Millennials/Generation Y discussion

Here's a recent Cracked article that seems a bit relevant to this topic:

To Survive Today, You Have To Think Like A Celebrity

The main point is that trying to earn a living online requires a lot of marketing yourself as a brand. It's not enough to just sell a product or a service, you have to offer a narrative to get people interested. It's also a lot of hard work. And for a lot of young people, this may be the most viable means of earning an income.

Welcome to the age of the gig economy.

...I fucking hate the gig economy. I hate what it's doing to our culture. I hate the corporations like Uber and Airbnb who enable it (and in Uber's case does it so ineptly they still can't make money). I hate the fact that the economy is in such a state that so many people have to take gig jobs to survive. Like being a wealthy entrepeneur, but without the wealth.

The most interesting thing about it is it basically allows people to write financial options on things that were previously considered almost purely personal. Airbnb lets you cash an option on your house, Uber on your car, ect. The mirror image of the "gig economy" is digital goods with no replication cost steadily becoming free, open-source software, film piracy etcetera. It's not all bad, although the "official" section is mostly horrific.

Sometimes the modern economy looks downright Marxist, although that's just me reading old classical economics and Sharpshooter Fallacying the hell out of some of the more prophetic-sounding bits.

Alienation of the Worker? Yes. Reserve Army of Labour? The modern NAIRU concept is pretty much exactly that. Declining rate of profit/labour theory of value? Not quite. Glorious Communist Revolution? Tried that, really didn't work.

Edited by DeathorCake on Sep 10th 2018 at 4:51:14 PM

Well there is a reason why “socialism” (both social democracy and actual socialism) is coming back in vogue among the younger generations . . . as well as facism too.

I don't really see any credible evidence that actual socialism or the alt-right are popular amongst the younger generations.

In the US at-least "socialism" has been applied against anyone who thinks the government should do something to help people and thus most people who support socialism are probably just thinking of Social Democracy rather then seizing the means of production.

The alt-right is mostly supported electorally by the exact demographic that votes Republican , white people especially older white people. There's not much reason to view it as a young person phenomenon.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 10th 2018 at 3:32:12 PM

The Alt Right is explicitly defined as young right wingers. The anti SJW young adult crowds put together.

That the American Right is just as bad in their amount of bigoted manchildren (and thus are practically the same) is another thing. But the main defining trait of the proper Alt Right is that they're young.

And rebellious idealistic teenagers love the socialist label. Their relation with the actual ideology is iffy and depend from place to place.

Source: 18-years old young adult, former teenager.

Teenagers aren't rightful rebels that would change the world to the better. We believe that we are, but no. We're one of the worst choices to do so.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 10th 2018 at 2:45:10 PM

Is it though? Because I'm fairly sure it just covers various white supremacist, white nationalist, and other crypto or neo fascist groups.

Furthermore if you look at Trump the alt-right's champion his support base was strongest amongst 70 year olds, the idea that the alt-right are stylish and young may be something they spread but I haven't actually seen any evidence to support it.

Keep in mind that edgy internet teenagers do not make a demographic, the medium encourages vocal minorities.

Yeah, millenials aren't really that socialist, I've met very few people calling for the public to retake the means of production. Also, there hasn't been much of a growth in socialist parties asides from Greece (and that is due to exceptional circumstances).

The Alt right can be understood be the internet wing of the current crop of neo-fascists, being largly tied to the internet they’re generally much younger than their more traditional counterparts within the neo-fascist movement.

Thing is there’s no real evidence that they exist in serious numbers, they have influence due to their strong presence on social media, but their actual numbers are minimal, there have always been edgy teens drawn to right wing ideas, the difference is that we can see them now.

The image of these movements are largely framed around young people, but that may just be because of its internet roots.

Either way I don’t think it’s that controversial to say that younger people are showing more interest in more “radical” politics then older generations. Whatever that practically means will vary from place to place.

Edited by Mio on Sep 10th 2018 at 3:54:10 PM

Pretty much this. They're not really that big, they're just very, very loud.

The issue is that the American Right is thag bad that they can get along for the most part.

You remember me to something that is called the "Hispanic Teenager Dilemma".

Being non white and going to First World Social Justice groups in internet, get accepted and then hearing teenagers proposing giving "it" another try.

Reactions vary. But the shock is always a "uh...".

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 10th 2018 at 3:00:49 AM

Giving what another try?

Socialism. Of course.

Go to discuss Social Justice in internet and eventually you will end up a self proclaimed socialist telling you that racism is capitalism fault.

And because I'm non white. You can imagine that is a unpleasant common sight.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 10th 2018 at 3:18:12 AM

Most of the people who go so far as to advocate for seizing the means of production identify as some flavor of communist, usually Anarcho-Communist. And they're usually young teenagers looking to rebel, with no concrete idea for how to reform society other than to tear it down and get revenge on those currently in power, assuming a more egalitarian society will magically rise up from the ashes. I don't think many of the people who claim to be for it would actually be very happy living in an anarcho-commune lifestyle.

Exactly this, the Republicans have spent literally years calling Obama socialist. That should tell everyone what normal people think of when they hear socialist.

It should come as no surprise that my generation are more open to "socialism", the Cold War is fading from memory and the Republicans have made the term quite meaningless.

I've actually found people who do genuinely identify Anarcho-Communist to be older and at least somewhat knowledgeable about Anarchist theory.

That doesn't necessarily stop them from engaging in immature guillotine memes and endless fanboying for Revolutionary Catalonia though.

I still feel that given those factors we should not be surprised if people, particularly younger people do become interested in actual seize the means of production socialism.

Edited by Mio on Sep 10th 2018 at 5:35:44 AM

Even the few anarcho-Communist societies/groups that exist out there don’t go full ham, also anyone with any actual expeirance with one will admit that they cap out at around 100 people.

I was born in 95, didn't really grasp the impact of 9/11 until towards the end of the 00's (then again I'm not American) and the Internet is really ingrained into my childhood with respect to Neopets, Wikipedia and, uh, Deviantart. So skirting the lines of Millenial and Gen Z there I guess.

Re: socialism, I'm not sure about 'socialism' per se being in vogue with us young folk too but last time I checked at the very least the DSA has been growing in popularity, no? Also the popularity of Chapo Trap House as the one of the top podcasts on Patreon?

Anyone who thinks socialism — as in "means of production is run by the government" socialism — is worth trying should first take a good hard look at Venezuela. The supposed model of socialism that people like Noam Chomsky praised.

I highly doubt market socialists, mutualists, or syndicalists want Venezuela.

I don't support any socialist ideologies (the only thing they have that is somewhat convincing would be some of their criticisms of capitalism) but using Venezuela to criticize the viability of socialism in its entirety is like using El Salvador to criticize the viability of democracy in its entirety.

I'm pretty sure that socialists don't support planned economies or for that matter widespread cronyism, both of which are the reasons for Venezuela's failure as a state.

Some would argue that Venezuela is not really Socialist since most of the economy is still privately run save for some key sectors like oil and such.

In that sense it would be more appropriate to think of Venezuela less like another USSR and more like an incompetent and authoritarian Norway, not that that makes the situation any less shit.

To bring it back more on topic it will be interesting to see if as Gen Z gets to voting age if they will become more politically involved as far as voting is concerned then their Gen Y counterparts were at roughly the same ages. Parkland seems like a promising indication, but that may be just a flash in the pan.

TBF, I wasn't the one who first claimed Venezuela should be a model for future socialist nations. That was socialists who said it back when it seemed like Venezuela was doing well.

You've said before that Venezuela isn't a real socialist nation. That sure didn't stop the likes of Noam Chomsky from claiming it as such.

Noam Chomsky Meets with Chavez in Venezuela

"I write about peace and criticize the barriers to peace; that's easy. What's harder is to create a better world... and what's so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is that I can see how a better world is being created."

He of course later admitted that things didn't pan out.

Chomsky: Leftist Latin American Governments Have Failed to Build Sustainable Economies

I guess I'm bringing up Chomsky because he and others like him are their generation's equivalent of the present-day socialist fans among the youth.

Edited by M84 on Sep 14th 2018 at 10:26:41 PM

I miss the crazy Left. I really miss them, their brand of stupidity is interesting to see.

Sadly, the current political climate is making them sound reasonable.

sigh.

Well yeah. Right now the right-wingers are the ones causing most of the problems in the world.

I think that just comes down to a lot of leftist feeling they have to defend ideologically leftist governments and parties regardless of how awful they actually are, or even if their ideas are actually antithetical to your own.

It’s how you get an Anarcho-Syndicalist like Chomsky still defending authoritarian Leninist regimes like Cuba and such.

There anarcho capitalists defending Pinochet. So that's not uncommon.