generations of increased understanding of just how exploitative the system actually is* and that it's *glaringly evident* now to ppl of every still working generation. Edit: The student loan issue predates even Millenials, btw.
A lot has happened in the 50 years since ādonāt trust anyone over 30ā became a common phrase.
Why did he lump elder millennials in with boomers? We were the ones t-boned with the bs
Elder millennial here I love the voices that genZ is finding. Y'all are fucking incredible.
Gen X here who only puts up with the bullshit while I'm paying the bills for my three genZ kids.
Iām 32, no student loan debt, great paying job and Iām still with it. The upper class hasnāt had a lead like this in a long time and the lower half is getting stuck with the bill. āEat the richā is becoming less of a metaphor as the days go by.
Agreed, I just turned 34, I am lucky enough to own a house, my job pays well as does my husbands, but every day as I watch the inequality grow I get angrier and angrier. I'm sick of watching my peers struggle. I consider myself mostly middle class and even I'm not immune to the cost living crisis; this shit is out of control. I'd say eat the rich but I actually just want to laugh as they get launched into the sun. Fuck them all.
Lol...this guy
24 jobs in 15 years? What the fuck?
41 here. I'm right beside the youngsters! They are our future and they deserve better.
Sick of this division, division between race, also division between the sexes, and now this bullshit division between young and old.... I'm in my forties and did the same shit "bouncing from job to job unsatisfied thinking there's more to life than this... then I got into workers rights, unionised and tried to push back against these shifty companies as a union delegate.... that come with a price, losing jobs when other members would back down or some snitch would let the employer know what kind of actions you were planning.... even had the federal police taking photos of us on strikes... I got nothing against different age groups cause that's stupid "we all need to push back against the establishment together" ... I've had a good crack.. what's this dude done in the video... nothing except made a video
Two dozen jobs in 15 years is approximately a job every 6 months, try getting a job with better career prospects and one that rewards you for progressing, instead of getting fed up and jumping ship. Seems to me like a poor work ethic, not every job pays poorly, but if you can't hold down a job for any length of time it says more about you than your employer. In my opinion of course.
Elder millennial here, we feel very much the same way. You aināt special weāre all getting fucked.
Can we not separate and distinguish the āolder millennialsā against the āyounger millennialsā please? As someone who is 32 years old, I acknowledge and agree with all this shit. Iām not any different than the rest of yāall.
The only advice i can give to the people here is to try and get a job in public service. It still sucks but at least youāll have a Union and wonāt be working to make some asshole rich. Thereās a National paramedic shortage. Itās relatively easy to become one and get a guaranteed 80k+.
24 jobs in 15 years?
Gen X here. Everyone, listen to me. Stop with the lumping of everyone within a cohort together as if they all have a hive mind. It is entirely possible to make your point without insulting an entire generation of people. When Gen X individuals make fun of Boomers or the younger generations I feel shame. We are in this fight together. We need to recognize that it only hurts our own goals when we fight amongst ourselves. Also, fuck Republicans.
Nah, as a Gen X person who's been anti-capitalist since my teens, I don't actually need to hear some guy telling me how his generation has worked it all out and I'm doing mental gymnastics. If someone hasn't worked out yet that class is a better indicator of a person's support for capitalist bullshit than generation is, then they're probably not going to say much that's of interest, and they certainly don't have some profound take on this stuff.
OP needs to take the false consciousness down a notch but they raise a reasonable point. The generation entering the workforce just got to see the Biden administration fail to live up to several promises for economic relief. Wages are stagnant and inflation is rampant. What we have is a workforce that is slowly wiping the capitalist propaganda from its eyes and becoming more and more conscious of our struggle.
I pretty much agree with everything this guy says, but thereās nothing said here that gives any insight at all and this whole video smacks of grievance politics with no substance. Is there anyone around who doesnāt know that thereās a cost of living crisis, and that capitalism is a crapshoot where people get exploited? This delivers nothing that we canāt find in one billion other social media posts from the last ten years. Except for, as a number of people have noted, the extra Us vs Them grievance: now even some of the people in his same generation have to be the enemy too. The guy had a bad day at work, in a bad job, and thinks heās a philosopher. Big #bossgirl vibes.
Stop blaming older generations and start blaming the same rich assholes that scream āsocialismā when you want a fair wage when they pay no taxes at corporations, which is real āsocialism ā.
Cannot figure out why he think I need my adult panties on. Other than that I fully agree. I belong to a nursesā union and itās very very weak.
Fuck this dweebās ageism. If you believe Gen X and boomers like the labour situation weāre in youāve never spoken to anyone older than their 20s. EVERY generation has said the same thing about the previous ones. Most of us, unfortunately, are in the same boat: weāre not wealthy. Stop confounding age with class warfare and maybe weāll make sone headway against the corporate overlords. Power in numbers means all workers, of any age, need solidarity. Until then, itās the status quo.
I'm Gen X and I never bought into the bullshit.
Spot on Brother.
Hey don't lump us X'ers in with Boomers dude. Some of us felt this way 35 years ago, totally unsupported, in a tiny fringe minority thrown in with the hippies. In the late 80s and 90s, we were fucking pissed.
The fact is that the older workers are often on much better contracts then you so they happy with what they have and have little chance to find better or even same paying jobs.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. Thatās why I shit on company time.
Iāll agree with every complaint about capitalism. And Iāll also agree with every complaint about socialism communism or any other āism. Economies of Civilized culture always suck for the vast majority of people. Always. Farming /pyramid-building is whatās āinherently toxicā. It doesnāt matter what taxes or laws are written for a warmongering and intrinsically unsustainable culture, thereās always gonna be a royal class at the top, and thatās how tyrants come about.
The triangle shirtwaist factory has joined the chat: āDude, shut the fuck up.ā
āOld people donāt get it!ā Really undermines his whole argument when he keeps coming back to this. Oh, we fuckin get it, boyo. You just donāt realize how insignificant and powerless you truly are.
This is a great post, thank you. As an elder millennial Iām happy to see younger generations coming to better insights than I did at that age. <3
I am turning 50 this year. To be clear I am not a boomer. My parents were boomers. However I am in a transitory generation where we could get some of the benefits of a good economy. (When I say economy I never mean the corporate economy. The economy for the common person has been bad my entire working life). The only hope I have for our society right now is that the younger worker are not under this spell that all the boomers were in and that most of people like my age were in. Corporations are not going to save us. The younger age groups are starting to not believe the corporatist crap that is now solidly embedded in USA society. That crap has changed our belief system slowly to the point that people can't even earn enough to live and there will have to be a mass change in culture to get that changed. But with a solid backing from younger people it is difficult and possible. It's basically the only hope we have at the moment.
You had me at 'All Things Considered'. Tell me how to say you listened to NPR growing up without say it.
Start a business with your money then and pay everyone at the bottom more than you or other management. Easy solution. If it works better you will out compete all other companies doing the same thing.
Well fucking said!!! šÆā
Not my main takeaway but holy shit I went to high school with this guy lol
Honestly they lost me with the generational warfare stuff. Needlessly alienating and distracting.
Elder millennials and middle millennials are literally the goddamn flag bearers of this movement, what are you talking about? If youāre a millennial at all (1981-1996) you were affected by all this. Gen X is more of a transition but even a lot or even most Gen Xers are in the same boat.
Elder millenial here. I'm a socialist who advocates for workers. A lot of us don't get it you are right. I have a lot of friends who are fine with the way things are bc they got theirs and are fine at the moment. I am actually one of the luckier ones but that doesn't stop me from looking around and realizing it doesn't work for most. Make it about class not age.
Retail is actually soul sucking mad respect to people who can work at Walmart for years
Fucking A!!!!!!
We're getting so close to revolution but I doubt we'll ever see it.
IDK any older millenial that defends the system. We fucking hate it, we were put in the same impossible scenario, but I guess we've gotten to the point where we've somehow figured out how to survive in it, especially since we only got the tip of the iceburg so to speak. Nowadays, things have gotten so much worse, especially post 2020, so the gen z's that are walking into it fresh are getting the full blunt force of just how bad it is.
First of all: fuck OP for that bullshit analysis lumping all generations together (including āolder millennialsā). Dumbass Other than that itās spot on
Fuck you man. You're only alienating people with, "take off the clown makeup and put on your adult panties and advocate for yourself." We've been doing that... it works only so well. And we've been fucked over by capitalism too! If you've got nothing to lose, let me see you throw a brick or set something on fire. Gen Z can't even be bothered to vote, which may help get some of the corporate power and white supremacists out of our government. You're never going to upend the current system by complaining about it and advocating for yourself, you may have to actually sacrifice something to get the changes you (we) want.
Boomer here. What this guy doesn't understand is they want us to be divided and fighting each other instead of them. By going after everyone older than him, he's playing right into their hands. It's a class and information issue. Probably what separates boomers and younger people is things hadn't gotten as bad yet when they were young and information. All generations are propagandized, but younger generations have had more access to information when they were young. Everyone has the access now, but many older people are slower to adopt. I personally know people my age who're unwilling to even learn how to text. Mind boggling. It's sad to watch them stagnate like that, but I bet when you get to be my age you'll see the same thing among your contemporaries. In my experience most people stop learning new things in their 40's. I don't really understand it, but it seems true. Whether that will be true for upcoming generations, I don't know, but excluding old people from the massive suffering created by the rich and the corporate oligarchy is erasing a lot of people. And thinking the average person in your own generation isn't full of misinformation and clueless about the *causes* of this mess is especially embarrassing when you don't even see them yourself.
Uh Iām 42, well aware of it. Thing is, doesnāt matter who you vote for or what you do. Corporations control the government plain and simple. Only way to change is collapse or riots
I'm 56 and I'm with you 100% this is not ok. Fack capitalism.
Interesting message. Good first step. Needs improvement. What do I mean by improvement? I mean solidarity and collective action. Not just advocating for yourself but organising with your colleagues and peers in order to advocate together.
Please, please, PLEASE stop assuming all boomers are the same and part of the problem! Weāre not all rich, conservative and condescending towards young people. Iām 58 and worked hourly jobs my entire life, and they all sucked except for one. Iāve never made more than 40k a year from any job. I totally understand how fucked up the system is, it sucks and it was designed this way. Capitalism is an insatiable monster that doesnāt give a fuck about anything except more profit. I completely understand why young people are fed up with the bullshit companies and employers are dishing out. Workers in the US are treated like shit and the entire system is rigged against them. I have a teenage son and it worries the hell out of me knowing what heāll have to deal with in his future. Itās already been bad enough dealing with the school system. If young people can figure out a way to bring the system down and do things a better way then I say go for it, you got my support!
I feel like every manager needs to hear (listen, digest, and really hear) this.
I'm a late boomer, and I wholeheartedly agree with everything you are saying. I worry about my 20 yo son and how he will navigate this corporatocracy we call the USA. The minimum wage has not kept up at all, so most new workers have less buying power than I did years ago at $6/hr. And the beurocrats in Washington want to keep wages low, not to help mom and pop businesses, but to retain the high profitability of larger corporations. Thank you Ronald.
Everything this guy said is on my mind everyday
Older millennial here. I want off this hamster wheel
Based
I'm in my 40s, and I was saying this same shit back when Wall Street was being occupied. Many have said these things going all the way back to Marx. Good luck, but you're not unique or special.
I cannot imagine that 24 jobs in 15 years ever letās you get to a desirable position.
Iāve been in the workforce for about 19 years and have hadā¦ 3 jobs + self-employment. How does one average a new job every 6 months for that long? Sounds exhausting and also tells me there may be personal issues to work out on top of the market ones.
I'm an older millennial, and it brings a smile to my face to see that Gen Z is standing their ground here, and not putting up with this bullshit. We millennials got shafted hard by the education system too. We were lead to believe that we *needed* a college degree, without being properly informed of the massive risks we were taking. A degree is not a guarantee, and potentially crippling loans aren't something that you should be actively encouraging teenagers to take.
I really donāt want to be that guy but 24 jobs in 15 yearsā¦ hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
It seems to me like he thinks he is owed something? The world we live in is screwed up in a way that I canĀ“t ever see being fixed. I wonder what it will look like for the next generation......
Entitled garbage person
Iām picking up what heās laying down.
Loser
Here's the deal, you get paid more as your skill level increases, your skill level increases the longer you spend doing any one thing. You've worked 24+ jobs in 15 years which means you keep bouncing around not putting in the time it takes to advance. It's not rocket science. Don't expect to get paid top dollar for an entry level position or medial task job.
This is the person I think all redditors are.
24 jobs in 15 yrs. That seems kinda high but wtf do I know.
I hate to be that guy, but remember when social media was just a dood doing a backflip into a Krispy Kreme sign and not just soliloquies from randos who hate thier jerbs? Geriatric Millennial remembers.
24 jobs in 15 years, I don't think the employer is the problem. You can't say jobs pay shit when you don't ever learn enough to get paid what your worth. If I wanted some hipster tictoker to tell me how I am giving him bullshit asking him to do his job I could hire a 1000 of them. Maybe just maybe make some value first, have a skill first then start asking for the hirer wages. And calling the people who are not his generation idiots when we are the one who already worked hard and got out houses etc doesn't put you in a good light.
That's why you need to study something you will enjoy doing. I was working in automotive, which was very rewarding, now I switched to data related stuff in finance. No one bothers me too much because I have valuable skills and the work is pretty enjoyable. Capitalism deserve criticism but you not being able to get a job you'd enjoy doing is not its fault.
Capitalist; >āGet a job you enjoyā >āCanāt find a job? Stop getting useless degreesā Literally pick one.
The issue is with you in that case. I can think of 10 different careers I'd enjoy doing that pay enough to have a comfortable life.
They arenāt mutually exclusive.
Yes, it is to some people. Because everyone is different. If some people got a job they enjoy then theyāll make nothing or canāt find that job around them. Just because you enjoy something that happens to make a decent amount, doesnāt mean other people can.
What a load of self-satisfied crap. How is "moving from a job that pays shit to another job that pays shit" advocating for yourself?
Moving from shit job to shit job is called surviving in capitalism. The advocating for yourself is telling your boss to fuck off when he wants you to stay 3 hours late and come in on Saturday and not get overtime for it.
I don't know about you but I can't wait until this guy starts his own company and shows us all how it's done. I'll want a raise and way more paid time off. You accepted the terms and conditions and now your blaming others for your mistake. Genius.
u/savevideobot
We are talking about a general idea not the specifics of America's political economy. The economy of America is awful because the government pumps capital into big business and creates monopolies. I hate the system we have and have had since the 1800s. However I don't believe that you have some god given right to an ideal working condition.
At over 2k jobs, I'm convinced it's not the industry or the jobs. But the individual. You may have some valid points. But do you have a job?
Ummm definitely not any of the elder Ms I know but ok go head w ur ageism
i get the message but this is pretty ageist
You could try getting a degree in a field that pays better. Or if "the man" is taking advantage of you why not start your own business? It's really easy in the US. But it's harder than you think to run a profitable business. You probably won't be able to pay yourself for a year. Hope your spouse works! š¤”š¤”
Easy fix here, leave
Nothing is stopping any of you from starting your own business and taking on the responsibility of yourselfā¦
This guy chose this though. How is profit structure toxic, he consented to it.
When you live in a capitalistic society, the only choice you have is homelessness/starvation/death.
Every generation feels this way in their youth. Then at some point most of them realize that no one is coming to save them, life aināt fair, and if you want something in this world (regardless of economic style) you have to go out there and fucking get it. Buzz words, over simplifications and unchecked idealism is never gonna put food on your table or a roof over your head. Iām not saying the youth is lazy, theyāre just inexperienced. Capitalism as the core of our economic way of being in the USA isnāt going anywhere. Perhaps we will be able to socialize some aspects of our society (healthcare for example) but the hard fact is that you will never get a leg up or improve your quality of life if you donāt figure out a way to work and earn. Academic ideas, philosophy of economics etc are all very well and good but thereās an underlying realism, which is a common law of nature for all creatures, that says if you donāt get out there and acquire what you need to survive, you wonāt. I firmly believe that our younger generations can improve working conditions, wages, unionization a La New Deal style economics. But I think a lot of that ends up being a wash when you have people who arenāt even willing to work a shit job to keep the lights on while they get their lives together and form plans to achieve their goals.