The war within Gen Z | Hacker News Reader

The war within Gen Z

businessinsider.com

4 pointsjohntfella12 comments

The real problem is describing a political disagreement as a "war". Just because someone doesn't think like you doesn't mean he's out there to get you.

The divide by sex is interesting, but I dont see the need to call it a war.

“””There was not a single issue that young men cared about significantly more than young women”””

I think this has been true for all generations.

https://archive.is/m7p85

Having worked with a number of Gen Z, I find a growing number of them wholly incapable, extremely entitled, and totally devoid of the 'hacker ethos'. Trying not to paint with a broad brush but how many times can I have a bad experience with a group of people before I start to wonder if it's a common trait. Many of them struggle with the basics yet they want to be CEO in a day.

This is arguable, but it also isn't related to the article, which is about how young women are/have been increasingly progressive, while young men are not shifting with them, leading to a political polarization between men and women today.

Around 15 years ago, people were saying the same thing about millenials.

Back in the 90s, it was extremely fashionable to hate on gen x (“the slacker generation”, “they live in their parents’ basement and don’t work”, etc.)

Young people often struggle with work ethic, have a poor concept of what it takes to succeed, and are inexperienced which frequently manifests as incompetence.

They grow out of it. With or without handwringing and/or op-eds about how they are lazy, entitled, and stupid.

This feels different. I would say there is a distinct lack of self-sufficiency, where previous generations would take eager interest in how stuff worked, take things apart, etc. Gen Z seem to be professional consumers. I blame the expansion of social media and the proliferation of smartphones for this. Why care how technology works when you can be YouTube famous? Why raise a family or become a doctor or lawyer or engineer when you can just show your tits on OnlyFans and be rich? Half these people don't know how to boil hot dogs. Why learn when you can pull out your phone and order Uber Eats?

Do I blame them? No, because the previous generation created this technology, the digital rope they hang themselves with.

It felt different to the baby boomers whining about millenials, and the “greatest generation” who were complaining about gen x.

But, it wasn’t. And gen z isn’t going to turn out to be any different.

The problem is if this continues, as the older generations die off, there will be great knowledge debt. We're already seeing this today. No one understands how the legacy systems work, so they replace them with systems half as capable or useful.

If these legacy systems are important, perhaps older generations should consider offering better pay to people willing to learn and maintain them rather than whining endlessly about "kids these days."

How are we seeing this today? What legacy systems have been replaced with inferior tools because the kids today can't understand the legacy tools?

That chart could do with about 20 percentage points more x-axis on the left, and 40 more on the right...

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