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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

except for every generation in America other than the boomers and their kids, who all learned what Aristotle was referring to by the age of 12 or 13. Plus people in every third world country on earth, who would give their left nut to find work, make money and raise a family in America.

There's definitely a crisis in America of people who've never worked not wanting to work. And it's the ultimate first world problem. If you want to tackle privilege instead of getting a relatively shitty job in your 20s... you're probably privileged as hell.

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“There’s definitely a crisis of nobody wanting to work anymore, unlike the last hundred years of people saying this”

lol c’mon. The ol’ “$CURRENT_GENERATION is uniquely weak/lazy/bad, unlike $SPEAKER_OWN_GENERATION” chestnut is a nice touch, I’ll give you that.

From what I can tell, people in America generally work and they work hard. American productivity is usually high. I'm not seeing any large waves of unproductive twentysomethings.

It's always strange to me when critics look at this highly productive country, where many people work hard with fewer benefits & protections than other nations, and then call those people lazy.

Do you have any… evidence for this crisis? Or can we just add your quote to the twitter thread?

it's anecdotal but mostly relates to the conversations I have with people - daily - who view their long term prospects as nil, no matter how hard they work or don't. It's recognizable to me as an extension of the Gen X dread of having lower economic expectations than your parents, but it lacks the DIY ethos or even the willingness to bite the bullet and try. I could recount a book's worth of these conversations I've had weekly since before the pandemic among the privileged white college grads in my neighborhood. I was also a wanderer and a slacker and a musician and an artist and I have plenty of sympathy for the sentiment. But at the end of the day I knew I had to work, and they don't have that feeling.

I hope you realize the fallacy of proclaiming a "crisis" based purely on anecdotal evidence.

It's worse than that. Their sample is based on people who have already decided to drop out of society:

> just talk to anyone under 25 here who's living in a van or shooting heroin on the street and they'll explain to you in collegiate level prose why there's no point getting a job.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32162126

> If you want to tackle privilege instead of getting a relatively shitty job in your 20s... you're probably privileged as hell.

So would you consider your comment "tackling privilege"?

> There's definitely a crisis in America of people who've never worked not wanting to work.

Citation needed. Do you have one single shred of evidence that this is the case, to the extent of being a "crisis"?

Yeah. I do. Come hang out in Southeast Portland for a few days and you'll gather what I'm referring to. Seriously, just talk to anyone under 25 here who's living in a van or shooting heroin on the street and they'll explain to you in collegiate level prose why there's no point getting a job.

> just talk to anyone under 25 here who's living in a van or shooting heroin on the street and they'll explain to you in collegiate level prose why there's no point getting a job.

Oh wow. Just talk to any of the beatniks, or the hobos and vagabonds in the greatest generation or...

You can't take a sample from people who have dropped out of society and become drug addicts or to live in a van and make a conclusion about society!

If I took the same sample from of 25 yos from a Harvard lecture theater you can bet most of them are expecting to work 60 hours weeks.

> Come hang out in Southeast Portland for a few days and you'll gather what I'm referring to.

I live in Portland by PSU. I used to live in inner SE off Belmont. You’re 100% talking out your ass. I would put money you don’t talk to anyone OR as others have said are only talking to those living on the street. You’re manipulating things to fit your narrative it’s gross. Please stop.

The subset of people you’re attempting to identify are by and large suffering from mental illness and/or abuse. They don’t need you to misrepresent them and portray them as lazy, bourgeois, and/or unwilling to work. It’s completely disgusting behavior to do so and you should feel shame.

I used to live in SE Portland and I distinctly remember an earnest topic of conversation at Roadside Attraction (among people who presumably had the money to pay for their drinks) being the necessity of working for a living.

They do exist... capitalists in Portland, I mean. I have friends who hold the values of hard work. But it's considered a virtue to signal that you think work is unfair and somehow demeaning.

Also, Roadside tends to be a slightly older crowd and generate better than average conversations. I love that place.

These people were my age (mid 20s-early 30s)

Shame? No, I feel disgust at the bourgeoisie in Pdx who make excuses for them (and try to shame others into doing so. That doesn't work on me). I'm not just talking about the dropouts. I'm talking about the pervasive attitude of people who do work that life's so unfair, that dropping out is a rational and excusable option. That the system is so broken it's not worth fixing.

FWIW I also live in inner SE and it has changed drastically for the worse in the last few years. But I can assure you, one thing hasn't changed, I still talk to tons of people from all walks of life. I can walk a few blocks in any direction and run into a dozen people I know and who know me by name.

However, "kids" didn't get to live with mom and dad till they were in their 20s or 30s either. Outside of the few wealthy families they had to earn their keep starting pretty early.

The wealthy have replaced nature. In the past we extracted our living from the land. Now we extract our living from our wealthy neighbors, at their pleasure.

Ie : I wish I could grow some beans in this field VS I wish my wealthy neighbor would use me.

Not really. In the past, the wealthy owned the field.

In the present, there is plenty of cheap land if you want to live off the grid and grow beans. That's not what people want anymore. They want cars and modern appliances. You can't get those without an advanced manufacturing society, and thus, people work for other people.

But you don't extract your living from wealthy neighbors. You provide a service that you get paid for. What you get paid depends on what you can provide.

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