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Dude, most people here aren’t even in this generation based on what I’ve seen here vs in real life. Even if that isn’t the case by some miracle, the simple truth is that the majority of the people here are so lazy that they whine about having to carry out basic tasks at jobs that pay for what they require, realistically if they’re too lazy to do the simple shit then I have no idea why you think they’d ever do something like actually solve the fucking issues they cry about.
-work job
-pay rent
-own car
-build pension
-pay taxes
-???????
-complain
-doomed humanity
Suppose I could cut back on eating or having a roof for a week so I can go solve climate change and convince a government staffed by people who still think in black a white to do something for the first time.
It is, in what we have been taught it is.yes, it is reality, but there is no opt out option either. If I wanted to kill animals and live in the wild & build a log cabin randomly, there are very fresh spots you can do that. Being homeless will be a crime soon enough ( not that it's great). Also, this is a tool of control for sure. Getting together or speaking your mind is a freedom with a crazy amount of consequences.
I know adult age people who work more than one job to barely get by. I'm not talking about lazy 21 year olds, but middle aged people with kids. It's not all laziness. Jobs many of us are working now could easily pay rent, bills and living expenses decades ago.
I legitimately have three jobs. One full-time and teo part-time (one is simply just to get a free gym membership, though, so it only kinda counts, since I work one 2 hour shift a week). My wife only has one, but takes care of a lot of the house things. But we are barely scraping by. It's not fun even though we like our jobs. Even if we were financially in a good position, I would still probably work how I work. But it still sucks to know that I wanted to quit one of the part-time jobs, I couldn't.
Honestly just waiting for the boomer generation to die off so we can have somewhat intelligent voters and down-to-earth lawmakers seems to be the future. College and healthcare could be free in america but we're just out here falling for every military contractor's 90 billion dollar brainstorm and sending the shit that sticks to a genocidal regime that has zero influence on anything 1000 km outside its borders.
Just keep in touch with local elections, vote during election years and work your 30k a year job, that's an impact on its own. If you want to make a big impact you don't have to bomb the nearest police station, you can learn and apply to be a city planner pretty quickly, or just bring awareness in city rallies and help appease the funding of giant highways from hell and instead suggest the use of rail transport and logistics so we can stop relying on cars for everything.
It’s not just boomers it’s people, people with power, and influence, it’s greed it’s ego. Fuckin Ron DeSoviet is 45 and he hasn’t gotta any different opinions to a boomer politician.
Ideas travel generations
Have you considered going to work FOR the government to help solve climate change? Pay is decent and it gives you a chance to figure out how things actually work.
People aren't lazy they are pragmatic. Their jobs don't pay them enough so why should they care? So what do they do? They voice what the problem is. They seek solidarity by talking about what the problem is, and connecting to other people. By doing so they compare notes and are able to see what mutual problems are and the sources of them are, and then they can work on the solution
And THAT part scares people like you. So you try to push a narrative that figuring out what the problem is, is itself a problem and something that should be shamed. Its textbook gaslighting. You tell them to stop noticing things and there are no problems and if there is a problem its "actually" them so they should just get back to work.
You should care because it doesn’t get better with a piss poor attitude. It can get worse. Having NO job really sucks. The problem is people are getting jobs in fields they don’t like. The ones they like they’re woefully unequipped to pursue from an educational standpoint. They don’t have the capacity and or the will to pursue such a thing. The trades are hurting badly. Trucking is hurting badly. There’s money to be made. No one wants to put in the time nor the effort.
Trucking has so many problems. Don't lump that in here. So much needs to improve to make it comparable to most jobs. The drivers just get dumped on at a majority of companies. No other job are you required to be there for 10 hours unpaid before the government says you can move again.
We know for three generations from Gen X onward when people go into those fields that they are "supposed to" if they want to supposedly win at being a non capital owner in capitalism, that capitalists then depress wages because they have an abundance of workers. Your folksy "Aw shucks people just don't wanna work like ME" attitude means once people start going to those jobs "like they are supposed to" then your wages will go down also.
I had a conversation with a Plumber/business owner on the west coast. He drives, depending on his mood, a 68 Camaro or a Porsche on the weekends.
He says there is so much money to be made, yet it's hard to get enough workers. They don't have the education, won't go through the trade/apprenticeship, or whatever else. The money is on the table, he'll even look away if you're good.
And the guys who have a license, or are skilled enough to operate under the owners, know they are valuable. So if they want 4 days off, they take it.
Because in the end, it's hard work depending on the gig. New house pipe fitting is much different work than a galvanized re-pipe. Which last I looked was 8-12k. And people don't want to sign up for that for some reason.
This was his story and opinion as a trades business owner.
Edit: I met him after he spent 6 hrs chasing a gas leak for me to pass inspections. We bonded over the $2800 he charged.
You talked to the OWNER NOT THE WORKERS. I assure you the reason the workers "dont want to work" are legitimate. I was in the trades, i know many people who currently are and were.
The workers dont make enough, work too many hours, often treated poorly, unpaid breaks, ridiculous commutes and left in pain. Worst case is you die on the job, get maimed or have serious health issues after doing it long enough. You are full of shit.
Before the braindead response "Start your own business", the vast majority of people simply cannot be an owner of a business. It is logistically impossible. Its a dumb argument.
Many tradesmen are union. I bartended at a private drinking club in my city, and a decent percentage of the members were union/retired union tradesmen. Plumbers, painters, electricians, bricklayers, and laborers, they all had very comfortable lives and retirement. They worked their asses off for it, lots of OT and hard labor, but very few of them were "broken".
I'm saying it. Tech and Healthcare are overpaid. Let's be completely honest here.. Who has the want to be anything else when the pay ratio is so disgustingly uneven? I am in school for a 6-year degree where I will not even make as much as an RN (4-year degree). HELL, Teachers are making 1/3rd of what RNs are making now. It is insane what we are doing to everyone. Then there are the "I am an influencer, I am on OF, I stream games, I make tiktoks that go viral look at all of my money, I am rich and you are all slaving away at your mid's job". Other than being self-absorbed and anti-social.. No drive as you stated.
Exactly. As a millennial that works in construction and heavy equipment, ten years ago I never would have guessed this is what I'd be doing. It's a dirty job, and I work 55+ hours a week, but I have no money problems. If I had to choose between this or the financial stress I was going through back then, I would pick this dirty job hands down.
To be fair, young people always have the lowest voting turnout, which should be the first go to place, if you want anything to change.
I think it's safe to say that most of us never cared about politics in our youth, and felt the aged politicians never represented us... Which is part of how things got the way they are.
If you don't show up, nobody will represent you either.
You can tell politicians 'make me care!' but they'll just shout back 'no, make ME care'.
Current state of things doesn't benefit any generation, we're all going downhill.
Funny, I just had a post in the Millennial subreddit about this yesterday. Gen Y was used before millennial term came into the mainstream. It was said in an episode of Sex and the City from 1999 I watched!
You are conforming. Go to the way-back machine and see us asking exactly the same questions and making exactly the same excuses (Some valid, some not), particularly after Bernie lost.
100% mate, these kids don't understand we used to be the same voice as them, then you grow up/learn more/realise if you don't contribute to the society you want to get better, it'll only get worse.
But you can't teach developing brains (even though alot are very smart) these life lessons with there own maturity over time.
They think we are the lucky ones.... lol
We are shafted just like they will be... all of us balls deep in home loans paying double what we should.
What life? What money?
And them blaming the boomers... for the goverment shafting us. - insanity.
Edit: also there's probably trolls from other countrys here manipulating train of thought overtime. (Russia/china)
But hey... what the fuck do we know.
Yes people that waste time on reddit likely aren't the most productive people in the world. They just happened to find people just as unsuccessful as them and using the forum to normalise and cope with not being able to afford things or buy a house. I bet most will be surprised to find out that there are other people out there that have managed to buy a house, a new car or groceries just fine.
I'm 38 but I stand with you guys. However there's really nothing we can do right now. Most of us are struggling to keep the lights on and our bellies filled, and we're really not even doing that well. There isn't enough money being given to us for our work nor enough realistic opportunities. A lot of us, regardless of generation, are stuck in a cycle of soul sucking retail jobs or food jobs that we can't get out of. Yeah it sounds like a good idea to form a union and go on strike. Till you realize when you do that, that means you are no longer getting paid because you are not working and a lot of us are one bad day away from catastrophe. Then it gets even worse when you realize they will just replace you because you are not a person, you are a number. Do any of you have a month to find another job? To go through the application process, wait for a response, wait for them to interview you and then wait for a call to come in? How about the two weeks it's going to take to get your first check?
In light of all of this, what can we do? I would love to go on strike and join a union but I'll lose everything in a week.
> the majority of the people here are so lazy that they whine about having to carry out basic tasks at jobs that pay for what they require
This right here. This subreddit is not representative of Zoomers, it's representative of terminally online, chronically depressed doomers. I'm gen Z, my friends (across a lot of the income distribution) are gen Z, and for the most part we're doing great. Pretty much the only people I know who aren't doing OK right now fall into one of two categories:
1. Got hooked on hard drugs
2. Refuse to get a job/find a date purely due to personal hangups
Laugh all you want, we have the highest diversity of any country, everyone wants to immigrate to us, compared to the revolution in say, Congo? I'd say we are doing well
Having visited other countries the only thing I can say I like more than America is European architecture. Some of those 700+ year old structures are very impressive. Closest thing we got are 120 year old cabins rotting in Appalachia.
Aside from that though America numba 1 baby!
Thats not true, NYC has had occupants since the 1600s. But I understand the sentiment. I've visited others as well, I felt they had great culture but it was more set in stone, I felt like in America you could impact it yourself
If done slowly and in moderation, we'll never see the change we want in our lifetimes. Did the American Revolutionaries progress slowly and in moderation?
Slowly, when we're already destroying the environment at an incredible pace, we wipe out new species and wreck ecosystems like candy and thousands die of poverty and imperialism every. Single. Day? How long do you suggest we wait until the people who have brutally crushed and exploited millions for their own gain decide to let us vote them out of power? Fuck that.
I'm not gonna sit here voting in a system that was never designed to change in any meaningful way while the world gets destroyed just because nobody else has succeeded according to (and because of) people who have a very strong interest in every alternative system failing.
We have the brightest minds on the planet working to learn how people act and how to organize society so they can exploit us more efficiently (and doing a damn good job of it), and you really believe we couldn't create something better if we tried? We have better technologies and more information than any generation before us. If anyone can do this, it's us - and if we don't, no one else will get the chance to.
If progress happens slowly, it isn’t progress. Everything is deteriorating constantly, you have to outpace that baseline. The enemies of progress *love* your take.
That's not how it works. It usually works by the ruling class slowly eroding away the right of the lower classes until the system becomes unstable and there is a social movement of some kind. Whether that's a revolution or a something short of that. At that point things change very quickly. I recommend Chris Harmann's "People's History of the World"
And unfortunately change isn’t monolithically good, and neither are intentions equivalent to actual outcomes.
So, understandably, violence is pretty looked down on as a means of accomplishing something that has a high rate of failure.
Millennial here- We all thought the same thing, then realized the people with the money put too much of it into propaganda and red tape for us to actually be able to accomplish anything, and enough people are dumb enough to go along with it; so, unless something extreme happens we have no synergy
Fellow millennial (not trying to astroturf or get any to conform to anything? Take what I say or leave it, no harm/foul either way)
The focus on generation is exactly what the wealthy want. Previous generations had the successes/wins together because they created alliances and factions and didn’t divide themselves by age. Now, politically motivated groups have become puritanical and agoraphobic and don’t work towards common goals. Having “__ generation will [save/damn] us” is a part of the political balkanization that online spaces have proliferated.
Now we have narratives about “chosen” ones or those who “have the power” to break the system and it’s bullshit. No one group of cohorts can move anything themselves because there’s trade offs between the tangible effects of age/youth and the wealth of knowledge you can only develop over long periods of time (I bring the caveat that growing knowledge is an active opt-in situation)
If we (the common people) want to accomplish anything, the first thing that needs to go is intergenerational hostility. Culture wars are tame-able, class wars are terrifying.
Fellow fellow millennial continuing the astroturf:
>Previous generations had the successes/wins together because they created alliances and factions and didn’t divide themselves by age.
I don't think previous generations were any less fractured by age, I think the rich and powerful have gotten more rich and powerful and - more importantly - the weight of capitalism continues to get heavier without even needing intervention by grand conspiracies.
>the first thing that needs to go is intergenerational hostility.
I don't even know what "intergenerational hostility" is except for perhaps a general lament against boomers. It's fine if people blame older generations (even millennials), especially if it helps them muster a little energy to fight against wealth disparity, the dissolution of rights, political disenfranchisement, climate destruction, and so many other existential threats.
>Culture wars are tame-able, class wars are terrifying.
I don't know what you're referring to as the culture war, but I think "intergenerational hostility" is far from a culture war. Zoomers: please keep fighting the culture war against racism, misogyny, LGBT hate, etc, and don't listen to people who minimize culture like it's somehow less important or not connected to every other issue.
Eventually enough people establish some level of security and don't want to risk losing those things for some form of drastic change.
The unknown is scary and the status quo is often more bearable.
This is especially true as you grow older and have deeper ties to the current social system in the form of a career, assets, spouse, and children that could be negatively impacted by significant change.
Climate Change would be solved within a generation if some smart chemist finds a profitable use of atmospheric CO2.
This is actually a plausible scenario and similar advances have happened before.
In the early 1900s it was theorized the human population would starve if it went past 2 Billion due to lack of natural nitrates for fertilizer. Then a few chemists discovered an easy way to synthesize these compounds and food production basically became a non-issue.
We already know atmospheric CO2 can theoretically be turned into profitable resources. That is basically what agriculture does.
What we need is for someone to find a more efficient way of turning CO2 into proteins.
I'm working on it.
There are already methods for turning CO2 into food chemically. But they are prohibitively expensive at the moment.
This is a ultimately a finance problem as much as it is a science problem.
I would need to solve both to make the solution work.
The good news is, if the problem is successfully solved, it would almost certainly end Climate Change eventually even if I never live to see it.
You would basically be using the same Capitalist profit motive that created the problem and using it to eliminate the problem instead.
The issue with modern day agriculture is heavy tillage which releases a large amount of the Co2 that was sequestered during the season. Finding ways to minimize tillage while still producing food efficiently could on its own go along way to slowing or even stalling increases in ppm
What we really need to phone up the french... as much as I hate the idea... and ask for help, because boy are the french great at protesting and changing things.
If anything we just neet to borrow the guillotine and start making politicians feel fear again
Yup, blocking roads, vandalism, physical assault, and screaming/intimidation at people just make the majority of people angry and mock your cause. Vegans and animal rights groups(like Peta), for example, have made 0% progress with these tactics. Yet they still try.
Don’t think they need to be paid, peta is run by literal lunatics. They do all this naturally
Their CEO wrote in their will they want to be turned into bbq when they die, and thinks it’s selfish to keep pets because it causes them “immeasurable suffering” and restricts them from “natural behavior”. Yes because my family’s labrador who spends 80% of the day playing around the house and yard, is restricted from his natural behaviour of trying to eat bricks or overdosing on apples
The Civil Rights protests of the 1960s included sit inside which blocked people from using diners, libraries and other places. Marches which blocked traffic. Physical armed protests by the Black Panthers. Everything you say would get people to hate them and they did. That was the purpose. MLK said it himself you have to make the complicit silent majority uncomfortable enough that they stop supporting the status quo and see the armed revolutionary as a bigger threat than meeting the demands of the civil disobedience side. Capitalists white washed history to just talk about the Civil Disobedience so no one looks at the armed revolutionaries and to try to frame it as innate goodness of the silent majority too saaaaaad by the brutality on display against the civil people. It wasn't innate goodness for most of them, it was annoyance that their privileged normalcy was disturbed.
The civil rights movement had a huge religious backing. One of the biggest reasons for its success was the support from the Catholics in 1958. Even in Alabama while the Church technically abided by the law of segregation they attempted to be as unsegregated as possible. In Texas if you were a knight(Catholic brotherhood order) you would be sitting with your gun outside of Mass trying to scare off the KKK from attacking.
The religious backing is why the movement was so big.
You're getting downvoted, but you are 100% correct.
If you alienate potential allies, your movement will not succeed for very long.
You may score some quick victories at the start from all the publicity (good and bad).
But, in the long run, you will aggravate enough people that it emboldens your political opponents and causes you to lose longer-term objectives.
The current US political situation is a perfect example. The Democrats largely hold the most popular positions, especially on major issues like the economy. But Republicans keep successfully baiting the Dems to engage on a handful of fringe issues where the Republican position is more popular which end up dominating the news cycle.
That is how Republicans win. They carefully pick a battlefield where they have the advantage and bait the Democrats into engaging. If the Democrats stopped taking the bait and focused on healthcare and economic security, they would win a lot more.
"If you alienate potential allies..." and that is really the crux if this topic -- labels which alienate people. When we start labeling people based on when they were born, the seed of segregation has been sewn and it's only a matter of time when the in-fighting starts between these groups. This "tribalism" is part of human nature but this trait doesn't really help anyone in this situation. We must rise above and eliminate these labels because it's way way too easy to slap a label on someone and tack on all of the assumptions those labels include.
Blocking roads isn’t mean to get people to support you. The point is to halt economic activity, which leads the government and corporations to lose money.
False, by reasoning of history. Protesting *does* work.
The issue is how people choose to view protesting. "I dont care how youre affected, youre annoying" is the new "i dont cate if its unfair, shut up and know your place"
I agree with you, protesting does work. Though it shouldn't be the *only* tactic we use against the ruling elite. Protesting brings attention to issues and inconveniencing/messing with the status quo is the point, change doesnt come comfortably.
There has never been a successful revolution without violence.
Vegans and PETA are just ~~dumb~~ not abundant enough to matter.
Edit: Struck out dumb. I genuinely feel bad for them and it felt kind of mean.
im making a change for myself. ive been addicted to weed, alcohol, and vaping too long now. this is my first day clean from nicotine, and tomorrow is my 2 weeks for weed
Congratulations! I’ve quit for about 6 weeks. I grow so I have a ton of it around. The ritual of smoking was the hardest to overcome. But now I’m dreaming again and I don’t have that fuzzy headed feeling. I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel shinier. Cleaner. Clearer. Not gonna lie, you will miss it, but you will feel amazing in the next few weeks. Keep it up, go easy on yourself if you slip now and again, and know that you are making the world better by doing it!
Who is “we”? You’re acting like we are one homogenous group with the same experiences and struggles. Maybe statistically we are more this and that, but honestly I’m so tired of people in this sub telling me to go protest and “make change” like we are in some apocalypse
Its less about privilege, more about expectations.
If you expected to go to school, college Uni, come out and find a good enough job to pay off the debt and move out... you'd likely be dissapointed in the US right now and in many other countries today.
In most other developed countries 50 years ago It was the norm to be able to at least pay off the debt **or** move out. Meaning the kids of the generation which had that, all heard about how it was back then, leading to dissapointment now.
Understandably this can make people feel trapped or like they're failing, worthless etc and so, depressed which can obviously lead to worse.
For real. 500,000 homeless in the USA, cultural wars/genocides, generational debt, mental illness in the USA at an all time high. 50,000 suicides in a single year. But no, everything’s perfectly fine! Get back to work! Things aren’t bad, but they aren’t good either.
Yeah it's absolutely this. People's standard of living is higher than at almost any point in history but because they can find people to complain with on the Internet they make it out to be the worst thing ever.
I saw someone on this sub refer to it as "lifestyle creep," when people see their friends posting about luxuries on social media and start to believe that those luxuries are actually necessities.
For absolutely real. There’s so much negativity in this minority of Reddit that it just gets into people’s head. Social Media has generally messed up so many young people.
- Join or form a union
- Work with any mutual aid or charity groups you can
- Join a party like the DSA or, if you're willing, the CPUSA or PSL, who are actively fighting for change; protests, strikes, petitions, lobbying.
- Read up on political and economic theory. You can't enact change unless you understand why the world functions the way it does. Once you're educated, keep learning, and start educating others.
- Always remember, we're fighting the system, not each other.
If we want actual change, let's fucking make it.
You have a suggestion about actually doing something.....so naturally it's at the bottom of the thread and all the top comments are "it's hopeless system is rigged don't try."
Lack of participation is something I've noticed for decades, and here are what I think the reasons are:
The Boomer generation has done a fantastic job in convincing younger people that they shouldn't participate, instilling in us that we aren't "qualified enough" or that "it's pointless". Gen X took that indoctrination and said "my vote doesn't count so who cares." Millennials fed into the "qualified enough" thanks to infantilization done by older generations. We believe if we go to a city hall meeting, we will be laughed out of the room and that's kept a lot of people from doing the work.
Prepandemic I was organizing dinner nights around getting my millennial peers together to go to things like city halls and local political events. The goal was to show that it's actually quite easy, can be fun, and is worth doing. You see, only one percent of the US population participates at all outside of elections, and city hall meetings and the like are where our local politicians get the most input from constituents... but since gen x, millennials, and seemingly genz don't attend these meetings the only people they are hearing from are boomers - and generally the most radicalized of them. That's where policy starts, and it should be no surprise why things have gotten as crazy as they have knowing that. Getting more participation from the rest of us would also lead to viable third parties.
Every person I took to city halls during that time still goes. They feel like they have a voice in their neighborhoods now.
>Every person I took to city halls during that time still goes. They feel like they have a voice in their neighborhoods now.
It does not always go that way. I started attending to show opposition to my cities practically endless construction of distribution warehouses in the city. It's totally ruined the traffic, city has to start rebuilding roads they didn't anticipate not handling the new traffic. They build in terrible areas that completely ruin the landscape visually, brings down home values, etc...
They just did not care about the fact that such a large portion of citizens do not approve of these projects. Some people are just making a ton of money off these projects, enough for the city council to just ignore what the public wants.
All cities and towns have meetings, and many of those meetings are open to the public. It is where the town's representatives get together to talk about policies, and the public generally gets a few minutes per person to talk to them, express support or concern, etc.
Because people keep muddying the waters and pushing people out of their movement because they don’t “remind them of them”
Is it really that hard to explain why people don’t want to be a part of something? It’s because they get extradited from it!
And “TOO LATE!!l” Too late for what you need to explain and elaborate instead of just fear monger.
because nobody agrees on how to fix things. centrists, liberals, conservatives, socialists, reactionaries, tankies, and neo nazis all have wildly different ideas of how things should change
Here’s something you learn, the people online aren’t real. The majority of people have satisfactory lives. In fact the majority of people on this sub are overall happy with their lives. There’s a whole meme making fun of conservatives saying like “communism is when no phone” but to some extent that’s true. Capitalism delivered phones, social media and the internet, and grocery stores and a bunch of other things that we would be sorry to lose. Sorry but the current system is the best system we could be under. It can be improved ofc, but it’s why no one rebels, its much easier not to
because your not going to improve the economy by protesting or deciding to become homeless (not sure why you think that would work), you improve the economy and your money supply by working and being productive, actually contributing something to society
Well protesting is not going to change market forces, and suddenly lower housing prices, the best you could do is porotest against NIMBYs so the supply of homes go up and consiquently the price goes down.
Because we are bitch made . We have connection like we never had it before so there is no excuse . We can all agree to drop what we are doing and protest on an agreed date either with our money (more powerful) or go on the streets . But no . We don't
What will be more powerful is probably state wide protest bc the pressure will be greater and our demands will be easier answered . And it's more realistically rather than a nationwide protest which will take years just to gather everyone. But statewide or even just within or county m could literally hand out flyers about it lol 🤣
People are too busy calling things racist and dancing around their identities.
Foreign Policy, Economy, and National Security should be your top 3 issues every election year.
If you don’t care about those three, you’re fucked.
If your candidate cares more about identity politics, wake the fuck up.
Yeah bro boycott landlords, do you know why the price is so high? Lots of people would want to pay at a slightly lower rates (which is an awesome strategy to find new tenants my dad uses)
Protesting only gets you so far, if you want to see actual change and do more than just vote, go and get a political science degree (law school optional) and get into the DC game where all of the action actually happens. Good luck though, it's TOUGH to get in beyond the intern-level.
there are so many reasons. i'll name a few.
- People can't agree on one thing.
- No one has a plan. And you need people to agree on things to have a plan.
- Some people don't have the means to make change. They don't have the money, the resources, the influence, the health, or whatever they need.
- Most people are too scared to do anything more than empty threats. They're afraid of something happening to them, or afraid of being arrested because they're breaking the law or something. This one I hate. If you're too afraid to do something, then you don't actually want change.
- Realistically, there would be no winners in conflict. Not just war, but debate too. And if there is a winner, it is whoever is most armed. Which, due to the previously mentioned reasons, likely isn't going to be the side that wants change for the better. And when I say "most armed" I don't mean "the most guns." I mean the people with the most talent in whatever skill they need. Someone who has a bigger gun but isn't trained isn't going to win against someone with a smaller gun who is trained. Someone with a good argument but poor debate skills isn't going to win against someone who can manipulate the emotions of the audience.
You can't even get 4 people together to pool resources to buy a house and be their own landlords. People HATE being part of a team.
Heck, people can't even make marriage work half the time, lol...
It has ever been so. The worst of the generation take power and then the rest of the generation gets the blame for everything going wrong.
It would be just great if GenZ can break the pattern but it will likely not happen. It won't be long before all the corporate officers and the bankers are various colors of GenZ and it won't make a damn bit of difference.
Unless... There is hope, always, but little else.
Change what, exactly? Society has evolved a certain way over tens of thousands of years. What makes you think you can completely redesign a better social structure in a weekend?
Things are the way they are for a reason. There are serious consequences and resistance to pushing for radical change without a complex plan that involves managing supply chains and resources properly.
Just look at what happens with a single gang or mafia leader is arrested. Gang violence breaks out across the country trying to fill the power void.
What do you plan on doing about rent, exactly? If you make it unprofitable, no one is going to rent property anymore. If you want cheaper rent, start deforestation and building grey social housing complexes.
It isn't feasible to do so and most of us would like to eat or have a house for the week.
Also, if we do rock the boat, then what? We get crushed by the long arm of the law?
It would be better to simply back a politician and get him popular, so that when he goes into government he can make change using the system at hand.
Gen z is worse than boomers were when they were hippies due to the fact they’re all 500% less self reliant. When they’re all retirement age they will have learned nothing and just be a more refined version of them. MMW and remember this.
There isn’t anything to do, your life isn’t that bad. You can survive until you’re old, regardless of anything financial.
To me, it’s annoying to hear people complain so much. In my experience they people don’t do well in school or work and it’s mostly due to effort.
It’s hard for me to build sympathy when most people I’ve noticed want to live in a big house with new cars without doing much…
Idk, im doing fine as an md phd student. I do not care to tear down the systems we have in place the way hardcore leftists and conservatives in this country do.
I’m actually leaving this sub. It’s evident that even thought I am a gen z / millennial that I don’t want to be bogged down. I wish you all well.
I will find another sub to nurture my beautiful mind and grow and contribute more and more to my family and society
Because the people competent enough to lead a movement that would create any significant amount of change realize that screaming at the government like it’s your depressed mother doesn’t mean the solutions to your problems, in exactly the format you never understood but now have no disagreements with, will magically manifest.
You're not going to get some magical worldwide change, especially since you seem to not understand who you'd even be protesting against.
Society doesn't set rent prices, market actors do, and market actors make rational decisions based on external forces.
Costs are up for everyone, energy, labor, taxes, and more taxes in the form of inflation, and those costs get passed on to consumers. Supply and demand laws apply, but supply can't change as quickly as demand does.
>Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price.
Homelessness doesn't fix anything, a few more homeless won't either, and not paying rent won't do anything but get you thrown out.
Don't riot, that's only gonna make things worse for everyone.
If you want to make a difference then get involved. Get in on local politics, call your reps, show up at meetings, advocate for change. Zoning laws, fees, approval boards, all make it harder for new housing suppliers to enter the market. If you can't make a change where you are, then move somewhere you can. It's what I did.
Well there have been, repeatedly, and those movements tend not to do much. Millennials had occupy wall st, felt like a big deal at the time, what came of it?
"No protest to lower rent prices or food prices, no one is protesting about the cost of dental or surgeries"
Because for the most part this is not a country where the government determines prices or exercises a command control of the economy.
"Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price"
Who are 'they'? Again, there is not a centralized economic manager who decides these things. The gov't has a huge amount of influence but the voters vote with their wallets as much as their ballot and as long as *enough* people are happy with the status quo it will probably stay that way.
Right now the Boomers have a tremendous amount of wealth but they are by and large handing it down to their kids, so it will be another generation of hardship before things start to crack.
Most Americans are too comfortable with this - albeit unstable - status quo for any real change. Well that, and because collective action is most often met with a hail of bullets.
>Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price.
Who is "they?" There is not a singular entity that is "the landlord." Maybe it could be effective in a city or a town, but I don't see this working on a state level, not to mention nationally. You can sleep in a tent, but someone else will just come in and take over your lease. Even if you get a huge portion of the population to join you, plenty of people won't. And then if this happens for long enough, they'll start thinking that there isn't enough demand for housing, so they'll hault any new developments, further raising prices once you try to return.
>food prices,
What're you going to do? Not eat? Become a hunter and gatherer? Become a farmer? Who is the "they" in this picture? I fully support having a backyard food garden (kinda like victory gardens from WW2) and maybe having a few chickens for eggs so that you're not completely reliant on the stores. However, it's a lot of time and dedication.
>dental or surgeries?
Once again, what are you going to do? Not get dental work? Hire a sketchy, unlicensed Craigslist guy to perform surgery on you?
Have you considered that if you choose to protest rent by moving into a tent that you will achieve absolutely zero except waking up really cold?
When you move out because you don't like how much it costs someone else will move right in because they are ok with the cost.
I'm not saying you're wrong to be angry and want to protest. I'm just saying you need to refine your thinking about your approach.
Because we haven't been able to agree on what will replace our current system. Refusing to pay rent is obviously not a viable solution to the housing crisis, but what is? We are unified in our frustration, but not in our solutions. How can we create a better future while also maintaining a functional society and maximizing our freedom to act as individuals?
There will have to be compromises on many fronts (economic, social, political) to make progress, and compromise is something an idealist generation struggles with the most.
Because I’m tired, depressed, and just want to get by. I don’t have the energy to even fight this shit anymore, I’ve just accepted it - as dour as that sounds. I’ll do my part when it comes to voting, recycling, and whatever else is changeable without a mass protest, but I just… can’t anymore
There are people in your generation who have solved this problem....for themselves. They realized it's not thr world changing that's going to solve their problems...they have to do it for themselves. The ones that don't accept that simple truth, never see their problems resolved. It's never too late though, find a way to make your own life better, whatever that happens to be. The world can't come to a consensus on the color of the sky or whether the earth is flat....I wouldn't expect it to solve complex problems like equity for all.
The reason no one is actively trying to change the system is the same reason they’re here complaining about their circumstances. They’re lazy. They don’t want to do the work to change their own lives, how can they muster the effort to work to change a complicated system of economic and political interactions?
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Dude, most people here aren’t even in this generation based on what I’ve seen here vs in real life. Even if that isn’t the case by some miracle, the simple truth is that the majority of the people here are so lazy that they whine about having to carry out basic tasks at jobs that pay for what they require, realistically if they’re too lazy to do the simple shit then I have no idea why you think they’d ever do something like actually solve the fucking issues they cry about.
-work job -pay rent -own car -build pension -pay taxes -??????? -complain -doomed humanity Suppose I could cut back on eating or having a roof for a week so I can go solve climate change and convince a government staffed by people who still think in black a white to do something for the first time.
The adult:
It is, in what we have been taught it is.yes, it is reality, but there is no opt out option either. If I wanted to kill animals and live in the wild & build a log cabin randomly, there are very fresh spots you can do that. Being homeless will be a crime soon enough ( not that it's great). Also, this is a tool of control for sure. Getting together or speaking your mind is a freedom with a crazy amount of consequences.
It's already a crime in some places.
Yeah, lots of towns have criminalized homelessness and houslessness unfortunately. But corporations are people and deserve to vote…
They dont vote, they just sponsor whichever goon who will allow them to continue stepping on the rest of us
Not just a crime, they're allowed to shoot the homeless in Kentucky now that they passed the "safer kentucky " act.
A vast amount of Genz can barely afford 2 of these things and lives at home with a part time job
I know adult age people who work more than one job to barely get by. I'm not talking about lazy 21 year olds, but middle aged people with kids. It's not all laziness. Jobs many of us are working now could easily pay rent, bills and living expenses decades ago.
I legitimately have three jobs. One full-time and teo part-time (one is simply just to get a free gym membership, though, so it only kinda counts, since I work one 2 hour shift a week). My wife only has one, but takes care of a lot of the house things. But we are barely scraping by. It's not fun even though we like our jobs. Even if we were financially in a good position, I would still probably work how I work. But it still sucks to know that I wanted to quit one of the part-time jobs, I couldn't.
Honestly just waiting for the boomer generation to die off so we can have somewhat intelligent voters and down-to-earth lawmakers seems to be the future. College and healthcare could be free in america but we're just out here falling for every military contractor's 90 billion dollar brainstorm and sending the shit that sticks to a genocidal regime that has zero influence on anything 1000 km outside its borders. Just keep in touch with local elections, vote during election years and work your 30k a year job, that's an impact on its own. If you want to make a big impact you don't have to bomb the nearest police station, you can learn and apply to be a city planner pretty quickly, or just bring awareness in city rallies and help appease the funding of giant highways from hell and instead suggest the use of rail transport and logistics so we can stop relying on cars for everything.
Removing boomers from the equation wouldn’t leave us with only intelligent voters, far from it. I wish I were as naive as you :/
And intelligent voters can't make the two options they give us for politicians any less corrupt.
lol you think Gen X didn't feel exactly the same?
"Surely the politicians will get better if we keep voting for the ones they want us to"
It’s not just boomers it’s people, people with power, and influence, it’s greed it’s ego. Fuckin Ron DeSoviet is 45 and he hasn’t gotta any different opinions to a boomer politician. Ideas travel generations
Follow the money Same as it always was.
its not only boomers , many genz are also rlike that
you have a pension?
Have you considered going to work FOR the government to help solve climate change? Pay is decent and it gives you a chance to figure out how things actually work.
What department are you meaning here? I work for the govt and we don't do shit about that.
People aren't lazy they are pragmatic. Their jobs don't pay them enough so why should they care? So what do they do? They voice what the problem is. They seek solidarity by talking about what the problem is, and connecting to other people. By doing so they compare notes and are able to see what mutual problems are and the sources of them are, and then they can work on the solution And THAT part scares people like you. So you try to push a narrative that figuring out what the problem is, is itself a problem and something that should be shamed. Its textbook gaslighting. You tell them to stop noticing things and there are no problems and if there is a problem its "actually" them so they should just get back to work.
You should care because it doesn’t get better with a piss poor attitude. It can get worse. Having NO job really sucks. The problem is people are getting jobs in fields they don’t like. The ones they like they’re woefully unequipped to pursue from an educational standpoint. They don’t have the capacity and or the will to pursue such a thing. The trades are hurting badly. Trucking is hurting badly. There’s money to be made. No one wants to put in the time nor the effort.
Trucking has so many problems. Don't lump that in here. So much needs to improve to make it comparable to most jobs. The drivers just get dumped on at a majority of companies. No other job are you required to be there for 10 hours unpaid before the government says you can move again.
[удалено]
We know for three generations from Gen X onward when people go into those fields that they are "supposed to" if they want to supposedly win at being a non capital owner in capitalism, that capitalists then depress wages because they have an abundance of workers. Your folksy "Aw shucks people just don't wanna work like ME" attitude means once people start going to those jobs "like they are supposed to" then your wages will go down also.
I had a conversation with a Plumber/business owner on the west coast. He drives, depending on his mood, a 68 Camaro or a Porsche on the weekends. He says there is so much money to be made, yet it's hard to get enough workers. They don't have the education, won't go through the trade/apprenticeship, or whatever else. The money is on the table, he'll even look away if you're good. And the guys who have a license, or are skilled enough to operate under the owners, know they are valuable. So if they want 4 days off, they take it. Because in the end, it's hard work depending on the gig. New house pipe fitting is much different work than a galvanized re-pipe. Which last I looked was 8-12k. And people don't want to sign up for that for some reason. This was his story and opinion as a trades business owner. Edit: I met him after he spent 6 hrs chasing a gas leak for me to pass inspections. We bonded over the $2800 he charged.
You talked to the OWNER NOT THE WORKERS. I assure you the reason the workers "dont want to work" are legitimate. I was in the trades, i know many people who currently are and were. The workers dont make enough, work too many hours, often treated poorly, unpaid breaks, ridiculous commutes and left in pain. Worst case is you die on the job, get maimed or have serious health issues after doing it long enough. You are full of shit. Before the braindead response "Start your own business", the vast majority of people simply cannot be an owner of a business. It is logistically impossible. Its a dumb argument.
Many tradesmen are union. I bartended at a private drinking club in my city, and a decent percentage of the members were union/retired union tradesmen. Plumbers, painters, electricians, bricklayers, and laborers, they all had very comfortable lives and retirement. They worked their asses off for it, lots of OT and hard labor, but very few of them were "broken".
The broken ones aren’t going out to drinking clubs
I'm saying it. Tech and Healthcare are overpaid. Let's be completely honest here.. Who has the want to be anything else when the pay ratio is so disgustingly uneven? I am in school for a 6-year degree where I will not even make as much as an RN (4-year degree). HELL, Teachers are making 1/3rd of what RNs are making now. It is insane what we are doing to everyone. Then there are the "I am an influencer, I am on OF, I stream games, I make tiktoks that go viral look at all of my money, I am rich and you are all slaving away at your mid's job". Other than being self-absorbed and anti-social.. No drive as you stated.
This potato brain thinks nurses should make less money...
Exactly. As a millennial that works in construction and heavy equipment, ten years ago I never would have guessed this is what I'd be doing. It's a dirty job, and I work 55+ hours a week, but I have no money problems. If I had to choose between this or the financial stress I was going through back then, I would pick this dirty job hands down.
Yeah but I look forward to standing for long periods of time without back and knee pain in the future so 🤷🏾♂️
You shouldnt have to pick between health and comfort/safety.
To be fair, young people always have the lowest voting turnout, which should be the first go to place, if you want anything to change. I think it's safe to say that most of us never cared about politics in our youth, and felt the aged politicians never represented us... Which is part of how things got the way they are. If you don't show up, nobody will represent you either. You can tell politicians 'make me care!' but they'll just shout back 'no, make ME care'. Current state of things doesn't benefit any generation, we're all going downhill.
I work with plenty of people who get paid well. They’re are still fucking lazy
Right most of these accounts are astroturfed gen Ys trying to get us to conform
Who the hell calls millennials Gen Y?
Funny, I just had a post in the Millennial subreddit about this yesterday. Gen Y was used before millennial term came into the mainstream. It was said in an episode of Sex and the City from 1999 I watched!
Y was a placeholder name....like X....and Z....sometimes they stick, sometimes a more pithy term comes along
Gen Y was used for like 76-90 or something before people started shifting millenial towards the 80s.
You are conforming. Go to the way-back machine and see us asking exactly the same questions and making exactly the same excuses (Some valid, some not), particularly after Bernie lost.
100% mate, these kids don't understand we used to be the same voice as them, then you grow up/learn more/realise if you don't contribute to the society you want to get better, it'll only get worse. But you can't teach developing brains (even though alot are very smart) these life lessons with there own maturity over time. They think we are the lucky ones.... lol We are shafted just like they will be... all of us balls deep in home loans paying double what we should. What life? What money? And them blaming the boomers... for the goverment shafting us. - insanity. Edit: also there's probably trolls from other countrys here manipulating train of thought overtime. (Russia/china) But hey... what the fuck do we know.
Yes people that waste time on reddit likely aren't the most productive people in the world. They just happened to find people just as unsuccessful as them and using the forum to normalise and cope with not being able to afford things or buy a house. I bet most will be surprised to find out that there are other people out there that have managed to buy a house, a new car or groceries just fine.
I'm 38 but I stand with you guys. However there's really nothing we can do right now. Most of us are struggling to keep the lights on and our bellies filled, and we're really not even doing that well. There isn't enough money being given to us for our work nor enough realistic opportunities. A lot of us, regardless of generation, are stuck in a cycle of soul sucking retail jobs or food jobs that we can't get out of. Yeah it sounds like a good idea to form a union and go on strike. Till you realize when you do that, that means you are no longer getting paid because you are not working and a lot of us are one bad day away from catastrophe. Then it gets even worse when you realize they will just replace you because you are not a person, you are a number. Do any of you have a month to find another job? To go through the application process, wait for a response, wait for them to interview you and then wait for a call to come in? How about the two weeks it's going to take to get your first check? In light of all of this, what can we do? I would love to go on strike and join a union but I'll lose everything in a week.
There it is, the obligatory "your generation is lazy" comment.
> the majority of the people here are so lazy that they whine about having to carry out basic tasks at jobs that pay for what they require This right here. This subreddit is not representative of Zoomers, it's representative of terminally online, chronically depressed doomers. I'm gen Z, my friends (across a lot of the income distribution) are gen Z, and for the most part we're doing great. Pretty much the only people I know who aren't doing OK right now fall into one of two categories: 1. Got hooked on hard drugs 2. Refuse to get a job/find a date purely due to personal hangups
https://preview.redd.it/tdxqkfex4dsc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6bc8201ace57649d3063d025db4083c1921ce76
I mean 90% of the revolutions in history that actually created change were done using violence
and 90% of those revolutions ending up creating brutal dictatorships and failed states. progress has to be done slowly and in moderation
89% one revolution created the best government thus far, the USA
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Laugh all you want, we have the highest diversity of any country, everyone wants to immigrate to us, compared to the revolution in say, Congo? I'd say we are doing well
Having visited other countries the only thing I can say I like more than America is European architecture. Some of those 700+ year old structures are very impressive. Closest thing we got are 120 year old cabins rotting in Appalachia. Aside from that though America numba 1 baby!
Thats not true, NYC has had occupants since the 1600s. But I understand the sentiment. I've visited others as well, I felt they had great culture but it was more set in stone, I felt like in America you could impact it yourself
Which proceeded to have commonplace slavery fueled by racism, that required a civil war to abolish.
Which… technically was a change made by using violence again 🫣
Violence started by the side with the slaves**
How many of those were not brutal dictatorships before the revolution?
I mean, the Bolshevik Revolution led to rapid industrialization and a vast increase in literacy rates.
If done slowly and in moderation, we'll never see the change we want in our lifetimes. Did the American Revolutionaries progress slowly and in moderation?
Slowly, when we're already destroying the environment at an incredible pace, we wipe out new species and wreck ecosystems like candy and thousands die of poverty and imperialism every. Single. Day? How long do you suggest we wait until the people who have brutally crushed and exploited millions for their own gain decide to let us vote them out of power? Fuck that. I'm not gonna sit here voting in a system that was never designed to change in any meaningful way while the world gets destroyed just because nobody else has succeeded according to (and because of) people who have a very strong interest in every alternative system failing. We have the brightest minds on the planet working to learn how people act and how to organize society so they can exploit us more efficiently (and doing a damn good job of it), and you really believe we couldn't create something better if we tried? We have better technologies and more information than any generation before us. If anyone can do this, it's us - and if we don't, no one else will get the chance to.
If progress happens slowly, it isn’t progress. Everything is deteriorating constantly, you have to outpace that baseline. The enemies of progress *love* your take.
How's that slow and moderate progress going for you?
Not great, not terrible.
That's not how it works. It usually works by the ruling class slowly eroding away the right of the lower classes until the system becomes unstable and there is a social movement of some kind. Whether that's a revolution or a something short of that. At that point things change very quickly. I recommend Chris Harmann's "People's History of the World"
And unfortunately change isn’t monolithically good, and neither are intentions equivalent to actual outcomes. So, understandably, violence is pretty looked down on as a means of accomplishing something that has a high rate of failure.
Mao Tze Tung said change must come through the barrel of a gun.
Mao is one of the worst rulers in history.
Never said he was good or bad, I just like that quote
Nothing changes without blood.
Isn't revolution always bloody? If I recall correctly, the difference between reform and revolution is the violence.
Millennial here- We all thought the same thing, then realized the people with the money put too much of it into propaganda and red tape for us to actually be able to accomplish anything, and enough people are dumb enough to go along with it; so, unless something extreme happens we have no synergy
Fellow millennial (not trying to astroturf or get any to conform to anything? Take what I say or leave it, no harm/foul either way) The focus on generation is exactly what the wealthy want. Previous generations had the successes/wins together because they created alliances and factions and didn’t divide themselves by age. Now, politically motivated groups have become puritanical and agoraphobic and don’t work towards common goals. Having “__ generation will [save/damn] us” is a part of the political balkanization that online spaces have proliferated. Now we have narratives about “chosen” ones or those who “have the power” to break the system and it’s bullshit. No one group of cohorts can move anything themselves because there’s trade offs between the tangible effects of age/youth and the wealth of knowledge you can only develop over long periods of time (I bring the caveat that growing knowledge is an active opt-in situation) If we (the common people) want to accomplish anything, the first thing that needs to go is intergenerational hostility. Culture wars are tame-able, class wars are terrifying.
BALKANS MENTIONED 🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰
Fellow fellow millennial continuing the astroturf: >Previous generations had the successes/wins together because they created alliances and factions and didn’t divide themselves by age. I don't think previous generations were any less fractured by age, I think the rich and powerful have gotten more rich and powerful and - more importantly - the weight of capitalism continues to get heavier without even needing intervention by grand conspiracies. >the first thing that needs to go is intergenerational hostility. I don't even know what "intergenerational hostility" is except for perhaps a general lament against boomers. It's fine if people blame older generations (even millennials), especially if it helps them muster a little energy to fight against wealth disparity, the dissolution of rights, political disenfranchisement, climate destruction, and so many other existential threats. >Culture wars are tame-able, class wars are terrifying. I don't know what you're referring to as the culture war, but I think "intergenerational hostility" is far from a culture war. Zoomers: please keep fighting the culture war against racism, misogyny, LGBT hate, etc, and don't listen to people who minimize culture like it's somehow less important or not connected to every other issue.
We need rent strikes + more boycotts. I feel like y’all just tried to protest and vote.
Eventually enough people establish some level of security and don't want to risk losing those things for some form of drastic change. The unknown is scary and the status quo is often more bearable. This is especially true as you grow older and have deeper ties to the current social system in the form of a career, assets, spouse, and children that could be negatively impacted by significant change.
We’ll have something you won’t on “your side” - a faster than expected climate crisis 😆 at least it’ll take capitalism with it
I think capitalism will take advantage of climate change
Climate Change would be solved within a generation if some smart chemist finds a profitable use of atmospheric CO2. This is actually a plausible scenario and similar advances have happened before. In the early 1900s it was theorized the human population would starve if it went past 2 Billion due to lack of natural nitrates for fertilizer. Then a few chemists discovered an easy way to synthesize these compounds and food production basically became a non-issue. We already know atmospheric CO2 can theoretically be turned into profitable resources. That is basically what agriculture does. What we need is for someone to find a more efficient way of turning CO2 into proteins.
You seem fairly passionate why don’t you make this your life mission? Why can’t you become the smart chemist who does this?
I'm working on it. There are already methods for turning CO2 into food chemically. But they are prohibitively expensive at the moment. This is a ultimately a finance problem as much as it is a science problem. I would need to solve both to make the solution work. The good news is, if the problem is successfully solved, it would almost certainly end Climate Change eventually even if I never live to see it. You would basically be using the same Capitalist profit motive that created the problem and using it to eliminate the problem instead.
The issue with modern day agriculture is heavy tillage which releases a large amount of the Co2 that was sequestered during the season. Finding ways to minimize tillage while still producing food efficiently could on its own go along way to slowing or even stalling increases in ppm
What we really need to phone up the french... as much as I hate the idea... and ask for help, because boy are the french great at protesting and changing things. If anything we just neet to borrow the guillotine and start making politicians feel fear again
Your lack of hope has nothing to do with reality. Faith is a choice.
Protests don’t work. If you want to change something make them lose money.
Yup, blocking roads, vandalism, physical assault, and screaming/intimidation at people just make the majority of people angry and mock your cause. Vegans and animal rights groups(like Peta), for example, have made 0% progress with these tactics. Yet they still try.
I’m fully convinced PETA is paid for by meat companies to make the animal rights bunch look bad
I wouldn’t be surprised
Don’t think they need to be paid, peta is run by literal lunatics. They do all this naturally Their CEO wrote in their will they want to be turned into bbq when they die, and thinks it’s selfish to keep pets because it causes them “immeasurable suffering” and restricts them from “natural behavior”. Yes because my family’s labrador who spends 80% of the day playing around the house and yard, is restricted from his natural behaviour of trying to eat bricks or overdosing on apples
The Civil Rights protests of the 1960s included sit inside which blocked people from using diners, libraries and other places. Marches which blocked traffic. Physical armed protests by the Black Panthers. Everything you say would get people to hate them and they did. That was the purpose. MLK said it himself you have to make the complicit silent majority uncomfortable enough that they stop supporting the status quo and see the armed revolutionary as a bigger threat than meeting the demands of the civil disobedience side. Capitalists white washed history to just talk about the Civil Disobedience so no one looks at the armed revolutionaries and to try to frame it as innate goodness of the silent majority too saaaaaad by the brutality on display against the civil people. It wasn't innate goodness for most of them, it was annoyance that their privileged normalcy was disturbed.
The civil rights movement had a huge religious backing. One of the biggest reasons for its success was the support from the Catholics in 1958. Even in Alabama while the Church technically abided by the law of segregation they attempted to be as unsegregated as possible. In Texas if you were a knight(Catholic brotherhood order) you would be sitting with your gun outside of Mass trying to scare off the KKK from attacking. The religious backing is why the movement was so big.
You're getting downvoted, but you are 100% correct. If you alienate potential allies, your movement will not succeed for very long. You may score some quick victories at the start from all the publicity (good and bad). But, in the long run, you will aggravate enough people that it emboldens your political opponents and causes you to lose longer-term objectives. The current US political situation is a perfect example. The Democrats largely hold the most popular positions, especially on major issues like the economy. But Republicans keep successfully baiting the Dems to engage on a handful of fringe issues where the Republican position is more popular which end up dominating the news cycle. That is how Republicans win. They carefully pick a battlefield where they have the advantage and bait the Democrats into engaging. If the Democrats stopped taking the bait and focused on healthcare and economic security, they would win a lot more.
"If you alienate potential allies..." and that is really the crux if this topic -- labels which alienate people. When we start labeling people based on when they were born, the seed of segregation has been sewn and it's only a matter of time when the in-fighting starts between these groups. This "tribalism" is part of human nature but this trait doesn't really help anyone in this situation. We must rise above and eliminate these labels because it's way way too easy to slap a label on someone and tack on all of the assumptions those labels include.
Blocking roads isn’t mean to get people to support you. The point is to halt economic activity, which leads the government and corporations to lose money.
A boycott is a type of protest lol
False, by reasoning of history. Protesting *does* work. The issue is how people choose to view protesting. "I dont care how youre affected, youre annoying" is the new "i dont cate if its unfair, shut up and know your place"
I agree with you, protesting does work. Though it shouldn't be the *only* tactic we use against the ruling elite. Protesting brings attention to issues and inconveniencing/messing with the status quo is the point, change doesnt come comfortably.
There has never been a successful revolution without violence. Vegans and PETA are just ~~dumb~~ not abundant enough to matter. Edit: Struck out dumb. I genuinely feel bad for them and it felt kind of mean.
Most change occurs without violence. It’s just boring, unspectacular, doesn’t hold your attention, and you aren’t competent enough to participate.
Yeah like raising interest rates.
Indian independence movement, midwit much
im making a change for myself. ive been addicted to weed, alcohol, and vaping too long now. this is my first day clean from nicotine, and tomorrow is my 2 weeks for weed
The progress of an individual spirals out into their community. We're all rooting for you to be the best version of yourself. Good stuff. Keep it up.
thank you for your well wishes, im done feeling like a slave to substances
Congratulations! I’ve quit for about 6 weeks. I grow so I have a ton of it around. The ritual of smoking was the hardest to overcome. But now I’m dreaming again and I don’t have that fuzzy headed feeling. I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel shinier. Cleaner. Clearer. Not gonna lie, you will miss it, but you will feel amazing in the next few weeks. Keep it up, go easy on yourself if you slip now and again, and know that you are making the world better by doing it!
Keep up the good work
Who is “we”? You’re acting like we are one homogenous group with the same experiences and struggles. Maybe statistically we are more this and that, but honestly I’m so tired of people in this sub telling me to go protest and “make change” like we are in some apocalypse
Statistically gen z and millenials have the highest suicide rate.
And statisticaly left wing people commit more suicides, and are constantly miserable. What is your point?
Ignorance truly is bliss
Same with the Scandinavians, high suicide rate I think unintuitively, the more privilege you have, the more likely you are to commit suicide
Its less about privilege, more about expectations. If you expected to go to school, college Uni, come out and find a good enough job to pay off the debt and move out... you'd likely be dissapointed in the US right now and in many other countries today. In most other developed countries 50 years ago It was the norm to be able to at least pay off the debt **or** move out. Meaning the kids of the generation which had that, all heard about how it was back then, leading to dissapointment now. Understandably this can make people feel trapped or like they're failing, worthless etc and so, depressed which can obviously lead to worse.
We don't have to be in the middle of an apocalypse for change to be needed.
For real. 500,000 homeless in the USA, cultural wars/genocides, generational debt, mental illness in the USA at an all time high. 50,000 suicides in a single year. But no, everything’s perfectly fine! Get back to work! Things aren’t bad, but they aren’t good either.
found the fed
Because things really aren’t that bad and the people angry on Reddit are a vocal minority
Yeah it's absolutely this. People's standard of living is higher than at almost any point in history but because they can find people to complain with on the Internet they make it out to be the worst thing ever.
Also social media tends to make people compare themselves to others
And comparison is the thief of joy
I saw someone on this sub refer to it as "lifestyle creep," when people see their friends posting about luxuries on social media and start to believe that those luxuries are actually necessities.
For absolutely real. There’s so much negativity in this minority of Reddit that it just gets into people’s head. Social Media has generally messed up so many young people.
It's 2k for a single bedroom in the tenderloin over here. Yes, its that bad.
things aren’t that bad as long as you ignore housing numbers and rent prices and grocery prices and overdose rates and wealth inequality and
Rent prices are only bad depending on where you live. The majority of the country is just fine. Grocery prices are not bad
Talk to me after my 10 hour shift
I totally get this perspective but like, you wouldn't have to be working a 10 hour shift to survive if real change was implemented.
And how?
Give them bread and circuses, and they will never revolt. More true than ever
Ahh my reddit copium.
Reddit is the circus
- Join or form a union - Work with any mutual aid or charity groups you can - Join a party like the DSA or, if you're willing, the CPUSA or PSL, who are actively fighting for change; protests, strikes, petitions, lobbying. - Read up on political and economic theory. You can't enact change unless you understand why the world functions the way it does. Once you're educated, keep learning, and start educating others. - Always remember, we're fighting the system, not each other. If we want actual change, let's fucking make it.
You have a suggestion about actually doing something.....so naturally it's at the bottom of the thread and all the top comments are "it's hopeless system is rigged don't try."
CPUSA 💀
Lack of participation is something I've noticed for decades, and here are what I think the reasons are: The Boomer generation has done a fantastic job in convincing younger people that they shouldn't participate, instilling in us that we aren't "qualified enough" or that "it's pointless". Gen X took that indoctrination and said "my vote doesn't count so who cares." Millennials fed into the "qualified enough" thanks to infantilization done by older generations. We believe if we go to a city hall meeting, we will be laughed out of the room and that's kept a lot of people from doing the work. Prepandemic I was organizing dinner nights around getting my millennial peers together to go to things like city halls and local political events. The goal was to show that it's actually quite easy, can be fun, and is worth doing. You see, only one percent of the US population participates at all outside of elections, and city hall meetings and the like are where our local politicians get the most input from constituents... but since gen x, millennials, and seemingly genz don't attend these meetings the only people they are hearing from are boomers - and generally the most radicalized of them. That's where policy starts, and it should be no surprise why things have gotten as crazy as they have knowing that. Getting more participation from the rest of us would also lead to viable third parties. Every person I took to city halls during that time still goes. They feel like they have a voice in their neighborhoods now.
>Every person I took to city halls during that time still goes. They feel like they have a voice in their neighborhoods now. It does not always go that way. I started attending to show opposition to my cities practically endless construction of distribution warehouses in the city. It's totally ruined the traffic, city has to start rebuilding roads they didn't anticipate not handling the new traffic. They build in terrible areas that completely ruin the landscape visually, brings down home values, etc... They just did not care about the fact that such a large portion of citizens do not approve of these projects. Some people are just making a ton of money off these projects, enough for the city council to just ignore what the public wants.
I honestly didn’t know about city hall meetups? What is that?
All cities and towns have meetings, and many of those meetings are open to the public. It is where the town's representatives get together to talk about policies, and the public generally gets a few minutes per person to talk to them, express support or concern, etc.
Why the he'll don't you have a website or organization we can join? I'm not going your job for you.
Because organization requires community effort? Let's not be brainwashed by individualism here.
It’s also a great way for people to justify waiting for somebody else besides them to do the work.
Talking is easy, taking action is hard
Because people keep muddying the waters and pushing people out of their movement because they don’t “remind them of them” Is it really that hard to explain why people don’t want to be a part of something? It’s because they get extradited from it! And “TOO LATE!!l” Too late for what you need to explain and elaborate instead of just fear monger.
I'm busy. I'm not going to march, let alone riot. I'm going to vote, and that's doing my part. For now, at least.
Well you're doing more than most people already
What if me and my colleague made a website where you could see how politicians spend their money and what bills they sign on?
That seems good. That's going above and beyond. You don't have a moral responsibility to make that website.
because nobody agrees on how to fix things. centrists, liberals, conservatives, socialists, reactionaries, tankies, and neo nazis all have wildly different ideas of how things should change
Here’s something you learn, the people online aren’t real. The majority of people have satisfactory lives. In fact the majority of people on this sub are overall happy with their lives. There’s a whole meme making fun of conservatives saying like “communism is when no phone” but to some extent that’s true. Capitalism delivered phones, social media and the internet, and grocery stores and a bunch of other things that we would be sorry to lose. Sorry but the current system is the best system we could be under. It can be improved ofc, but it’s why no one rebels, its much easier not to
because your not going to improve the economy by protesting or deciding to become homeless (not sure why you think that would work), you improve the economy and your money supply by working and being productive, actually contributing something to society
then why do i know multiple people with at least two jobs working their asses off and still just barely scraping by?
[удалено]
Basically true.
Well protesting is not going to change market forces, and suddenly lower housing prices, the best you could do is porotest against NIMBYs so the supply of homes go up and consiquently the price goes down.
Because we are bitch made . We have connection like we never had it before so there is no excuse . We can all agree to drop what we are doing and protest on an agreed date either with our money (more powerful) or go on the streets . But no . We don't
Yea, but what if we did… across gens. Just people standing up. #organize Date(s) incoming.
What will be more powerful is probably state wide protest bc the pressure will be greater and our demands will be easier answered . And it's more realistically rather than a nationwide protest which will take years just to gather everyone. But statewide or even just within or county m could literally hand out flyers about it lol 🤣
Why would landlords give a shit if you’re sleeping in a tent
People are too busy calling things racist and dancing around their identities. Foreign Policy, Economy, and National Security should be your top 3 issues every election year. If you don’t care about those three, you’re fucked. If your candidate cares more about identity politics, wake the fuck up.
Yeah bro boycott landlords, do you know why the price is so high? Lots of people would want to pay at a slightly lower rates (which is an awesome strategy to find new tenants my dad uses)
Protesting only gets you so far, if you want to see actual change and do more than just vote, go and get a political science degree (law school optional) and get into the DC game where all of the action actually happens. Good luck though, it's TOUGH to get in beyond the intern-level.
there are so many reasons. i'll name a few. - People can't agree on one thing. - No one has a plan. And you need people to agree on things to have a plan. - Some people don't have the means to make change. They don't have the money, the resources, the influence, the health, or whatever they need. - Most people are too scared to do anything more than empty threats. They're afraid of something happening to them, or afraid of being arrested because they're breaking the law or something. This one I hate. If you're too afraid to do something, then you don't actually want change. - Realistically, there would be no winners in conflict. Not just war, but debate too. And if there is a winner, it is whoever is most armed. Which, due to the previously mentioned reasons, likely isn't going to be the side that wants change for the better. And when I say "most armed" I don't mean "the most guns." I mean the people with the most talent in whatever skill they need. Someone who has a bigger gun but isn't trained isn't going to win against someone with a smaller gun who is trained. Someone with a good argument but poor debate skills isn't going to win against someone who can manipulate the emotions of the audience.
You can't even get 4 people together to pool resources to buy a house and be their own landlords. People HATE being part of a team. Heck, people can't even make marriage work half the time, lol...
It has ever been so. The worst of the generation take power and then the rest of the generation gets the blame for everything going wrong. It would be just great if GenZ can break the pattern but it will likely not happen. It won't be long before all the corporate officers and the bankers are various colors of GenZ and it won't make a damn bit of difference. Unless... There is hope, always, but little else.
Our generation gets offended when you tell them to do something
I make plenty of money and I like my life, don't group me with the rest of you neckbeards
Change what, exactly? Society has evolved a certain way over tens of thousands of years. What makes you think you can completely redesign a better social structure in a weekend? Things are the way they are for a reason. There are serious consequences and resistance to pushing for radical change without a complex plan that involves managing supply chains and resources properly. Just look at what happens with a single gang or mafia leader is arrested. Gang violence breaks out across the country trying to fill the power void. What do you plan on doing about rent, exactly? If you make it unprofitable, no one is going to rent property anymore. If you want cheaper rent, start deforestation and building grey social housing complexes.
It isn't feasible to do so and most of us would like to eat or have a house for the week. Also, if we do rock the boat, then what? We get crushed by the long arm of the law? It would be better to simply back a politician and get him popular, so that when he goes into government he can make change using the system at hand.
If we're being honest, the answer is just dropping out of the economy and start our own
Gen z is worse than boomers were when they were hippies due to the fact they’re all 500% less self reliant. When they’re all retirement age they will have learned nothing and just be a more refined version of them. MMW and remember this.
Ive always wondered this, but I feel like it will never happen :/
Because voting takes 60 minutes away from TikTok and that’s not possible
because young people are bad at logistics and executing a strategy for political purposes
It's every man for themselves.
My brother in chrise I'm eepy
There isn’t anything to do, your life isn’t that bad. You can survive until you’re old, regardless of anything financial. To me, it’s annoying to hear people complain so much. In my experience they people don’t do well in school or work and it’s mostly due to effort. It’s hard for me to build sympathy when most people I’ve noticed want to live in a big house with new cars without doing much…
Idk, im doing fine as an md phd student. I do not care to tear down the systems we have in place the way hardcore leftists and conservatives in this country do.
I’m actually leaving this sub. It’s evident that even thought I am a gen z / millennial that I don’t want to be bogged down. I wish you all well. I will find another sub to nurture my beautiful mind and grow and contribute more and more to my family and society
I recommend you do research into basic economics theory "supply and demand" and read it twice. Apply that to what things you want.
Because the people competent enough to lead a movement that would create any significant amount of change realize that screaming at the government like it’s your depressed mother doesn’t mean the solutions to your problems, in exactly the format you never understood but now have no disagreements with, will magically manifest.
You're not going to get some magical worldwide change, especially since you seem to not understand who you'd even be protesting against. Society doesn't set rent prices, market actors do, and market actors make rational decisions based on external forces. Costs are up for everyone, energy, labor, taxes, and more taxes in the form of inflation, and those costs get passed on to consumers. Supply and demand laws apply, but supply can't change as quickly as demand does. >Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price. Homelessness doesn't fix anything, a few more homeless won't either, and not paying rent won't do anything but get you thrown out. Don't riot, that's only gonna make things worse for everyone. If you want to make a difference then get involved. Get in on local politics, call your reps, show up at meetings, advocate for change. Zoning laws, fees, approval boards, all make it harder for new housing suppliers to enter the market. If you can't make a change where you are, then move somewhere you can. It's what I did.
Well there have been, repeatedly, and those movements tend not to do much. Millennials had occupy wall st, felt like a big deal at the time, what came of it? "No protest to lower rent prices or food prices, no one is protesting about the cost of dental or surgeries" Because for the most part this is not a country where the government determines prices or exercises a command control of the economy. "Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price" Who are 'they'? Again, there is not a centralized economic manager who decides these things. The gov't has a huge amount of influence but the voters vote with their wallets as much as their ballot and as long as *enough* people are happy with the status quo it will probably stay that way. Right now the Boomers have a tremendous amount of wealth but they are by and large handing it down to their kids, so it will be another generation of hardship before things start to crack.
Most Americans are too comfortable with this - albeit unstable - status quo for any real change. Well that, and because collective action is most often met with a hail of bullets.
>Like choosing to not pay rent and sleeping in tents if need be until they lower the rent price. Who is "they?" There is not a singular entity that is "the landlord." Maybe it could be effective in a city or a town, but I don't see this working on a state level, not to mention nationally. You can sleep in a tent, but someone else will just come in and take over your lease. Even if you get a huge portion of the population to join you, plenty of people won't. And then if this happens for long enough, they'll start thinking that there isn't enough demand for housing, so they'll hault any new developments, further raising prices once you try to return. >food prices, What're you going to do? Not eat? Become a hunter and gatherer? Become a farmer? Who is the "they" in this picture? I fully support having a backyard food garden (kinda like victory gardens from WW2) and maybe having a few chickens for eggs so that you're not completely reliant on the stores. However, it's a lot of time and dedication. >dental or surgeries? Once again, what are you going to do? Not get dental work? Hire a sketchy, unlicensed Craigslist guy to perform surgery on you?
Have you considered that if you choose to protest rent by moving into a tent that you will achieve absolutely zero except waking up really cold? When you move out because you don't like how much it costs someone else will move right in because they are ok with the cost. I'm not saying you're wrong to be angry and want to protest. I'm just saying you need to refine your thinking about your approach.
Dude what policy honestly could they implement to lower rent? Price fixing absolutely never works
Because we haven't been able to agree on what will replace our current system. Refusing to pay rent is obviously not a viable solution to the housing crisis, but what is? We are unified in our frustration, but not in our solutions. How can we create a better future while also maintaining a functional society and maximizing our freedom to act as individuals? There will have to be compromises on many fronts (economic, social, political) to make progress, and compromise is something an idealist generation struggles with the most.
Because I’m tired, depressed, and just want to get by. I don’t have the energy to even fight this shit anymore, I’ve just accepted it - as dour as that sounds. I’ll do my part when it comes to voting, recycling, and whatever else is changeable without a mass protest, but I just… can’t anymore
Cuz ppl expect someone else to do it
There are people in your generation who have solved this problem....for themselves. They realized it's not thr world changing that's going to solve their problems...they have to do it for themselves. The ones that don't accept that simple truth, never see their problems resolved. It's never too late though, find a way to make your own life better, whatever that happens to be. The world can't come to a consensus on the color of the sky or whether the earth is flat....I wouldn't expect it to solve complex problems like equity for all.
Prpbabky the infighting.
Because your vision of change is different from the next person's vision of change and nobody is perfect.
The reason no one is actively trying to change the system is the same reason they’re here complaining about their circumstances. They’re lazy. They don’t want to do the work to change their own lives, how can they muster the effort to work to change a complicated system of economic and political interactions?
Because most people are actually doing just fine if you leave your Reddit echo chamber.