The very last thing I love is my country, that is for sure.
I don't think this is a generational thing. Governments have always been trying to spy on their citizens since governments have existed. Back in the 1700s, John Wallis and the Rossignols were routinely reading diplomatic letters. Before the invention of the internet, the "Special Investigations Unit" of the Post Office was routinely opening people's letters and copying them to MI5. Even Snowden's revelations simply show that the government continues to pry into everyone's private lives - only the scale of the abuse has been magnified.
When so-called "millennials" walk the halls of power, they'll try to spy on their citizens too. Their bogeyman might not be terrorism - that was their parents' bogeyman, and their grandparents' were Communists, their great-grandparents' were Fifth Columnists, etc...
It's not clear how to make the situation any better when both major parties in the UK are committed authoritarians whose security policies are dictated by MI5 and GCHQ. The public, "millennials" or not, in the UK seemed quite unmoved by the Snowden revelations, and seem happy for the panopticon to continue.
Where did you think of going?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/german_french_minis...
sadly it seems as if all security services in nearly all developed countries want this sort of thing, and the UK is simply a few months ahead here
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/19/eu-outlaw...
the governments of the member states (essentially the Council) want it, so it will happen
Of course, with the UK leaving the EU and potentially tearing up the Human Rights Act it might not matter but as for the EU having power to stop this in EU member states I think the courts are the most likely solution.
[0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3245181-C-203-15-amp...
Careful now, that sounds alarmingly subversive. You might be a pre-terrorist, and we need to see all your files, have your private encryption keys, and monitor all your communications. You know, because terrorism.
Of course, if you'd join the Tories, we can make things easier for you....
It's not as though 'millennials' are so big on rights, take a look at Twitter to see how happy people are to suppress e.g. free speech as long as they're the ones who get to do the suppressing.
Eventually, you realize that you were just in the intellectual minority of a generation that was majority unintellectual. Like every generation pretty much ever. We have just become extremely effective in isolating ourselves from exposure to the real "average". But even online, there is a vast difference between the ignorance of certain sects of Facebook or the comments on a yahoo news story and the trolls on 4chan - the later are still "our" people. Even if they want to abuse their intellectual leanings, they still grew up with that mindset. The average Facebook post or comment on a Fox News or CNN story reflects the broader, more general mindset much better.
And the outlook isn't good. For any generation.
The problem is more kids are growing up anti-intellectual than intellectual. IQ has nothing to do with that, intellectuals uplifted civilization from effectively universal anti-intellectualism (at least in Europe) in the 16th century to where we are now.
We have the most intellectuals ever now, but that doesn't mean we are close to a majority, and that also means as long as anti-intellectualism is prevalent you need systems of rule by minority (in various forms) to see progress happen.