Is the millennial generation really THAT unlucky?

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The world is changing due to the Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, robotics and automation. See whats happening: zero hour contracts, gig economy, eradication of job security, job taylorisation, job market dualisation, declining wage share etc., etc.

That is why there are ideas about Universal Basic Income or Universal Divident.

Let’ s have a look on documentary “American Factory” in Netflix - long story about Chinese investment in USA and the movie ended with the workers replaced by robots. It is OK, if workers have the means and opportunities for education, but otherwise?

I have many discussion about this in CAF threads about communism, socialism. World is changing. Capitalism was OK for its time. But maybe there is needed something else?

Personally I am quite happy - I have more or less normal job in IT, I have last year masters studies and I am building my startup for Artificial Intelligence. So, my future is secure, most secure one can imagine. But I feel sorrow for those whose jobs will be automated. So - spreading ideas of social security, social-libear ideas of human development and of postcapitalism - that is my service to the community and society. There are so many who still don’t understand this.
 
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When Trump was elected President, the first following issue of The Economist noted, that at least 50% of US society (those, under current median income) today are living worse than 50 years ago. Yes, we can have cell phones and TV sets and personal computers. But cost of medicine, education, housing - all those essential things relatively to the income - all that is worse than 50 years ago.

And I consider the surge of political activism and culture wars in the recent decades in the context of those economic developments and job insecurity and economic crises. All that certainly make people nervous and disoriented. The few technocrats are going ahead and reaping all the reward of technological developments. But majority of remaining people for some reason stays and are required to stay outside those developments. So, they are loosing the usual signals of rewards and gratification and that is why they are seeking ideologies, faiths, cultural identities, nationalism, race etc. Well - own house, family, financial security - these are the most important things in life. And when people are in despair to get them, then they are exchaning the economic activity with political activism and culture wars.
 
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arvo said:
But I feel sorrow for those whose jobs will be automated.
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The same was said of Ransom E Olds in 1901 and Henry Ford in 1908.

You are in a far more sophisticated area than a whale of a lot of people in the workforce. And it always seems that there are jobs which require skills which a robot will not be doing (not too many pipe fitters or electricians being replaced) and while it might make checking in and ordering faster with a robot in a fast food place, there are still a lot of people employed - not to mention a vast array of jobs which have nothing to do with robotization.

Part of the problem is we have far too many colleges and universities graduating far too many people in the Humanities, and far too few in the sciences and engineering fields.

It is never going to level out perfectly; utopia is a figment of imagination.
 
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arvo said:
But cost of medicine, education, housing - all those essential things relatively to the income - all that is worse than 50 years ago.
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Yes; I would agree; and while doing so I would point out that 50 years ago a friend of mine would be dead 4 years past, but a new and different drug for treating cancer has kept him alive and in the workforce for the last 4 years. It is basically now past the testing stage (he was in the last round of testing) and at a cost of somewhere around $45,000 a treatment, once per week, he is graced that he has a solid medical insurance policy and that he is not charged; as the treatment has still been in testing. But getting from the few dosages currently made (because it is in testing) and determining if it will be a world- wide available drug (which brings down cost because of greater availability) it is still going to be expensive.

And 50 years ago it had not even been dreamed of, as the science was not yet that developed.

Housing 50 years ago had far less selection; houses were pretty much cookie cutter and that vast majority were not the 2500 to 3500 sf “light white bright” boxes that the now de rigueur $100,000 to $200,000 family of two working parents, 1.9 average children and a designer do now want.

the population also has grown, and more houses have been built, which equates with more ground having been developed and less ground available for development, and the rule of supply and demand is not going to be rewritten because we now have Marxist children in the streets demanding it.

Housing costs are considered astronomical and depending on the area, they are; other areas are far lower.

A friend bought a house in late 1979, tract house in a 200+/- housing development; 3 br. 2 bath 1420 sf; it was the second form the bottom in size at the time. In 2015, after a complete remodel including new windows, new doors, complete renovation of the bathroom and kitchen with new cabinets, new appliances, granite counters, and a mix of hardwood and carpeting flooring, a rebuilt three tier deck of about 600 sf, and complete renewed landscaping for $329,000. At the time, no other house in the enighborhood had been so remodeled, and it was the equivalent of a brand new house. Except that no builder was building one level houses in that size anywhere in the area.

Had it not been remodeled, it would have sold for $60,000 to $70,000 less - and needed a remodel. That would equal an average appreciation of about 3.85%. a bit high of the usual rule of thumb, except that the area was fairly well built out and close to the main city, and an urban growth boundary was forcing land prices higher still.

That owner had to stretch for all they could when they bought. Just as young people have to do now; except many of them neither have the financial discipline or knowledge to do so, nor are they interested in what their parents or grandparents had to sacrifice to give them what they now have - including opportunities.
 
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The very concept of generations became popular only because of William Strauss and Neil Howe, who promote an apocalyptic theory saying that the world needs to go through a major war or revolution every 80 years. No historian takes this concept seriously, it’s pure pop-culture pretending to be history. The word “millennial” was invented by those two shysters. I don’t ever use it.
 
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