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Debate: The Millennial generation has no hope.
For: Stagnating economies, rising youth unemployment and an attitude of entitlement (vs. head down and get on with it) means twenty somethings' futures look bleak.
Against: The digital revolution means anyone with a good idea can make it happen. Financial success isn't everything and actually this audience can follow their interests instead of having to follow a corporate career ladder. Finally in emerging markets such as India, there is a lot more possibility.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y
Nabih Ziad
Stefan Lucic
Throughout history, those who would oppose to the king and the noblemen would get killed off quickly and almost nothing would change. Today is a different time. And yes, it's true that the life of the poor has been better and better in the recent hundred years, but are we reaching the peak?
@Pat
I'm not referring to any countries. I remember reading a research some time ago which found that the number of millionaires has dropped in the last few years (or that the number of new millionaires is slowly dropping), but the net worth of them is increasing. However, I can't remember exactly where I found it...
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Stefan Lucic
pat gilbert 50+
The Nouveau Riche are doing just fine. The reason is that their is more opportunity than ever for upward mobility. Just look at the last 20 years. The internet barely existed 20 years ago you and I would not be talking to you or people from China, how cool is that? we all owe Al Gore for inventing the internet? Google has made us all sound very knowledgeable and we can all pontificate. Cell phones or as I like to think of them electronic leashes. Cars that are damn site better than the Trabant and last twice as long as before with way better gas mileage. China and automation has greatly reduced the cost of manufactured goods. They do things in medicine on an outpatient basis that couldn't be done at all 20 years ago.
Nope the trend is toward greater prosperity for everyone. Remember for the millionaire to become a millionaire he had to raise the standard of living for his customers or they would not buy from him. This is always the case unless the millionaire works for the government and does not have to do anything for anyone even though he called a public servant he is anything but.
Stefan Lucic
pat gilbert 50+
Stefan Lucic
Krisztián Pintér 200+
John Dunbar 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
pat gilbert 50+
What country are referring to? I don't know about your country but make sure the media is not distorting this.
The income gap is not growing (in the U.S.), the media would have you believe this but it just is not so. It has to do with tax laws and false reporting about house hold income.
Sams dad
Gene Bryan Fisher
But!
The truth is that the world is a dynamic place where "profit" and "potential" profit trumps all other interests and knowing this "is power". Knowing that the ability to "passively" stop or prevent commerce is extremely powerful tool capable of changing laws, politics, socialites, and beliefs.
An example would be: If a small group of individuals stalled traffic in 10 major city's for 45 minutes "randomly" at specific choke points as a rebellion against petroleum consumption and refusal to make significant laws and offer incentives to reduce consumption. Billions of dollars per hour of financial loss would take place simply by a few "individual" cars or vehicles in key locations slowing or blocking traffic into metropolitan areas. As the act is not criminal and a large group could continue this behavior without repeated acts by one individual while lobbying for alternate plate number fuel days....
Actions like this would result in industry losing billions per hour in labor, sales, and from logistic issues. Repeated, random, and alternate behavior would alternately result in the issue being addressed, and the potential for change.
Each person has the ability to change the world and make a difference simply by their actions, something some would rather you not be aware of.....and propagate the "wage slave" helpless futility of the generation.
Our fathers and grandfathers were not given a 8 hour work day from compassion, they were not given medical, dental, and vision from kindness, they were not awarded weeks of paid vacations from realization of hardship. They obtained them by being "rebellious" and "resisting" the norms of "wage slavery". They "punched them in the "pocket book" not the armor of the day......and yes....it was hard to do!
shawn lyles
John McAbee
Barry Palmer 50+
We have discovered that our culture is not sustainable. When I was a child, no one thought such a thing.
That alone provides hope.
Sams dad
the elder with the purse strings, will take us all down before they do what's right. Which leaves personal integrity as the only possession worth pursuing.
Sams dad
A very long time ago, way before TV, some very wise people wrote a book of wisdom and of life rules to live by called proverbs. They didn't get paid to do it. These books can be found in many bibles. After you read those including Sirac and Eccliasticus too (they may be spelled slightly differently). You will find what the most important thing to acquire in life is. I could tell you, but then you wouldn't take the necessary journey. Once you take that journey you will have wisdom, knowledge and __________ and hope.
That _____________ is more valuable than diamonds or gold.
Stefan Lucic
Jon Miner
Technology is creating a spectrum of work opportunities.
You said "taking our jobs and thus contributing to the unemployment crisis." This is a common misconception. The work that is done by robots may displace some repetitive jobs like putting parts together in an assembly line or painting a car during assembly. But other people are working making robots and putting them together, perhaps with the help of more robots. Be that as it may, it is not the robots that are contributing to unemployment. The lost jobs are being done by other people who will do the work for less money. International competition is the force that is driving unemployment. In America, when Labor Unions had the upper hand, they bargained for ever increasing wages and benefits. They refused to recognize the growing international labor market and refused to compete. So their jobs were taken up by workers who would work for less, produce quality products, and accept work with no health plan, no injury insurance, very little if any retirement system, who live in worker housing with 3 to 7 other workers in their dorm room.
The best way to grow American jobs is to encourage workers in those places to insist on more benefits, and American workers to work for less... As it stands, foreign workers who ask for any benefits or higher pay are fired and one of the 3,000 people standing in line for a job steps forward.
As long as big business focuses only one the bottom line, and American consumers insist on cheap products of high quality, and American labor only sees other Americans as the competition, unemployment will only increase.
Technology enables more to be done by fewer workers. But there is enough to do, that there is work for everyone if we can agree on a method of payment that is equitable.
Stefan Lucic
You seem to be concentrating mainly on the issue of the unemployment crisis in the USA, but almost every country in the world has their own unemployment crisis. Yes, technology is creating a spectrum of work opportunities, but only to those with enough knowledge. You know, not everyone can work on the making of robots and their upgrading so I fear that lower classes will have problems finding work. And at one time, we will come to the point when robots will be making other robots who can do some types of work better than we can and then only a few people will be needed to overseer them. And the fact is we can't all work as scientists or caterers (not sure this is the word, but I can't find a better one).
Krisztián Pintér 200+
if there is unemployment, there must be some other factors that distort the labor market, and prevent it from doing what i just described. and yes, there are many such factors, namely taxes, minimum wage and red tape.
Madhavi Gavini
edward long 100+
Random Chance 30+
Hope is a false-concept belief, just like faith or god.
All we know, can know, is what we find out and the best way to do that is by doing.
Nothing is gained by hoping, that is why hope is leaned on, because one doesn't know.
Same as faith.
Knowing is different. The main thing we can all know, is that if we take action and instruct and teach by our action and example, then those to whom the future looks bleak, can learn that what they have to do, is to take action and do. Find something that they can do and then do it and show others so they can find something to do. Then they will know what will happen and will be kept busy in the meantime.
If we are all going to suffocate, starve, eat others, be eaten, or whatever, the only way to empower oneself is to take action to help, support, comfort and fight for what we know needs to be done. That might be the only empowerment we get.
I think the greatest source of invention is the mind/heart of mankind. Sometimes we need a story more than food.
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
Sounds like a hopeful faith statement to me... :-)
Re: "Sometimes we need a story more than food."
Yep... "Man does not live on bread alone..." :-)
chen xin
yes ,whlle there are too many people they just say bread is avililable .milk is aviliable .good .
meanwhile they say no to books and they say on to issues .this is not well.right ?how can we live a life without wards and questions
Random Chance 30+
:)
Nothing is perfect. When I first told someone that I didn't believe in hope, they replied,
"well, I guess there's hope in that." :)
I had to admit that in one way they were right. :) But, nothing is perfect but I never see anything gained or achieved by hoping. There must be a doing or some kind of action.
But, that's just me. Thanks very much for your comment. Appreciate it.
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
I appreciate your reaction to my post. I have faith in laughing at myself and I encourage others to do so. I see hope when people do it :-).
Barry Palmer 50+
And yet, sometimes hope is the only motivation to take action.
Random Chance 30+
I like that. "Hope is a motivator".
Still, the action has to follow, me thinks.
lynn eschbach 30+
Ronald Vallecer
Gail . 50+
Sams dad
Gail . 50+
Sams dad
Millennials need to know the truth about money. China will make that evident to everyone in about 3 to 7 yrs. The only way to get "our national economic act together" will require those holding all the cards (1%ers), to realize the need to help entrepreneurs that have merit. This probably wont happen. And the manipulative type who figured out how to "play" the elder with the purse strings, will take us all down before they do what's right. Which leaves personal integrity as the only possession worth pursuing.
Gail . 50+
Our culture is fear-based, so our economic and religious (and educational) systems are fundamentally flawed.
Sams dad
Gail . 50+
Evangelical christian polls show that of those aged 18-24, less than one percent have a biblical worldview. Of those aged 25-30, less than 30%. Of those aged 18-35, 45%. Of those over 65, 91%.
This all started when religions began inserting themselves in government in order to erode the civil liberties of non-christians, and force non-christians to bow to the will of the Christian "God". Rush Limbaugh, The Moral Majority, The Christian Coalition, and similar self-righteous groups have been destroying what was once something that I highly respected and was a part of.
Christians, believing that god knows what is moral and what is not, want their definition of morality legislated as law. Those who are able to connect with their conscience and discern the difference between morality and ethics are those who are more willing to treat others as they would like to be treated. If we all did this, my inalienable rights would not have been taken away from me by Christians
Sams dad
I believe we are in general agreement : the Rush out ona Limbaugh folk seem to have dropped a handful of screws somewhere but at my church I see people with many doubts about Religion. My religion is perfectly ok with those doubts and in fact requires sincere introspection. Those that call themselves Christians come in many varieties for sure; Some are fanatical others are not self limiting in any measure. The golden Rule you refer to is called "The greatest commandment" in my religion. But I would still try to persuade you from doing an immoral act; Assuming I knew it to be immoral; just as the Golden Rule requires.
It sounds as though you have encountered "Christians" of the fanatical sort which Christ himself turned away. Don't write them all off for a bunch of bad apples. This has to be true for all religions is what I am trying to get across. ( hah!: a cross )
Even the Inalienable Rights you refer to are expressly set out, otherwise you wouldn't have them and might not even know they exist.
Salim Solaiman 50+
Ken brown 30+
Do you think there are more innovative people now than there were say, back in 95'? I mean we were both adults then and in Nz the net was just beginning to be made known amongst our populace and Microsoft was the new big international player on the windows scene, with the advent of instant knowledge acquisition the young of today have far more available to them than i did, so where is this hopelessness coming from?
Salim Solaiman 50+
Understand your point and agree to great extent as well. Practically I see kids are asking more challenging questions, which most of time I found I never thought about during my childhood. That is happening because they are much more exposed to information and data than I was.
Statistically speaking, there are more innovative people now than compared to '95.......at any time point as per normal distribution curve around 2% people falls into innovative category. So in real term we have more innovative people than that of past.
W. Ying 10+
Everyone can easily change the unhappy picture into a very happy one by quitting his "invalid happiness" !
chen xin
i am a little confused .i hope you can give me a explain .
David Hamilton 50+
The question is, after the collapse, will hope start rebuilding? Probably... Human beings are survivors, and we have insane access to information. In short... A sustainable economy, won't pay back the debts of an unsustainable one... but if we create a sustainable economy... What a great problem to have.
Elizabeth Gu 30+
What made some people think that this generation has no hope is no excuse.
We are part of twigs of the tree that has been growing over many many years.
While doing our best to get some intellectual nourishment from it, we need to connect ourselves with other trees that grow upside down.
Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Those who ask the right questions will focus on the things that are helpful in the quest for solutions.
Those who focus on the gloom and doom will sink deeper into hopelessness and despair.
walter crockett
John Smith 30+
Anyone, but not everyone. I'm not completely pessimistic but I do think it's strange people expect me to have a better life if I my neighbor becomes an internet millionaire, he can't offer enough jobs to help everyone.
Iulian Sociale Ingegnere
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Gerald O'brian 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
pat gilbert 50+
David Hamilton 50+
pat gilbert 50+
Gail . 50+
When our economic system makes money more valuable than people (as it does), and when our economic system (as it works in the USA) with its wealth disparity makes it nearly impossible to go from lower to middle class, where is hope?
When the mainstream religion (in the USA) demotes women to that of something less than a man, and denies her the right to own her own body - thus forcing her to accept slavery in the name of God - and forcing her to accept responsibility for a child she cannot adequately provide for - where is hope?
When our educational systems (that exist as a subsidy for mega corporations) do not educate, we become indoctrinated into the view that people are the servants (slaves) to money. where is hope?
When people call their slavery "freedom", there can be no freedom, and without freedom, hope is cruel.
pat gilbert 50+
Perception is reality. What they have you perceiving is there is no constitution. There is although the current POTUS is trying like hell to subjugate it to his executive orders. But he can only do it if we don't get up on our hind legs and fire his ass. Along with the rest who won't cut spending our money, our future remember they work for us not the other way around. Which means you have to get above the apathy.
The disparity thing is mostly a little known fact that tax rates changed for the upper quintile which encouraged them to pay taxes as individuals instead of corporations. Also the other thing is the household income myth promoted by ignoring the fact that households are much smaller because of divorce in the last 30 years.
Women make the same as men the reason that appear different is because women take time out of their career to have children and they have a natural disposition to work less. This is a statistical fact.
Remember the standard of living that enjoy now is brought to you by Mr Mega. You wouldn't be complaining about Mr Mega if you lived in a hut and worried about getting enough to eat and the high mortality rate because of no Pharma or modern medicine that extends your life. But clearly they have penetrated the economy it couldn't possibly be the government and the union or the Federal department of education brought to us by Jimmy Carter which imo is a violation of the constitution.
Yea take another hit off that joint my friend it will kill that nasty hope thing you talk about. OR you can smell the coffee quit blaming someone else and DO something about it I know it is not easy but it is a lot more fun.
Sams dad