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Guest Post: A Twenty Something Speaks

Cognitive Dissonance's picture




 

Guest Post: A Twenty Something Speaks

By

Steak

 

(As much as anyone else, I am guilty of complaining that “the younger generation” is absent from the developing collapse dialogue. More than once I have said that if permanent change is to be made, first the young must become involved, then change needs to be embraced by the average Jane and Joe. But when the young raise their voices in anger or protest, such as the On Wall Street contingent, my tendency is to complain about the methods they use or the process they follow. This is patently unfair of me and hypocritical to boot.

With this thought in mind I present the following from Steak, a ZH Veteran by any measure with more time in than me, who many know from the playlists he drops into the comment section from time to time. Please take a few moments and read what he has to say.)

Cognitive Dissonance

12/04/2011

 

To my peers:

Being born in 1984 offers a special perspective on where society is at present, as well as where it might be going. We are digital natives who also remember the old ways. Our first years of elementary school were characterized by paper encyclopedias, library card filing systems, and Apple II computers. We reached our teenage years just in time for AOL Instant Messenger to become a dominant force in our social lives, and we weren’t just pioneers on Facebook, we were on THE Facebook.

Having a foot planted on each side of distinct historical eras defines us. While the question of generational divides along technological lines is a commonly explored theme, the great divide unique to us is economic.

Those before us only knew and only expect an ever increasing level of prosperity. Those after us only know the turmoil of collapse. The older ones are attached to a world that never truly existed, and the younger ones have trouble imagining any sort of better world. All the while we children of 1983/84 grew up in the last parabolic push of the most prosperous era in human history. It was enough that we can remember in vivid detail how it was, but it did not last so long in our lives that we have some fundamental expectation for it to persist.

At least where I grew up, the idyllic childhood in the bubble years was disrupted by a sign that perhaps things were worse than appeared on the surface. Around the time my cohort was starting middle school, many of us had new kids in our classes. Atlanta being a popular place for refugee resettlement, in the mid 90’s there was a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet republics. We gave them shit as ‘ruskies’ and ‘commies’, but they came along early enough that by high school we were all just part of the same groups.

They were hard, all of them. Where they came from there was hunger, deeply ingrained organized crime, and ethnic hatreds. Their parents were PhDs who had to work for the mafia just to make ends meet. There was a deep appreciation on their part that America was a place, still in those last few years, where if one followed the rules there was a shot at a comfortable life.

It all seemed so dramatic. We were just kids, and those were stories from distant lands. We didn’t know they were describing the violence of collapse. They didn’t know they were only the first victims of a wave that would follow them here and one day sweep the world. Looking back, those things are clear both to us and to them.

Being born 1983/84 put us in a unique position on the day of the inflection point of our time. By September 2001 we were seniors in high school and all around 18. Sure there was talk about how the government would respond, but on that day and in the following months the real question was how WE would respond. Go to college or go to war? In May of 2002 Eminem spoke directly to us when he said:

 

Fuckin' assassins hijackin' Amtracks crashing,

All this terror America demands action,

Next thing you know you've got Uncle Sam's ass askin'

To join the army or what you'll do for there Navy.

You just a baby,

Gettin' recruited at eighteen,

You're on a plane now,

Eating their food and their baked beans.

I'm 28,

They gonna take you 'fore they take me

 

Some decided to fight, some were horribly injured, and others died. I can’t commend or condemn how any of my friends decided they would respond to the attack, it was a deeply personal decision for everyone. But that was where we broke with the past. Our parents, as they were conditioned in their lifetime of prosperity, waited for someone to do something……and we realized that someone was us.

For those of us who went to college, we once again found ourselves at an interesting and unique intersection in history. As a member of the class of 2006, we had the incredible luck of entering the work force and gaining critical experience in the last year before the financial collapse. Five years later many of us are moving up to management positions, or at least have substantial resumes. This puts real decision making authority at our fingertips.

There is a responsibility to those older and younger than us, since we are a bridge between eras. It is our responsibility to tell those older than us that the world they have known all their lives is dead, and they fight for it at the expense of future generations. At the same time we must make sure their knowledge does not retire when they do. Our responsibility to those younger is to show them, not tell, but show them that a better future is possible through what we can create.

So far we are handling these responsibilities well. A decade of war has made our peers the most skilled, adaptable, and combat proven fighting force the country has seen since World War Two. 1980's baby Mark Zuckerberg helped found the social media industry, where people in their 20's are making fortunes working at the bleeding edge of technology and social interaction. And most dramatic of all, our peers are at the vanguard of revolutions all over the world from Tahrir to Wall Street.

A source of great strength is that we see the world for what it is, but have also seen what it can be. The way we engage the world is fundamentally driven by an understanding of two great waves sweeping the world. One is collapse, a collapse that began in earnest in 1991 and since then has been deferred and delayed, but not deterred. The second wave is technology. It has the potential to organize us to defend against forces that would tear apart our societies, our families, and our faith in others. Technology has the potential to give all access to pillars of free living including health, energy, and information. And it is on us to fulfill that potential.

By any quantifiable measure of wealth or opportunity, we will be the first generation of Americans to have less than our parents. Yet there is no room for self-pity. There is no room for wishing times were not so hard or that our burdens were someone else's. The coming conflagration and its fallout are ours to engage and overcome. Others wait for leaders to deliberate and decide, but we do not have that luxury. For us there is no hope. There is no fate. All there is are the things we create.

 

Steak

12/04/2011

ZH's Steak

 

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Tue, 12/06/2011 - 22:18 | 1953446 chindit13
chindit13's picture

Ah, youth is indeed wasted on the young.  Just kidding.  Good effort, and a good attitude, though you might be lacking some perspective.  Let’s hope you are as tough as you need be.  That’s all anyone can ask from himself in life.

Humanity has always taken a few steps forward, then a step or two back.  Lots of people in history have lived worse than their parents.  Your generation won’t be the first.  We all tend to think we are unique and that our experiences and challenges are more severe than what others have faced.  Generally that is a false notion.

We may or may not “collapse”, but even if we do it will be a lot more comfortable and more manageable than many previous collapses.  Though I wasn’t there, I’m guessing that period from about 300 AD until 1100 AD or so was not all that enjoyable, unless your name was Charlemagne.  After that, I think a lot of Asia, plus the Balkans, would not have liked the Mongol Years, when fully ten percent of the world’s population was slaughtered by someone now held out as a hero and icon.  To be a social critic or free thinker during the time the Tower of London was in operation probably wasn’t life enhancing either.  I suspect the challenges faced by that astonishing confluence of souls who formed a critical mass of thinking around the year 1500 were a bit more harsh than what someone born in the 1980’s or after is going to have to face.  On ZH people always talk about “black helicopters” and getting “suicided”, but this is mostly hyperbole.  Galileo, on the other hand, had some serious enemies, helicopters or not.

The Inquisition years were no picnic, nor were the various episodes with plague, one of which wiped out thirty percent of Europe.  More recently, in the 20th Century we started out with a banking panic and collapse, then the first truly World War, then German hyperinflation, followed by the Roaring Twenties as a spot of relief.  The next batch of souls after that had to face the Depression (though some could afford Duesenbergs and Bugattis), followed by WWII (the average age of lieutenants landing on Guadalcanal was nineteen), when many of the worst qualities of humanity made themselves known yet again.  The fifties were pretty good in the West, not so in Eastern Europe or much of Asia ex-Japan.  The 60’s were confusing but produced a greater degree of racial and gender equality, and most all of the backbone of what became the tech revolution.  The 70’s continued on that same path, but ended with stagflation, though another war ended in there somewhere.  Top selling products for lucky consumers included the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega.  Tbills yielded 21%, which is roughly 21% higher than today.  Non-FHA mortgages were 18%.

Life has not always been a piece of cake.

Some random thoughts…..

Let’s hope your generation is not satisfied just with Facebook.  Perhaps it has its uses, but it is hardly the integrated circuit or the microscope, and Mark Zuckerberg is not J.C. Maxwell.  The “social networking revolution” is more marketing than real value.  Even when it helps, what is the result?  Is Egypt looking like its future is now bright because of what Facebook helped start?  Facebook is actually a rather silly name, given that most “friends” never see each other face to face.  If a “social tool” doesn’t help produce oxytocin, its value is limited. Real people communicating with real people is more rewarding.  While I applaud knowledge for the sake of knowledge, information for the sake of information is not so inspiring.  Overall the tech revolution is probably a plus, but so many are now engaged in producing and supporting something whose majority use seems to be porno, music videos, and blogging, or else data mining and/or theft opportunities.

We all have our opinions about what is happening and why, and just how bad it might be.  My own belief is that the biggest and most evolutionary change that has taken place in the last fifty years, and from which many of our problems stem, is that a globalized and productive world is showing us just how unnecessary and, for lack of a better term, useless most of us are.  Many cannot make ends meet because the real value of their labor has been laid bare, and conditions and circumstances have changed that allow some in positions of authority to engage in labor arbitrage that is a great benefit to some (consumers and CEOs) and a slap in the face to others.  I think some people are complaining because they actually have to compete, which is something our arbitrary borders have saved us from for a while, at least those lucky enough to have been whelped within OECD borders.  Not any more will some accidents of birth grant someone an easier go of it.

I believe the debt bubble, as frivolous as it has been, actually bought time, as it allowed people who could not afford stuff the means to buy what they did not need, so that unnecessary people would have something to do other than receive blatant charity.  Do you know there is a single city in China where they produce 10 billion pairs of socks a year?  The world just doesn’t need too many other sock makers, so what the heck is everybody going to do?  That is what you face, and maybe the Boomers greatest fault is they were too efficient and helped make much of humanity economically redundant.

I have no idea what the solution to this problem is, and while I hope that we can stop the excesses that have allowed an elite few to take gross advantage of the system, not for a second do I think that even if we put every last banker and corporate elite, plus their political lapdogs in jail, things will get all rosy again…and this even if we are not really at peak anything, which trav7777 always reminds us we are.

Sometime in the next decade, I suspect the last great systems designer/programmer will arrive.  By last I really mean last, as there will be a system superior in speed and thinking to humans, obviating the need for anybody now engaged in such fields.  When the machine does everything better, the human becomes superfluous.  We’re almost there.

That will be the biggest challenge of your generation:  what to do with 7-8 billion people?  Perhaps you can start by doing what I’ve already done and what the Japanese and Italians are doing---or NOT doing as it were.  Don’t make babies.  There isn’t a person on this planet so valuable that the world needs his or her gene pool.  Let it go.  Go forth and don’t multiply.   There’s plenty of pre-fab humans already out there if you’re in need of a family.  That is the most humane method of population culling (non-reproduction), and will go a long way to solve most all of the problems the world is now facing.

Finally, don’t worry about the debt.  You won’t be paying it nor will anyone else, and its owners will carry the worthless notes to their graves like the former owners of Russian Tsarist Bonds.  So you might not get a free lunch, but at least you won’t be stuck with the bill either.  

Try to enjoy the ride, because it’s all there is and it goes damn quickly.

Wed, 12/07/2011 - 03:35 | 1954060 malek
malek's picture

Fantastic advice. Don't make babies. In other words don't take responsibility, especially the ultimate responsibility, but just consume. Paul Krugman would be proud.  /facepalm

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 13:58 | 1947209 Katow-jo
Katow-jo's picture

I debated commenting on this post, but here goes:

 

As the other side of the 20 something coin, let me tell you how things really are in this country for people in their 20's.  My generation has come through a school system that has been massively gutted by the generations before my own.  Shop class? Gone.  Music class? Forget it.  Civics?  What's that?  School has become a means to pass standardized tests and push people into the money making college scheme.  Trust me when I tell you the advice given by the guidance counselor to everybody was "Go to college."  I didn't go to college right out of high school due to exorbitant cost, and frankly there is no oppurtunity, even when times were "good" before the crash.  Believe it that if things don't fall completely apart there will be a ton of people who are in their 20's now who never got a career start in any sense, and just got by working a stupid service job of some sort.  What's with service jobs anyway?  How could Gen Xers and Boomers and all of the prior generations buy into that line of utter bullshit "We'll replace the stable factory jobs with the jobs of the future!  Service jobs!"  And I'm dumbfounded that nobody ever thought "Hmmm...I used to support my family with just my job, but now my wife has to go to work and we're still making less!  Oh and the CEO just quadrupled his pay?"  There should have been riots in the streets for decades...wtf happened.  This is why Occupy Wall street is out there now.  We see the problem, you never did.

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 08:28 | 1950330 Element
Element's picture

Service jobs, you know, Butlers, maids, shoe-shine boys, waiters, prostitutes (when has it been different?). An economy is ultimately created by making something that the society needs, or wants.

Poorly-educated folk (with expensive degrees) equates to a low-skilled population and service industry jobs must flourish, as well as Govt support. In Australia there's "work for the dole", or alternatively, you chose to work in some low-paid service job you don't want, for very long hours, with an arsehole for a boss, with no accruing benefits and no means to exit this tread-mill, except via deadness.

And all those college lecturers that you're encouraged to pay to listen to (and let's not forget, all those registered 'trainers' that keep infesting every orgynisation in greater and greater numbers), are in the services industry as well, even if they don't want to admit it, i.e. they're actually low-skilled parasites who mostly offer nothing of worth when all is said and done -- but charge you a fortune for it.

Making nothing look like something pays a lot better than the average service job.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 13:00 | 1946991 Zola
Zola's picture

Agreed, i have the utmost respect for the greatest generation, those that went through really hard times like WW2 and the great depression (probably you re still a bit young for that). Remains to be seen whether Millenials will rise to the challenge in this fourth turning.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 12:53 | 1946961 chumbawamba
chumbawamba's picture

While I was raised on cartoons where it was OK for Elmer Fudd to shoot Daffy Duck in the face point blank with a shotgun, Steak's generation was raised on The Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, and the Care Bears.  That should explain a lot.

Steak, you've always been a fan of he Military Industrial Complex.  Fighting peasants with AK47s isn't entirely impressive, especially from the comfort of an office complex in Las Vegas (remember to get that dozen of eggs on the way home from work that your wife asked you to).  Mark Zukcerturd didn't invent anything that wasn't already there, with a business plan developed and funded by the CIA.  Eminem's brilliance has its limits (you should've chosen better material to quote).

The jury is still out on your generation, and mine is very judgmental.  Let's see what you got.

I am Chumbawamba.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 10:22 | 1946345 HITMAN56
HITMAN56's picture

Well said Steak.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:55 | 1946178 ReeferMac
ReeferMac's picture

You dumb ass punk fucking kid.

Grow the fuck up man, this isn't a game on your Nintendo, this is real life!

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:30 | 1946151 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

Where do I start?

"Our parents, as they were conditioned in their lifetime of prosperity, waited for someone to do something……and we realized that someone was us."

You might have been born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth, kid.  I wasn't.

Having a foot planted on each side of distinct historical eras defines us.

You have got to be shitting me.

Those before us only knew and only expect an ever increasing level of prosperity.

No, you're thinking of the 30- and 40-somethings, the absolutely wasted generation. 

The older ones are attached to a world that never truly existed,

Lots of us have been warning of this for goddamned decades.  Don't lecture me when you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

and the younger ones have trouble imagining any sort of better world.

That's because they spend all of their time on social media, and so their time horizon for the "future" is the 30 seconds it will take for the next text or facebook post to come in.  Mark fucking Zuckerberg?  You have got to be shitting me.  May he and Steve fucking Jobs rot in Hell.  A nation of empty-headed tech-obsessed mall rats, you are, succumbing to Madison Avenue Bullshit about being cool by having the next cool phone / i-whatever.  God help us.  The TV commercial with the two girls sitting across from each other at a kitchen table texting each other is the defining moment for your tech-obsessed generation(s).  These are the people who are going to change the world, on whose shoulders rests the future of American liberty? 

Check, please.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 11:44 | 1946216 Janestool
Janestool's picture

GEn?

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 07:51 | 1946115 barroter
barroter's picture

The older I get, the more I'm convinced of this thought...humanity never really changes. 

I love reading histories and what strikes me is that the content of humanity changes but never the form.  Everything that has happened before can and will happen again, albeit in trendier clothing.  Populist revolutions that succeed, advances in science, Auschwitz, child abuse, theft on a monumental scale...all of this has happened before. Why wouldn't they happen again?

Today's youth are human and are NOT immune to the darker aspects of our breed. The one thing the youth do own over us older ones is there youth and exuberance.  

Will things change with this generation or succeeding ones?  The changes they possibly can make are going to be very human ones.  I'm guessing they'll decide accordingly.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:17 | 1946135 Carlyle Groupie
Carlyle Groupie's picture

Youth and exuberance...

The real problem with this culture is the incessant need to worship youth, exuberance, sexiness. The young are the easiest to influence and prostitute and therefore the most manipulative focus on being pimp daddy.

As much as anyone else, I am guilty of complaining that “the younger generation” is absent from the developing collapse dialogue. More than once I have said that if permanent change is to be made, first the young must become involved, then change needs to be embraced by the average Jane and Joe.

The fucking young add nothing of value and it is an absolute idealistic fool who thinks they do. Or an outright pimp.

Long live the elders!

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:48 | 1946067 Ruth
Ruth's picture

Thank you Steak for bringing back your voice, for a '60s child I was truly sheltered and remained with head in sand only to find banking (my profession) had blown up the world.  My parents, the last of the savings generation, too, were the model, oh there were some conspiracy theories in their day that just recently were passed down, as neither of my parents were in war and worked in education, hence head in sand.  Paradigms are shifting, and change is neither appreciated or wanted til...it is.  The only thing about war I remember is the damage to the men and women that fought it, but am thankful for the service to us and the freedom they fought to bring.  But now as I learn some of the true reasons of war, making money for banks, defending our energy sources and the picking and choosing winners and losers, ZH has brought me to a better understanding what it means and what will be required to fight and die for something that matters.  Our crony capitalism is not working anymore, I do not embrace corruption and now seek with all my might to find it and seek others that will stand against it.  Our veils and story we tell ourselves is being looked at if not in public but in private, with shame, as the corruption we see, as a sympton to a bigger problem (that was in ourselves), getting real takes balls and getting your head out of the sand takes strength to change what we before dared not say.  It's now Do or Die for everyone, not just the military.  There will be a greater justice.  Count on it.  Godspeed.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:55 | 1946069 clymer
clymer's picture

Sir,

I got you by a few years.. I fall into the 'x' category.

One quick observation: you mentioned 9-11, but failed to mention that the entire event was FUCKING STAGED

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO2yT0uBQbM

Look for a large close by hilltop, hike to it and climb to the top. Look at where you were standing before, and try to see the forest from above as opposed to the trees from within

 

 

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:48 | 1946066 Leraconteur
Leraconteur's picture

Technology has the potential to give all access to pillars of free living including health, energy, and information.

It certainly does, and when all have access to those free pillars you get what has happened to the USA since 1996 - plummeting wages as The Internet acts as a global Tragedy of the Commons and all available resources are clear-cut in a race to the bottom in price, cost, open-source or your 'pillars of free...'. The resource, in this case, is all human labour on planet earth, your wages, and your standard of living.

When you download a torrent, you destroy your own wages and it's why you and your friends don't make any real money.

You will be lucky to earn 22k a year for life, at best.

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 07:39 | 1950290 Element
Element's picture

Someone posted this book on zh last year. I read it (twice).  It's nothing special from an economics or finance perspective, but the implications of technology and the premonitions it lays out are more than a bit worrying. I regularly see people repeat the notion that an intelligent species can not overpopulate or even make a complete mess of things. But technology writer Martin Ford makes it clear, within this book, that's a delusion.

Martin Ford - The Lights in the Tunnel

(free download via this link)

http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/setprice.htm

His website:

http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:43 | 1946162 barroter
barroter's picture

The computer and internet is a double edged sword as someone else has said already.  Yeah, they can thank Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Zuckerberg all they want for blazing the New Frontier.  However, enjoy it as the same technology wipes out your job that now canbe done via the Holy Internet by someone in India...for far less. 

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:21 | 1946052 Zola
Zola's picture

What i would like to hear from is from people who were in their 20s at the time of the moon landings and before the US dollar was delinked from Gold. I think the sense of America plowing ever further forward must have been amazing. I remember reading books where they were talking about space cities by 2000 if things kept on evolving at that pace. Something really changed around that period i believe. Cue the real wages...

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:15 | 1946046 jhcullen
jhcullen's picture

 

I was born in 1991. I grew up in Boston in a rich white suburban town. I wanted to shake things up so i study at the College of Charleston. Nobody i have met down here knows anything about any of this. You all know the story... our world is falling apart. The masses aren't waking up. The masses are being further deceived into thinking the "status quo" is what has always existed and will always exist. In class on Friday we had a guest speaker who was an army nurse. She told horrific stories about how the humvees in Iraq cant stop because it risks getting shot at. She then went on to ask the class, "why are we in Iraq?" A beautiful girl delivered one of the best speeches I have have ever heard in class. However the speech was about America the peacekeeper. She talked about how being in Iraq shows that we whole heartedly care for other nations and understand the importance of democracy. She has no idea that were there for oil and over 1,000,000 Iraq's have died. It basically sums up my generation in a nutshell... We are completely brainwashed. America from an average students perspective at the CofC is that we are the "good cops" for the world. I don't imagine many of you have faceook. But when we killed Osama it was a microcosm of 9/11. Everyone updated their status to, " we got him" or "fuck yeah America". Why is this a major problem? Our government can release anything they want in order to influence policy. All they have to do is put a Patriotic Spin on news and we will eat that shit up for a week or so and then it will die off. Cant you see this scenario in the future? Headlines>>> Russia/China use military force against NATO and US troops on the outskirts of Iran. That is all our government has to do (doesn't matter whether its true or not) to "rally the troops". Then they absolutely swarm mainstream media with negative press against Russia and China. We could be convinced tomorrow that WW3 is necessary and imminent. The vast majority of my generation would totally believe it. 

 I live in two different worlds. My reality is college where we drink, do the minimum amount of schoolwork necessary to please our parents, girls are insane because they are forced by the media to maintain a standard of beauty that isn't possible, and guys evaluate success by how much "pussy" they get. Then there is the zerohedge world where the reality is that humanity is no different than that of an algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. Humanity rapidly expanded with an abundance of recourses essential to sustain the growth. We've exhausted those recourses and they can no longer propel us into a brighter future. As a result our oil powered system has a one way ticket to collapse. So what am I doing? I don't gain knowledge from being at school. I gain knowledge from reading zerohedge, playing guitar, and books. But I suffer through classes of "macroeconomics" which is boring and complete bullshit just to get handed a piece of paper saying I can be part of the system after 20+ years of schooling. It has become engrained in my culture that this system is the norm. However the irony in it all is that this system will be a mere shadow of itself or not exist at all in 20 years. People are going to freak when they go to the grocery store and milk is 40 bucks. That is precisely when the government will load mainstream media with our next war...which will most likely be the end or close to the end of humanity's existence. 

 Any advice? What would you do different if you could be in my shoes? 

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 08:18 | 1946138 nickt1y
nickt1y's picture

1. If you can not pay for college get out until you can. Do not get trapped into a serf's life by loans for college.

2. If you are not getting a hard sciebce or engineering degree get out.

3. Use that tuition money to learn a hard skill. Welding for instance. Gunsmithing ...

4. Read Starving the Monkeys http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/

5. Invest in the 4 precious metals. Gold, Silver, brass and lead.

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 14:34 | 1947383 Katow-jo
Katow-jo's picture

I learned welding.  The jobs aren't there in a lot of cases.  I'm not saying DON'T learn welding, but I work as a welder for minimum wage right now, and work is very irregular.  The greatest benefit so far is I can build and repair things for myself and friends for free, taking some of the financial burden of life off the people I care about.  But investing in a skill like this is a long term job possibility at best.  Do it for yourself if anything.  College for a science or engineering is a great idea though, I'd bet that in 50 years science/engineering is going to be an important community skill. 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 06:45 | 1946065 dolph9
dolph9's picture

For what it's worth your description doesn't sound different than the way things were 10 years ago.

Just do what the rest of us do:  learn to survive on very little, buy gold and silver, and don't trust a word coming from the government or media.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 11:40 | 1946625 Ponzi Unit
Ponzi Unit's picture

Except we are entering endstage of multi-generational debt supercycle. I'd say it's more analagous to graduating from college in 1928. Most earnings were stunted, careers sidetracked, talent wasted in the Great Depression.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 05:05 | 1946017 The Navigator
The Navigator's picture

Hey Steak

Don't buy into the generational bullshit. Yes my mom paid into SS and has taken out more than she put in now that she's 83. But that wasn't her, it was the bull shit coming from US Govt that FORCED everyone into that ponzi scheme. Was it her fault that was forced to pay into the program and now she's exceeded her life expectancy?

The better answer is found in another ZH article, 

Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/debt-slavery-–-why-it-destroyed-rome-why-it-will-destroy-us-unless-it’s-stopped

The bankers have been fucking all of us over for thousands of years. The difference now is the elite with their propoganda MSM machine are able to paint it as black versus white, old versus young. When in fact the "us versus them" is bankers versus the people, the same story for thousands of years.

 

Semper Peratus, the Navigator

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 04:40 | 1945997 Element
Element's picture

1980's baby Mark Zuckerberg helped found the social media industry, where people in their 20's are making fortunes working at the bleeding edge of technology and social interaction.

 

The ground-rules remain the same always, for every generation. These peeps are one CME solar-storm away from hunger, malnutrition and cannibalism.  

To say the older-gen are holding on to a world that never was, is a bit iffy, when they at least have a track-record, while you're gen are yet to even complete a Lap of the track, and when the emerging 'world' and 'fortunes' you speak of are all electronic abstractions. You can be besotted by abstractive technologies, but that still does not mean it won't take-out humanity due to a lack of production, or a disruption of material necessities, due to the resulting serial incompetence of a generation that knows nothing but an abundance of abstraction.

Vulnerability is our fete, and it always has been.

The more we specialise in non-productive but 'creative' abstractions, like facebook, the more vulnerable we become to the greater down-side risk of it all failing, in unforeseen ways.

Then what? ... seriously ... what would you do?

What you would then do is turn to the older generation's experience and knowledge to pull you though.

We're used to the increased up-side of abundance from the use of tools that are the result of abstraction. But abundance (what we actually need) is not an abstraction. You're gen is not changing any of the ground-rules for a civilisation, it is only swapping and juggling an expanding series of non-material memes, and pretending these actually matter.

It's ok if you forget the ground-rules, the universe is very merciful, it will teach you again what really matters, and what doesn't at all.

That is Love.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 03:54 | 1945982 Edelweiss
Edelweiss's picture

  I can appreciate some aspects of this article.  The fact that someone in their 20's is focused on the currently unfolding economic, and social catastrophe for one.  Most of the people I meet from that generation are minimally aware of, much less educated, about the subjects that appear on the pages of ZH daily.  I can't help noticing a strong bias toward the perceived benefits of technology, and youthful thinking though.  Most of us at the same age believed we were better equipped than previous generations to deal with what was ahead of us.  I have to admit, I'm amazed at the lack of practical knowlege many of them have.  Most of the younger (I'm 40) guys I work with can navigate their Iphone's expertly, but have difficulty making simple car, and home repairs.  When I do encounter someone who's asking for advice, I share what I know.  When someone speaking from experience offers advice, I shut up and listen.  Self sufficiency is a beautiful thing at any  age.

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 20:16 | 1953149 nmewn
nmewn's picture

This.

Words of wisdom.

"Most of the younger (I'm 40) guys I work with can navigate their Iphone's expertly, but have difficulty making simple car, and home repairs."

I've noticed the same. I've thought about it...alot. I can't put my finger on it. Don't know if they grew up in the "throw it away generation" or didn't have fathers or what. It can't be a lack of patience because they've mastered the i-phone.

Maybe they think its beneath them...I really don't know. And I'm not slammin anyone.

One would think just the common sense of curiousity (what makes this work...I'm gonna check it out, I've got plastic if I screw it up too bad) would take over...lol.

Great comment.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 02:17 | 1945913 woolly mammoth
woolly mammoth's picture

Thanks CD for giving Steak a platform to speak from.

Steak, my generation protested war, protested the MAN, was going to correct all the injustices of the world. Instead we've eliminated large amounts of civil liberties, ran up unplayable amounts of debt, and carpet bomb whole countrys in trying to cover-up our missteps.  Good Luck. I do hope their is something left for future generations after my generation is finally done trashing the place.   

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 02:18 | 1945912 wharfdaddy
wharfdaddy's picture

I was born in 1954. 7 kids. Good Catholic Family. Dad was a drunk. When Mom died I went through her income taxes. Early sixties annual income for us was in the $3000 range and pushing $5000 toward the end of the decade. Granted...there was the government cheese but really the 60's and 70s were not all fun and games and prosperity.

Late seventies I joined the military to escape.

I spent 23 years in the military to find out that it is chickenhawks and bankers who get the girl..I believed all of that red, white and blue shit and then I find out it's my government who pulls off 9-11 in order to prosecute malicious wars and enrich a buncha big-nosed cocksuckers. All of these wars are to make a chickenhawk rich just like they have always been. The old are quick to send young people off to fight and die and always have been. 

I know that there have been good people down through the ages, mostly just trying to get along and go along.

My daddy was born in 1928 the year after the world hit it's 2nd billion persons...now we got 7 billion....

My grand daddy used to say.."FUCK-FIGHT OR HOLD THE LIGHT"

I say Dig Yerself Man.....the only thing worse than being young and poor is being old and poor....and then old, poor and black...and then old, poor, female and black...all I'm saying is that most of the so-called rich americans you see are 20 maybe 30 years from crappin in a shithole, ain't nothin new under the sun, the more things change the more they stay the same and one way or the other this darkness has got to give.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 01:57 | 1945890 malek
malek's picture

Hi Steak, I agree with pretty much everything you wrote above the Eminem quote.

But then you are a bit off on a few things.
The September 2001 has been and still is vastly overrated. If was effectively a mosquito bite to an elephant. Reviewing the ineffectiveness of our intelligence agencies, besides wiping out the Taliban in Afghanistan and then leaving the country immediately, would have been a sufficient response.

Your "most combat proven fighting forces since World War Two" otherwise have fought only wars of pure choice against hopelessly inferior enemies. They have not seen real large scale battle yet, but many are already disillusioned what they are exactly fighting for.

What your generation has to do, without becoming a believer in any Peak Whatever doomsday scenario, is be ready to live with less just as you said, plus for a change take on more responsibility for your actions than your predecessors. This includes things like planning for your retirement funding yourself, just as I am doing even though I am almost 2 decades older than you.

You have to put more thought into the human dichotomy of rational and emotional needs.
Existing and to be developed technologies are needed, but can mostly only cover needs in the rational world, like putting food on your table. Many emotional needs cannot be ultimately satisfied with technology - always keep that in mind when looking at facebook et al.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 02:15 | 1945911 Ahmeexnal
Ahmeexnal's picture

Generation F(acebook) is just a retarded bunch of sheep.

Overexposure to microwaves (kitchen and cordless tech), industrialized food, video game consoles, and multi Ph.D. education has crippled them beyond repair.

 

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 16:45 | 1948082 Ahmeexnal
Ahmeexnal's picture

Ahhh... The Nile.

My son is not a junkie, he's just experimenting.
My son is not fat, he's just big boned.
My son is not a sheep, he's just a good boy.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 03:14 | 1945958 MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

I marked you down. I tell folks when I do that unless someone else already expressed my thoughts for me.

Do you have kids? I will never write mine off as a "retarded sheep."

If I thought that, then it means I need to work harder while I still have him under my roof. 

Peace out.

MsCreant

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 04:45 | 1946010 Element
Element's picture

Peace out.

 

Ah, nice Stalker reference ...

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 04:42 | 1946005 stacking12321
stacking12321's picture

i marked him up to counter-act your marking him down.

i have no opinion about your retarded sheep.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 01:53 | 1945871 Ponzi Unit
Ponzi Unit's picture

Steak has done well. I am surprised and a little saddened by the pool of anger discernible in the ZH readership. What's with the piling on and back-biting, the defensive stances, the knee-jerk hostility? Sure, it's Fight Club, and God knows I have delivered hard shots to a number of clowns on this site, but Steak is not a clown. His account has the ring of sincerity and truthfulness. It's the perspective of a 28-year old, of a thinking person coming to grips with a much tougher 20 years than I -- lunch with friends, work in the yard, study markets, run some dough, play bridge, and generally coast in comfort. We are on our way to Mexico soon for the winter. Although I envy Steak his youth and strength, I feel compassion for the challenges he faces, and respect for his readiness to plunge into the stream of life. 

Steak: In case you haven't seen these, they may provide you with some intellectual armor, after all, forewarned is forearmed:

Century of the Self (YouTube)

Renaissance 2.0 (YouTube)

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 01:29 | 1945856 dolph9
dolph9's picture

I'm turning 31, consider myself sort of tail Gen. X rather than Y.  But whatever.

I remember the 80s and 90s, they were crazy but fun times and America still had heart and soul and was somewhat sane.

The collapse really started around 2000-01, with the market crash and 9/11 and the never ending wars and the intrusion of technology and the police state into everything.

Fuck everybody who made this dystopia possible.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 01:43 | 1945880 Bananamerican
Bananamerican's picture

"Eminem spoke directly to us when he said:

Fuckin' assassins hijackin' Amtracks crashing,All this terror America demands action,Next thing you know you've got Uncle Sam's ass askin'To join the army or what you'll do for there Navy.You just a baby,Gettin' recruited at eighteen,You're on a plane now,Eating their food and their baked beans.I'm 28,They gonna take you 'fore they take me"


and the sad thing is Eminem said precisely SQUAT here...is this representative(?) if so, then the paucity of "value" bequeathed to your generation runs deeper than I relaized.

This valedictory speech is poorly written. It is unoriginal, cloying & full of cliche....

OWS is where it's at...all the rest is editorial

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 10:31 | 1945800 L.O.C
L.O.C's picture

 

 

 

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 00:41 | 1945785 CapitalistRock
CapitalistRock's picture

You have got to be kidding me. Life since 1983 has been meteoric prosperity (until recently). To say that the generation older than you knows of only prosperity is ludicrous. Not only did they live through a hellish stagflation of the 1970s, but they also lived through YOUR generation. We've been right here with you.

When I was your age I did not appreciate history either. I was well into my 30s before the light came on and I realized that, just like they tried to beat into my head over and over, history repeats itself. Human nature does not change. Only the tools humans use changes.

So now I care very much what generations before me did. What my parents and grandparents lived through is important. It has made very clear for me what is happening today. It's not a mystery anymore. Societies have been here MANY times before.

Don't get fooled into thinking that some new technology is changing the world. I'm an engineer. I used to think like you do. But we engineers are just building new tools. Greed, slothiness, arrogance, and struggle aren't defined by the tools we use. So what if I built the Internet infrastructure that you grew up with? You used it. I understood its workings inside and out while you were using it. It doesn't make you special or more knowledgable. It's just not important. They're tools. Human nature is what is causing your suffering today.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 05:17 | 1946024 Element
Element's picture

I made a post down the page then started reading up through the comments and most people basically said much the same thing as I did.

In recently interacting with 'troubled' teens in the age range 16 to 17 years I endlessly found it astounding that they really believed that their time and generation is fundamentally different to any other before it, and that people double and tripple their age really can't understand what they "go through". When in fact, everything they are "going through", is an open book to us, because we've been through the same fundamental experiences.

Then they say their technology makes it all the more intense for them. They actually think that technology makes it all different, and they can't grasp that it fundamentally makes no difference at all to the human social condition and experience.

To which I said, "it has an off-button ... if you want to see for yourself".

They just looked at me speechless, as though I'd just slapped them, or really scared them.

They simply have no comeback to "turn it off, and see how you go then".

And sadly, they also think that's not an option.

The difference is I can turn the PC and phone off, at any time, and feel normal and contented.

But they say they couldn't possibly stand it.

Which means they are profoundly addicted.

Which is why they are 'troubled'.

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 00:30 | 1945771 Seer
Seer's picture

Steak, learn from one of the greatest minds of the modern era:

The Mike Wallace Interview
Aldous Huxley
5/18/58

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous.html

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 23:05 | 1945637 Nels
Nels's picture

Those before us only knew and only expect an ever increasing level of prosperity.

This shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of history.  For somebody born in '84, this would only apply to somebody born in the previous 20 years or so who also was blindered about what happened in the 70s.  Prosperity only came back around starting in the early 80s, so this writer would be of the first generation to not know economic upset.  His parents and grandparents let him down as far as teaching him reality, as they both would have known of such troubles.

Some families, and some areas, might have seen continual improvement over that time, but it was not the general case.

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 20:31 | 1945244 jusman
jusman's picture

Ahhhh.....the last 2 posts helped. Thanks guys (gals?).  (Must be the effects of putting up Christmas decorations....)  anf @ISEEIT...me too.

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 20:03 | 1945185 Tompooz
Tompooz's picture

Steak, put yourself in the shoes of a chinese boy of your age. He will have to compete hard for his education, his job and his wages. He is not competing with pampered american kids, but with other lean chinese kids. 

Yet, he is more optimistic than you are. He expects a much brighter future for himself than his parents have now.

Living with less is not necessarily a bad thing, when you start with affluence.  You can see it as something positive that could improve your life.

Just make sure that you don't end up accepting less freedom.. 

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 21:32 | 1945380 pitz
pitz's picture

I have no problem living with less.  I do have a problem when the finance/banking/government leech cocksuckers seem to be able to avoid their share of 'living with less'.

 

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 19:51 | 1945149 ISEEIT
ISEEIT's picture

ZH is special. ZH is likely under appreciated and underloved.

You people who created this were WAY ahead and FAR more precient than we even today understand.

You are revolutionaries. You are the drug of choice for we average people.

I'm drunk.

But I know that ZH is transformative and I love it.

ZH is (IMHO) the messy place where cognative dissonence and the hegelian dialectic can be put to trial. ZH is what we find once leaving Plato's cave.

ZH is good and good is rare.

Oh, and did I mention that I am drunk? (that is NOT rare, but I digress).

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 19:42 | 1945131 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Steak,

Thanks for showing the sense of frustration felt by some of your generation. The more things change the more they stay the same it seems.

Every generation faces the same insecurities, real or imagined as you. I envision it being a little tougher to sort out for those your age because of technology. News & events come at you from every angle and at the speed of light 24/7. When I grew up (60's-70's) it was all spoon fed to us by Walter Cronkite-Dan Rather-David Brinkley. We had three TV networks…lol.

You still have to go through it and see what fits and what doesn't. Who is promoting what agenda and do you align with that agenda. Boil it down to its essence and ts not much different now except for the variety of sources.

Rightly or wrongly the majority of Boomers were blissfully unaware of Keynesian Theory and debt issuance used as the source of the national currency. Unless one took economic courses in college no one understood the root of it. It was something exchanged for labor and that was the end of it. Now everyone knows and choices will have to be made. Continue living a lie or create something new.

What got me thinking about this (lies & obfuscation) was your comment on Tahrir Square and what I assume is OWS. Many people (myself included) made the point that this movement may not be the best thing in the world at all. We were shouted down by those promoting "democracy" at all costs. Our words of caution about the Muslim Brotherhood went unheeded, now they have held “democratic elections”…guess who came out on top? This is not to say I have ever supported monarchs and dictators. Everyone who knows me knows I do not.

It is to say, what comes after can be much much worse than what came before. Just as it is not right for a fruit peddler in Tunisia to have to kill himself out of frustration in order for the world to see life under the boot of a dictator/monarch, it is not right what is about to happen to Coptic Christians in Egypt now under a “democratically elected” theocracy.

You should also understand I feel OWS was a contrivance by those who did not have your best long term interests at heart. It cannot be right & proper in our world that an “outrage movement” that is pure to its cause allows its participants to be brutalized for the sake of still more outrage.

I never thought when I was young that I would ever be in the position to be an “elder” to give advice (probably like you think now) but here goes…always find a balance between your heart and your intelligence and you will be fine in this life.

Take care and I would be honored for you to call me friend...all I can ever give or promise you is to never lie to you and of course, to make it my point to not agree with you 100% of the time ;-)

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 19:25 | 1945082 SMC
SMC's picture

Thanks Steak, I enjoyed reading your article.

I'm a poor, ignorant, tail end boomer, high school drop out, with no debt, 50 acres and doing my best to get smarter about the world. I apologize for my lack of communication skills.

As I've told our local congressman and state senators on more than one occasion - my family has no desire for government handouts of any kind. We will not become parasites living off the labors of others - they can keep their Social Security, SNAP, agricultural subsidies, etc... just get rid of the deficit and pay down the debt.

I am smart enough to realize that fiat money is worthless, it suffices to pay taxes and serves as a medium of exchange that unfortunately loses purchasing power every trip into town. What matters is a person's abilities and their utilization of productive assets.

I don't know if you have listened to Chris Martenson (http://www.chrismartenson.com), I think many would benefit from hearing your opinions about the data and conclusions of his "The Crash Course" presentation (it is available on his web site).

Thank you again for your efforts and candor.

Wish you the best. Don't forget that age and treachery often defeats youth and skill - never underestimate your opponents.

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 19:17 | 1945075 jusman
jusman's picture

Born in '56.  Electrical Engineerin power. After 3 severance packages from the same multinational company (am a glutton for punishment), got off my ass and invested in a new one.  Most of the comments above shock me at how bitter they are!  What is "LIFE" about anyways?  Loving (in the emotional sense) as many as we can.  Making small changes for the better in those whose lives we intersect.  Knowing that our presencein this life made a positive difference to others.

The acid vitriol that gets posted tells me there are a few that need to reevaluate their value system...

 

Love to all

j

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