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Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed general poor moral behavior around finance and business with gen-z'ers especially. I think victim mentality; oppressor vs oppressed mind virus is partly to blame. Social media (instagram, TikTok) encourages young people to be flashy... Show your cars, watches, houses, women show your T&A for attention, the likes, comments at all costs. Being unscrupulous, morally bankrupt and "frugal" is encouraged and seen as part of the way to become successful.

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The only new part of that behavior is the platform upon which it's being displayed and how more readily available it is to everyone.

If you removed Gen z/TikTok from that sentence. I'd have thought you were talking about millenials and MySpace/Facebook/Instagram. Before that I'd have thought you were talking about Gen X/Millenials and MTV. Before that News Papers, the news, and TV shows before that. It's human nature to want to flash success (even if faked), and sex has always sold. Nothing new here.

Correct this has been around forever, but TikTok, Instagram, OnlyFans have made everybody feel like they are important (exponential amplification). Average people now can make absurd amounts of money and fame by being the most flashy, bombastic, and slutty. Morally bankrupting its users. I am a staunch free speech proponent, but I do have serious concerns with the mental wellbeing of young people (in my forties) due to these platforms.

That is how only fans is selling itself, but most people aren't making bank, and the ones who are, are generally running a business where they're paying people to do all the "engagement" related stuff.

The higher paid folks are models who are also business owners. It's just modeling without "talent agencies" being gatekeepers on who can be a model

Every generation has been saying some form of this about the next generation. If there is "moral decay", you'd expect shoplifting to go up, for instance. The crime statistics don't seem to support that narrative.

If you don’t think TikTot and OnlyFans are a new level of degeneracy, you’re not paying attention or in denial.

I hear you. I just want to point out that the same thing was said about video games in the last generation, and about comic books a couple of generations before that.

They're only a new level of degeneracy if you pretend that sex workers aren't physically displaying themselves in windows or selling themselves on the street.

Or are they just more widely disseminated? Could it be that previous generations were as degenerated, but it never spread any further so in the end no one heard for all the stupid things that teens and kids did?

Lol, gotta love the moral panic on literally the oldest profession.

Tiktok isn't degeneracy, it's exactly what you expect to come out of a capitalism infused ad-based economy. It's a hostile market for your attention, what did you expect? Things that are entirely fueled by economic incentives and interests are not moral decay. The US has been like this since the very beginning. We literally promised the south not to ban slavery for a long time because otherwise they would not have voted to join the Union because it would hurt their economy to not own black human beings

This is an oversimplification. The north also had an economy that made quite a bit of bank off of southern slave labor: mills in New England would not make sense if not for slave hands in the south.

Umm shoplifting and crime is up. When is the last time you’ve been to San Francisco? Just like we didn’t have a border crisis when liberals were all anti-ice and anti border-wall. Naive, and fog of their own political fantasy ideologies.

Are you telling me that today's teenagers aren't fully socially adjusted and can't be trusted to behave with integrity?

Largely driven by atheism but acknowledging that is taboo.

The US is due for some stormy times when the Zoomers are “leaders”.

Is there actually an uptick in crime/theft among gen z vs previous generations?

lol what? belief in a sky daddy has nothing to do with crime... last i checked the sky daddy followers are just as corruptible and dangerous as non-sky daddy followers.

I was 13 once too.

And I hope you were not around many catholic priests when you were.

Father Logan was great. He smoked cigarettes, drank beer, and drove a Camaro.

Morality is not exclusive to theism. This is obvious. And if some people need to be scared into behaving morally, instead of reasoning their way to it, you can do it by other means than preaching fire and brimstone. So, no.

And religious leaders are moral? I thought things like prosperity gospel and faith healers are extremely common in non-atheist circles?

Zoomers will never escape samsara! I assume that's what you meant, right?

Thanks for the daily dose of intolerance motivated by “religion”.

The leader point is also comic considering how well it’s been going with the current boomer leaders.

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