Comment by ydb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ydb | Hacker News Reader

Most people would think the government is responsible for all these drug epidemics: the DEA jailing minorities on minor infractions or the CIA hustling cocaine between countries (look it up).

But really the true culprit is just the youth, and always has been. Ever since the early 1900s traditional family values and social community/cohesion has been seriously on decline. Say what you will about Ted Kaczynski, but his essay/book Industrial Society and its Future is a wealth of knowledge on this subject (strange I know coming from a Christian woman).

But look at it this way: people resort to drugs because reality sucks. Why does reality suck? Well, we live in a society, and this very society (and its implicit social network) causes our youth to suffer.

Just look at how much the new Joker movie resonated with kids, teenagers and young adults! Heck, my niece of 12 years was itching to put on a mask and march in the street after she walked out of the theater. It was terrifying.

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

― Socrates

Not a real quote by Socrates, BTW. But by a Cambridge student in 1907.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/

Youth is not the problem, and I don't agree with the other comment saying that youth has it better than previous generations. People just see all the "good things" and how "easy" it is for young people to do things they weren't able to when they were young. But understand that the young people of today have to deal with all the stupid decisions of previous generations, they have to conform to society like never before, and there is so much pressure and uncertainty about so many things (climate, political non-sense), they are being bombarded with violent and sad information all the time. I can understand why young people go to drugs to find some piece in the middle of this mess.

I'm 29 and I'd gladly throw away some of the modern "progress" we made for more freedom, more privacy, and a society that doesn't flat out reject some type of people for their view, their ideas, or lifestyle which doesn't allign with our single minded society.

None of this is unique to our generation though. We may feel that it is because the 1900s seem impossibly far back, but our great-grandparents faced many of the same issues. Factories polluted like crazy, outright corruption in politics, newspapers filled with propaganda or outright libel, corporations owning entire towns and paying their workers with "company scrip" instead of cash to keep them perpetually indebted. Drugs and alcohol were rampant back then too.

One thing that actually has immensely since then though is that society is measurably more accepting of women, people of color, LGBT people. So while we don't have everything fixed yet, I like to remember that we do have real social progress, so it's possible

Joker is an R-rated film. Your 12-year-old niece being affected is to be expected, the rating is set for a reason.

Things were not great some century ago, they were often beyond fucked and average joe's life meant nothing, nobody cared, nobody helped apart from close family, which was often not enough.

Young folks are generally pretty stupid and inexperienced (duh). I know damn well, was one of those. Due to peer pressure itching to get wasted, on anything available (luckily there wasn't much). Looking desperately for approvals and doing stupid shit for 15 seconds of fame, risking getting crippled for life or even dying. Generally clueless about life, what I want from it, which direction to go.

But it was OK, everybody was more or less on the same boat, so you didn't feel behind. We talk about east Europe here in 80s and 90s, there were basically no drugs apart from alcohol and nicotine and no organized crime. People had simpler ways to be miserable and waste life. These days, constant exposure to people better off than yourself leave a lot of room for desire. There is always somebody on Facebook having great time on vacation or having time of their life on other way.

This phase will pass. It is part of growing up, rebellion to previous generations, feeling that all and everybody is shit. Some might get stuck there and its usually not so nice story, but that's life. It ain't supposed to be a game on easy difficulty.

I don't really completely agree with this argument but I'd like to remind the HN community not to downvote simply because you disagree.

I would argue that drug addiction is affecting older adults much more severely than youth.

I can definitely agree that social cohesion in America has been somewhat awful for generations.

Please don't believe you know why others down vote.

I down voted because it's a comment with unsubstantiated claims, only tangible related to the article.

> I don't really completely agree with this argument but I'd like to remind the HN community not to downvote simply because you disagree.

pg has explicitly said that downvotes on Hacker News can be used for disagreement.

"Downvotes to express disagreement are part of the ethos of this site; it's a norm Paul Graham established almost a decade ago."

It's not a great idea and here's why: it's an almost sure way to create an echo chamber.

How? The point system is the gamification of the forums. It's designed to spur conversation while also an attempt at self moderation. When someone posts a controversial but trailblazing comment, like say "Scrum Agile doesn't work very well for their company and here's why," the barrage of downvotes from the orthodoxy makes that person lose points and disincentivizes them from making any more controversial posts (unless they just don't give a damn).

Ergo, the conversation gravitates towards whatever the herd thinks is best. It's rewarding conventional thinking and discouraging unorthodox thought, which is poison to any technological discussion. Technology and in fact progress itself was built on questioning and even destroying the conventional.

Yes. Probably by design.

That quote is from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17613243, which was tptacek's.

But yes: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

GP is making a bigoted argument with supporting data from a serial killer. If I were to downvote because I disagree with their argument, I would have to downvote twice.

Let’s stop discussing voting now, though. I agree with the mods here that it makes for very boring reading.

I would disagree that today’s youth are suffering because ‘reality sucks’. If anything the youth of today have it better than ever before. In 1950 [at least in the USA] a youth would not have had access to reliable information on possible career choices and outcomes apart from maybe a school counselor, now that information is available instantly on the internet. Likewise reality would have really sucked had the youth had the youth been female or LGBT, as reliable contraception and abortion were not available. Likewise suicide and crises services were not as available. Now we have things like the it gets better project, texting to social hotlines. This has vastly improved the options available to the youth of today for psychological support.

Of course reality will still suck for some, but it is vastly better than 50-70 years ago.

There is more to life than contraception and psychological counselling. A chance at a steady job, the ability to save money, the opportunity to start a family, the prospect of retiring with a Social Security check, and confidence in the ecological future of the planet come to mind.

Meanwhile new CS grads are regularly getting $170k+ annual pay packages at large tech companies.

There’s a disparity of experience out there.

> I would disagree that today’s youth are suffering because ‘reality sucks’.

I would agree to the degree that reality has always sucked. Life in general is hard and can be pretty miserable. It's up to an individual to build up resilience and mindset that will allow them to survive and even thrive in spite of this. Of course, having smart parents and other early influencers helps immensely.

> I would disagree that today’s youth are suffering because ‘reality sucks’.

I would agree to the degree that reality has always sucked. Life is hard and can be pretty miserable. It's up to an individual to build up resilience and mindset that will allow them to survive and even thrive in spite of this. Of course, having smart parents and other early influencers helps immensely. Otherwise, it's easy to fall prey to drugs and other deviations.

if you want an autobiographic a take read Rocket Boys: by Homer Hickam.

These days those kids would probably have gone to uni but in 1950's company towns they where destined for the mine or blue collar jobs

Homer got drafted and went to Vietnam only later joing NASSA

Human’s have a few characteristics that make them prone to seeing things in a distorted way.

The first is thinking they live in unique times - “it’s never been like this before”, when in fact every generation has existential threats.

The second is perspective and looking at the past with rose colored glasses. No, the 1970’s were actually a really depressing time to be living in the US and yes, the boomers had to live through it.

A crippling financial crisis, an unpopular war and a crook for president...

You're talking about the 70's right?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com