The Kids (Aren't) Alright - World Happiness Report

[Guest]

Making the rounds this morning is the new World Happiness Report. The main headline you'll see is that the U.S. dropped from 15th to 23rd.

What's not as clear, except for this WSJ article (paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/world-happiness-report-americans-top-20-0f59cf98) and this Gallup article (https://news.gallup.com/poll/612125/happiest-country-earth.aspx) is that the drop is largely due to Americans under 30 years old.

"The report, which ranks countries by age group for the first time, shows the U.S. decline is at least partly attributable to Americans under age 30 feeling worse about their lives. The U.S. still ranks in the top 10 countries for those 60 and older, with a score of 7.258 out of 10. But for those under 30, it ranks 62nd, with a score of 6.392."

That's... uh... not good.

[956 Worldwide 34715]

Let me preface this by saying that COVID was dangerous and we did the best we could with hard choices.  That said:

- It absolutely wrecked young people’s shit to all go home for like a year and half. We forget that a year is a damn long time to a kid and that people 15-25 are the ones who most need to be around peers. We are still unwinding what that means and of course in the U.S. we did it the hard way.
 

- Youth social media is WACK.  I really believe TikTok’s algorithm is tweaked to show young people videos of people who are unhappy and unstable and want you to feel that way, too.  I am a huge believer in mental health and therapy when needed but there’s a whole, very popular genre, of influencers insisting that normal life challenges like going on a bad date or having a shitty job for a while are in fact brutal trauma.  

Edited March 20 by 956 Worldwide

[Cum Rocket 136]

2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Let me preface this by saying that COVID was dangerous and we die the best we could with hard choices.  That said:

- It absolutely wrecked young people’s shit to all go home for like a year and half. We forget that a year is a damn long time to a kid and that people 15-25 are the ones who most need to be around peers. We are still unwinding what that means and of course in the U.S. we did it the hard way.
 

- Youth social media is WACK.  I really believe TikTok’s algorithm is tweaked to show young people videos of people who are unhappy and unstable and want you to feel that way, too.  I am a huge believer in mental health and therapy when needed but there’s a whole, very popular genre, of influencers insisting that normal life challenges like going on a bad date or having a shitty job for a while are in fact brutal trauma.  

Agree with all your points.

I will say reaching the endgame of our debt supercycle is also crushing to many young people. Elevated cost of living, wages not keeping up, the ridiculous and still rising cost of college, can't afford a house. A lot of problems there.

Oh, also they've been beat over the head about climate change for most of their lives which seems to have given a lot of people existential dread, unnecessarily.

[atomheartbevo 89727]

2 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Oh, also they've been beat over the head about climate change for most of their lives which seems to have given a lot of people existential dread, unnecessarily.

Yeah, that’s exactly what’s dragging the under-30 crowd down, and they won’t shut the fuck up about it.  When I talk to my friends/family and others who are 30 and under, it’s all they ever talk about.  They don’t talk about the attacks on the LGBTQ folks or minorities or the shitty weather.

It’s like Mormons or fucking cross-fitters - they can’t stop talking about this one thing. You ask them what they think of the March Madness bracket and you get 20 minutes of bullshit about them not being able to fill out their bracket because they were thinking about the locations of some of the teams and then they began having an existential crisis about the climate and the future impact on those teams.  The under-30 crowd just won’t shut the fuck up about the climate,

[drt 639]

Previous generations used existential threats as motivation for positive change. My hope is that current generations do too. 
 

To you other point: I saw this quote in the home insurance thread in CYHMWT recently and it really hit home:

Quote

But these increases are not sustainable, not without a commensurate increase in wages, etc.

 

[956 Worldwide 34715]

Housing costs are fucking insane and it is truly nuts that in the United States we are going through it. We just aren’t building and there is another huge issue.

We’be told people forever that their house is the biggest investment and not a place to live.  We have TONS of actual boomers sitting around in houses that should have been sold to a young or growing family a long time ago so they could downsize. But the incentive is to sit on them, for good reason. 
 

I don’t blame them for that but do blame them for NIMBY refusal to just build more normal size houses. 

[Captainant 27680]

12 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Oh, also they've been beat over the head about climate change for most of their lives which seems to have given a lot of people existential dread, unnecessarily.

You don't think that major climate change is going to occur in our lifetimes? We are on track for a blue ocean event within a decade, and have been accelerating ocean temperature increases and acidification. 

Climate change is going to continue to beat us over the head, and it's a market force that you cannot out-consume. 

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

We’be told people forever that their house is the biggest investment and not a place to live.  We have TONS of actual boomers sitting around in houses that should have been sold to a young or growing family a long time ago so they could downsize. But the incentive is to sit on them, for good reason. 

The problem is that we have capitalized things that SHOULD NOT be a major market profitability vehicle. Healthcare should NOT be a profit center. Housing should NOT be a profit center. Basic fucking sustenance should NOT be a profit center. We have more than enough to go around, but our society has decided that the best way to share the economic growth is to give tax cuts to the ultra wealthy and gut wasteful social programs like schools and libraries 

 

Gee, I WONDER why the younger cohort is so negative

[956 Worldwide 34715]

Yeah, I mean— I am furious about climate change.  And all of us olds have had decades to do something but instead we pretend it’s not happening. Maybe the youngs really do need therapy because we constantly gaslight them.

[atomheartbevo 89727]

40 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Youth social media is WACK.  I really believe TikTok’s algorithm is tweaked to show young people videos of people who are unhappy and unstable and want you to feel that way, too.  I am a huge believer in mental health and therapy when needed but there’s a whole, very popular genre, of influencers insisting that normal life challenges like going on a bad date or having a shitty job for a while are in fact brutal trauma.  

On the flip side, there’s a shit-ton of social media influencer types who are putting out unrealistic lifestyle videos that make the majority of people watching feel like they are living in poverty.  We have entire YouTube channels about kids unboxing toys, and it can’t be healthy for other kids to see those videos of some kid opening up a thousand bucks worth of toys in a few minutes.

On my bucket list is sailing up and down the East Coast and/or doing the Great Loop, and I occasionally look at videos about it, and I came across one the other night with a couple who bitched about their crappy jobs and tiny apartment and so they quit their jobs, sold everything and got a catamaran to live on, and they are acting like anybody can do it.  I looked it up and it was a $750,000 catamaran at minimum.  These “glamorous” influencers have got to be doing a number on a lot of their viewers, given how easily their content is spread.

When I was a kid in the 80s, there was a show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and it was once a week and not seen by most people.  Contrast that with the Kardashians that are non-stop on some TV channels, and all of the lifestyle influencer types who are pervasive across social media.

Edited March 20 by atomheartbevo

[Cum Rocket 136]

16 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You don't think that major climate change is going to occur in our lifetimes? We are on track for a blue ocean event within a decade

These predictions have been made for our entire lifetimes, Greta.

The climate is everchanging, and in the past it's been warmer than it is now. See Medieval Warm Period.

19 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The problem is that we have capitalized things that SHOULD NOT be a major market profitability vehicle. Healthcare should NOT be a profit center. Housing should NOT be a profit center. Basic fucking sustenance should NOT be a profit center.

Ok, comrade.

29 minutes ago, drt said:

 

The current monetary and financial situation is unsustainable. When does it break?

[Brisketexan 105154]

My hyphothesis as to one of the major reasons that young people are unhappy in the US: meanness is discouraging and demoralizing, kindness and caring about other people breeds contentment.  And we are at a point in our cultural cycle that fucking elevates and worships meanness, cruelty, selfishness, and hurting others, and demeans and diminishes ANY concept of the common good, doing things for the benefit of your fellow man, and the like (hell, see cum rocket's reply above).  You think that young people don't see that?  They see it clear as day.

Contrast that with one of the countries highest on the happiness index, Finland (7 for youth, 2 for elderly).  The observation hit my wife like a hammer when we visited last year: they care about each other, they care about their children. As in, it is a point of national pride and identity.  It is conspicuous, it is woven into their daily lives and the stories they tell each other.  And I thought there was an interesting point in the discussion of "happiness" as it is observed in Finland.  It's not about walking around giggling with a shit-eating grin on your face; it's about contentment, and being satisfied.

Culturally, we don't value "having enough" at all.  You must either have excess -- wild success, conspicuous cars and fashion, etc. -- or you are a loser and a failure.  In someplace like Finland, happiness/contentment for the bulk of the country is being able to spend 2 weeks in the summer at a cabin on a lake.  Many of them don't even have electricity.  You sauna, you plunge in the cold lake, you drink by the fire with friends, you eat some food that makes the Finns happy (but man, most folks wouldn't be thrilled with it).  And it makes you happy.  Here?  You best be blowing it out on a tropical beach or somesuch, eating $200 per person dinners, or else you suck.  Yes, there are outliers (there are rich Finns, there are Americans who are happy and satisfied with ordinary lives).  But our dominant cultural theme is NOT healthy.

Kindness.  Taking care of each other.  Finding joy in simple things.  Finding happiness in connection, not in materiality.  Those are the simple and not-exactly-secret keys to happiness.  Our culture is far away from all of those things, and running further away from them every day.  We should stop running that direction.  Then, we should take some steps in the OTHER direction.

Edited March 20 by Brisketexan

[Da Fino 2783]

20 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

On the flip side, there’s a shit-ton of social media influencer types who are putting out unrealistic lifestyle videos that make the majority of people watching feel like they are living in poverty.  We have entire YouTube channels about kids unboxing toys, and it can’t be healthy for other kids to see those videos of some kid opening up a thousand bucks worth of toys in a few minutes.

On my bucket list is sailing up and down the East Coast and/or doing the Great Loop, and I occasionally look at videos about it, and I came across one the other night with a couple who bitched about their crappy jobs and tiny apartment and so they quit their jobs, sold everything and got a catamaran to live on, and they are acting like anybody can do it.  I looked it up and it was a $750,000 catamaran at minimum.  These “glamorous” influencers have got to be doing a number on a lot of their viewers, given how easily their content is spread.

When I was a kid in the 80s, there was a show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and it was once a week and not seen by most people.  Contrast that with the Kardashians that are non-stop on some TV channels, and all of the lifestyle influencer types who are pervasive across social media.

I swear to god I feel like I read this exact paragraph a year ago. Boat and everything. Crazy. 

[gurt 749]

I'll tell you one thing, this board is dragging the numbers down

[fattyflattie 4639]

5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Kindness.  Taking care of each other.  Finding joy in simple things.  Finding happiness in connection, not in materiality.  Those are the simple and not-exactly-secret keys to happiness.  Our culture is far away from all of those things, and running further away from them every day.  We should stop running that direction.  Then, we should take some steps in the OTHER direction.

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

[Guest]

Great post Brisket. Reading about this report has had me thinking about it all morning. It's funny, by any objective measure, I am a success. I still feel myself on that hamster wheel because I see others that at least outwardly seem more successful. For instance, I look at the houses in Austin that are a step above mine and I'm not sure how so many people seem to be able to afford them. It's not contentment that I live in a good neighborhood already, it's "why can't I do what those people are doing"?

The funny thing is, for a myriad of reasons, I don't actually want that. Buying a $1M would drive me nuts with the cost of upkeep, taxes, etc. But I want to be able to do it.

[Cum Rocket 136]

3 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Great post Brisket. Reading about this report has had me thinking about it all morning. It's funny, by any objective measure, I am a success. I still feel myself on that hamster wheel because I see others that at least outwardly seem more successful. For instance, I look at the houses in Austin that are a step above mine and I'm not sure how so many people seem to be able to afford them. It's not contentment that I live in a good neighborhood already, it's "why can't I do what those people are doing"?

The funny thing is, for a myriad of reasons, I don't actually want that. Buying a $1M would drive me nuts with the cost of upkeep, taxes, etc. But I want to be able to do it.

Four car garage and you're still building on. 

Sounds like it's time you got back to the basics of love. 

 

Edited March 20 by Cum Rocket

[Celery Man 20966]

[Aqua Buddha 14598]

Not wrong.  When people constantly hear about "mental health" and "anxiety," they see it in themselves:

 

[956 Worldwide 34715]

7 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Not wrong.  When people constantly hear about "mental health" and "anxiety," they see it in themselves:

 

Kind of a weird broken at both ends system. It is wonderful we de-stigmatized mental health treatment. 
 

But I think we have a lot of fairly normal and healthy people paying for therapy while we have a lot of REALLY sick people who can’t pay for it and aren’t getting it.  There are some really weird incentives to making medicine a profit center. 

[Captainant 27680]

13 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Not wrong.  When people constantly hear about "mental health" and "anxiety," they see it in themselves:

 

Why the fuck are you citing a goddamn January 6th insurrectionist fascist as some source of reasonable opinion? That Twitter user unironically wants a violent end to American democracy. 

Edited March 20 by Captainant

[Celery Man 20966]

Good dialog on the mental health stuff. The “depression isn’t real” and “back in my day” people need to shut the fuck up, but having a bad day isn’t a syndrome. There’s some mom stuff (i suppose dad stuff too although I’ve only seen it with moms) that borders on munchausen with this shit. “Neurospicy”.

Edited March 20 by Celery Man

[Helobious 9462]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Let me preface this by saying that COVID was dangerous and we did the best we could with hard choices.  That said:

- It absolutely wrecked young people’s shit to all go home for like a year and half. We forget that a year is a damn long time to a kid and that people 15-25 are the ones who most need to be around peers. We are still unwinding what that means and of course in the U.S. we did it the hard way.

It was definitely damaging but I don’t know how much I buy into the Covid shutdown angle. Half the country was operating pretty close to normal just 2-3 months after March 2020. I mean I can even recall being in crowded restaurants and bars in Seattle of all places in November 2020. I definitely don’t recall everything being shutdown for “a year and a half”. 

[crash_davis 23113]

How many of the people here have children in their 20s and 30s?

If you do and talk regularly to them, you will understand their apprehension towards the future. History will refer to them as The No Lube generation cause they are getting fucked, no lube. 

[52-80 19162]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yeah, that’s exactly what’s dragging the under-30 crowd down, and they won’t shut the fuck up about it.  When I talk to my friends/family and others who are 30 and under, it’s all they ever talk about.   The under-30 crowd just won’t shut the fuck up about the climate,

2/3 of them talk about it atleast once a week

 

1/3 think they'll have to make major sacrifices

there's also data on "anxiety" over the topic, but it's not segregated by age

 

[Js1 85408]

Uh have you looked around? No wonder they are unhappy 

Capitalistic greed has made everything so expensive. They can’t afford to buy a house or luxury items. God forbid we mention how expensive everyday essentials like food has become.

Their wages aren’t keeping up with the rising costs of everything. And it definitely isn’t helping with paying for college/student loans, of which tuition deregulation has made the cost of college astronomical. No Boomers, you can’t pay for college working a summer job or part time during the school year 

Climate change. Creeping fascism in America and globally. Social media.

And when you/they do acknowledge they have mental health issues, the American healthcare system has ensured they have to choose between paying for therapy/meds or food/rent  

Meanwhile, their parents and bosses gaslight them into thinking they’re just being dramatic and nothing is as bad as they claim bc it wasn’t bad or didn’t “exist” when they were kids  

I can’t begin to imagine why they’re unhappy….

Edited March 20 by Js1

[troph 24851]

happiness is bullshit. my goal is to teach my kids to find balance, be content and grateful.  if I do that, they will be fine.  and to be clear, balance means what they eat, their physical activity, relationships, productivity. basically, be the best version of yourself and it will all work out.

 

* now climate change stresses me the fuck out and I can't imagine how hard it's going to be on them. I used to love summer, now I dread it. it's only going to get worse.

Edited March 20 by troph

[Goredho 17408]

55 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

If only the 95% could be satisfied with this trend, things would be fucking great!

[Brisketexan 105154]

8 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

I know people hate to hear it, but what you describe about Finland (and other European countries that get bandied around during these conversations) actually does highlight the benefits of homogeny. When you have a small country and small population who more or less share the same backgrounds, heritage and cultural anthropology, you get similar belief systems and worldviews that give way to a shared culture fabric. This is why a lot of European countries who are being flooded with immigrants are becoming more nationalist and anti-immigration.

When you have a society as described above, the people can move more or less like a school of fish, en masse and quickly and together. 

The opposite is America which is a cobbling together of regions of a huge landmass, with disparate backgrounds and heritages and philosophies and religions and ideals, will never again move in lockstep together like we did 100 years ago when we were 1/20th the size and only the white men were enfranchised with power.

Adding to this is the advent of technology that gives access in nanoseconds to every vile and disgusting impulse of a human being and you get bitter jealousy, narcissisms, ego, addiction, selfish ambition and ultimately depression served on a silver platter.

And lastly, I know it's a very famous quote, but: “In America the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

If America does have anything as a root or fundamental precept, it's greed and power and consumption. That is what this country was built upon-- was how anyone and anything that stood in America's way was conquered-- and is what has always been the driving force.

Any idyllic fantasies and romanticism of the 1950's or the 70's when you grew up or whatever is just a) a fallacy of human beings who let emotion and time whitewash the realities of the past b) a temporary state that co-existed within the true framework of America that was never going to be able to last, just like any other temporary craze or c) both

 

Oh, I certainly agree that we can't and shouldn't whitewash about "the good old days" and "the way things were" at a given point in time (one of the pushbacks I've had on the "Make America Great Again" idea, pointing to the 50s and such.....which part of that era are you pining for?  The part where many of us couldn't vote, and couldn't marry our current spouses?  Or the part where our tax rate was much more progressive, and we invested lots of money in government-funded projects for the public good, like the interstate highway system, libraries, etc.?)

Our culture is indeed grounded in greed, power, and consumption.  BUT, it also has long had a thread of "working together for the common good."  Read De Tocqueville - from our very inception, the common good was also part of our culture.  And yes, when we look back on our high points as a nation, it's when a concept of the common good (warped and inconsistent as it may have been -- it's hard to say that we truly had the common good in mind when we preached and practiced it....but only for one class of people, and otherwise, let's go full Jim Crow) was at a relative zenith.

We are a country of "me," but we've also long had a strain of "we."  Those concepts ebb and flow in relative strength.  I'm suggesting that we're at or near "peak me," and "lowest we."  And that, counterintuitively, makes us collectively less happy.  It's human nature, but it's a part of our nature we ignore or look past.

I think of it in terms of food and eating.  Sure, I love a fancy expensive dinner.  I've had many that I really, really enjoyed.  But the HAPPIEST meals that I've had?  They're usually the times I've had a dozen people around our table, eating a pot of red beans and rice, or things like that.  A meal that caters to ME?  It can be good. A meal that caters to WE?  Those are the best.  But culturally, we elevate and value wagyu steak dinners, and demean people eating beans and cornbread around a folding table.  We have happiness bassackwards.  And it's not just about what you choose for yourself, it's about what society around you is doing to tear itself down.

[Js1 85408]

Trying to blame the “individual” for being responsible ignores that this generation is the most socially aware and informed. They see and hear everything and they hate what it means for them. The fatties of the world minimizing their issues is just another data point in why they’re so unhappy. 

[DCA_HORN 725]

Maybe they all read the cloak room and believe the world is ending.

[aggie08 21505]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

Entirely, huh? You're honestly arguing that external factors don't contribute at all? That's what you want to go with?

[crash_davis 23113]

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

[Js1 85408]

1 minute ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

Yep. The older generations yanked the rug out from the younger generations and basically said “you can’t have what we had” and think they should just get over it 

didn’t it used to be that you’d strive for the next generation to have it better than you?

[Celery Man 20966]

5 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

Ok in spirit I’m with you but huh? Starts at 45k?

[Nivek 16945]

My hyphothesis as to one of the major reasons that young people are unhappy in the US: meanness is discouraging and demoralizing, kindness and caring about other people breeds contentment.  And we are at a point in our cultural cycle that fucking elevates and worships meanness, cruelty, selfishness, and hurting others, and demeans and diminishes ANY concept of the common good, doing things for the benefit of your fellow man, and the like (hell, see cum rocket's reply above).  You think that young people don't see that?  They see it clear as day.
Contrast that with one of the countries highest on the happiness index, Finland (7 for youth, 2 for elderly).  The observation hit my wife like a hammer when we visited last year: they care about each other, they care about their children. As in, it is a point of national pride and identity.  It is conspicuous, it is woven into their daily lives and the stories they tell each other.  And I thought there was an interesting point in the discussion of "happiness" as it is observed in Finland.  It's not about walking around giggling with a shit-eating grin on your face; it's about contentment, and being satisfied.
Culturally, we don't value "having enough" at all.  You must either have excess -- wild success, conspicuous cars and fashion, etc. -- or you are a loser and a failure.  In someplace like Finland, happiness/contentment for the bulk of the country is being able to spend 2 weeks in the summer at a cabin on a lake.  Many of them don't even have electricity.  You sauna, you plunge in the cold lake, you drink by the fire with friends, you eat some food that makes the Finns happy (but man, most folks wouldn't be thrilled with it).  And it makes you happy.  Here?  You best be blowing it out on a tropical beach or somesuch, eating $200 per person dinners, or else you suck.  Yes, there are outliers (there are rich Finns, there are Americans who are happy and satisfied with ordinary lives).  But our dominant cultural theme is NOT healthy.
Kindness.  Taking care of each other.  Finding joy in simple things.  Finding happiness in connection, not in materiality.  Those are the simple and not-exactly-secret keys to happiness.  Our culture is far away from all of those things, and running further away from them every day.  We should stop running that direction.  Then, we should take some steps in the OTHER direction.

Madonna s version was catchier and you could dance to it.

[Brisketexan 105154]

2 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Madonna s version was catchier and you could dance to it.

And back then, she was much sexier than me.

Today....yeah, she's still sexier than me.  And she looks like hell.

[Captainant 27680]

8 minutes ago, Goredho said:

If only the 95% could be satisfied with this trend, things would be fucking great!

This got posted by Neonmoon a while back - "95th percentile" means the cohort that is earning more than 95% of the population. The top 5% of family incomes grew considerably, leaving the median and bottom 20% even farther behind. 

3 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

We see this now in "movements"; The Christian Fundamentalist movement, the LGQPT movement, the Tea Party movement, etc. 

And I really have to disagree with your framing here - the fundagelical christian movement and tea party movement are efforts to change all of society to further exclude their "out" groups, and the LGBT movement has been focused on acceptance and allowing people the space to exist as they wish to.

Those are pretty fucking far apart movements, and it's concerning that you think they're equivalent. 

[aggie08 21505]

3 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Ok in spirit I’m with you but huh? Starts at 45k?

Maybe he means venue+catering? I got married on the cliffs of La Jolla six years ago and sure as shit didn't pay no damn $45k for the venue.

Edited March 20 by aggie08

[hornbri 1400]

9 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

What are you talking about? 45k seemed so expensive I had to check it. Tons in Austin for less then 10k (and that was 30 seconds on google). 

https://www.herecomestheguide.com/wedding-venues/texas/region/austin?region[0]=Austin

[immamac 42864]

I'm not exactly down a conspiracy rabbit hole, but patterns are patterns and it really is starting to look like "the fourth turn" or whatever historical thing you want to call it for the last 800 or so years at ~100 year cycles and a bit longer before that. All the signs are there, but the thought right now is can we break the current cycle and transition from an iffy time to a moderately okay time instead off absolute chaos and destruction which usually is needed to reset the system at this point. 

The kids not being alright is a byproduct of being born at the peak, and seeing that there isn't much further to go up, but a long way to go down. I mean if you really think about it, and Warren Buffett pointed this out not in a "shut up and stop crying" way, but in a way that people often forget - Poor people today have a far better quality of life than John D Rockefeller did when he was the richest man on planet earth. Access to better, safer transportation. Access to better, tastier food. Access to more options for entertainment, connectivity, etc etc etc. the list goes on and on. They didn't have the social positioning and that's not the argument, but there is something to be said about the current human condition and it's ultimate reliance on networked computers to feed their brain tingles. Having access to everything whenever you want from birth, etc etc. 

Being poor still sucks today, but it sucks a whole fucking lot less than it did even 50 years ago, let alone 100 years ago. We've lost sight of what's important to us as a community, country, and civilization and have started to cater towards being okay with the status quo or not striving for more, because the next step for humanity is one that requires us to face the reality that we either have to live with the planet and start to move more towards mutual beneficial outcomes for us and the planet or we leave the planet, which we are not technologically equipped to even start dreaming about. A few billionaires talking about getting to Mars isn't gonna fucking get it done. If the US spent as much on the future as it does maintaining it's perception of world order then we would be going somewhere. Instead we can't even get out of our own fucking way to keep destroying the god damned planet to the tune of not even being able to use the panama canal anymore. 

[crash_davis 23113]

2 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Maybe he means venue+catering? I got married on the cliffs of La Jolla six years ago and sure as shit didn't pay no damn $45k.

Correct, venue and sit down meal. 

[Goredho 17408]

1 minute ago, BeardIP said:

Conversely, I don't understand the entitlement culture and expectations that just because things used to be X that I deserve and should have X too!

What's wrong with saying, hey the wedding venue market was undervalued, it's been rightsized to where supply coupled with the social and culturally demand means the new price to play is XYZ. There are inferior substitutes you can employ if you you can't or won't pay.

I feel like the entitlement culture leads to victim mindset and defeatism which is annoying at best and self-defeating at worst.

I think there is a sweet spot that policy should endeavor to hold where people who are not "elite" (economically, intellectually, etc...) are able to feel good and happy about their existence and their life's trajectory.  Our policy has been to grease the rails by which money can be moved from the middle class to the already wealthy.  Its not a perception problem that people in the middle class have to cut back or assume more debt to have the life they had 30 years ago.  Or to that they grew up in if they are a young adult.

That's not all kumbaya beneficence on my part.  Happy, content people don't revolt.

[Cum Rocket 136]

21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Capitalistic greed has made everything so expensive. They can’t afford to buy a house or luxury items. God forbid we mention how expensive everyday essentials like food has become.

It's a perverted version of capitalism, if that. Central banks and governments printing money continuously to bail out big banks or other big industries isn't capitalism. The root of this stuff really goes back a ways. 

But then shutting down the global economy for Covid and printing trillions of dollars really got the ball moving. 

[Celery Man 20966]

The wedding thing is such a good example of a bad example. The wedding industrial complex is ridiculous but ultimately I don’t think anybody gives a shit, it’s not driving genZ sadness. Housing, healthcare, climate, income inequality, reproductive rights, the death of the American Dream, and the worst generation just won’t let go.

[immamac 42864]

Just now, crash_davis said:

Correct, venue and sit down meal. 

if you are talking about a 120-150 person wedding that isn't "cheaped out" or at a venue that you have to do every fucking thing yourself or hire a planner then I agree.

Can you have a wedding for cheaper? Sure, but it just means you or your friends did more legwork and you didn't have a lot of "standard" amenities that most weddings have. like bar service and open bar, reception/cocktail hour, actual nice shit at a venue with real tablecloths and real silverware. You know, like a wedding that someone who cares about throwing arguably the nicest party they will throw for the foreseeable future would throw. 

A day of planner by themselves is running in the 3-5k range and a full on wedding planner is 10k+ (SIL getting married this year). Venue rental isn't even the biggest scam. DJ for a wedding? Good luck finding one who doesn't just throw on a spotify playlist and actually knows how to move people throughout the day from place to place without paying AT LEAST 3k. Catering/meal that isn't served on paper plates and is actually consistent, hot and of quality that you would expect at any olive garden these days is MINIMUM 50-60/head for the DINNER portion. If you add on snacks and apps during the cocktail hour + dessert or a late snack for the dance party that easily pushes 75-80/head (including service, grat etc). 

Anyone saying that a Wedding can be done for under 20k and be any kind of reasonable person's definition of a "decent/nice" wedding should go into business as a wedding planner and crush it making 25% profit off of selling that package to people. 

[Cum Rocket 136]

8 minutes ago, Captainant said:

This got posted by Neonmoon a while back - "95th percentile" means the cohort that is earning more than 95% of the population. The top 5% of family incomes grew considerably, leaving the median and bottom 20% even farther behind. 

 

Cantillon effect. They're closer to the money printer. This really isn't hard. 

[immamac 42864]

5 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

It's a perverted version of capitalism, if that. Central banks and governments printing money continuously to bail out big banks or other big industries isn't capitalism. The root of this stuff really goes back a ways. 

But then shutting down the global economy for Covid and printing trillions of dollars really got the ball moving. 

 

[BrickHorn 18237]

Younger Americans are unhappy because the American dream is increasingly unavailable to them. College is insanely expensive and admissions are unbelievably competitive. Upon graduation, they are often saddled with crushing debt and housing costs that make home ownership a pipe dream. We offer no social safety net. Health care is expensive and soulless. Pensions are a thing of the past. Our laws and courts are increasingly hostile to labor, and much of the available work is in the exploitative gig economy. States are undoing child labor protections and a wave of fundamentalist bullshit has eroded the quality of public education. Profits trump well being in critical industries like air travel, utilities, and pharmaceuticals. 

Greedy assholes sold too many Americans on the false gospel of Jesus The Capitalist and they’ve dragged us back into the dark days of the Industrial Revolution. And you wonder why young Americans who suffer from the resulting policies are unhappy? 

[ABSR 5315]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

The pervasiveness of information is both good and bad.  I remember a quote from Chuck Yeager in book "The Right Stuff" where he said that while he grew up in a fairly rural area of West Virginia, that he did not realize he was poor until he left for the military and saw the broader world.   Now with the pervasiveness of media and information we see the top 1% of the 1% and are given the impression that if you are not living that life/lifestyle (often even faked by the presenter) that you are failing.

 

11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, I certainly agree that we can't and shouldn't whitewash about "the good old days" and "the way things were" at a given point in time (one of the pushbacks I've had on the "Make America Great Again" idea, pointing to the 50s and such.....which part of that era are you pining for?  The part where many of us couldn't vote, and couldn't marry our current spouses?  Or the part where our tax rate was much more progressive, and we invested lots of money in government-funded projects for the public good, like the interstate highway system, libraries, etc.?)

I disagree on some levels.  Social media does let people be "mean" behind a keyboard, so that does exist more so than before, but in schools and in today's environment we have SO much more anti-bullying, inclusion, accept all people, stand up speak out, type of training and messaging in the culture than when we were growing up. 

This is really good in many ways, but I think it also led to an often over sensitive "Micro Aggression" mindset where everything not covered in sugar and cotton candy, or that was something a person did not like, was to be viewed as bad and hurtful.  

So in some instances, instead of teaching people to be strong and stand up for themselves it also sometimes led them down a path of being hyper sensitive.  Combined with pervasive media, or even selective media chosen by individuals,  it could reinforce these perceptions.

[Frank Drebin 5644]

45 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Good dialog on the mental health stuff. The “depression isn’t real” and “back in my day” people need to shut the fuck up, but having a bad day isn’t a syndrome. There’s some mom stuff (i suppose dad stuff too although I’ve only seen it with moms) that borders on munchausen with this shit. “Neurospicy”.

Abigail Shrier just wrote a book relevant to this.  I know she is controversial for her other book and takes related to LGBTQ, but her new book has nothing to do with it and makes a lot of points parents should ponder.

The book dives into trying to figure out why kids are having so many mental health problems, when there are so many resources devoted to improving mental health outcomes. Anxiety, depression, suicide, etc are all higher than they've ever been with kids, even though their lives are arguably better than ever before. It just doesn't make sense. A few key takeaways from the book:

1. A constant attention on how kids are "feeling" or "thinking" is causing negative outcomes. Constantly ruminating on your emotions and how you feel negatively impacts your mental health. If all you do is focus on your emotions, you are destined to be anxious or depressed. We incessantly ask kids how they're feeling, if they're happy, how their mental health is, etc, and this is creating kids who think they're fragile instead of resilient.
2. Trying to solve every problem for kids has caused a generation who can't do anything for themselves. Earlier generations were told to "suck it up" or "you'll live" or "rub some dirt on it" all the time. Many of us came to the conclusion this is "bad parenting" because our feelings were neglected, and we vowed not to do this to our own children. Because of that, kids immediately over-dramatize everything that happens to them, making mountains out of molehills, and thinking the world must revolve around their emotions and feelings.
3. You develop confidence and strong mental health by doing things, not by thinking or via therapy. You can't think your way out of anxiety. You don't gain confidence by analysis of your thoughts or mental health issues. You gain confidence and eliminate anxiety by doing gradually more difficult tasks, excelling at them, and realizing you are a competent, capable person. The non-stop attention therapy gives to these small, common emotions we all feel blows them out of proportion to their seriousness (not talking about genuine disorders here, just normal anxieties that millions of people go to therapy to try to avoid).
4. One of the best ways to decrease your happiness is to chase it. Our society constantly tells kids they should be "happy" and asks them if they are. Happiness isn't a state you should be in 24/7. That's not realistic. Joy and bliss aren't permanent states - they are fleeting. Contentment, stillness, and being even-keeled are much better goals to aim for mentally.
5. The happiest, most well adjusted kids come from families with loving parents that have rules and structure for the household. 
6. Constantly surveying school-age kids about their mental health causes more issues than it solves. Mental health resources is big money. Districts need to validate all the resources allocated towards mental health, and they often do that via surveys. Asking kids non-stop questions like:

- Have you thought about self harm?

- Have you thought about suicide?

- Have you been so anxious you can't get out of bed? Etc, etc puts into their heads the idea that themselves, or many of their peers are broken and cannot function properly in the real world. It normalizes situations that would be incredibly rare at any other time in history.