Making Poverty Fashionable to Millennials | Hacker News Reader

Making Poverty Fashionable to Millennials

jayriverlong.github.io

71 pointsriverlong63 comments

It's interesting seeing how humans are deciding to forgo one of the most innate patterns of life itself, passing their own genes via these phenomenons. It's almost as if it's a 'invisible hand' regulating the population by cornering people to prefer an achievable amount of pleasure (retire early, travel, etc) by trading it for not having offspring. This also relates to all the news about the rise of 'despair deaths'. No jobs, no way to ensure offspring a quality life, therefore game over for those genes. It is a big claim that these communities don't have kids, I would want more evidence of that before jumping to conclusions but if that's the case it's pretty crazy to read about.

Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation? Maybe the Wachowskis were wrong, and humanity isn’t a disease that keeps spreading and growing.

I would assume contraceptives methods make it easier to break the pattern, since you are still technically physically doing the act of reproducing but the cycle or incentive is broken since there is no offspring.

> Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation?

Most animals don't self limit - their environment limits them instead.

How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?

> How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?

Are you voluntarily having fewer kids than you physically could, or did you starve to death?

If you fear your kids would starve or otherwise have a terrible life, and you voluntarily do not inseminate - I think it could be argued that you are volunteering - however I think it's a reaction to the environment and a calculated view of what's to come.

That's a self limiting decision. It's easy to rationalize yes

No species on earth has birth control, and humans have only had real & widespread birth control since the 20th century, and the 'good' birth control only since the 60s.

Sex is now disconnected from procreation and that is the real reason this is possible.

I have been a digital nomad for 8 years of my life and my partner and I (also digital nomad for 2+ years) had actively decided to become parents and have a 2 years old daughter. We do live as expats in Budapest where the cost/quality of living ratio is better with a foreign salary. I did attend a couple of FIRE meetups in Budapest last year.

I think the article is discussing a lot of real problems but is assuming too much cause/effect rather than just correlation.

I think many of these movements make sense now BECAUSE travel is easier and millenials are not marrying or are having less kids anyway.

The FIRE movement is quite helpful anyway to start to manage your savings and debt. There is a lot of exchange of knowledge about ETF and passive investing. In the line of the lifestyle blog https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ By Retire Early most people intend actually "Retire Early from a job you dislike" and keep working on something you enjoy.

I'm from Italy which with Japan is one of the countries in the world with the steepest population decline. Fast population decline with an older population is a though new challenge we'll have to face consciounsly soon.

A bit off topic: isn't it strange that many people _choose_ to live on countries like Hungary, that media portrays as being the gross ones in the EU context? Something doesn't seem right here.

Not sure what you mean.

I semi-retired early, and I currently live in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I saw a (uploaded 5 years ago) Youtube video that mentioned the city as a place rife with corruption and poverty and people somehow scrape by. I showed the girlfriend, who grew up here, and we were both confused.

On the other hand, I don't know why people _choose_ to live in a country with high property taxes and healthcare costs and mandatory driving. As an American I love the US but feel relaxed where I am now.

A friend once asked me why I didn't move to London instead. Because I grew up near NYC and it's like the same thing, that's why.

It was a satiric comment/mainstream media rant. I _chose_ to live in East Europe for 5 years also.

How did you get residency? Another guy from AZ (?) was denied entry into Romania after overstaying his visa and then he moved to Moldova and now the unrecognuzed PMR, aka Transnistria after trying other EU countries. He wrote a book about the country and runs this eccentric but also sometimes funny blog:

https://kingofromania.com

I'm not 100% sure where you are going with "gross ones in the EU context" but I'll try to answer you.

Hungary economy has been developing rapidly in the past decade. Real estate has been booming by refurbishing old buildings still damaged from the WW2 and the communist occupation. Hungary has a lot of skilled engineer given its size. Hungarian salaries are growing fast but are still lower than many other EU countries. Hungary has very low taxation (9% corporate tax, 15% income tax). So from an financial point of view is quite conveniente to live in Budapest, there are plenty of new parks, children playgrounds and restaurants and they are all quite affordable if your income comes from out of Hungary. So this is the reason why someone does it.

Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary since 2010. Orban has been more and more anti EU in recent years. I'm a strong supporter of the EU and sincerely all this anti-EU propoganda upsets me and frightens me very much. We were planning to buy a house in Budapest and stay longer but frankly after hearing more and more anti-EU sentiment from the Hungarian government we'll likely stay a couple more years until our child finishes the daycare and then move somewhere else (we do move quite often anyway).

Please next time refrain from using an adjective like "gross" while speaking about a country since there is plenty of human beings coming from there and "gross" sounds more like a mean comment than a constructive criticism.

Did you express you experiences in a blog post or something? I'd be curious about living in Hungary. Visited Budapest last year - seemed to be a great city!

Sorry never had the time to blog about it. I'm more than happy to have a chat! I've sent you an email to con... AT losttech DOT software

My comment was a satire on mainstream media. I’ve lived in East Europe also and the quality of life is easily better comparing with the West. Media by the other end has a different agenda and seems to ignore it.

Ah alright I did no get your sarcasm!

I have to say I was a huge supporter of Hungary given my new appreciation of the libertarian movement and low taxation. This said though I (purposefully) do not read newspapers. Given the coronavirus epidemic I had to read a lot of Hungarian news and I really did not like what I red in the past months. Before I was totally unaware of Victor Orban new extremism in anti-EU, reduced freedom of speech in the news and turning the other way to ignore new rising neo-nazi and anti-semitism in Hungary. I agree with the pro-business agenda of Victor Orban but I strongly disagree with his new totalitarian methods.

> Having children is very expensive, so it’s hard to make that work with FIRE. On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children.

This is debatable. If neither parent is working and they have the time and knowledge to homeschool their kids, having children becomes cheaper since the parents don't need daycare, a nanny, an expensive private school, etc.

People of all social classes have been having kids since the dawn of humanity. Kids can be as cheap or as expensive as you want if you don't have to worry about working 9-to-5 at the same time.

So, kids can be cheap if you don't have to worry about working?

How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills?

I'm not saying a lot of people couldn't spend less on childcare etc, but the ability to do it without working assumes a certain level of financial comfort.

That's not even taking into account the added cost of leaving the workforce for several years. I know several parents who found it difficult to return to their former fields.

> How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills?

FIRE. If your life plan involves having kids, you'll need higher FIRE number, but it's still possible. Medicial bills are always the hardest part of FIRE since you can't plan for them and they have an unlimited ceiling. But you can aim for a basic insurance plan on Obamacare or move to a country with a modern medical insurance system.

I agree with the underlying conclusion but there is one thing you said but did not properly reason about:

> On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children.

This is just not true. Only here in the wealthy west people think they need a big house to have children. In the rest of the world you will see whole families living in one tiny room together.

Also there is a lot of valid reasons not to put children into this world without being part of some lifestyle romance.

In the rest of the world, you see whole families living in one room together because they are poor. Virtually no-one chooses to live like this. Case in point, as soon as such people get money, they upgrade to larger houses.

These lifestyles, as the author seems to point towards and not consummate, are the consequence of millennials being lonely, not poor.

I would say you're wrong. I know this is anectdata but I'm a non-single millenial, and my girlfriend and I have decided to never have kids because we value our own happiness and wellbeing too much to sacrifice it raising a child. We would be happy to live this type of lifestyle.

Edit: and it has nothing to do with our income. We're both 6 figure engineers.

Your girlfriend might regret it when she is too old to have kids.

May I suggest your understanding of the word "happiness" will change as you age? My happiness at 25 is not the same as at 50. As a male I guess society is on your side and you can be a late father if you find a willing younger partner. For your girlfriend however it's no dice: at 50 and childless I assume earlier happiness may taste different.

This is a big "may" to put on someone else.

are you in your 20's? at some time in the next few years your girlfriend may change her mind.

Yes, we are in our mid 20s

my daughters about the same age, and she's gone from never having kids to the opposite in the space of a few years.

I recommend it, it makes your life chaotic and costs money, but its the best thing in the world, you'll never be the same. Think about how you'd be in your 50's or later with no kids, I don't know anyone that said they're glad they didn't have kids, but I do know a few that are sad they didn't. Just a random internet guys opinion.

I only kind of wanted kids. at 38, I sort of gave up on the idea. Wife was still gungho...so rounds 7, 8, and 9 of invitro fertilization it was. That got us our two sons (following MANY miscarriages).

Honestly the whole thing was much harder/worse for my wife. I'm a bit autistic so, was a bit unemotional/logical about it all. She was a mess the whole time.

I wasn't sure about being a dad. Now, I'd kill anyone who tried to take it away from me. I never realized the full gamet of life experience being a dad brought. How much love you can have for these little critters. I'm 40 now. My oldest is 3 and youngest 1.5. I've had a lot of depression in my life, and a lot of things I've regretted. My kids will never be one of those.

Knowing what I know, and never having them, definitely would be the biggest regret ever. Sure, some people aren't meant for parenthood, I see it all the time. We have relatives who neglect their kids, or let them ride a 4-wheeler without a helmet (to the point where one is in a wheel chair and is mentally challenged... I used to play video games w/ him when he was 11, now its hard to keep a conversation going). So, if you think you would be neglectful and not a good parent then don't be one. The world has enough shitty ones.

But if you think for a moment you could be a good dad, then you'll never realize the amount of growing you'll go through once you become one, the perspective you'll gain. It's truly life changing.

Affordable homes aren't being built for Millennials. I predict there will be assisted suicide by the time most turn 60 and people will just turn to that service. I also assume the generations to come will look back on this time period as how the generations before the Millennials really threw a group of people into despair for their own well being.

That should come sooner than later. I’m 38 and a Millennial but definitely feel more like a Xennial. I’ve “done well”, never given a dime, no help or network, and have worked a tax paying job since I was 12, put myself through college with 30 hours a week work (night shifts at stores etc) and my net worth including my 401K today is about 200K. That’s saving, hard, for a very long time. I’m still far behind where I need to be financially, will never retire, and would definitely consider it today. The only reason I stick around is to outlive a few people that I don’t want to give the satisfaction that I died. I’m a petty man, one with no real future, but to continue making employers rich. I do want to be part of defeating my class enemies though, the investment class. I often say I understand the opioid crisis- those who died may have been the smart ones. They knew.

There’s really only one way forward and it needs to start now, worker owned cooperatives. No more capitalism, it isn’t working. While there will still be a place for capitalism, most businesses are proven business models. There’s no reason Google shouldn’t be owned by its employees. Let alone 7-Eleven. Once people get a taste of democracy in the workplace, they’ll demand it out of their government.

You sound a bit like me, a little more in my depressed days though.

I'm a lib socialist, so worker coops are my jazz.

I want to start a virtual union/commune that say everyone pays $100/month.

We use that to buy real estate rentals, eventually we launch all types of businesses from gas stations to grocery stores to a full amazon + aws competitor.

All union-owned. All workers are union members, and anyone who wants to join just joins. Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each share = 1 vote and is used to calculate payouts for UBI (if we get to that point).

Initially all the cash our businesses bring in would go into a fund for healthcare. Our own single-payer plan if you will. We can create our own insurance companies as well in most states, maybe eventually we take over medicaid/medicare and buy up some hospitals and drug companies so we own the whole health supply chain. We could lobby congress for funds as well to up our health fund, and free up our cash on hand to pay out UBI.

Could also have some sort of credit card account with reward points, that you could use at sub-union companies... Say a union member starts a worker-coop, and decides to pay a 10% tax to the union, it'd be a sub-union company. Maybe union members would also get discounts at the shop if it was ecommerce or something, and be encouraged to shop there or help them promote their business.

The key is creating something that benefits all, encourages each other to help each other, and is ran somewhat democratically, and of course is self-sufficient. Also CEO caps for all companies under the umbrella.

That's complex for my taste, a little too close to a ponzi scheme which puts us right back to capitalism, but I'm going to have to think about it more. Just my gut reaction. I'm more of the mindset that employees simply organize and buy their place of business when the owner is ready to sell. Each just figures out their own financing for their part, and they own and operate it collectively. Of course we'd prefer to work with other socialist business like credit unions and so forth. Creating that coalition that you speak of, just not so massively integrated into one entity. I tend to believe smaller works out better. Easier for humans to manage effectively.

New enterprise could be started with a group of folks the same way, but I prefer proven businesses. No reason for the first wave of worker owned co-ops to go under. Start with the smalltown gas station etc. Like with any human endeavor, choosing your partners and how it's managed is critical. Everyone should be highly motivated since they're owners. But I do think as people see it working well for some, attitudes will change. No one will want to work for a capitalist enterprise once they see how good life is for co-op owners. In the end the cashier at a local store may be far more enthusiastic to help you than how it is today. Your pizza will be made right and delivered on time.

There is no perfect system but I do think we could at least have a healthy mix of other options. Given circumstances for my generation, my life's goal other than to be happy is to start a successful capitalist business, stabilize it, then sell it to my employees as a co-op. Offering to stay around for a while, if they'd like, to make sure everything works out.

>>>Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each share = 1 vote

Heh, you should check out this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5fCxw6NJY&t=621s

All it takes is one whale entering such a system to up-end it.

You could set limits on yearly credits that can be earned. To keep it fair and balanced. Like maybe 40 hours * 52 weeks, so that you can't exceed what a normal employee would get. Employees, can get 2x that much, cause they can also double dip by investing their own $$.

I disagree, while financial aspect is important but it is not the only factor why folks choose these kind of lifestyles.

First, having a kid these days might not actually be a good idea, with 7 billion people and counting, uncertaining future job market and the huge expense required to raise a functional kid in modern society. Previous generations never had those obligation or constrains and kids were able to contribute to their farms/income from early age.

Second, technology allowed for lifestyles that were not even feasible in the past, it is really obvious and I don't think I need to elaborate on that.

Last, humans were nomads settling.

To sum up not everyone wants to live the mainstream lifestyle. So it could be due to preference and choice rather than financial pressures only.

reminded me of the “premium mediocre” view of millennials coping with downward mobility https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-l...

> Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ [...] original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation.

It is confusing, but "pumpkin spice" is the name of the traditional blend of spices used in pumpkin pie. It's like how "salad dressing" doesn't contain any salad.

Definitely. The "premium mediocre" stuff has been on my mind a lot, and I'm sure it's conceptually related. "Downward mobility" is a good term here.

I love how the narrative is spun on these things.

It's not individuals making decisions about how to live their own lives.

Its they, the all encompassing shadowy cabal who wants to tempt naive young people into living in vans, and preposterous less then 5000 sqft houses, with their secret goal of impoverishing everybody.

Or maybe there are just people who prefer those things? Surely occams razor prefers the shadowy cabal though...

It's like an exaggerated version of the peasents from the Monty python sketch on the anarcho syndacislist commune.

Powerful post. Unfortunately no potential solutions are explored. Ideas? Is it a matter of figuring out how to shift/part wealth from the ultra wealthy of the world? Or develop a means of building wealth at lower costs? Of course limited land is still an issue. Even if you got cheap land in a remote area, you're likely to be disconnected from the world without running water, electricity, and internet.

Thank you! The problem is huge in scope, and there are many potential solutions (with lots of smart people debating them). Land scarcity and cost is a core part of the intergenerational wealth divide. There, variants of Georgism[0] are becoming more popular, but the debate is far from settled. In some places, legislators are setting up incentives (taxation, benefits to owner-occupiers rather than landlords, etc.) to correct these market issues. Effects of such recent legislation in Germany and Vancouver, for example, appear to be productive.

Regardless, I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that a lot of current lifestyle trends are coping mechanisms to deal with poverty, no matter how good the Instagram pictures look.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

I sometimes think about the startup crowd of the past decade as generational traitors. They're a small number of young people who were selected by the system based on their connections to the older, wealthier generations and their willingness to do unethical things in order to maintain the status quo and secure inheritances as much as possible. Baby boomers are one of the most selfish and unethical generations and this explains why millennials are having such a tough time.

Affordable housing and health care is really what it comes down to. Food is as cheap, inflation-adjusted, as ever. Quality, reliable, transportation is as cheap as ever. College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Employers are coming around to the fact that it's not a good signal any more, so the reasons to go ~50k+ in debt for a questionable degree are ceasing. The rest of millennial spend are generally luxuries. They can't afford to keep going with the conspicuous consumption and status-signalling that other generations could. But that's not what we should care about improving.

We need to start tackling the insane complexities of the US health system and the complete failure of building regulations to provide an affordable place for the next generation to live.

> College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught.

Community college is extremely cheap and free in several states like Tennessee. In state tuition at most state schools will run $30k max on the remainder. Not cheap, but for the income gains...not expensive.

A traditional solution for youth who see little future has been emigration.

Hilarious how entitled the author is. It's delusional to believe that millennials, or anyone else for that matter, are owed living in some of the most expensive cities on the planet.

So many people just BELIEVE that if you fumble through college, you're magically owed an affordable, nice house/apartment in some of the most desirable metros on the face of the planet.

Who do you think inculcated that narrative to millenials when they were young?

Their parent's generation for sure, and the liberal educators at the time.

I live in a small town and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.

I live in a major city and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.

Lots of "fashionable" millennial hipster trend things were just normal stuff that were bought by millennials because they were poor artists or working class. eg. converse shoes, pabst blue ribbon, thrift finds.

Oh oh it's so ironic uh no it's stuff millennials can afford because they're poor af.

This is bubble talk. I don't know anybody that went to my undergrad that is remotely interested in any of these except remote work, which was promised to everyone as soon as broadband became available to common people in the '90s. Poor folks aren't the ones blogging about van life, they're the ones that live in their cars in Menlo Park. Meanwhile, the classmates that didn't leave my state have either already purchased houses or are planning to within the next year. Mind you these aren't rich folks, these are folks making $75k a year at best, half of what a Princeton CS grad would make. I've talked to them about FIRE'ing before and got a blank look on their face. The only thing they do is max out their 401k, if that.

This isn't a case of "resource constraints" making poverty fashionable. It's a case of out of touch elites trying desperately to either "rough it" for the sake of the experience they never had or to aggressively retire at the age of 30. The median student loan debt burden is closer to $0 than $100k, and while growing and maintaining inter-generational wealth is a massive problem for communities of color because of persistent housing discrimination, I really don't see these folks represented in the communities OP's article mentions.

..that is, of course, if this isn't a partially GPT-3 generated blog as speculated here [0] but there do seem to be active responses from the author, so it just appears to be pseudonymous.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750

Rent seeking capitalists have managed to work their way into every corner of life. There is no way for a significant portion of the population to produce a personal surplus, because 'markets' will be quick to funnel this into ever fewer pocket, thanks to the neoliberal tools they've managed to convince us were necessary for 'business' to not be 'choked' by government. Two working partners, working in well paying jobs in large cities, it doesn't matter, you're not going to keep your surplus.

Apart from being lucky and be either born or get a lottery ticket into the 0.01%, the only way I see of building up your surplus (without expending your body with working 80hrs+ for 40+ years) is checking out of usual patterns, patterns that are still not being eaten up by rent seekers. Like a good job on the perifery of your country rather than in/near commercial/industrial centers. And vote labour, of course. In the end, only law can end rent seeking, and for that, we need to stop believing the economy musnt be under our control rather than the reverse.

Isn't it possible to have a controlled economy that doesn't exploit people, which is still capitalist within its bounds?

Yes, but keep your voice down. Nuance scares the man-children.

Depends on your definition of capitalism. If all companies were worker co-ops and workers had spots equal votes on board, and shares then sure. It'd be a win/win. As it stands, probably not because it doesn't matter how much productivity rises, wages stay stagnant, and that's not how it should work and I'd say it's not healthy for it to work like that.

Better production/productivity should have a upward slope with wages, and gradually wages across all industries go up. That's the only way any of this is sustainable.

I’m pretty sure that at least for some time, the system of “Soziale Marktwirtschaft” (social market-economy) in Germany nailed that balance quite well. It’s totally not my area of expertise, though.

Still, my gut feeling is that if someone capable would check the numbers, the result would be that from the 1950s to at least the 1990s, the personal economic situation for most Germans improved dramatically, while German companies were extremely competitive and successful in comparison to the rest of the world at the same time. Like, no need to exploit the former or sacrifice the latter; it worked hand-in-hand.

As the others already mentioned: the Rhineland model comes up in such discussions. They're basically that: thoroughly capitalist, but balanced with worker's rights and interests by force of government. I guess you could say labour is more valued, and market controls make companies compete (more) for it than in the Anglo-Saxon model, leading to good wages and distribution of production. It doesn't promote superstars, neither in terms of economic centers which become prohibitively expensive, and not in terms of wages either (far fewer ultra-rich, but many moderately rich in return).

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