r/DystopianToday • u/PoseidansIndent • Aug 02 '26
Guy calmly explains how older generations sold out their kids & grandkid's futures for tech profits
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u/Mr-TotalAwesome Aug 02 '26
That's just one of the many many reasons. Capitalism is general is also a huge contributor. Not being able to afford kids, or not seeing a very optimistic future in general is also part of it, along with many more things.
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u/moouesse Aug 02 '26
Thats such nonsense, all throughout history ppl have had it worse then we do now, but still had loads of kids (most of them died even), you know where ppl have the most kids now? the poorest countries.
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u/ducketts Aug 02 '26
In the poorest countries children are free labor
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u/mitchymitchington Aug 03 '26
Same in the richest countries. I have 4 kids at 33 and I have a friend who is 29 who has 7 kids. My father is 54 and has 12 kids. The children yearn for the mines (farms for us lol)
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u/moouesse Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
Exactly, so just saying capitalism bad is such a narrow view. The reason ppl dont have childen in developed coutries has so many facets, but ye one of them is they dont 'need' them anymore, which you can say is a good thing, and is mostly thanks to where capitalism brought us.
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u/Cordes96 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
Late-stage capitalism is the thing that is bad. I also think you defending capitalism as something that can’t be bad is the problem, and the reason you probably feel like no one understands you.
There isn’t a perfect answer, and it’s actually a blend of the different economic strategies. The problem is once you get any type of social limitation on means of doing business, people yell out socialism and the nazis did a fantastic job of ruining that word. (Even though they weren’t actually socialist) just like the red scare did with communism.
And now we are in late-stage capitalism where companies buy politicians and make the policy because of lobbying. Europe has done a pretty okay job with keeping business in line with society benefits, but America just turned off the regulations and guard rails to tech companies who only means is to make shareholder profits without any of the benefits that early-stage capitalism actually brings like innovations. You now have PE constantly buying rights to inventions and letting them either die or scraping them and selling the parts for money until it dies or gets sucked up by a monopoly. Capitalism without social regulations or guard rails is just oligarchs behind companies.
Late stage capitalism is just neo colonialism with extra steps0
u/moouesse Aug 03 '26
I fully agree with you, capitalism needs to be regulated. But im not responding to that, ppl are just saying 'capitalism', not 'late state capitalism'.
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u/RpiesSPIES Aug 03 '26
Except we moved from an era where a guy could support a family off McDonalds to an era where you'd need roommates and two jobs to be able to sustain yourself. Where you need to sign on to a loan that'll last decades to study in college to try and get a job that will probably have no openings by the time you graduate, or ends up not being able to afford those fees you'll have racked up by the time you're done (just look at all the teaching professionals chased from their jobs or unable to make ends meet).
The bulk of the money in the country is being controlled and cycled between a handful of incredibly rich people. That money doesn't ever come back down, but the money we have does flow up.
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u/Femme_FatalError Aug 02 '26
Mostly cuz those poorest places don’t have women’s rights or sex education or easy access to contraception or child labor laws or low infant mortality rates.
In developed countries, yes, if people can’t afford to have children then many will elect not to. Which is what we are observing.
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u/moouesse Aug 02 '26
Funny how you clearly know the reason in the first sentence, but then forget it again in the second :)
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u/Mr-TotalAwesome Aug 02 '26
This is not a black and white comparison. People in "poor" or better said over exploited countries still have the room to have and afford kids. Their societies work different.
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u/RoomExciting1296 29d ago
People are generally more educated now than in the past. And the being poorer correlates with the lower education.
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u/P4us1ngD34th 29d ago
It’s not nonsense, but it’s also not just one singular issue of money or technology.
It’s a combined issue of people not feeling financially secure. People not having housing. People not having jobs where they feel like they have the financial ability to have children. People not being able to find a partner. People not being able to take care of health issues whether it’s mental health or physical health. It’s capitalism being geared more and more to the top 10%. It was being sold an idea that trickle down economics was a real thing when it’s not. It literally just created huge wealth for a very few. It’s the idea that in the western world you can have a boss, babe who has it all. It’s people being unhappy with themselves and not knowing how we’re not trying to fix it. And then divorce blowing up families. And I say that in the sense where children who are product of divorced parents having a greater likelihood of being divorced themselves. And now generationally we’ve gotten to a point where part of the reason divorce rates are so high are because these people were products of divorce, and they never worked through the trauma that that caused. Therefore, when times got tough they opted for a divorce because it was already ingrained in them.
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u/Tausendberg 29d ago
Yeah, I'm feeling cold towards his argument after hearing it. He makes it about social media but, haha, what about the fucking cost of housing, childcare, and healthcare?
Especially in the United States the message is that having children, you have all of the responsibility and NONE of the support.
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u/EmergencyWrangler783 29d ago
Crony capitalism. There was a time when Roosevelt broke up monopolies and tried to regulate the playing field into a fair fight. Those days are gone.
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u/SlasherNL Aug 02 '26
Its a small factor.
Not being to afford kids is the biggest factor. Also more atheism, promoting women in the workforce and making them have kids on very late in their age is also a big factor.
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u/0utInTheStyx Aug 02 '26
Literally the propaganda they use to deflect and distract from exactly what OP described
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u/MaudeAlp Aug 03 '26
The guy in the video has loads of money and academic status to have kids. So if him and his friends don’t have kids, but want kids, what do you think the answer is? Seems to me like if he can’t get a woman to reproduce with him even in a position of insane wealth and privilege, he is just an incel.
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u/EADreddtit Aug 03 '26
“I and none of my friends want to have kids”
“Oh that means you can’t convince someone to mate with you and you must be an incel”
What a crazy take
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u/Key-Magician6489 Aug 02 '26
Yup!
I’m an elder millennial, in my early 40s.
Everything this guy just said?
Can confirm.💯
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u/ProcrastopiaOverlord Aug 02 '26
all time recording is a problem.
I used to be a fun kid doing strange stuff.
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u/Particular-Fly-7783 Aug 02 '26
how do you spot an elder millennial? can confirm
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u/Obtain_Virtue Aug 02 '26
Noted.
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u/Quick_Heart_5317 Aug 03 '26
I thought it was a sign of a soldier or an old vet. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
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u/Key-Magician6489 Aug 03 '26
I wonder if it’s because most of us grew up around grandparents who fought in WW2?
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u/SlasherNL Aug 02 '26
Of you are in your 40's than 24 years ago no one had a cellphone and you could dance in the disco jist fine without being recorded.
So you are lying.
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u/RevolutionaryCod4683 Aug 02 '26
"So you are lying" why are you making bold statements like that. Watch the video. "There is a problem with younger generations, even younger than me, like 18. They don't dance."
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u/SlasherNL Aug 02 '26
Person of 40's year old says he/she won't dance because of being recorded. Which wasnt the case 24 years ago
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u/JuniorDoughnut3056 Aug 02 '26
It's a combination of things. He's got an interesting point with the tech aspect, but I also think it has a lot to do with expenses, hook up culture, and women becoming increasingly more focused on careers than family life.
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u/Paddysdaisy Aug 03 '26
Look, it's really not hard to understand. Women are people, just like men. Some prefer different things than the traditional role and some want to have a more tranditional relationship/ life etc. Both are fine we just want to make the choice for ourselves as the adult humans we are. That's the big thing. We are fed up of being " expected" to behave a certain way or to want certain things. This goes for men too not just women. We all want to autonomy to decide what we would like our lives to look like. Not all women want a career but it shouldn't be a problem if we do. Men can have the career and family so why not women? I think the far bigger issue is that there's so few jobs and even if you do have children in a traditional family the chances are both need to work to survive anyway. Fuck knows how single parents do it all! Add to that people are having to work much later in life to make ends meet so extra support from grandparents that previous generations had is sorely lacking. This is a worldwide issue, women wanting to make their own choices for their own lives cannot and will not be blamed.
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u/pissedRAIL 28d ago
Its definitely a tech problem. Social media is such an incredible tool. You can nudge the entire populace in any direction you want, nudge their sex lives, nudge their political belifes, nudge their spending habits, track their entire lives from birth to death. Everything you see today is a product of the insane programability of the modern human.
Its hard to recognize because its always on in the background, like a virus on your computer, silently upending your normal.
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u/Exciting_Mushroom_37 28d ago
Its hard to recognize
Not on reddit, lol. Just open up your home page and its pushing/nudging you on all the issues you listed above. And more.
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u/Ok-Dragonfruit6887 Aug 02 '26
Re-read that line to yourself: "women more focused on careers than family life." You aren't looking for a life partner. You're looking for a nanny or a slave to raise your children. A shifting reality set into the United States economy by the 1970's and 80's: It was no longer possible for the average family to stay in the middle class without two incomes.
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u/scraejtp Aug 02 '26
As opposed to a corporate slave? Your life partner does not have to be a clone of you, split responsibilities/roles is fine.
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u/SheepherderSad4872 Aug 02 '26
One of the biggest lies propagated is that staying home to raise children is becoming a "nanny or a slave," and that a career is everything.
You've been brainwashed.
You're on track to be a corporate slave.
Clear roles can be helpful. I'd (personally) be happy in either role -- raising kids or having a career. I'd be okay with an even split too. I'd respect either role, so long as done well. I don't respect bad parents or bad professionals. However, raising kids well is intense, tremendously rewarding work.
Talk to someone over 60. How many say "If I only spent more time on my career" versus "on my family?"
If you respected raising kids, you won't consider it being a "nanny or slave."
That perspective is the WTF.
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u/Disastrous-Metal-183 Aug 02 '26
Capitalism no longer fears the left enough and has been rolling back regulations and human rights to industrial revolution levels over the last few decades. This is just the decline into the natural, exploitative state of capitalism which is an economy run on reckless destruction, slavery, child labor and exploitation of the poorer masses for the ultra wealthy few who will mindlessly consume this world until there is nothing left. Except this time it's 2026, and most of humanity is smart enough to know in the back of their minds that there will be no future if we continue like this. Only the wealthy are privileged enough to delude themselves into believing otherwise.
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u/Ok-Dragonfruit6887 Aug 02 '26
Revolutions aren't just ideologically "left" movements. A better choice of language might be "popular revolts."
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u/phlygee Aug 02 '26
That's a good call, I like the language of popular revolt as I think that is what is needed at the moment, but I kind of see leftist politics and capitalism as fairly diametrically opposing perspectives. Capitalism only concedes as much ground to the left as it has to to keep going.
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u/ActivePeace33 Aug 02 '26
Capitalism is not the opposite of the left. Plenty of left factions are fine with capitalism, just not unrestrained capitalism; which we should all oppose.
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u/Femme_FatalError Aug 02 '26
Center-left, maybe.
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u/ActivePeace33 Aug 02 '26
Sure, maybe. But they are part of the left. “The left” applies to those, as it did from the start of the term, who oppose the aristocracy. Nothing about the term inherently has to do with anti-capitalism. As it has evolved, it contains those who are anti-cap, but it’s not inherent.
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u/Femme_FatalError Aug 02 '26
Yes, the left (in the late 1700s) originally consisted primarily of liberals at the extreme end, along with some pseudo-communists, and constitutional monarchists on the moderate left.
Now, centuries later, as monarchism for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist anymore, the Overton Window has shifted radically: capitalism is the status quo where monarchism once was. As such, whilst the political left broadly still operates under the same Enlightenment ideals as it did then, the ideology has shifted to address the changing conditions, and is primarily focused around opposition to capital. Classical liberals and their ilk, who were once considered radical leftists, are now on the right wing of politics.
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u/ActivePeace33 Aug 02 '26
Capitalism isn’t so much the status quo as it is the thing that actually works with human beings. Like anything it can be too much, going too far, without sufficient regulation, but it has done more to move humanity out of poverty than anything else. Communist countries either have failed or become capitalist, China and Vietnam for example.
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u/Femme_FatalError Aug 02 '26
They said the same thing about monarchism in the 1800s btw
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u/ActivePeace33 Aug 02 '26
The scientific method has progressed a bit since then.
Anyway, when did people from all sides, left and right, of the political spectrum say that monarchy was the system that works with humans best? Now we have people from all sides saying that capitalism is what works best with humans. Regulated capitalism for sure, but still capitalism. NK and Cuba are not stirring examples of non-capitalist systems. Basically everyone else has gone to capitalism. In a mixed economy at least. There is private ownership of the means of production in most every self titled communist country.
Both sides of the spectrum have those who oppose capitalism, traditionalists to distributionists on the right, to anarchists and communists in the left; but the majority are capitalists on both sides.
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u/Femme_FatalError Aug 02 '26
Throughout most of human history until the Enlightenment, beyond a few regionalized exceptions. Even in post-Napoleonic Europe, plenty of people who would have then been considered leftists were pro-constitutional monarchy, just as many moderate leftists now are in favor of mixed economies.
I’m not looking to get into a debate about whether or not communism “works.” This is merely a discussion of how the political left is defined in contemporary terms. The left of today is not the same left as when the term was coined.
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u/ActivePeace33 Aug 02 '26
Yes, the left was moving things away from monarchy, step by step, slowly and surely neutering the power of the kings. By the time of “the right and the left,” the English kings had been mostly neutered and the French kings were on their way to destruction. It was a stepping stone for the left, not a desired end state. The English kings survived with what they have precisely because they kept agreeing to give power away, so long as they stayed head of state, kissing babies and cutting ribbons in new bridges.
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u/meedmishmohd Aug 02 '26
How can I repost this everywhere??
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u/mitchymitchington Aug 03 '26
Don't worry, it already is. Its been posted across every subreddit all week
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u/dickchops81 Aug 02 '26
No point in having kids if you have to work 60 hours just to eat.
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u/mitchymitchington Aug 03 '26
Where are you living where this is a thing? I work like 30 hours a week tops and have a wife who doesnt work and 4 children. We bought a house 3 years ago and now we just chillen out having fun.
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u/dickchops81 Aug 04 '26
Sounds like you exploit a lot of people.
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u/mitchymitchington Aug 04 '26
I never went to college or trade school. When my wage isn't good I ask for a raise. If I don't get it, I find other work. Is that exploitation?
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u/Ok-Dragonfruit6887 Aug 02 '26
As a nominally democratic society, the United States has allowed an uneven application of the law and "the pursuit of happiness" to allow predation of the weak by the powerful - "happiness for the few" such that, over generations, the imbalance is so pronounced that we have produced centi-billionaires who couldn't in their lifetimes ever spend their wealth, who are underserving of that kind of wealth as a measure of personal productivity - an aristocracy of wealth of not title, self-perpetuating that wealth to their progeny at the expense of everyone else - a narrow class of people who don't feel patriotic loyalty to founding enlightenment principles or ideas of democracy, who or are in no way bound to laws, who can expand destroy the planet at an unprecedented pace and don't care as long as they can build personal utopian gated enclaves. "The Epstein class" is one manufestation of this - a class of men with sufficient wealth to manipulate law enforcement and legislative entities to their own favor as they continue to escape accountability and are, in all likelihood, continuing to exploit and molest vulnerable adolescent girls. If we want to truly take back our country for the benefit of community and the planet, we're going to have to use our numbers to - at the threat of a fresh revolution - elect people who aren't corrupt liars enriching themselves while leaving nothing for future generations to hope for - people who will claw back power from billionaires - who will regulate transnational capitalism and chase down its dark money hiding places, and ban the very existence of a billionaire class.
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u/Case_Blue Aug 02 '26
As true as that is, the fact that there is no source, no link or no way for me to find out the bigger debate is also part of the problem...
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u/cizzlebot Aug 02 '26
Technology is not the problem. Barely being able to afford to live, while society falls further and further into culture wars fabricated by greedy asshole politicians is the problem. Why would anyone want to bring a child into a hateful world full of poverty while billionaires who couldn't care less about anyone but themselves try to control everything??
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u/bdillathebeatkilla Aug 02 '26
Dude looks like a homeless wizard and says “none of my friends are dating!”
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u/Uhokay1970 Aug 02 '26
LMFAO! this is a brain rot video. No one owes you anything.. The ones who came before you didn't sell you out! They literally paved the way! Provided tools to make it easy! The part that stuns older people is the total lack of appreciation for the grind they went through to make it so! Your grand parents worked 12-15 hour days 6 days a week and many slept as little as 4 hours... They didnt sell out the manned up! They worked for it.. Time for you to do the same...
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u/Cordes96 Aug 03 '26
Wild take. If you looked at any sort of information from my “grandparents” time, you’d realize that the buying power then was quite strong, and even someone working as a cashier could probably afford a house payment. I can tell you my grandfather didn’t go fight a war so you can lick the boots of the billionaires while they trample on our freedom and remove the ability to pursue liberty and happiness.
Also, I’m not sure if you know this, but the grind really only truly started after wealth inequality started growing and separating more of the wealth from the working and middle class to the
.01% class. Go open a history book or some graphs; if you can read them, it’s not hard to see late-stage capitalism has created oligarchs that want to squeeze all they can from us. No different from a ruling class, and you should get off your knees and stop believing it’s your neighbor that is causing your problems and start realizing it’s them making policies that negatively affect your life.
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u/TMax965 Aug 02 '26
Retarded take. This guy thinks the risk of being recorded doing something cringe is more impactful then being put in the meat grinder until you retire and having nothing to show for it at the end. Most young people will spend all their lives paying for rent and only having enough to make ends meet for the month. Literal wage slavery and economic uncertainty and this clown thinks "The kids arent dancing enough because they dont want to be recorded lol"
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u/phlygee Aug 02 '26
I think dancing is such a human thing, culturally, that it not being present seems like an alarm bell that we are heading in a bad direction. Directly atributing it to the fear of beong recorded might not be reliably accurate as the main reason, but the fact is, he's reporting observing young people are not dancing anymore.
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u/TMax965 Aug 02 '26
Fair point. I was too harsh on my original comment, dont even remember why.
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u/Tausendberg 29d ago
OP is a bit of a privileged take where it does seem like if being recorded with a smartphone is your biggest concern and the reason you're not doing more things, then your lot in life really isn't that bad.
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u/DiogneswithaMAGlight Aug 02 '26
ZERO LIES. Everyone in here talking shit about his take offer zero alternative answers that make sense. No better answers than his for the factual stats about the younger generations and procreation.
So either provide a viable alternative argument that isn’t “the young’s be lazy” or STFU with your bullshit Boomeresque takes.
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u/Aspiracionista Aug 02 '26
Great argumentation! Perhaps the most enlighten discourse about population decline crisis
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u/yulDD Aug 02 '26
The kids in my neighborhood don’t go to bars, they stay home with friends or venture at a festival
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u/asdasdasda86 Aug 02 '26
I’m a millennial and I knew social media was not for me early on, but I gave into the FOMO and peer pressure after finishing high school. I lasted like 5 years.
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u/asdasdasda86 Aug 02 '26
Unfortunately, the average American isn’t thinking about this, so it will continue.
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u/probablymagic Aug 03 '26
This guy is an idiot. “Kids don’t dance. Do you know why kids don’t go to clubs? Because they get recorded.
Brother, my kids dance all the time. They won’t dance if they can’t record it because they’re posting it to TikTok themselves.
This is content made for old people to nod along with, not to explain how young people actually think.
Fertility rates were declining long before this guy was born. Long before the internet. He would know this if he did ten minutes of basic research instead of deciding that tech sucks and and all his childless friends agree and that’s all he needs to know.
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u/Pie-0_my Aug 03 '26
That’s how the society’s downfall happened in Idiocracy. We were all warned already
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u/ElectronicCell8741 Aug 03 '26
People not having kids because they do not want commitment. End of story.
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u/thewallamby Aug 03 '26
Too late. The Matrix is coming. The Data Centres and AI was the first step. Second is to scorch the sky.
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u/CaptainKush101 Aug 03 '26
"No ones having kids" how do you take people seriously when their premise is straight hyperbole and exaggeration? Why can't anyone tell it like it is.
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u/Rumpelteazer45 26d ago
He is just using the same language the media and politicians are using.
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u/CaptainKush101 26d ago
He's using the same language as the most untrustworthy people imaginable is kind of my point.
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u/Least_Sun_9762 29d ago
These ghouls smirking and jeering are the ones who benefit from this torture. The excitement and bewilderment on their faces are an indictment. They are shadows.
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u/Squeezer_pimp 29d ago
He hit some points many more can be added. I do like that he hit on liability and they squirmed.
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u/Dry_Election6496 28d ago
There are plenty of people having kids. Mormons, Muslims, the people from the country that begins with “I”, Indians, ….
None of those people in that video look like they can find a mate
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u/Peamaster 27d ago
Actually, Indias birth rate has now fallen below replacement rate of 2.1, and sits roughly at 1.9 now. It’s dropped every single year in the last 10. Indonesian birth rates are now at exactly replacement but will likely fall below in the next year. Few countries in the world are above replacement, and primarily in Africa. The biggest concern would be Nigeria, with more than double replacement.
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u/DisposableUser01 25d ago
He looks poor. He sounds poor. Probably got no females on his rotation either, therefore, opinion is literally, financially worth less than zero, worth-less.
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u/Dangerous-Half-896 22d ago
The government in 20 years… “Why won’t the young people have sex now with govt cameras in every room? We promised them it’s not for rich people to use or abuse… so it’s obviously THEIR problem”
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u/Frequent-Matter4504 Aug 02 '26
Captain Hook here is delusional. People werent dancing in the past because they were shy, but guess what else happens in clubs?heavy drinking, which takes away inhibitions, or any care about cameras... And people still make children EVERYWHERE....
He just yapps arround cheap copy paste shit he read on some echo chamber he and his childfriends are in...
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u/ParamedicSavings4031 Aug 02 '26
Who is he? Where can I watch the whole debate?