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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

By any objective metric the world is less broken than ever before. But people who want to be defeatist and cynical can always find a plausible sounding reason to justify their negativity regardless of the facts. I'm part of an older generation and not burnt out or existentially starving or whatever. And more importantly I'm not actually starving or dying of plague or being sent off to die for my king or any of the other horrors that were a routine part of human existence for most people before the modern era.

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They want to be able to afford a house. Historically, in the US at least, for lower and middle class people that has been within reach. Now that's not the case. If I was in my late 20s and was lighting thousands per month on fire in rent, it'd be pretty darn alienating. Sure, if you zoom out far enough, the standard of living for zoomers is pretty good, there's not a mass casualty event when the potato crop fails. But if you don't (and I'd argue, you shouldn't) it's pretty clear that their economic prospects are worse than their parents. That is pretty bleak. It's no wonder why they're politically more radical than the other generations.

Put in the simplest terms: Economic nihilism happens when no house.

Per Atrioc

I've been got

They don't want just a house though. They want a house in a "cool" area. Look at median home prices in rust belt cities. Mortgages around $2k a month or so. Very doable for a lot of people but you never hear a drum beat about this. You never hear about people moving to these cities unless they have family there already to remind them that, hey, this is in fact a great deal.

Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse?

Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area?

We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent and home prices.

You never heard about people taking that “great deal” because it’s not a great deal. Like really, you think there’s money left on the table like that and there’s not at least some low double digit percentage of the population that would have sought out the benefit? Or is it more likely the market evaluated the option and it’s not good

Exactly. Do people want to live in desirable areas? Absolutely. The much bigger draw to expensive metros, however, are the vastly more robust job prospects that come with those areas.

In a city, you have both much better chances of finding employment suited to your skills specifically, better chances of being paid well for it, and better chances of upwards mobility. Plus, should it become necessary you're more likely to be able to find something to keep the bills paid with even if it's not what you'd like to be doing.

Low CoL areas by contrast come with scant employment that's generally poorly compensated and almost always has a low ceiling.

In some cases one can commute into the city for work and live in LCoL area, but then you're burning time — multiple hours each day, usually — that you'll never get back on your employer instead of yourself or with your family, plus the myriad expenses that come with driving that far and often.

Which skills do you mean? If you're talking about skills in software development or investment banking then that might be true. But skills in welding or nursing can be applied anywhere.

Smaller areas have less hospitals and defense contractors. Nurses and Welders will be affected from the move too unless they already line something up.

Yep. I come from a rural area and my hometown has little to offer to nurses or welders. Be prepared for both a long commute and high chance of needing to switch to a different (likely longer) commute periodically to be able to stay employed without becoming hostage to a crappy employer. This is why all the young people (including myself) end up moving out and why the town is approaching being entirely elderly.

The countryside gets romanticized a lot but reality is not so rosy.

Being capable of being applied everywhere doesn't mean they are compensated the same when comparing any two locations.

Even if that wasn't a factor and both locations paid the same, a dense city with many employers gives you a much better chance of finding a job when needed or seeking out better opportunities if you are being ambitious.

I grew up in one of these "great deal" towns with 2-3 employers that had more than 10 employees. Anyone who had a bad interaction with a single employer, which included asking for a raise, was blacklisted from employment and effectively homeless if they didn't leave town looking for work.

Whenever I visit my parents back home I notice how there appears to be no one in the town in their 20s to early 30s. Its either retirees or older parents who moved there to give their kids a country experience.

The few people I've kept in contact from growing up who are in that town currently make less money than an entry level McDonald's does near the city, and are only able to survive due to the help from their parents either in the form of free room and board or direct subsidizing.

70k goes a lot further in these places than 170k does in a high cost of living area that is for sure. And 70k jobs aren't so hard to find in these places if you are college educated. You can easily pull that in sales. In management. There are consulting offices in these places. Yes, some tech. Jobs where you can make a whole lot more than 70k. Healthcare. Law. Consulting. Real estate. Finance. Accounting. Yes even manufacturing is still present at a certain scale. There are still a few steel mills and these days they employ mostly high skilled engineers. Still a need for pretty much all disciplines of engineering in these places in various sectors.

People think all there is to do is work in a waffle house in the shadow of a closed steel mill, but really these are cities that by definition need a somewhat diversified economy to even function as a city at all. They have all the various pieces that make a city a city and a region a region. Sorry, not much startups, but that's about the only exception, truly, and may not even be the case adjacent to the state flagship universities.

It's very rich when people who are likely 15-20+ years in their career in San Franscisco are telling the modern youth to just "move to Alabama". As if they can just find a cushy tech job in a market that is using RTO's to force layoffs.

People this detached really need to spend a few days on linkedIn applying to jobs. Not with their connection, but through those horrible workday portals and thousands of apps turned in after an hour of the post.

Perhaps you were unaware but there are good jobs in industries outside technology. And if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama. Some of them are centered around the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Cool. So lemme just take 4 more years of school for 3x what I paid for back in the day and I'll be good to work at those non-tech jobs. Tough luck to those new grads who didn't have 4 years of foresight (or me who is already a decade into my career).

>if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama

Hiring or "had a job up for 2 years but seemingly can't find nobody"?

Seriously. Try applying to some of these jobs and see how far you get. It's tough out there. it's not like 2015 where half your apps get a response.

I am with you 100%.

I am nearly 15 years into being a tech professional and competing with these kids for jobs and the thing that is horrifying me is that I am being told I am not qualified enough after getting through the filter where these kids are all washed out for not having 10 years of experience in a 4 year old field.

Even looking at retraining into a different career, every single US corporation has completely shed their training costs to put onto their labor force, but we've gotten to the absurd point where 4-8 years of training is needed for an entry level job while corporations wont guarantee that the field even exists in a year.

The people I've spoken to in the field who have the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, everything's better than in the past, why are you all complaining" mentality are the same ones who have verbatim told me that having a job in charge of a technical area at a faang that pays only mid 6 figures and has 5 peers on the planet, is a non prestigious job because their father is a near billionaire.

A lot of people on this forum are going to be shelling out for security in the next decade or finding out that they are made of meat, and hungry people don't really care where the food comes from.

Could you export a few of those to Louisiana?

I didn't say move to Alabama. Try Shaker Heights, Ohio. Believe it or not, there are jobs in a metro area with 2 million people in a variety of industries.

Of course there are jobs in these places. Some of these metro areas have 2 million people. They aren't just digging though the mud in the midwest like peasants in monty python. Student loans aren't so high if you went in state.

A yes, the rust belt, where folks are famously living like fat cats.

Detroit used to suck, but it seems like enough millenials took that deal that it’s way better than ten years ago.

Used to be you could buy a starter home in those cool places. I live in one today with a $1200 mortgage. Good luck buying that now, kids.

>They don't want just a house though. They want a house in a "cool" area.

I'd just like a proper job again, thanks. Just like I had before the tech industry shit itself 2-3 years ago. My current "cool" ideas are not being in debt and not worrying about a 3000 dollar catalytic converter replacement.

Now my "really cool ideas" is being able to take a bus around town without being stranded if I miss the last bus at 8pm. But that's blue sky thinking right now.

Affording a house is totally within reach if you want to make it a priority. Quite a few US states have both a low unemployment rate and a high homeownership rate. Try Vermont, Alabama, Montana, New Hampshire, Maine, Wyoming, etc. I understand that failed progressive policies have ruined opportunities for youths in some other states and that sucks but nationwide the future is still bright.

https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm

https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=h...

1. unemployment rate is low because people unemployed Doordash to make ends meet. This is not "a house is within reach" money.

2. saying "move to a state with less job opportunity" to afford necessities really shows how out of touch people are with the youth. They moving to another state with what money? How are they getting approved without a job in tow?

3. "I understand that failed progressive policies have ruined opportunities for youths in some other states" is a doubly loaded sentence. a) it was not "progressive policies" that enabled zoning laws, lobbied out workers rights and unions, and made women lose agencies of their bodies. b) This isn't a "state by state" thing. Tell me how the job market is in Kentucky and why it's thriving compared to New York

4. "nationwide the future is still bright" The nation is bright when old people prosper and the youth suffer (which you half acknowledge)? So what's happening in 20 years when most of those people die? Is it gonna finally trickle down this time?

Do you seriously believe that a lot of people in Vermont and Wyoming are working DoorDash? Young people are literally buying houses in those places. Put your prejudices aside and look at the actual economic data. Or keep whining, your choice.

>Do you seriously believe that a lot of people in Vermont and Wyoming are working DoorDash?

Among the youth who cannot get into entry level work, or the displaced who can't find a new job: yes.

>Put your prejudices aside and look at the actual economic data.

https://www.pymnts.com/gig-economy/2025/gen-z-turns-side-gig...

>Side hustles account for 43% of the average hustler’s total income. That share climbs to 57% for Gen Z consumers and a striking 76% for those earning under $50,000 annually — turning what was once a cushion into a core source of liquidity.

Okay, your turn. Where's your economic data instead of "I know a young rocj dude who bought a house". Or is it easier to blame everyone else instead of taking a look at the reality around you.

As an American, I am surrounded by people who are so convinced that their country is awful that they want to basically abolish vast swathes of the government. Their elected representatives say extremely negative things about my beliefs, literally every single day, including veiled and not-so-veiled threats.

The world may be physically comfortable but I do not feel safe. And that's because they do not feel safe from me. I don't want to sound defeatist but there is no objective way to describe it without sounding cynical.

Everytime someone says something like "how can I bring a kid into this world" I assume they know absolutely nothing about history at all. Be thankful your ancestors didn't think that when they were faced with actual life and death on the line, versus these people today being miffed that their apartment isn't as large as they'd like or they have to commute a little farther in or live in a city not featured in mass media.

This presumes I'm thankful for being in this world they gave us, which is not a given.

Be thankful you have the intelligence to even have such thoughts at all.

I don’t know, less intelligent people often seem happier.

I don't think anyone is comparing to old monarchies or etc, they're mentally comparing it to the 1950s and 60s and the postwar economic boom times.

You can point out that things weren't as good as they're presented back then either, or that people are falling for advertising, but no one is really impressed that their living standard is better than the 1800s or earlier.

People should be impressed. We're doing a terrible job of teaching history. "Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy."

To quote a Twitch streamer: "Radicalization is when no house".

The world is less broken when you only look at the top of the K shaped economy. There's less immediate turmoil, but also much less opportunity, and tons of flags saying opportunity will only decrease more. That's now how you encourage a high trust society.

I'll also add "Radicalization is when no community". And community is certianly broken among Gen Z. By design of those who want to maximize profits. Even the serfs of centuries ago had community because you need to work together to stay alive. Today's society is slowly realizing that, but this is after 80 years of individualism.

Speaking for my friends in their mid to late 20s, if you have a reasonable plan to get to a point where you can invest in your future as opposed to simply burning every last drop of income on mandatory expenses like food, housing and insurance I agree. When you can't foresee a way to get there you lack economic agency, economic nihilism is a rational response.

Under liberal capitalism, how you feel about the state of the world/economy is going to always be tied to how much money you're bringing in every month, so making a comment about how things are actually fine and Gen Z are "negative" and ungrateful is pointless if you're not going to make clear your own economic standing relative to others. I would be surprised if you're delivering Uber Eats with a Bachelor's degree, as many of Gen Z are doing today, considering the sentiment expressed.

This is the take all the younger generations complain about. Boomers had it good, laid waste to the world and the international scene and wonder why everyone else is bitter.

The oldest Baby Boomers came of age in the late 1960s. What about the world is worse now than then? I'm not here to defend the Baby Boomers but let's have a sense of perspective.

Life chances for each generation in the imperial core have begun declining whereas back then life chances were continually improving.

Certainly the world’s climate is worse. Wealth inequality is worse. I try hard not to be nostalgic, and even so I have to admit lots of things are not as good as they were in the 60s.

It’s not even like the physical infrastructure is all that much better. I live in a house built in the 50s, and clearly the people living in it then led a pretty similar life to mine. It just cost me a lot more money.

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