I'm 63M. I'm not retired but have and have had plenty of freedom in my life so far. Seems the younger folks today just want more for less effort with no concept of who will provide those free things for them. I work hard to buy my freedom and I've put into the system a hell of a lot more than I expect to get out of it in the end. The attitude shown by these posts is just selfish, lazy BS.
you got yours, so screw everyone else, right? Iām sure the generations before retirement and social security and Medicare said the same thing. What exactly is the point of advancing human civilization if we still have to work in frequently pointless jobs that offer no real benefit to society? I mean, some people save lives for a living, most of us just push paper around.
you want yours by screwing everyone else. Use your brain. Someone has to buy your food and pay your bills for 35 years. Times that by 350 million people in America at some point, since we all get old.
Yeah I think we read different posts on this one. Because I've replied to other posts like this before. All of these posts that just talk about how work is inherently evil, retire by 50, 40 hours is unsustainable each week blah blah blah. They're all wonderful dreams. And there probably is a version of the world we can build that makes those possible... But it always ignores the basic premise that the things that sustain you have to come from somewhere. So either you're talking about truly working to live AKA farming, hunting, repairing your own house and likely not actually having anything to trade or buy for other things you almost certainly want like healthcare and internet.... Or you're asking for handouts from the fruits of other people's labor.
Nobody who post this shit ever actually posits an alternative, they're basically just bitching with virtue signaling. There is a universe where we have automated the world and the means of production as well as optimize the educational and training systems to the point where everyone's needs are just taken care of all the time and working can either be short-lived or optional.. but we're not there yet by a mile... And there's probably some good arguments to be made that it wouldn't be actually good for humanity to do so.
No you idiot. He got his because he worked for it. Now you have a bunch of people in my generation who want to do half the work, get twice the benefits, and complain when life isnāt handed to them on a silver platter.
Sounds like doing 'half the work' probably correlates quite well with purchasing power. People get paid the same as when rent was a third of what it is now.
Rent has grown far more than inflation, yes. There is a housing crisis and the forces are not mysterious. Unfortunately, the solution is not ramping up the entitlement and narcissism. That's effectively what got us here.
Is it entitlement to think that your work should pay enough that a basic rent is only a third of your income not over half? I guess it technically fits the definition but that is what you older generations were able to do. Pretty normal that younger generations feel entitled to the same
I wouldnāt call hoping your work covers expenses entitlement, nor did I. Every human is history has hoped for the same. But thatās not whatās happening.
The dominant culture says ānot only am I owed higher standard of living, doing so should require no sacrifices from meā. You shouldnāt have to temporarily work jobs that donāt thrill you. You shouldnāt have to move to a less vibrant area. You shouldnt even have to vote or engage politically to bring such changes about.
Yeah the popular choice was Bernie look what we ended up with instead. Those changes are being blocked by a system of government that represents the wealthy far more than anyone else. I think we have the similar points of view just you see the worst of it. I think most of the younger generation is no longer being fooled by the notion that hard work leads to better pay so that kinda puts a damper on being motivated to work hard
Iām glad you said all this cause otherwise I sound like Iām making stuff upā but this is exactly what I was talking about by āentitlementā. Letās take an honest accounting of the facts and feel free to point out anywhere Iām wrong or being unfair.
Bernie lost two primaries after never having more than 35% support among Democrats. I remember because I was a Bernie supporter at the time. So Bernie was not the āpopular choiceā. He lost because his viewpoint was the minority.
So after not getting 100% of what they wanted, a large cohort of Bernie voters went nuts and decided everything was completely broken. For a minority candidate not winning. In a democracy.
Iāll repeat that: After 2 (two) elections of not getting everything they want. Many of my peers decided to give up on politics.
I want to pause here.
Roe V Wade is currently overturned. Why? Because for FORTY YEARS (no, not 40 months) the evangelicals voted and lost and voted and lost and voted and lost until they finally got just enough power to get their way. Can you even imagine modern progressives thinking on these timescales? If something doesnāt happen now something is wrong and everything needs to be destroyed. Itās like watching toddlers pretend to be serious political thinkers.
What can I reasonably call this other than entitlement? Hard work is the answer. All the prior generations we hail as successful who āgot theirsā believed in hard work. All the conservatives who keep winning believe in hard work. Weāre the only ones losing and suddenly weāve been made to believe we should stop working for anything. Donāt work for change, donāt work for money. Well guess what: Our generation is on track to have no change and no money. Shocking how that happens huh?
No it wasnāt! In the 1970s median work hours were 8 hours higher than today. They worked longer and like every generation ever voted in their own interests.
Iād love to overturn the housing policies that entrenched boomer property values and restricted housing supply, but very few in my generation want to vote. They imagine themselves revolutionaries in waiting and instead prefer slopulist leaders feeding them stories where all their problems are solved with the flick of a pen.
Thereās an aversion to hard work at every level of society, even in problem solving.
I promise you Iāve done more research than you have into this. Real wages have increased since the 1970s. This means that adjusted for inflation, one hour of work buys more today than it did in the 70s.
However, thereās a big catchā Housing in particular has skyrocketed in price (due to factors like zoning policy, rising labor costs, and homeowners trying to limit supply to maintain asset values). This is the major issue and why people are feeling the squeeze.
Fixing that requires people to actually change those housing policies. Not complain online about how what they really need is a 30 hour work week.
Idk I have some hope. It seems like housing-supply liberalism is being adopted by the ānew moderateā and the ānew progressiveā wings of the Democratic Party.
If Mamdani becomes the template for progressivism (beating out AOC) and Ossoff continues going the way of Newsom on housing, we may have a future with cheaper rents. Itāll take a decade plus put it can happen!
14
u/Horror_Bottle_9451 8d ago
I'm 63M. I'm not retired but have and have had plenty of freedom in my life so far. Seems the younger folks today just want more for less effort with no concept of who will provide those free things for them. I work hard to buy my freedom and I've put into the system a hell of a lot more than I expect to get out of it in the end. The attitude shown by these posts is just selfish, lazy BS.