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Comment by foob4r | Hacker News Reader

False optimism about the future from older generations is nothing new - been happening for years now

sorry but typically in the past older generations have been optimistic about the future and younger generations have been pessimistic. That is a a common phenomenon observed by social scientists which is that people in their twenties are a lot more pessimistic than people in their 40s and 50s.

Let's be clear: globally the world is much better off than it has ever been and therefore the optimists were correct. Even in the US I remember how in the early '90s the Gen xers were always complaining about how the future was going to be f*. They were wrong too.

based on historical trends you are most likely wrong as well.

I mean listen to yourself. you are talking about generations of false optimism and yet the world and even this country has a much higher standard of living than it has ever had.

If the world is better overall it's due to technological advancement, not due to governance. Our current president is Trump, an idiot who completely mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, lied about how well he was handling it, refuses to be televised wearing a mask while mask-shaming others, and spends his time peddling conspiracy theories on Twitter, and now threatening to shut down the platform for fact-checking his blatant disinformation. We have probably the worst president to ever disgrace the office next to Andrew Jackson, so yea people are pessimistic.

Also this is the first time in our history that the youth are expected to make less than their parents. The older generation stripped away pension plans, affordable university, affordable healthcare, job stability - basically everything that was working well, and sold their kids off into student loan debt.

I agree that Trump sucks. Rhetorically, worst president. But as policies and outcomes go, there have been worse. Hoover? How about the fact that we banned alcohol for over a decade? Bush started a ruinous war on false pretenses. FDR incarcerated Japanese Americans in internment camps. LBJ and Vietnam. What about the chain of corporate owned presidents that allowed, and encouraged, outsourcing of manufacturing? That certainly hurt coronavirus response. SK and China were able to make their own PPE. US factories have dwindled over decades. Trump didn't create that mess. Clinton and Newt Gingrich did in a bipartisan sell out of the working class.

Read a history book and gain some perspective. You lack it.

By the way, you left out affordable housing. That is a huge generational theft, and is the worst in areas like California, where baby boomers used zoning laws to prevent an adequate supply of new housing from being built.

The different is that in the 90s, there was no clear evidence for pessimism about the future. The same is not true now.

Standard of living for most Americans is actually bad right now - trillions of student loan, no prospect of home ownership, no jobs, extreme income interest, weak authoritian governments,and let me know even start of climate change.

But hey, we have a new iPhone so I guess it's all fine.

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