I’m sure smartphones don’t help, but there is also an additional factor that I’ve observed: The social contract has changed radically. A lot of people from older generations have the idea that if they show up and do a good job at work, go to the doctor and obey what they say, read the newspaper and take it seriously, all these kind of “doing what you’re supposed to” elements of life, that they’ll be well-served and well taken care of. For young people, that is not at all the case. And, because they’re not stupid, they’ve noticed (how could they not?), and it makes them cynical and nihilistic about the whole concept of “doing what you’re supposed to” as a general life principle.
And also their main sources of culture are from fascists.
That’s not really what I’m talking about. Being trusting of “the establishment” certainly helps make Fox News’s job easier, but I’m talking about people who had health insurance, good unions, qualified doctors, all that stuff, for all of their adult lives. It just leads you to generally be of this kind of boomer “firm eye contact and a handshake will get you far” mindset in life.
It’s not fascist to like the system you’re embedded within because it gave you a fair deal.
Oh sorry - I agree with you, I meant kids coming up have fascists as a main cultural source.
I see how that could have been misinterpreted, my mistake.
Oooh… I get it. Yeah, there are people all over their media who are playing up the cynicism and making it sound cool. That’s absolutely a big problem too. And yes, it makes them more cynical about everything (both the people who buy into it, and the people who don’t, which is an impressive achievement.)
Yup.
Because social contracts are being broken left and right, these kids are not going to feel the level of obligation required to take care of us when we’re end-of-life. It’s going to be very, very bad for the elderly in a couple decades.
I mean, there are a lot of other ways things are going to get bad due to the decline of social contracts, but this is one I think about a lot as I’m pushing through what I guess is middle age.
We’re boned
What else would you expect from a cohort that thinks any emotion or action that isn’t rooted in a smug disdain for sincerity is “cringe”. Fucking kids brains have been fried by fascist dogwhistle memes, incel rhetoric, and actual rapists peddling antisocial behavior as a life philosophy.
Yep. Pretty much spot on. We are entirely fucked going forward.
Is this why customer service has gone downhill so dramatically? Never a smile or thank you anymore. Everyone is just miserable and rude.
When I worked for $5.15/hr in 2008 it was expected to be courteous and polite with customers or you’d be fired. I remember my manager at my first job specifically laying into me for not smiling enough. It was the most basic requirement of the job.
And people say that it’s because wages suck nowadays, but that $5.15 from 2008 is now worth around $8 and yet fast food pays $15/hr starting around me. So kids nowadays make twice as much as I did and can’t be assed to give a single fuck. I just don’t get it.
This is pretty good, but you gotta make it a little more subtle. Open with something perfectly reasonable and then sort of work up to the bait.
you right, i fell for it
as a european who started working around the same time that sounds insane.
If this bothers them, they’d love German customer service. Every puddingbrezel I’ve purchased at the DB came with a complementary frown.
i’ve not been in germany much but every interaction i’ve had with db seems to end with threats.
They liked you enough to threaten you?! That’s high praise on the DB.
yeah i dared use their website in a supported way and for that i almost got thrown off the münchen-hamburg ice at three in the morning. i won’t elaborate because last time i did i got swamped by germans telling me it was my fault.
Sounds like it wasn’t foolproof enough for a tourist even if it makes sense to a native. Which is absolutely a failure of a domestic transport system, unless you don’t care about tourism.
why would they give a fuck, they’re getting fucked by the social contract, they get paid twice as much to inherit a burning planet and absolutely no prospects to have a home or even ever leave their childhood home, for the shit thankless work that customer service always has been
all for the “privilege” of making billionaires richer and furthering the destruction of the planet they’re inheriting
tbf, things were going downhill in 2008, but things are fully off the rails now, we at least had delusions of hope back then
fell for it award edit: from limited experience, i’ve found it can be helpful to talk to young folks about the power of organizing and collective action. they’re perpetually burned out from having nothing they can do to improve their circumstances, but this is a powerful avenue that, if communicated properly, can motivate them to become more invested both in their own situations, and that of others
Folks can feel as miserable as they want, but at work it’s a bare minimum expectation to pretend to be polite. Hell I was homeless when I made minimum wage but you can bet I still put on a big smile and was polite to every single customer who walked in the door because the alternative was being fired. It’s really not a difficult concept.
Here’s the NIH article: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4499872/ and the Financial Times article: https://archive.md/4YVBB The latter has more links to other sources.
I’d like everyone to stop and consider what end of life care is going to be like for us with these fucked up kids running the show by the time we reach that stage.
I get that every generation ever has thought the younger generations weren’t up to the task, but this isn’t the same scenario. As other commenters are mentioning, these are people absolutely brain fried and desensitized from birth by aggressive, non-stop propaganda. They lack sympathy/empathy. Their roles models are literal rapists and fascists.
They’re going to be amoral, poor, and completely unequipped to take care of the elderly, much less all the other aspects of society, by the time we reach the end of our lives.
Dark. Future.
It’s okay, the world’s going to be unliveable for humans by then.
