The Doomed Generation

[Swammerdami]

(I hope this is the right forum for this discussion, though perhaps it should be folded into Politics!)

It is a truism that now is the first time in American history that young people (Millenials" and "Generation Z") expect to be -- and will be -- LESS well off than their parents. And this is not just felt in America, but all over the developed Western world. I was reminded of this by a recent story on CNBC.

Young people's dating habits have changed. For better or worse the ages-old stereotype of a couple settling down early and happily raising a family seems much less prevalent now. Women's rights and freedoms have increased dramatically in the Western democracies, and -- (here I risk being labeled "anti-woke") -- has had consequences like the rise of "involuntary celibacy" complaints from a growing number of young males. Is this unprecedented?

The article linked above focuses on a specific symptom of Youth's Pessimism: Doom spending:

Some young people are splashing out on luxuries like travel and designer clothes instead of saving, in a trend that’s being characterized as “doom spending” on social media.

Doom spending is when a person mindlessly shops to self-soothe because they feel pessimistic about the economy and their future, according to Psychology Today. . . . It’s happening because young people are chronically online and feel like they’re constantly receiving “bad news,” she said. “It makes them feel like Armageddon.”
. . .
In fact, 96% of Americans are concerned about the current state of the economy and more than a quarter are doom spending to deal with the stress, an Intuit Credit Karma survey of over 1,000 Americans found in November 2023.

Pessimism (about the economy, politics, and climate change), the in-progress rise of fascism in many countries, the deluge of propaganda financed by politicians and greedy capitalists, and the insidious nature of social media are interacting and pointing us toward dystopia. We need to connect the dots and set a new course before it's too late.

 

[rousseau]

The world really has changed in a completely fundamental way in the past few centuries. I'd call that change unprecedented, and say that we don't really know where we're going from here. What's more interesting about it is that I don't think many citizens realize that the change we're experiencing is unprecedented, the world is completely normalized to them.

To me what's the most alarming is how dramatically patterns of fertility have changed. Both birth control and skyrocketing childcare costs - have we created societies where it's almost impossible for our populations to grow without immigration? That would be an interesting.. unprecedented scenario.

 

[bigfield]

I wonder if people in future will look back at the 20th and 21st centuries and ask, "how did they manage to screw that up?"

 

[steve_bank]

The idea that the economy will always increase and each generation will have more tan the last is a kind of myth. People talk as if it is aright with an expectation that it is owed without having to make it happen.

Each generation has to figure out things and adapt when needed.

 

[rousseau]

The post world war II boom gave people the illusion that the world just works and that it'll continue to just work. Very few people in North America or Europe have faced real hardship or the need for serious perseverance. That definitely frames people's understanding of their lives and the world. Now the illusion's being broken.

Many people from my generation are getting burnt because they grew up in the 90s when everyone was on the gravy train. I know quite a few who didn't take their careers seriously and now they're struggling.

 

[Elixir]

have we created societies where it's almost impossible for our populations to grow without immigration?

Huh?
When I first read that the question came to mind “what do you mean, “we”?
I thought you were thinking globally, and hoping aliens would save us from ourselves.
The USA has been reliant on immigrants from day one, to grow the population and more important, the economy.
Nothing grows forever except the universe, and I have some doubts about that too.

 

[rousseau]

have we created societies where it's almost impossible for our populations to grow without immigration?

Huh?
When I first read that the question came to mind “what do you mean, “we”?
I thought you were thinking globally, and hoping aliens would save us from ourselves.
The USA has been reliant on immigrants from day one, to grow the population and more important, the economy.
Nothing grows forever except the universe, and I have some doubts about that too.

The point is more along the lines of it's now impossible for the population to grow without immigration. We can call 'we' North America, for the most part the birth rate isn't above replacement, and that's unlikely to change.

It's true that nothing grows forever, but it's definitely an unprecedented situation, maybe much more starkly so than is immediately obvious.

 

[Politesse]

The post world war II boom gave people the illusion that the world just works and that it'll continue to just work. Very few people in North America or Europe have faced real hardship or the need for serious perseverance. That definitely frames people's understanding of their lives and the world. Now the illusion's being broken.

Many people from my generation are getting burnt because they grew up in the 90s when everyone was on the gravy train. I know quite a few who didn't take their careers seriously and now they're struggling.

The tendency of immigrants to outperform locals in the US job market comes from this place, I think, knowing what work really means. You can't really cultivate practical skills halfheartedly.

 

[bilby]

We don't want population to grow. In the 1960s, population growth was the existential threat de jour - it was that decade's 'global warming', and the threat was no less real.

The technology to address the threat had already been developed (though few were aware of how effective it would be); The contraceptive pill ranks as one of the most important inventions in human history, and it saved us from otherwise certain disaster.

To worry about population decline, some scant six decades later, seems pretty daft.

Imagine a world sixty years from now, with nuclear fission dominating global energy production, wherein the directors of BP and Royal Dutch Shell are complaining that falling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are threatening the economics of making cheap gasoline from thin air.

That's how it sounds to me when people worry about falling population.

 

[rousseau]

We don't want population to grow. In the 1960s, population growth was the existential threat de jour - it was that decade's 'global warming', and the threat was no less real.

The technology to address the threat had already been developed (though few were aware of how effective it would be); The contraceptive pill ranks as one of the most important inventions in human history, and it saved us from otherwise certain disaster.

To worry about population decline, some scant six decades later, seems pretty daft.

Imagine a world sixty years from now, with nuclear fission dominating global energy production, wherein the directors of BP and Royal Dutch Shell are complaining that falling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are threatening the economics of making cheap gasoline from thin air.

That's how it sounds to me when people worry about falling population.

I don't think the worry is so much an ephemeral drop in population, it's that the structure of many Western states has changed so rapidly in the past few centuries that we're now sitting in an unprecedented situation, very complex in a handful of ways. Global warming, automation, computerization, housing, contraceptives, child care costs, authoritarianism.. etc.

People don't really appreciate the speed that the world is changing now, and I don't think it's beyond the pale that it could get weird in the next century.

 

[bilby]

We don't want population to grow. In the 1960s, population growth was the existential threat de jour - it was that decade's 'global warming', and the threat was no less real.

The technology to address the threat had already been developed (though few were aware of how effective it would be); The contraceptive pill ranks as one of the most important inventions in human history, and it saved us from otherwise certain disaster.

To worry about population decline, some scant six decades later, seems pretty daft.

Imagine a world sixty years from now, with nuclear fission dominating global energy production, wherein the directors of BP and Royal Dutch Shell are complaining that falling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are threatening the economics of making cheap gasoline from thin air.

That's how it sounds to me when people worry about falling population.

I don't think the worry is so much an ephemeral drop in population, it's that the structure of many Western states has changed so rapidly in the past few centuries that we're now sitting in an unprecedented situation, very complex in a handful of ways. Global warming, automation, computerization, housing, contraceptives, child care costs, authoritarianism.. etc.

People don't really appreciate the speed that the world is changing now, and I don't think it's beyond the pale that it could get weird in the next century.

It got weird in the last century. My great-grandfather would be completely unable to cope with the world of today, if he were to be transported here from 1924.

And that's without considering the weirdness of the time travel itself.

There would be precious little that he would find completely familiar. Even really basic stuff like buying a loaf of bread is almost unrecognizable - the supermarket would be a shock; Even if we went instead to a local baker, the fact that "local" means several km away would be strange and inexplicable*. The bread comes pre-sliced**, in a plastic (what's 'plastic'?) bag. It's priced in metric money, not pounds, shillings and pence***. He would wonder what 'gluten' is, and why some loaves come with it for no charge****. And I don't use notes or coins to pay; I wave a bit of plastic (what's 'plastic'??) at a box that lights up a row of green LEDs (what's an LED???) and goes 'beep'. The bread maybe tastes mostly the same; But I spread it with something that I Can Easily Believe is Not Butter...

Mind you, his great-grandfather from 1824 would find 1924 a world of wonders and miracles, too. Maybe not quite as radically weird and inexplicable (buying a loaf from the baker would be fairly routine), but certainly not 'normal'. In 1824, cities were tiny, and most people lived in rural villages, doing rural things. There were almost no machines of any kind, other than wind and water mills. Indeed, in 1824, life was much the same as it had been in 1724, or even 1624, for the average farm labourer. And the average working man was a farm labourer.

The rate of change has begun to plateau now. We are no longer pushing the envelope in many technologies. supersonic intercontinental air travel is history, as is landing men on the Moon. A new hime computer today is a little faster and more powerful than a five year old machine; But a five year old machine is still useful and adequate - a 1996 home computer in 2001 was totally obsolete, but a 2019 home computer in 2024 is adequate, and Microsoft have to introduce arbitrary constraints (TPM v2.0, anyone?) in order to try to sell new OSes, and to force people to upgrade their hardware.

Change is still rapid in the first quarter of the C21st; But it's not what it was in the last quarter of the C20th. And some of that change is distinctly retrograde. You can't fly from London to New York in three hours now, even if you start from London Ontario, rather than London UK.

Shit, in 1983, you could get from Heathrow to JFK on Concorde, faster than you can get from Heathrow check-in to the Heathrow departure gate today, thanks to the security procedures.






* Don't even get me started on how my car compares to a car from 1924, much less on the idea that ordinary working class families can afford two of them, and use one to travel a distance you could walk in less than an hour (but even wealthy middle class men can't afford to employ a chauffeur - Or a cook, a maid, or a valet)

** Sliced bread was sold as early as 1928, but it wasn't commonplace until the 1950s.

*** And paying twenty five shillings for one loaf?? That's half a week's wages for a labourer.

**** It says right there: "Gluten Free". Is that the stuff I Can Easily Believe is Not Butter? If that's what 'gluten' is, I am not surprised they have to give it away.

 

[rousseau]

Apparently I need to choose my adjectives more carefully. By weird I wasn't really talking about shock at the pace of technical change, I was referring to.. let me choose carefully, maybe how difficult this change is going to be to manage, and how we might not manage it.

We're already seeing huge swaths of countries underwater, cities burning down. In Canada homelessness is surging. Depression is rising among youth. State actors are using social media to manipulate electorates etc etc

That kind of weird.

 

[Swammerdami]

Many of the comments have been very good, interesting and useful. But they're aimed at a slightly different point than I sought to make in OP.

For about 150 years Americans have been optimistic -- and rightly so as it turned out -- that the future held increased prosperity. They acted on their optimism by saving to buy a house, and by raising children with the expectation their children would have better lives than themselves. (An exception in the US was pessimism in the 1930's. Western Europe also had pessimism during the Great Wars.)

But today young Americans do NOT expect the future to be better than the past. Climate change is often stated as a reason for such pessimism, but there are other fears as well. Many young Americans do not want to have children or to get married.

If the population stops growing is that a problem? A stable population will tend to stop the continual boom in stock prices and real estate prices, but I'm not sure that is a problem for most Americans. But unless the shortfall in working-age Americans is recouped by immigration, the lop-sided demographics (too many Boomer retirees) may cause economic problems.

But I wasn't thinking of any of that. I am simply saddened that young people lack the optimism to save and to plan families. I wonder if climate change is just part of a more general malaise, with hyper-capitalistic economic trends and misdirectedd social trends impacting hope and happiness.

 

[bigfield]

But I wasn't thinking of any of that. I am simply saddened that young people lack the optimism to save and to plan families. I wonder if climate change is just part of a more general malaise, with hyper-capitalistic economic trends and misdirectedd social trends impacting hope and happiness.

I started a family only a few years ago. The overwhelming dominant factor is money. Every aspect of child-rearing is super expensive and it took a long time to buy a family home to raise children. Now that we are parents, it's exhausting raising kids while both parents also have to work full time.

For young people it's just getting further out of reach.

 

[rousseau]

But I wasn't thinking of any of that. I am simply saddened that young people lack the optimism to save and to plan families. I wonder if climate change is just part of a more general malaise, with hyper-capitalistic economic trends and misdirectedd social trends impacting hope and happiness.

My original post does address this, but I think the subtlety of it got lost. It's not just about population, it's about the conditions for a prosperous life disappearing. Inability to have many, or any, kids is an effect, population changes are an effect, what I'm talking about is structural changes in many Western countries that cause these things.

Speaking as a member of the doomed generation, I can tell you that it's not just pessimism, it's that many of these people literally can't do these things. They have no way to save, no way to buy a house, no way to start a family. It's physically impossible, not just hard, but impossible without taking massive financial risks. This is what I'm getting at. Unfortunately I used the word population.

My wife and I are reasonably well off, have a pension, and can afford two kids and house. You would not believe the gauntlet we had to go through to achieve that, and the only thing making it possible is my ability to perform in a highly technical role.

 

[Elixir]

They have no way to save, no way to buy a house, no way to start a family. It's physically impossible, not just hard, but impossible without taking massive financial risks. This is what I'm getting at. Unfortunately I used the word population.

You lament that immigration is required for population growth, and regret using the word population?
Personally I wonder why population growth is still considered a good thing.
If there were more houses than people, houses would be very affordable. With a growing population and a decades-long failure to build affordable housing, what you see is what you get. These things are not disconnected.

 

[Swammerdami]

But I wasn't thinking of any of that. I am simply saddened that young people lack the optimism to save and to plan families. I wonder if climate change is just part of a more general malaise, with hyper-capitalistic economic trends and misdirectedd social trends impacting hope and happiness.

My original post does address this, but I think the subtlety of it got lost. It's not just about population, it's about the conditions for a prosperous life disappearing. Inability to have many, or any, kids is an effect, population changes are an effect, what I'm talking about is structural changes in many Western countries that cause these things.

I did notice your views were similar to mine, and even had your post in a quote box until I decided to abbreviate my second post.

You emphasize that financial difficulties are a major cause of stress and pessimism. I should have written that in OP instead of calling climate change the major concern.

By some measures, if we ignore wealth and income inequality, the American economy has never been as "prosperous" as it is today. Policy makers need to focus on the mismatch between that "prosperity" and the stresses, financial and otherwise, facing so many Americans today.

 

[rousseau]

They have no way to save, no way to buy a house, no way to start a family. It's physically impossible, not just hard, but impossible without taking massive financial risks. This is what I'm getting at. Unfortunately I used the word population.

You lament that immigration is required for population growth, and regret using the word population?
Personally I wonder why population growth is still considered a good thing.
If there were more houses than people, houses would be very affordable. With a growing population and a decades-long failure to build affordable housing, what you see is what you get. These things are not disconnected.

Housing is just a part of it, a reasonably big part of it, but just a part. In practice it's every economic factor that's in play: cost of tuition, vehicles, housing, stagnant wages, pensions disappearing, inflation, precarious work. Unless the parents have money kids being born today are going to have a hard time.

 

[rousseau]

By some measures, if we ignore wealth and income inequality, the American economy has never been as "prosperous" as it is today. Policy makers need to focus on the mismatch between that "prosperity" and the stresses, financial and otherwise, facing so many Americans today.

I posted about it some time ago, but there is a definite divide on age here. The World Happiness Report came out recently, and in Canada those over 65 ranked 8th in the world, those under 30 or so ranked 58th. That's a huge gap.

I think global warming is also a factor, but most people are able to externalize it at this point.

 

[Elixir]

They have no way to save, no way to buy a house, no way to start a family. It's physically impossible, not just hard, but impossible without taking massive financial risks. This is what I'm getting at. Unfortunately I used the word population.

You lament that immigration is required for population growth, and regret using the word population?
Personally I wonder why population growth is still considered a good thing.
If there were more houses than people, houses would be very affordable. With a growing population and a decades-long failure to build affordable housing, what you see is what you get. These things are not disconnected.

Housing is just a part of it, a reasonably big part of it, but just a part. In practice it's every economic factor that's in play: cost of tuition, vehicles, housing, stagnant wages, pensions disappearing, inflation, precarious work. Unless the parents have money kids being born today are going to have a hard time.

I think (I’m no economist) ALL those matters would be less of an issue without population pressures.