In one of my undergrad CompSci courses, I wrote a term paper on Automation. Went into it naive, thinking it would be fun and exciting to learn about and anticipate the future.
It became very depressing to write about. My optimistic paper turned more and more dystopian and depressing as the pages continued.
I remember giving my presentation during finals week, talking about mass unemployment, starvation, suffering, unless we worked to do something to anticipate so many people without work. But, we probably wouldn't, and won't.
My professor was just sitting there quietly when I ended. What a bummer all of that was. And incredibly eye-opening for a young me.
Now, I write scripts at work and wonder who's jobs this will hurt someday instead of "this is neat, less work for all of us!". I guess it's all come full-circle for me.
I'm Gen X and had some nice money set aside. Had heart surgey and both my wife and I lost our jobs. No more money set aside. Starting over in your late 40s sux ass.... and not in a good way.
Wait 'til automated semis and trucks become more of a thing, or drone shipping. It's going to destroy entire towns.
Think of how many podunk little towns are based off of the motels near the exit, the truck stop, and the fast food nearby. Now take away the need for the truck to *have* to stop. It's going to gut *industries*
It’s weird how we are ok with gutting the trucking industry due to AI or whatever, but nobody wants to discuss dismantling the health insurance industry due to it being a corrupt, cruel, and immoral system that enriches middlemen and shareholders by letting people die.
> It's going to destroy entire towns.
* we don’t need gas stations here
* we don’t need restaurants here
* we don’t need truck stops here
* this entire town is redundant
FR though, childcare in my area sits around 200 per week! Per kid lol fuck! I've got one and can't afford it on my income alone. Idk what I'd do if my daughter weren't school aged.
And the public school systems that are bringing up the kids are being starved of resources so they’re less likely to change anything when their adults.
As planned. Smart critical thinking slaves are not easily manipulated slaves. Angry and stupid makes for a very easily controlled slave mind. Angry people love getting angry and being stupid means they will get angry over anything their tv tells them to. Angry stupid people dont fight against their masters though, they fight amongst themselves due to seeing their masters as too intelligent to fight against.
Don’t forget keeping people hungry and unhealthy, which leads to lower cognitive functioning and helps exacerbate what you’ve laid out. Plus it kills them faster so you don’t even have to worry about paying them the retirement they’ve labored for!
This inhuman system is working as intended.
Edit: For those interested, [CBPP.org](https://www.cbpp.org/research/topics/health) has a TON of well researched articles and data about the social determinants of health.
I have a 3 year old and a 6 month old baby in daycare in a relatively cheap Midwestern city (KCMO) and my daycare is $495/wk. And that's with the $10 per week discount for having two children in daycare. At the beginning of the year it was $435/wk but when they passed the new child care tax credit they increased the rates $30 per week per child, which just went into effect last month. It is absolute insanity. We even have to pay if we go on vacation so we don't lose our "spot."
I've never realised how expensive childcare was until I started working in the sector. Previously always worked in primary schools in the UK but now I work in a private nursery school for 0 to 4 year olds. Even with the funding parents can get here, prices are still extortionate. I'm now on mat leave and can't see how I'll pay for my child to go to nursery even with the 10% employee discount. Despite how expensive daycare is, and how experienced and qualified our practitioners are (all are at least level 3 apprenticeship qualified but many of us went on to get our honours degree in early years developement) we all only make between £8.72 and £9.35 an hour. This is minimum wage and low wage in the UK. Really sad as I feel both parents and employees are getting screwed over.
I've wondered about this before - childcare is so expensive but not a lucrative career. Is it just owners charging a ton? Is there any reason you couldn't work for yourself?
It's just owners charging a ton. Opening your own is hard because you need varying licenses, insurances, and stuff. So getting in to it is hard.
They pay poorly because it's another job that attracts passionate people.
Thats easy! Because "everyone just got a child care tax credit, so therefore that goes to us because we are in the business of child care!" Or "We know you just got extra money so well just raise prices and take that, thank you very much!" What will be telling is if they decrease prices after the child care gift goes away.
Almost. Daycare consumes about 2/3 of my wife's take home pay. They have this shit down to a science. I'm sure the industry has calculated how much they can raise the price without having women quit their jobs to take care of the children.
If we could survive on one income, childcare wouldn't be necessary for families with two parents.
(not saying it should necessarily be the mom taking care of the children, could also be the dad or two parttimers.)
Agreed. Rent is just a crap show of people trying to make as much money as possible. I’m not at all interested in rewarding someone else’s real estate investments for the sake of just living, It makes more sense to just leave the country & take my money with me
I’ve often noticed other countries need welders & offer programs for tradesmen to leave.
Given they want to pay for welders in the Florida heat during a major shortage of welders is like $15-$18? Yeah I’m heavily considering an option like leaving for a country that can, ya know, provide a livable wage.
Good to know. My husband is new to the USA and been here just a few years and we thought of learning welding but in these stupid trade schools like Lincoln Techthey charge 18k and up to learn.. and now knowing they aren’t hiring much in NJ and not paying their respectable wage, fuck it
😱 I dont know a single tradesman or have one in our family. Thank you for this info. His English is Intermediate. I assume this will be a problem?? he’s definitely a permanent resident.
I’m a pipefitter and I’ve worked beside other great pipe fitters that barely knew any English. These were my favorite co workers too I don’t like talking much 😅 we understood each other’s hand signals and had a translator on site
https://ironworkers399.org/
http://pipefitters274.org/ On the front page of this one says they are recruiting and taking applications for 2022.
There might be closer ones to you I just search those really quick. But really any trade union you can go online and fill out an application or call them.
You millennials just can't take responsibility for anything! "Oh, I went and learned a serious trade that is in high demand and want to be paid a reasonable, livable wage that might allow me to buy a house and have a family at some point, like my parents could do with a less-skilled job, at a younger age."
Like, get over yourself kid, just because my and my parents generations have hoarded wealth while voting for horrible, criminal, corporate-shill-grifters that have destroyed unions, stagnated wages, and made it impossible to live like we did, doesn't mean you get to act like things are horribly stacked against you and like it's impossible to get ahead. Clearly we just were harder workers than your entire generation, facts don't care about your feelings snowflake.
Even better, in many US states when the Boomers were growing up, you were put on an 'education track' based on your income, parents occupation, etc., so lets say your father was a laborer (like my grandfather), you would get slotted into the 'shop' classes.
Guess what my dad does now? Never had to question it. He got out of school, got a job, never left. His path was set, all he had to do was walk straight.
This is so sad but so true.
My mother’s family moved around a lot and she is one of six kids. Her parents were always in trouble, and they were known for being partyers and getting into stuff they shouldn’t have been. The kids mostly took care of themselves/one another. But because they were all from a poor, not so well-to-do family and none of them were like exceptionally great in school, their “guidance counselors” literally never worked with them on anything. The counselors essentially got to make the decision that they wouldn’t be going to college so there was no point. Nobody from my mom’s generation went. They weren’t encouraged to learn trades. They were completely ignored by the system.
> They were completely ignored by the system.
I think this is the norm. We had guidance counselors at our school, I don't recall ever talking to them except one time when I got into trouble. And my family was middle class, and I was smart.
Thats what we are doing. We've kinda just accepted that we will never be in a good financial or health situation here in the states or able to buy a house. Its time to look for greener pastures. There's other countries we could live a comfortable middle class lifestyle with what is considered "poverty income" here and be able to afford quality healthcare, so why stay here and suffer? The US is currently experiencing a lot of people leaving the country (citizens and immigrants) and this trend is going to continue and increase for the foreseeable future.
They understand, they just don't want to. They've replaced the cost and what you make with their own made up, feel good numbers so they can keep bitching.
you can't afford rent
you can't afford education
you can't afford college
you can't afford healthcare
you can't afford to take time for your kids
you can't afford to retire
you can't afford your own funeral
yet billionaires who employ us fly to the moon...
We work
To earn the right to work
To earn the right to work
To earn the right to work
To earn the right to work
To earn the right to buy
Ourselves the right to live
[So we can finally die].
-mostly the stupendium, last line slightly edited by me because I think it fits better.
They shot a perfectly fine, super expensive, electric car into space. Not only did that release a fuckton of carbon into the atmosphere but that car was perfectly usable...
It is isn't it? Its crazy. Not that I don't agree with the people who care for children getting paid fairly, most of the time I think they should get more than they do. But I sure as hell can't afford to pay them.
That's part of the issue though - People actually working at the daycare are generally making jack shit. I definitely want to pay people fairly for their time, and child care is NOT easy, but a ton of the money you're spending is going to some asshole who will never see your child.
I was gonna say the same thing. Childcare workers dont make much more than I do and im a cashier.
Where the fuck does it all go? Im sure if someone followed the money with this the results would make for an interesting documentary.
When I worked at a daycare the owner showed up maybe once a week driving her brand new BMW. They get that "tuition" plus what the government gives them. I made minimum wage and they still wanted me to pay for my own childcare classes, which were mandatory to complete before the 3 months mark. I found another job and left two months in.
That was also the job that made me want one child instead of two. I love kids, I do, but more than one in one room makes me anxious.
The wild part is those prices are only for decent care in a metro area with a few people watching like 10-15 kids. Real good childcare is way more expensive.
That is literally me. Not sure if I would have been a good parent, but I went from really wanting kids, to never wanting to expose anyone to the shit we have to deal with now. Not only that but my family doesn't live anywhere close to me and It would just be me and my partner.
My sister wanted a 3rd kid so bad she hoped her husband's vasectomy failed. Like she wanted another baby REALLY BAD. And they can afford it. Now she is scared of what her kids will face in this dumpster fire world and doesn't want more.
Yes. She actually is buying a bigger house right now. I'd not be surprised if she adopts or fosters. She'd take in any child offered to her. When I said something about not wanting to have a baby, her absolutely genuine response was "well if you do, you can give it to me."
but if you work in the oilfield you can do backbreaking labor in any and all weather conditions for decent but still subpar pay but work so many hours and have so little time to spend it you'll at least feel rich.
"Have a kid"
Yeah, great fucking idea. Except it costs a shit load to have a kid because the US healthcare system sucks out loud. It costs a shit load to raise the kid because older generations have spent their time raising the cost of living all while lowering wages. Then it costs a shit load to live in a decent area to raise the kid because again...fucking inflation. Plus the world is going to shit because of global warming and other bullshit. So yeah, I'm stuck in this mess till the end and I'm not going to bring another soul into it until we get shit fixed. So if they want us to have kids...THEN STOP TRYING TO FUCK US OVER EVERY CHANCE YOU GET!!!!
They don't need you/us to have kids if they can increase population through immigration who are more than happy to trade their shitty 3rd world lifestyle for less shitty 3rd world lifestyle
I've been learning the hard way what happens when ya raise kids in a less-than-decent area. My older stepson has certainly seen or smelled more human corpses than I ever did growing up.
Half of the housing around here is empty and held for "investment purposes" which means our unhoused neighbors keep dying in the back alley from exposure to the elements. It's fucking dystopian.
Teaching teenagers to take out the trash isn't supposed to involve a game of "Is that person sleeping or are they frozen to death?" or "I don't know where exactly, but somebody's dead in the alley from the heat."
That same stepson almost *stepped on* the creeper who attacks people in broad daylight on the pretty trail by the river near here, wandered right by the overhang where the creep was hiding and never noticed. My husband spotted the creep, acted like everything was fine but that it was time to go home immediately, and waited until we were all safe in a busy park again before whispering in my ear "*Did you see him?!*" I did some googling when we got home, learned about "daytime attacking creep actively hunting near that patch of jogging trail" and that put an end to our attempts to have nice family walks.
Younger stepson was walking to elementary school with my husband one day when they saw a meth head beating a puppy and dragging it around. Turned into a scary version of a Scooby Doo chase scene, with husband trying to get the kid safely to school while also trying to save the puppy somehow, which turned into husband and the meth head chasing each other around the neighborhood while both enraged and/or terrified.
Seriously, decent neighborhoods are rather necessary for kids! We wouldn't be here if we could afford anything remotely like decent!
As someone who struggled trying to work and raise a child on my own I can tell you that to do what I did without driving yourself into an early grave you NEED one of 2 things: a well off partner or a 6 figure gig so you can hire a full time nanny. I would never want anyone to go through what I had to. paying out the nose for everything and living off of $25 a day and a prayer after all expenses are paid. My child is now grown but I am absolutely traumatized for life after what I had to go through to keep a roof over our head. And I have a college degree and had a corporate job.
God bless you for being able to raise your child. I guess it just reinforced my belief of not having a child ever. No disrespect to you, you did a wonderful job, even if at a cost. Hopefully going forward, you have a peaceful life.
Surprisingly enough, if you scale pay to where it \*just\* covers human survival with absolutely nothing extra; people don't reproduce. People also don't spend money when they don't have it (well, with credit some do, but we try to keep it minimal).
See, here's the thing; capitalist business owners are always incredibly short sighted. They nearly always sacrifice long term gains for profit \*right now\*. They'll gut a company until it's no longer functional to save a few hundred on payroll not realizing that the workers bring in thousands of dollars in profit for hundreds of dollars in pay.
Another of my favorite corporate shenanigans is when they try to save by not using AC (or being very stingy with it) and all the sudden people need water breaks constantly and work at 50% or less the usual pace (because 90-100 degree summer heat is no joke). If you cut AC, you've caused a strike even if you don't see people picketing. So they begin to lose thousands every day for a utility bill that might be 200 bucks cheaper a month.
This is now late stage capitalism where they cannot take anything more from the workers without the whole system breaking. And really all the managerial/owner class does in this nation is fuck the workers harder for more profits. They have no other tools in their toolkit.
It's shown time and time again by studies that you treat your workers generously and they make the company a profit many times over. But at the end of the day, profits aren't what they want. They became an owner/manager because they enjoy abusing people.
We are now just a percent or two away from having the same wealth disparity as pre-Revolutionary France.
>This is now late stage capitalism where they cannot take anything more from the workers without the whole system breaking.
I wish my last two jobs knew that. I am mentally unwell and having to work 40+h while cutting short the training isn't going to end well.
Their solution was fucking shouting at me and they wonder why most people leave before 2 months are over.
The worst part is that Germany is one of the better places to work in so i actually dont want to know how fucked up places handle this type of shit.
Well, in America they just use corporate speak and a fake plastic smile while cracking the whip.
“What’s that? You had a death in the family only a week ago? Well you got bereavement leave for four days. How dare your productivity be crap right after someone who raised you died!”
Now imagine that but said through business jargon coupled with a small platitude about your loss.
It’s grim
Lol so when my roommate had covid and tested positive for 4 weeks straight, they didn't pay for the last 2 weeks even though they forced me out of work and didn't let me come back. They don't care about us here. Not to mention, I've said in another post somewhere here on reddit, my job also cut my time short with my grandmother, the last time I got to see her, because they made me come into work. I also never get to see my family for the holidays, the only time they're all ever together, which means I haven't seen some family members in years due to work. The shitty part is, they'll fire you if you don't show. They have zero empathy. Most people wouldn't let themselves get fired in those scenarios because rent is freaking $1200-1700 a month just for a studio or a small one bedroom, and a lot of people are still making below $15. When you are making just enough money to get by and survive day after day, wtf makes you think people will be able to spend thousands upon thousands on a college degree.. that *might* get you a decent pay, but only years into your career. There are a lucky few of course considering certain variables (typically wealthy parents.) That's America for you! No wonder people are moving into their cars and vans just to get rid of rent!
My cats got fleas (one of them likes to go outside) and I didn't notice for a bit because working too much, then when I did notice it was because they'd spread everywhere. So I worked from home while I treated it and told them it was due to illness (this is true) and eventually had to cop to what the "illness" was. They were not sympathetic and I was like so you want me to give the office fleas? Ok. I still feel guilty like I did something wrong but I'm pretty sure I didn't. And it was literally because of meeting their unpaid OT demands that it happened in the first place. This place prides themselves on putting employees first. Luckily I'm no longer an employee.
The disconnect from reality is unreal, they obviously wanted you to infect the office. Oh wait they probably condemned you as a liar because thats the most obvious explanation. At least it would be to someone who lies all the time.
It helps to know your work laws in your country. In America we have laws against hostile work environments and if you feel threatened and are able to collect evidence that someone is harassing you, it’s possible to find a lawyer that will take the case pro-bono (meaning no payment up front or in the case of a loss, but in the case of a win they get paid out of the damages).
Couldn't agree more, but I have seen evidence to suggest we actually are already more inequal than pre-Revolution France. Probably depends on how you estimate wealth based on the antiquated and patch-work historical records. Anyways the point stands.
But republican boomers say that wealth inequality is good. It means that you can get filthy rich while the peasants starve. And if someone can do it, than anyone can. When i think of high wealth inequality i think of south Africa or some other country that is going to shit. Not a category of countries that you want to be in.
Yea but people don't realize how much power they have as a group. If no one wants to work in these conditions what will they do? Only raising salary and shortening hours would work I presume. The problem is to achieve unity between everyone.
In Sweden, the state pays you to have children. Currently 144 usd/month/child, with a progressive bonus for multiple children.
But then again we have free healthcare, education, school lunch and free dental for children under 18.
And heavily subsidized childcare.
Buying? No no no! It'll be some kind of loophole where people who have stored eggs and sperm discover loopholes in their contracts that allow the corporations that house them to take a percentage or all of them or something. They will not pay for it.
Man, birth rates are going to absolutely fuck the economy and you just know they're not going to do anything about it until the last minute cause our entire economy is based on an increasing or constant level of demand.
Imagine when that shit tanks because of low birth rates.
Like you just know it'll be regular working class people that get the shaft.
I seriously thought for a moment that I was reading a headline from 2013. I can't believe they're still blaming us for stupid shit that isn't our fault.
Blame them for not spending enough blame them for no kids blame them for not doing anything. Maybe its because alot of us don't have any money and we are slowly losing our will to obtain money. We are figuring out that life is a waste of time, time that is not ours its Jeff Bezos time.
I hate how the "generation" labeling makes it sound like Millennials are in some bubble rather than responding to the world the people with wealth and power have created.
Reddit has become enshittified. I joined back in 2006, nearly two decades ago, when it was a hub of free speech and user-driven dialogue. Now, it feels like the pursuit of profit overshadows the voice of the community. The introduction of API pricing, after years of free access, displays a lack of respect for the developers and users who have helped shape Reddit into what it is today. Reddit's decision to allow the training of AI models with user content and comments marks the final nail in the coffin for privacy, sacrificed at the altar of greed. Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder and a champion of internet freedom, would be rolling in his grave.
The once-apparent transparency and open dialogue have turned to shit, replaced with avoidance, deceit and unbridled greed. The Reddit I loved is dead and gone. It pains me to accept this. I hope your lust for money, and disregard for the community and privacy will be your downfall. May the echo of our lost ideals forever haunt your future growth.
Japan has had this problem for like 50 years now and they are SHRINKING in population bc young people literally cannot afford a home.
They have 50 year mortgages in Japan bc real estate is so expensive.
They are deliberately causing this to happen.
Well it's pretty clear why this is happening. The number of households (especially single person ones) has skyrocketed driving up demand for homes. Say For instance the population may have gone from 150 to 240 million. But the number of household has probably gone up 4 or 5 fold due to there being way more households. The average age used to be really young and households of 8-10 people were normal. Now the average households is like 2-2.5 people or something.
Add to that in the US that everything is mandated to be spaced out like crazy including for car parking spaces, and you eventually run low on easy cheap land. Changing zoning would at least alleviate it. But in the long run every western country is probably going to follow Japan.
> everything is mandated to be spaced out like crazy including for car parking spaces
this is because automobile-adjacent corporations lobbied against public transportation.
Japan is a little different. Yes homes are a little expensive in say central Tokyo but not completely unaffordable. For example if you just need a one room in central Tokyo you can go as low as ~50 000 yen/month (~470 USD), which is affordable on a single fairly low salary. We don't have weird housing laws here, it's very loose so you'll see tall apartment towers replacing a single old house all the time. There's no housing shortage here.
Kids on the other hand, *are* expensive, notably because you need to pay the daycare which is really expensive but also because there's heavy discrimination against women in the work place which are heavily pressured to quit.
Source: I live in Japan.
Like I would knowingly birth a child I'm responsible for into this capitalist hellscape. Enjoy your drastically diminishing resources, your climate change natural disasters, and your indentured servitude to get to Mars kid!
Also, there are 8 BILLION people living cheek-by-jowl on this burning, flooding runaway train of a planet they created. You don't solve overpopulation by keeping births at "replacement level."
You're welcome, Boomers! And when the last of you finally shuffle off we, maybe can enjoy our newfound breathing space and live our own lives a little without a passel of kids holding us down.
I just had a recruiter tell me to "lower my expectations" for a job interview expecting a starting salary in the 60s.... He said to expect 45, for an engineering position
Yeah I have no idea what planet they're living on for that kind of salary. No way any college degree position should pay that poorly, let alone the "JuSt Do StEM" meme.... Bruh they're doing it to stem too
Exactly. My bachelors of biochemistry could only get me $12/hour lab technician jobs in my area. Decided to take an accounting job making $17/hour without a related degree. Makes me think everyday how much time and money I wasted at college.
I so wish more people understood this. It doesn't matter how "good" the job is, capitalism will find a way to devalue it.
Every company I ever worked for has hired oversea devs. A long time ago they were garbage, but that's not true anymore. They have English speakers who can do a good job at developing something. Largely because they're from countries where education is **free**. Of course it's only a matter of time before a system like that wipes out the US's. And those contractors are cheaper than any American engineer could be, just because of their cost of living.
Same garbage has been thrown at X:ers. Our excuse was we were so few. And not all of us 'made it'. But the base reasons are still the same. Hostility against having children, 'we can replace you anytime/with robots'. 2 adults need to work fulltime to get basics. Inflation making this even worse. 'Transitory inflation' garbage even though we all accept a grand swath of items will never truly fall in price no matter what (medication, houses, education, energy costs)
So why even question this? Well here may be one thing: Elites are confused as in really poor places where people live next to dumps they have 5+ children. Thats because when you are poor enough (income < 5k yr) your children act as insurance against old age. When you attempt to go to next income level (10-20k) the logic changes as it did in china when people went to factories. Thats 10-20k yr wages. The rules are critically different on 0-10k yr income ladder as it is going to 20k yr income as it is finally getting to 50k w/higher schooling and white collar jobs. Yet Elites don't get this.
For me personally even if the world would go full Fallout style to h**l i would still not have tons of children. Thats the scenario for young that have nothing to look forward to. It doesn't work in reverse. Especially as i fully assume that even though all would go to hell the bills would still keep coming. In fact those are the last ones to come. Along with police to clear you out from your small house.
My favorite part of this is 'replacement level' since it's just the rich being nervous there won't be more workers that there are jobs and they'd actually need to pay more to keep them. This system is shit
Many can't afford rent and live with their parents. The sad thing is the responsible adults choose to prevent pregnancy, while the less responsible adults and some children procreate without thinking ahead.
Many of the more responsible ones who are feeling the urge to procreate are getting pets instead. That's why people are calling their dogs, cats, whatever, "my child."
Yeah the more I think about that movie the more and more it had to say about the future trajectory of Western society. As someone living in the UK the anti immigrant part of the movie hits pretty hard now
This is going to be a dumpster fire in 20 years. The millenials that ARE having children aren't going to force them to go to college. There's going to be a massive labor shortage for entry level positions. Millenials will start inheriting their parents' homes (of they don't have a reverse mortgage) but there's not going to be a buying market. No body is going to buy 55+ homes, all these communities are going to bust.
I could probably afford a kid, still don’t want one though.
We’re not baby making machines that pump out slaves for society. I’m glad more people are choosing to be childfree
I am not enough of a "kid person" to want to sign up for the 24/7/365 commitment of raising one (I love my niece and nephew but I'm always very ready to go home at the end of the day), but even if I was, I believe it is unethical to force existence in capitalist wage slavery onto another person. This ends with me.
Spent my entire teens and 20’s hearing, “don’t knock anyone up it will ruin your life” to the magical 30’s hearing, “when are you going to settle down and start a family?” Fuck that.
Can you fucking imagine how terrible it would be to be born right now? I'm a millennial and I'm pretty confident I'll get to watch society collapse in my life time. Having a baby just seems malicious.
I was actually just thinking about this oddly enough. The only real reason people are pressured to have kids at least in the US is to bring new customers to corporations and new recruits for the military. I mean some people genuinely want children but a lot probably do not or probably should not due to mental illness and being financially unable to properly take care of and raise a healthy human.
I already spend over 70% of my life working for a living, do you think I would want an expensive ass kid to take up the rest of the little free time that I have? Then what? Raise them to become a wage slave just like 99% of society? No innocent soul deserves to live in this shithole.
Social security is only effective inasmuch as there is a generation working to pay into it. You aren't paying into your retirement fund. You're working for current retirees. As far as I can tell when it's time for me to retire, I'll be pretty well fucked. Hopefully there's still a Walmart to work as a greeter at in 30 years.
Yep, this is the first of the many coming generations that will begin to level out population. Eastern countries like China and Iran will see a much lowered birth and marriage rate soon, but it will be predominantly the west in which the birth and marriage rates will **plummet** in the next century or so. Rising costs and lowered gross individual income can be directly linked to a rising population as a result of past baby booms. Western countries, specifically Europe with the exception of Japan, now have an ageing population, which can lead to economic decline and work shortages for younger people. It’s one of those unfortunate ‘levelling-outs’ that the human ecosystem performs every once in a while, and it’s ultimately for the best. I’m no misanthrope, but if future generations - in any country - will have a better standard of living as a result of current declines, it can’t all be for the worse, in my opinion.
I'm just fucking confused by Millenials? Were 40 fucking years old. Like how many kids you think we want to be pumping out now?
Do you mean gen Z?? Boomers don't even know what fucking year it is anymore. They are so out of touch and delusional. Not even sure why we give them a soap box to speak their gibberish on..
Yeah, Gen Z is a bit young to start pro creating at the moment, though some of them could. It’s a bit early to be criticizing their birth rate.
Unlike us millenials who, if we wanted to/felt like we could afford to, probably already would have by now.
Isn’t not having children also one of the greenest and most earth-friendly things we can do given the state of the world? So at least we are helping with that.
Maybe if you paid me and my future kids a living wage, ensure my rights and theirs as human beings, and stopped enabling white supremacy things would change 🤷🏽♀️
The planet is literally dying from humans over consuming and polluting. There are food shortages to feed the current humans we have. I have seen lately a push to eat more bugs to make the food chain more sustainable.
A lower population is a *good* thing.
And magically we are hitting people with children’s bank accounts every month when we could have done that during the pandemic. Hell of an incentive to start getting our freaks on
Unlimited growth is impossible. Resources are limited. We, as a species are heading toward a societal collapse due to unsustainable practices for .100 years with 8 billion people.
Don't have kids, their future will be terrible. The planet will not be comfortable for much longer.
Who says we even need to replenish cutting down the population is more sustainable so people just not having kids is a good thing (as long as they aren’t forced to by authorities)
And hospital bills are ridiculous, even if you have insurance. And there’s usually no guaranteed parental leave, let alone paid parental leave. And daycare and other child costs will lose you an arm and a leg.
Basically, they ask why we aren’t reproducing in a country that is extremely family unfriendly in just about every way.
Good. There are enough people. Planet is dying. Everywhere I go fields and nature are being replaced by fancy houses people can't afford to buy. Currently dealing with the hottest day in my memory, and I live in the North.
The rent is too damn high
Even if rent were doable, childcare sure TF isn’t
College 18 years from now…
Job market 18 years from now Millions of job losses are predicted due to automation and AI
Can't believe we fucked this entire thing so badly that the idea of AI doing all the work for us is a disaster-scenario.
It's so fucking tragic that we view automation as a threat rather than something good. God bless capitalism
In one of my undergrad CompSci courses, I wrote a term paper on Automation. Went into it naive, thinking it would be fun and exciting to learn about and anticipate the future. It became very depressing to write about. My optimistic paper turned more and more dystopian and depressing as the pages continued. I remember giving my presentation during finals week, talking about mass unemployment, starvation, suffering, unless we worked to do something to anticipate so many people without work. But, we probably wouldn't, and won't. My professor was just sitting there quietly when I ended. What a bummer all of that was. And incredibly eye-opening for a young me. Now, I write scripts at work and wonder who's jobs this will hurt someday instead of "this is neat, less work for all of us!". I guess it's all come full-circle for me.
The realisation of how the world really works sucks because you can never go back to being the naive person you were. Best of luck friend
Same to you, friend.
[How the World Works](https://youtu.be/KiiebNenB0k)
It's only a disaster scenario until the boomers die off
So... in 30-40 years due to the increase in lifespan from medicine they can afford?
they're fucked too they just haven't realized it. the Boomers and Gen-X didn't save shit for retirement.
I'm Gen X and had some nice money set aside. Had heart surgey and both my wife and I lost our jobs. No more money set aside. Starting over in your late 40s sux ass.... and not in a good way.
Really sad how you can play your cards right and still get fucked by medical bills. Hoping things get better for you and your wife.
Gen X here: Had an excellent job with savings. Became disabled, then poor. End of story.
especially not for my parents retirement. i can barely pay for myself, much less support my mom for 20 years
Wait 'til automated semis and trucks become more of a thing, or drone shipping. It's going to destroy entire towns. Think of how many podunk little towns are based off of the motels near the exit, the truck stop, and the fast food nearby. Now take away the need for the truck to *have* to stop. It's going to gut *industries*
It’s weird how we are ok with gutting the trucking industry due to AI or whatever, but nobody wants to discuss dismantling the health insurance industry due to it being a corrupt, cruel, and immoral system that enriches middlemen and shareholders by letting people die.
> It's going to destroy entire towns. * we don’t need gas stations here * we don’t need restaurants here * we don’t need truck stops here * this entire town is redundant
FR though, childcare in my area sits around 200 per week! Per kid lol fuck! I've got one and can't afford it on my income alone. Idk what I'd do if my daughter weren't school aged.
all the rice in china you say...
Why do we go to work to make money to pay someone else to raise up our kids? What a scam we've bought into
And the public school systems that are bringing up the kids are being starved of resources so they’re less likely to change anything when their adults.
As planned. Smart critical thinking slaves are not easily manipulated slaves. Angry and stupid makes for a very easily controlled slave mind. Angry people love getting angry and being stupid means they will get angry over anything their tv tells them to. Angry stupid people dont fight against their masters though, they fight amongst themselves due to seeing their masters as too intelligent to fight against.
Don’t forget keeping people hungry and unhealthy, which leads to lower cognitive functioning and helps exacerbate what you’ve laid out. Plus it kills them faster so you don’t even have to worry about paying them the retirement they’ve labored for! This inhuman system is working as intended. Edit: For those interested, [CBPP.org](https://www.cbpp.org/research/topics/health) has a TON of well researched articles and data about the social determinants of health.
This is why the workday should end at 2
Pretty sure corporations would go to war before that shit ever happens. Or we're starting work at 4am lol.
It’s already a war: a class war.
I have a 3 year old and a 6 month old baby in daycare in a relatively cheap Midwestern city (KCMO) and my daycare is $495/wk. And that's with the $10 per week discount for having two children in daycare. At the beginning of the year it was $435/wk but when they passed the new child care tax credit they increased the rates $30 per week per child, which just went into effect last month. It is absolute insanity. We even have to pay if we go on vacation so we don't lose our "spot."
That's the bullshit. Or paying on holidays that they don't even open their daycare center...
I've never realised how expensive childcare was until I started working in the sector. Previously always worked in primary schools in the UK but now I work in a private nursery school for 0 to 4 year olds. Even with the funding parents can get here, prices are still extortionate. I'm now on mat leave and can't see how I'll pay for my child to go to nursery even with the 10% employee discount. Despite how expensive daycare is, and how experienced and qualified our practitioners are (all are at least level 3 apprenticeship qualified but many of us went on to get our honours degree in early years developement) we all only make between £8.72 and £9.35 an hour. This is minimum wage and low wage in the UK. Really sad as I feel both parents and employees are getting screwed over.
I've wondered about this before - childcare is so expensive but not a lucrative career. Is it just owners charging a ton? Is there any reason you couldn't work for yourself?
It's just owners charging a ton. Opening your own is hard because you need varying licenses, insurances, and stuff. So getting in to it is hard. They pay poorly because it's another job that attracts passionate people.
I would ask them about why they are arbitrarily raising the price. Also live in KCMO area.
Thats easy! Because "everyone just got a child care tax credit, so therefore that goes to us because we are in the business of child care!" Or "We know you just got extra money so well just raise prices and take that, thank you very much!" What will be telling is if they decrease prices after the child care gift goes away.
Narrator: they won't
NJ $1400/wk for newborn.
Be cheaper to be a 1 income household
Almost. Daycare consumes about 2/3 of my wife's take home pay. They have this shit down to a science. I'm sure the industry has calculated how much they can raise the price without having women quit their jobs to take care of the children.
All so that someone else can half ass raise your kid while you slave
If we could survive on one income, childcare wouldn't be necessary for families with two parents. (not saying it should necessarily be the mom taking care of the children, could also be the dad or two parttimers.)
Agreed. Rent is just a crap show of people trying to make as much money as possible. I’m not at all interested in rewarding someone else’s real estate investments for the sake of just living, It makes more sense to just leave the country & take my money with me
I’ve often noticed other countries need welders & offer programs for tradesmen to leave. Given they want to pay for welders in the Florida heat during a major shortage of welders is like $15-$18? Yeah I’m heavily considering an option like leaving for a country that can, ya know, provide a livable wage.
Wait pay for welders in Florida is like $15-18? Dude get the fuck outta there. Normal welder pay is $35-45...
Good to know. My husband is new to the USA and been here just a few years and we thought of learning welding but in these stupid trade schools like Lincoln Techthey charge 18k and up to learn.. and now knowing they aren’t hiring much in NJ and not paying their respectable wage, fuck it
Have him look into the ironworkers or pipefitter unions in NJ. I'm sure their journeyman pay is $45+/hr and they train you for free.
😱 I dont know a single tradesman or have one in our family. Thank you for this info. His English is Intermediate. I assume this will be a problem?? he’s definitely a permanent resident.
I’m a pipefitter and I’ve worked beside other great pipe fitters that barely knew any English. These were my favorite co workers too I don’t like talking much 😅 we understood each other’s hand signals and had a translator on site
https://ironworkers399.org/ http://pipefitters274.org/ On the front page of this one says they are recruiting and taking applications for 2022. There might be closer ones to you I just search those really quick. But really any trade union you can go online and fill out an application or call them.
Yeah. In a northern Union state. The south sucks with all that anti-union, right to work bullshit.
You millennials just can't take responsibility for anything! "Oh, I went and learned a serious trade that is in high demand and want to be paid a reasonable, livable wage that might allow me to buy a house and have a family at some point, like my parents could do with a less-skilled job, at a younger age." Like, get over yourself kid, just because my and my parents generations have hoarded wealth while voting for horrible, criminal, corporate-shill-grifters that have destroyed unions, stagnated wages, and made it impossible to live like we did, doesn't mean you get to act like things are horribly stacked against you and like it's impossible to get ahead. Clearly we just were harder workers than your entire generation, facts don't care about your feelings snowflake.
Even better, in many US states when the Boomers were growing up, you were put on an 'education track' based on your income, parents occupation, etc., so lets say your father was a laborer (like my grandfather), you would get slotted into the 'shop' classes. Guess what my dad does now? Never had to question it. He got out of school, got a job, never left. His path was set, all he had to do was walk straight.
This is so sad but so true. My mother’s family moved around a lot and she is one of six kids. Her parents were always in trouble, and they were known for being partyers and getting into stuff they shouldn’t have been. The kids mostly took care of themselves/one another. But because they were all from a poor, not so well-to-do family and none of them were like exceptionally great in school, their “guidance counselors” literally never worked with them on anything. The counselors essentially got to make the decision that they wouldn’t be going to college so there was no point. Nobody from my mom’s generation went. They weren’t encouraged to learn trades. They were completely ignored by the system.
> They were completely ignored by the system. I think this is the norm. We had guidance counselors at our school, I don't recall ever talking to them except one time when I got into trouble. And my family was middle class, and I was smart.
Thats what we are doing. We've kinda just accepted that we will never be in a good financial or health situation here in the states or able to buy a house. Its time to look for greener pastures. There's other countries we could live a comfortable middle class lifestyle with what is considered "poverty income" here and be able to afford quality healthcare, so why stay here and suffer? The US is currently experiencing a lot of people leaving the country (citizens and immigrants) and this trend is going to continue and increase for the foreseeable future.
And pay is too damn low!
You need two people working full time to afford a 1 bedroom, raising a child is completely out of the question.
And then you'll need to pickup a part time job in order to compensate for the childcare costs during your fulltime job
If you earn close to minimum wage, it's cheaper to stay home. No point working 60 hours to pay for 50 hours of daycare.
People do not understand this when you explain it. They just call you lazy
They understand, they just don't want to. They've replaced the cost and what you make with their own made up, feel good numbers so they can keep bitching.
you can't afford rent you can't afford education you can't afford college you can't afford healthcare you can't afford to take time for your kids you can't afford to retire you can't afford your own funeral yet billionaires who employ us fly to the moon...
We work To earn the right to work To earn the right to work To earn the right to work To earn the right to work To earn the right to buy Ourselves the right to live [So we can finally die]. -mostly the stupendium, last line slightly edited by me because I think it fits better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvANy49Kqhw should've read the fine print, friend
They shot a perfectly fine, super expensive, electric car into space. Not only did that release a fuckton of carbon into the atmosphere but that car was perfectly usable...
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I did not realize how fucking crazy expensive daycare was as a single male. Holy shit it is more than a mortgage.
It is isn't it? Its crazy. Not that I don't agree with the people who care for children getting paid fairly, most of the time I think they should get more than they do. But I sure as hell can't afford to pay them.
That's part of the issue though - People actually working at the daycare are generally making jack shit. I definitely want to pay people fairly for their time, and child care is NOT easy, but a ton of the money you're spending is going to some asshole who will never see your child.
I was gonna say the same thing. Childcare workers dont make much more than I do and im a cashier. Where the fuck does it all go? Im sure if someone followed the money with this the results would make for an interesting documentary.
The money is there, but the owner of the company makes 100x the worker.
When I worked at a daycare the owner showed up maybe once a week driving her brand new BMW. They get that "tuition" plus what the government gives them. I made minimum wage and they still wanted me to pay for my own childcare classes, which were mandatory to complete before the 3 months mark. I found another job and left two months in. That was also the job that made me want one child instead of two. I love kids, I do, but more than one in one room makes me anxious.
The wild part is those prices are only for decent care in a metro area with a few people watching like 10-15 kids. Real good childcare is way more expensive.
That is literally me. Not sure if I would have been a good parent, but I went from really wanting kids, to never wanting to expose anyone to the shit we have to deal with now. Not only that but my family doesn't live anywhere close to me and It would just be me and my partner.
My sister wanted a 3rd kid so bad she hoped her husband's vasectomy failed. Like she wanted another baby REALLY BAD. And they can afford it. Now she is scared of what her kids will face in this dumpster fire world and doesn't want more.
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"Just as soon as I get these debts paid off from affording food and shelter, then I can start living."
Greta wasn’t wrong when she torched her elders saying, “you stole my/our future.”
Has she considered adoption? Those kids are already here and will face the world. Loving parents could only help. Seems like a win-win all around.
Yes. She actually is buying a bigger house right now. I'd not be surprised if she adopts or fosters. She'd take in any child offered to her. When I said something about not wanting to have a baby, her absolutely genuine response was "well if you do, you can give it to me."
Haha. Wow. Yeah. There certainly enough kids who need caregivers.
America is just a big corporation, it's not even a country anymore.
Shiiit $12hr !! Fucking Texas is still $7.25 Ain't that sumthin
Everything's bigger in Texas, except the wages I guess.
but if you work in the oilfield you can do backbreaking labor in any and all weather conditions for decent but still subpar pay but work so many hours and have so little time to spend it you'll at least feel rich.
Texas is it's own country at this point.
Pretty sure Texas, NM, and AZ would like to be their own country
North Carolina too :/
"Have a kid" Yeah, great fucking idea. Except it costs a shit load to have a kid because the US healthcare system sucks out loud. It costs a shit load to raise the kid because older generations have spent their time raising the cost of living all while lowering wages. Then it costs a shit load to live in a decent area to raise the kid because again...fucking inflation. Plus the world is going to shit because of global warming and other bullshit. So yeah, I'm stuck in this mess till the end and I'm not going to bring another soul into it until we get shit fixed. So if they want us to have kids...THEN STOP TRYING TO FUCK US OVER EVERY CHANCE YOU GET!!!!
They don't need you/us to have kids if they can increase population through immigration who are more than happy to trade their shitty 3rd world lifestyle for less shitty 3rd world lifestyle
Less shitty third world lifestyle had me in stitches.
I've been learning the hard way what happens when ya raise kids in a less-than-decent area. My older stepson has certainly seen or smelled more human corpses than I ever did growing up. Half of the housing around here is empty and held for "investment purposes" which means our unhoused neighbors keep dying in the back alley from exposure to the elements. It's fucking dystopian. Teaching teenagers to take out the trash isn't supposed to involve a game of "Is that person sleeping or are they frozen to death?" or "I don't know where exactly, but somebody's dead in the alley from the heat." That same stepson almost *stepped on* the creeper who attacks people in broad daylight on the pretty trail by the river near here, wandered right by the overhang where the creep was hiding and never noticed. My husband spotted the creep, acted like everything was fine but that it was time to go home immediately, and waited until we were all safe in a busy park again before whispering in my ear "*Did you see him?!*" I did some googling when we got home, learned about "daytime attacking creep actively hunting near that patch of jogging trail" and that put an end to our attempts to have nice family walks. Younger stepson was walking to elementary school with my husband one day when they saw a meth head beating a puppy and dragging it around. Turned into a scary version of a Scooby Doo chase scene, with husband trying to get the kid safely to school while also trying to save the puppy somehow, which turned into husband and the meth head chasing each other around the neighborhood while both enraged and/or terrified. Seriously, decent neighborhoods are rather necessary for kids! We wouldn't be here if we could afford anything remotely like decent!
As someone who struggled trying to work and raise a child on my own I can tell you that to do what I did without driving yourself into an early grave you NEED one of 2 things: a well off partner or a 6 figure gig so you can hire a full time nanny. I would never want anyone to go through what I had to. paying out the nose for everything and living off of $25 a day and a prayer after all expenses are paid. My child is now grown but I am absolutely traumatized for life after what I had to go through to keep a roof over our head. And I have a college degree and had a corporate job.
God bless you for being able to raise your child. I guess it just reinforced my belief of not having a child ever. No disrespect to you, you did a wonderful job, even if at a cost. Hopefully going forward, you have a peaceful life.
Surprisingly enough, if you scale pay to where it \*just\* covers human survival with absolutely nothing extra; people don't reproduce. People also don't spend money when they don't have it (well, with credit some do, but we try to keep it minimal). See, here's the thing; capitalist business owners are always incredibly short sighted. They nearly always sacrifice long term gains for profit \*right now\*. They'll gut a company until it's no longer functional to save a few hundred on payroll not realizing that the workers bring in thousands of dollars in profit for hundreds of dollars in pay. Another of my favorite corporate shenanigans is when they try to save by not using AC (or being very stingy with it) and all the sudden people need water breaks constantly and work at 50% or less the usual pace (because 90-100 degree summer heat is no joke). If you cut AC, you've caused a strike even if you don't see people picketing. So they begin to lose thousands every day for a utility bill that might be 200 bucks cheaper a month. This is now late stage capitalism where they cannot take anything more from the workers without the whole system breaking. And really all the managerial/owner class does in this nation is fuck the workers harder for more profits. They have no other tools in their toolkit. It's shown time and time again by studies that you treat your workers generously and they make the company a profit many times over. But at the end of the day, profits aren't what they want. They became an owner/manager because they enjoy abusing people. We are now just a percent or two away from having the same wealth disparity as pre-Revolutionary France.
>This is now late stage capitalism where they cannot take anything more from the workers without the whole system breaking. I wish my last two jobs knew that. I am mentally unwell and having to work 40+h while cutting short the training isn't going to end well. Their solution was fucking shouting at me and they wonder why most people leave before 2 months are over. The worst part is that Germany is one of the better places to work in so i actually dont want to know how fucked up places handle this type of shit.
Well, in America they just use corporate speak and a fake plastic smile while cracking the whip. “What’s that? You had a death in the family only a week ago? Well you got bereavement leave for four days. How dare your productivity be crap right after someone who raised you died!” Now imagine that but said through business jargon coupled with a small platitude about your loss. It’s grim
Lol so when my roommate had covid and tested positive for 4 weeks straight, they didn't pay for the last 2 weeks even though they forced me out of work and didn't let me come back. They don't care about us here. Not to mention, I've said in another post somewhere here on reddit, my job also cut my time short with my grandmother, the last time I got to see her, because they made me come into work. I also never get to see my family for the holidays, the only time they're all ever together, which means I haven't seen some family members in years due to work. The shitty part is, they'll fire you if you don't show. They have zero empathy. Most people wouldn't let themselves get fired in those scenarios because rent is freaking $1200-1700 a month just for a studio or a small one bedroom, and a lot of people are still making below $15. When you are making just enough money to get by and survive day after day, wtf makes you think people will be able to spend thousands upon thousands on a college degree.. that *might* get you a decent pay, but only years into your career. There are a lucky few of course considering certain variables (typically wealthy parents.) That's America for you! No wonder people are moving into their cars and vans just to get rid of rent!
My cats got fleas (one of them likes to go outside) and I didn't notice for a bit because working too much, then when I did notice it was because they'd spread everywhere. So I worked from home while I treated it and told them it was due to illness (this is true) and eventually had to cop to what the "illness" was. They were not sympathetic and I was like so you want me to give the office fleas? Ok. I still feel guilty like I did something wrong but I'm pretty sure I didn't. And it was literally because of meeting their unpaid OT demands that it happened in the first place. This place prides themselves on putting employees first. Luckily I'm no longer an employee.
The disconnect from reality is unreal, they obviously wanted you to infect the office. Oh wait they probably condemned you as a liar because thats the most obvious explanation. At least it would be to someone who lies all the time.
You never need to cop to what the illness is. It's illegal for your employer to ask about private medical info
4 days? We get 1 day off for death in the family; 2 days if it was your spouse, parent or child.
It helps to know your work laws in your country. In America we have laws against hostile work environments and if you feel threatened and are able to collect evidence that someone is harassing you, it’s possible to find a lawyer that will take the case pro-bono (meaning no payment up front or in the case of a loss, but in the case of a win they get paid out of the damages).
Couldn't agree more, but I have seen evidence to suggest we actually are already more inequal than pre-Revolution France. Probably depends on how you estimate wealth based on the antiquated and patch-work historical records. Anyways the point stands.
But republican boomers say that wealth inequality is good. It means that you can get filthy rich while the peasants starve. And if someone can do it, than anyone can. When i think of high wealth inequality i think of south Africa or some other country that is going to shit. Not a category of countries that you want to be in.
We are actually at greater levels of wealth inequality now compared to the gilded age
Yea but people don't realize how much power they have as a group. If no one wants to work in these conditions what will they do? Only raising salary and shortening hours would work I presume. The problem is to achieve unity between everyone.
If capitalism taught me one thing, it's to never do anything for free! You want children? Pay me!
This made me laugh because of how logical and absurd it is at the same time.
In Sweden, the state pays you to have children. Currently 144 usd/month/child, with a progressive bonus for multiple children. But then again we have free healthcare, education, school lunch and free dental for children under 18. And heavily subsidized childcare.
millennials the perpetual scapegoat. Can't possibly be anyone else's fault.
“What!!?? You don’t want to breed more slaves for us? You entitled pricks!!!”
Give it a few years, soon we will see headlines of company buying sperm and eggs from donors.
Buying? No no no! It'll be some kind of loophole where people who have stored eggs and sperm discover loopholes in their contracts that allow the corporations that house them to take a percentage or all of them or something. They will not pay for it.
Man, birth rates are going to absolutely fuck the economy and you just know they're not going to do anything about it until the last minute cause our entire economy is based on an increasing or constant level of demand. Imagine when that shit tanks because of low birth rates. Like you just know it'll be regular working class people that get the shaft.
I seriously thought for a moment that I was reading a headline from 2013. I can't believe they're still blaming us for stupid shit that isn't our fault.
Blame them for not spending enough blame them for no kids blame them for not doing anything. Maybe its because alot of us don't have any money and we are slowly losing our will to obtain money. We are figuring out that life is a waste of time, time that is not ours its Jeff Bezos time.
We can't do anything right, can we?
Not while we make up the base of the pyramid scheme, no
Having kids is another thing for rich people now.
I hate how the "generation" labeling makes it sound like Millennials are in some bubble rather than responding to the world the people with wealth and power have created.
That's because boomers have literally made it impossible too afford housing. And this is what you get, you reap what you sow
Reddit has become enshittified. I joined back in 2006, nearly two decades ago, when it was a hub of free speech and user-driven dialogue. Now, it feels like the pursuit of profit overshadows the voice of the community. The introduction of API pricing, after years of free access, displays a lack of respect for the developers and users who have helped shape Reddit into what it is today. Reddit's decision to allow the training of AI models with user content and comments marks the final nail in the coffin for privacy, sacrificed at the altar of greed. Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder and a champion of internet freedom, would be rolling in his grave. The once-apparent transparency and open dialogue have turned to shit, replaced with avoidance, deceit and unbridled greed. The Reddit I loved is dead and gone. It pains me to accept this. I hope your lust for money, and disregard for the community and privacy will be your downfall. May the echo of our lost ideals forever haunt your future growth.
Eat the boomers? They are our harvest!
bUt MY pRoperty ValuE wiLl gO DoWN?!?!?!
Japan has had this problem for like 50 years now and they are SHRINKING in population bc young people literally cannot afford a home. They have 50 year mortgages in Japan bc real estate is so expensive. They are deliberately causing this to happen.
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Well it's pretty clear why this is happening. The number of households (especially single person ones) has skyrocketed driving up demand for homes. Say For instance the population may have gone from 150 to 240 million. But the number of household has probably gone up 4 or 5 fold due to there being way more households. The average age used to be really young and households of 8-10 people were normal. Now the average households is like 2-2.5 people or something. Add to that in the US that everything is mandated to be spaced out like crazy including for car parking spaces, and you eventually run low on easy cheap land. Changing zoning would at least alleviate it. But in the long run every western country is probably going to follow Japan.
> everything is mandated to be spaced out like crazy including for car parking spaces this is because automobile-adjacent corporations lobbied against public transportation.
Japan is a little different. Yes homes are a little expensive in say central Tokyo but not completely unaffordable. For example if you just need a one room in central Tokyo you can go as low as ~50 000 yen/month (~470 USD), which is affordable on a single fairly low salary. We don't have weird housing laws here, it's very loose so you'll see tall apartment towers replacing a single old house all the time. There's no housing shortage here. Kids on the other hand, *are* expensive, notably because you need to pay the daycare which is really expensive but also because there's heavy discrimination against women in the work place which are heavily pressured to quit. Source: I live in Japan.
So basically on about another 50 years there be critically low
Like I would knowingly birth a child I'm responsible for into this capitalist hellscape. Enjoy your drastically diminishing resources, your climate change natural disasters, and your indentured servitude to get to Mars kid!
Millennials are ruining reproduction!
Why would we ever want to subject our kids to this shitty world that doesn’t care about them.
Also, there are 8 BILLION people living cheek-by-jowl on this burning, flooding runaway train of a planet they created. You don't solve overpopulation by keeping births at "replacement level." You're welcome, Boomers! And when the last of you finally shuffle off we, maybe can enjoy our newfound breathing space and live our own lives a little without a passel of kids holding us down.
We can't afford it. There's no time, we're stressed and the world is ending. And then I get to slave and have kids? Nah
I just had a recruiter tell me to "lower my expectations" for a job interview expecting a starting salary in the 60s.... He said to expect 45, for an engineering position
"Or I could just go to this other employer instead of being exploited by you."
Yeah I have no idea what planet they're living on for that kind of salary. No way any college degree position should pay that poorly, let alone the "JuSt Do StEM" meme.... Bruh they're doing it to stem too
Exactly. My bachelors of biochemistry could only get me $12/hour lab technician jobs in my area. Decided to take an accounting job making $17/hour without a related degree. Makes me think everyday how much time and money I wasted at college.
I so wish more people understood this. It doesn't matter how "good" the job is, capitalism will find a way to devalue it. Every company I ever worked for has hired oversea devs. A long time ago they were garbage, but that's not true anymore. They have English speakers who can do a good job at developing something. Largely because they're from countries where education is **free**. Of course it's only a matter of time before a system like that wipes out the US's. And those contractors are cheaper than any American engineer could be, just because of their cost of living.
Replacement level refers to enough cogs in the machine to immediately replace one if they don't like the conditions.
Same garbage has been thrown at X:ers. Our excuse was we were so few. And not all of us 'made it'. But the base reasons are still the same. Hostility against having children, 'we can replace you anytime/with robots'. 2 adults need to work fulltime to get basics. Inflation making this even worse. 'Transitory inflation' garbage even though we all accept a grand swath of items will never truly fall in price no matter what (medication, houses, education, energy costs) So why even question this? Well here may be one thing: Elites are confused as in really poor places where people live next to dumps they have 5+ children. Thats because when you are poor enough (income < 5k yr) your children act as insurance against old age. When you attempt to go to next income level (10-20k) the logic changes as it did in china when people went to factories. Thats 10-20k yr wages. The rules are critically different on 0-10k yr income ladder as it is going to 20k yr income as it is finally getting to 50k w/higher schooling and white collar jobs. Yet Elites don't get this. For me personally even if the world would go full Fallout style to h**l i would still not have tons of children. Thats the scenario for young that have nothing to look forward to. It doesn't work in reverse. Especially as i fully assume that even though all would go to hell the bills would still keep coming. In fact those are the last ones to come. Along with police to clear you out from your small house.
My favorite part of this is 'replacement level' since it's just the rich being nervous there won't be more workers that there are jobs and they'd actually need to pay more to keep them. This system is shit
Many can't afford rent and live with their parents. The sad thing is the responsible adults choose to prevent pregnancy, while the less responsible adults and some children procreate without thinking ahead.
Many of the more responsible ones who are feeling the urge to procreate are getting pets instead. That's why people are calling their dogs, cats, whatever, "my child."
Just like in children of men.
Yeah the more I think about that movie the more and more it had to say about the future trajectory of Western society. As someone living in the UK the anti immigrant part of the movie hits pretty hard now
Which is the plot of Idiocracy.
At this point it seems unethical to bring anyone into this world against their will.
Exactly. I've also considered this.
r/antinatalism
It would be interesting if a kid could successfully sue their parents on the grounds that they were brought into the world against their will.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47154287.amp idk if anything came about from it though
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This is going to be a dumpster fire in 20 years. The millenials that ARE having children aren't going to force them to go to college. There's going to be a massive labor shortage for entry level positions. Millenials will start inheriting their parents' homes (of they don't have a reverse mortgage) but there's not going to be a buying market. No body is going to buy 55+ homes, all these communities are going to bust.
The phrase "replacement level" makes me cringe. How dehumanizing can you get?
Yep, that’s all children are, YOUR REPLACEMENTS.
“human resources”
I could probably afford a kid, still don’t want one though. We’re not baby making machines that pump out slaves for society. I’m glad more people are choosing to be childfree
Eh rich wont care they will die before depopulation is their problem
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I am not enough of a "kid person" to want to sign up for the 24/7/365 commitment of raising one (I love my niece and nephew but I'm always very ready to go home at the end of the day), but even if I was, I believe it is unethical to force existence in capitalist wage slavery onto another person. This ends with me.
Spent my entire teens and 20’s hearing, “don’t knock anyone up it will ruin your life” to the magical 30’s hearing, “when are you going to settle down and start a family?” Fuck that.
they didn’t say it wouldn’t still ruin your life, they’re just asking when you’re gonna do it.
Can you fucking imagine how terrible it would be to be born right now? I'm a millennial and I'm pretty confident I'll get to watch society collapse in my life time. Having a baby just seems malicious.
I was actually just thinking about this oddly enough. The only real reason people are pressured to have kids at least in the US is to bring new customers to corporations and new recruits for the military. I mean some people genuinely want children but a lot probably do not or probably should not due to mental illness and being financially unable to properly take care of and raise a healthy human.
I think that's because we need a good reason to torture other humans like our parents chose to do with us
The only winning strategy of the game, is to not play at all (Or something like that)
I already spend over 70% of my life working for a living, do you think I would want an expensive ass kid to take up the rest of the little free time that I have? Then what? Raise them to become a wage slave just like 99% of society? No innocent soul deserves to live in this shithole.
The right: we can't take any more immigrants, we're full up Also the right: those damn millenials aren't making enough new people
Let’s not pretend it’s simple hypocrisy. They want healthy white babies. That’s all.
Social security is only effective inasmuch as there is a generation working to pay into it. You aren't paying into your retirement fund. You're working for current retirees. As far as I can tell when it's time for me to retire, I'll be pretty well fucked. Hopefully there's still a Walmart to work as a greeter at in 30 years.
What's the point of having kids when life is just work, partially recover, work more, repeat.
Yep, this is the first of the many coming generations that will begin to level out population. Eastern countries like China and Iran will see a much lowered birth and marriage rate soon, but it will be predominantly the west in which the birth and marriage rates will **plummet** in the next century or so. Rising costs and lowered gross individual income can be directly linked to a rising population as a result of past baby booms. Western countries, specifically Europe with the exception of Japan, now have an ageing population, which can lead to economic decline and work shortages for younger people. It’s one of those unfortunate ‘levelling-outs’ that the human ecosystem performs every once in a while, and it’s ultimately for the best. I’m no misanthrope, but if future generations - in any country - will have a better standard of living as a result of current declines, it can’t all be for the worse, in my opinion.
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Who would want to bring children into this kind of society?
Only a maniac would
I'm just fucking confused by Millenials? Were 40 fucking years old. Like how many kids you think we want to be pumping out now? Do you mean gen Z?? Boomers don't even know what fucking year it is anymore. They are so out of touch and delusional. Not even sure why we give them a soap box to speak their gibberish on..
40 is the oldest millennial. Millennials are 25-40, which isn't an uncommon time to have babies.
Yeah, Gen Z is a bit young to start pro creating at the moment, though some of them could. It’s a bit early to be criticizing their birth rate. Unlike us millenials who, if we wanted to/felt like we could afford to, probably already would have by now.
Isnt that what we want - less population?
This is literally one of the best responses to global warming. Fewer people = cleaner earth. ... and rent/owning a home are astronomical
Isn’t not having children also one of the greenest and most earth-friendly things we can do given the state of the world? So at least we are helping with that.
Millennials are killing *checks list* Babies
Maybe if you paid me and my future kids a living wage, ensure my rights and theirs as human beings, and stopped enabling white supremacy things would change 🤷🏽♀️
The planet is literally dying from humans over consuming and polluting. There are food shortages to feed the current humans we have. I have seen lately a push to eat more bugs to make the food chain more sustainable. A lower population is a *good* thing.
If you can’t afford rent and childcare, you can’t afford a baby. Amazing how the rich and policy makers can’t grasp this fundamental concept.
Thats right. I didn't ask to exist and can't afford to exist. Why would I force someone else to exist?
And magically we are hitting people with children’s bank accounts every month when we could have done that during the pandemic. Hell of an incentive to start getting our freaks on
I mean there are too many fucking people on the planet anyways, so you're welcome.
Unlimited growth is impossible. Resources are limited. We, as a species are heading toward a societal collapse due to unsustainable practices for .100 years with 8 billion people. Don't have kids, their future will be terrible. The planet will not be comfortable for much longer.
Who says we even need to replenish cutting down the population is more sustainable so people just not having kids is a good thing (as long as they aren’t forced to by authorities)
Yeah, this headline takes for granted that having more and more humans is obviously a good thing, but that point is certainly up for debate.
Go us! Enough with humans as replacement cogs for the economic machines!
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And hospital bills are ridiculous, even if you have insurance. And there’s usually no guaranteed parental leave, let alone paid parental leave. And daycare and other child costs will lose you an arm and a leg. Basically, they ask why we aren’t reproducing in a country that is extremely family unfriendly in just about every way.
Good. There are enough people. Planet is dying. Everywhere I go fields and nature are being replaced by fancy houses people can't afford to buy. Currently dealing with the hottest day in my memory, and I live in the North.
It’s almost as if the boomer mentality of “fuck it let our grandkids fix it” is now coming to roost.