• Snot Flickerman
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    8 months ago

    Millennials: Uhm, we’ve been living that dream for over twenty years now.

    I’m over 40 (one of the ancient Millennials) and literally I have only been able to live alone for exactly four years out of the twenty-three years since I moved out of my parents. I currently live with a partner, because, you guessed it, it’s about the only way we can afford things now.

      • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        In a city of 200k I can rent a two bedroom apartment for about 1.2k and have access to everything I might possibly need (including a job) except an Ikea…

        Edit: funny how people get insulted when they’re told wanting to live in major city centers might be the issue… Nothing new about living in New York being more expensive than Albany.

        • @HorseWithNoName@lemm.ee
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          77 months ago

          “Well it worked for me so if you can’t do it then you’re just not trying hard enough!” Don’t be intentionally obtuse. There are jobs in major cities.

          People also have other shit in their lives you know nothing about. You have no idea what every single person does for a living. Maybe they work for the government and need to be near a military base, or the state capital happens to be a major metro area. Maybe they live near their elderly parents they take care of. Maybe they have family nearby who can watch their kids while they go to work and if they moved they’d have to start paying a ton in childcare. Maybe there’s a cheap private school there and they don’t want to have to switch their kid to public school. Maybe they have a chronic health condition or disability and need to live near the best doctors. Maybe one person went back to college and the classes they need are on campus. Especially if it’s a higher degree where they can’t just go to any community college in buttfuck nowhere. Maybe they had to move there for a postdoc fellowship. But why am I telling you when you already have all the answers.

          Nothing new about living in New York being more expensive than Albany.

          I met someone who moved to Albany to get an advanced degree and they hated it. They alluded to the fact that they were broke and living with a group of people. Unless you’re suggesting living out in the woods, in which case, sure. You’re right. I’ve heard there’s some great career opportunities out in the catskills.

          We have no idea what other people’s lives are like and none of us should assume we do. Especially when you’re going to be a dick about it.

          • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            17 months ago

            Man, if we were to listen to you the majority of people are living edge case scenarios which makes it impossible for them to find a way to improve a situation they hate!

            I met someone who moved to Albany to get an advanced degree and they hated it. They alluded to the fact that they were broke and living with a group of people.

            And I’m sure they would have hated New York and would have had to live with an even bigger group of people! It’s also completely ridiculous to complain about having to live with others while you’re in school and can’t work a job full time.

            The only dick I see here is you, I merely suggested that it’s possible to live in places where you have access to everything THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE needs and to still have inexpensive housing. Not everyone needs to live in cities of a million or more but a lot of people will never consider moving out of them because they never do the math to realise that they might be better off doing it even if it means sacrificing some other things.

      • @Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        608 months ago

        Yes, but it’s worse for everybody. Millennials that have been renting for decades… How the hell are they going to get ahead enough to save up for a down payment!? Meanwhile, housing prices keep rising, outpacing even combined incomes. I realize some people are able to make it work, but I don’t think it’s the majority…

      • Snot Flickerman
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        368 months ago

        Oh absolutely, didn’t mean for that to be a takeaway. These kids have got it way worse than we do, they were fucked right out of the gate even harder than we did. Just had my Gen X “they forgot about us” moment.

    • @ohlaph@lemmy.world
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      47 months ago

      I lived alone for exactly one year before the apartment raised the rent by over %13. I had never been late or missed a payment. Luckily, my fiance, now wife, offered me to move in with her. But I would have had to move soon either way back then because I was being priced out quickly.

    • @grue@lemmy.world
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      27 months ago

      I’m over 40 (one of the ancient Millennials)

      I think you might be very very late Gen X, TBH.

        • @SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          77 months ago

          Yea 1980 is the cut off. And I was born in 81 and while I understand the gen x around me, my values align with working class millennials and gen z.

          I’ve met so many narcissistic gen x that I’m default sus of anyone older than me. Some of the best people I’ve ever known are gen x. But unfortunately many many more of the worst are too.

          Don’t misunderstand, I let everyone introduce themselves to me through their own words and actionn. My priors might register but that shits stays in the cupboard, its not even on the back burner. Knowledge of stereotypes, or behaviours associating shit I don’t like does not equal those things, and everyone comes blank slate.

          It occurs to me now that that’s prob a remnant of being raised on the meritocracy mythos. And meritocracy IS a myth, that shit isnt real in the slightest. You can’t point at anything in your field of vision and say there, that’s merit. It’s an illusion, but one that feeds to our innate, internal sense of justice. And if you want to dive into an esoteric rabbit hole, Justice is a much more rewarding one.

          Rawls for the win.

        • Snot Flickerman
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          27 months ago

          It’s sometimes 79, sometimes 80, but I just barely scraped by on the other side.

        • @tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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          17 months ago

          I think 79 is supposed to be the last year for gen X.

          Definitive cutoffs for generations is stupid anyway. It depends way more on socioeconomic class and region than a single year. A millenial born in 81 has way more in common with an Xer from 80 than a millenial from 96.

      • @SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        167 months ago

        C’mon man, that’s a little harsh, don’t ya think? I get that you don’t owe him anything but for real, not everyone’s calling is equally rewarding financially, and you know this, and you know how fucked up it is.

        Teachers deserve a wage that allows them to save and vacation every year.

        In fact, we all do.

        Fast food burger flippers do too. Society could afford it before, that we aren’t doing it now is the result of policy decisions, not some invisible market moral correction voodoo. Workers at Dicks Burgers in Seattle make $21/hr + bene’s and Dicks food is 1000x better than any fast food chain, and cheaper too. The money’s there, it’s just not being spread around.

        Good for you achieving your own security, honestly, I mean that. But the scales being balanced is something we all need to work towards. Youre still working class, and right now the games still rigged to make sure you die broke. If we can’t collectively work together to make sure the economy works for us all (cuz what’s the point of a society then? It’s just a fancy meat grinder otherwise), that paramedics make more than minimum wage. I’d like to live in a world where words matter. Where “essential” workers weren’t just sacrificed on the alter of capitalism bc the beaurocratic class got furloughed and are actually treated essential.

        Otherwise it’s just a matter of time until another round of Reaganomics or fascists usurp power and either way your union gets busted. Ask the control tower what it’s like when the government doesn’t give a shit about the law, or precident. The law only matters if it’s enforced.

        • @SCB@lemmy.world
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          27 months ago

          I sure hope you vote for higher local taxes every election. Local elections really matter!

          Vote for zoning reform too!

                • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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                  77 months ago

                  Gonna blow your mind here. Both can be true! People can make it work with some effort and (even you) a ton of luck, but that doesn’t also mean there’s not A HUGE issue. I guarantee you every single person who is struggling day-to-day, and doesn’t have some kind of reality-altering mental illness, wants to improve themselves. Most people either don’t know how, or have tried and tried and tried and just not been fortunate to find their break. Instead of being met with “ah, man, that’s rough bud. Let’s see if we can figure out some resources to help” though, it’s “get a job, don’t do drugs, pull yourself up with those bootstraps you bought (no handouts here!) And fuckin grind til you get it you worthless maggot!” One of those approaches will actually lead to people doing better for themselves, and it’s not the one you chose.

                • @SCB@lemmy.world
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                  27 months ago

                  I’m 39 and I do drugs a lot and I pretty much guarantee I’m more successful than you, given what you’ve said.

                  Maybe let’s leave the drugs out of this discussion

      • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        107 months ago

        Thanks for feeding into the consumerist “all that matters is the money you make and the things you can buy” attitude that’s doing so well for us all right now! We really need it!

          • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            57 months ago

            Making a priority in life to earn more so that you can buy buy buy is pretty peak consumer. Your post made a pretty hefty value judgement at the person above (you didn’t make enough money, so why do you deserve…). Peak consumerism is you have to earn so you can buy. The opposite of consumerism is recognizing that we’re more than our bank accounts, and that people need shelter in order to survive, so let’s make it accessible to everyone.

              • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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                37 months ago

                It’s funny that calling out very real problems is “whining” to some people. There’s absolutely some issues going on with housing prices and wages right now, but Mr(s) GotTheirs refuses to see it. You can be proactive and make progress in your own life while also acknowledging that the game is pretty rigged right now, and having a bit of humility that the GotTheirses at least partially got theirs through some luck.

                Also, way to make some baseless assumptions about where I, or anyone, is trying to buy.

  • @Leviathan@lemmy.world
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    1317 months ago

    Are we pretending that millennials are affording apartments alone? Cause I know very few doing that. Moving back in with your parents, though, that shit’s common.

        • @WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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          417 months ago

          It’s getting measurably worse at a fairly predictable clip - boomers had it easy, x/y less so, it’s dark for milennials, and impossible for zoomers/alpha.

          The guardrails were removed and wheels set in motion by the boomers so they could more effectively ransack the economy - everything since then has been a consolidation of wealth and power at the direct expense of workers.

        • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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          37 months ago

          It is actually worse each time, though. In previous times, it was “oh lordy, prices are going up, shucky darn, guess I will only have 2 pieces of avocado toast each day from now on”. Now people just can’t even get by.

    • @Frozengyro@lemmy.world
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      197 months ago

      I’m in the Midwest. Most millennials I know are living on their own or with their partner. However, the younger millennials and gen Z I know? Very few I know aren’t living with parents.

      • @time_fo_that@lemmy.world
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        47 months ago

        I’m in Seattle, most of my friends have roommates or moved back in with their parents (which I did in 2020 when I lost my last job). I am making slightly more than my last job now with a second degree but after inflation I’m making quite a bit less and rent has gone up significantly since then. So I still can’t afford my own place.

  • Lettuce eat lettuce
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    748 months ago

    Landlords dream of a future where they can charge so much for rent that you need 3 generations of people crammed into a tiny apartment to make payments.

      • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        277 months ago

        Quick history of inflation in America. President Eisenhower started the US/Vietnam War, and JFK kept it going. Ike and Kennedy both wanted to keep it small, but LBJ made a major commitment of troops and air power to deliver a knockout punch. That turned into a quagmire where the US couldn’t pull out without looking like losers. President Johnson [LBJ] started printing money to pay for the War, rather than raise taxes. Nixon was elected as a peace candidate. Nixon’s Vietnam policy alone is worth several books, but we’ll just talk about the US dollar.

        Nixon doubled down on Johnson’s bombing policy; the US factories were working 24/7 to make more weapons. Great, except the money was all paper. When the Arab Oil boycott hit the price of everything went through the roof. Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.

        Then came Reagan. Big tax cuts for the rich were supposed to make everything golden again. In 1980, $1 million was considered a vast fortune; by 1992 it was what a really rich guy paid for a party.

        • @SCB@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.

          This was not because of inflation, but because women were beginning to be seen as fully human

          Frankly between this and “but the money was paper” just makes you sound like some kind of neotraditionalist goldbug.

          • @tory@lemmy.world
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            207 months ago

            ‘Were forced to work’

            VS

            ‘Were permitted to work’

            I’m not sure what went wrong with your brain to not be able to distinguish between these two. You’re responding to someone who said the first version. You clapped back with serious attitude about the second version.

            They’re not the same though.

            • @SCB@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Yes I am aware that this person used slanted and incorrect language. That’s sort of my entire point.

              You’ll forgive me for not taking someone, who wants the gold standard and traditionalist housewives back, very seriously.

              • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                77 months ago

                You funny. I never mentioned the gold standard or ‘traditional’ roles. If you’re going to put words in my mouth, I’d like them with an order of nachos and a fruit punch.

        • @frezik@midwest.social
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          7 months ago

          None of the timeline matches up with increases in inflation.

          https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/military_spending_since_1940_fy_2024_large.png

          https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fig-1.jpg

          Direct spending on Vietnam starts to ramp up in the mid-60s and draws down in the mid-70s. Inflation, however, goes through a major shock in the early 70s and another one in the early 80s. None of this seems to match any kind of cause and effect we would expect. Further, the real cost of Vietnam was born decades later, as those veterans draw on benefits such as the VA hospital system. (Which, BTW, is expected to start happening about now with the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; healthcare costs are a veteran issue.)

          And then we have another big increase in military spending during the Reagan years, but no particular increase in inflation is seen. Not even if there’s some argument that it’d be delayed by a decade. Not like it had been in the 70s, anyway.

          Oil costs are the main reason for these shocks. “Printing money” is a naive libertarian approach to inflation which largely serves people who use money to make money (i.e., billionaires) as opposed to people who use their labor to make money. I was just lamenting earlier today how leftists around here have started to absorb libertarian narratives on inflation, and it’s not a good thing.

        • @SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          27 months ago

          Que the Iraq war part deux. Immediately followed by the Afghan invasion.

          Paid for on credit card. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

          Don’t forget the giant expansion of the government under Bush² either, the TSA, DHS, Medicare expansion

          The aughties fucked over the entire upcoming century. Obama swaging the wall street plutocrats after 2008 with, not just the bail outs, but with relaxing corporate control of rental property is looking really, REALLY short sighted about now

          Trump repealing Obama’s DoddFrankLite is gonna come back and haunt us too, when wall street implodes in the inevitable 2008 repeat, because if you can trust a banker to do anything, it’s to suck as much blood out as possible and let the public pay for life support. It’s gonna happen again. Guaranteed.

      • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        147 months ago

        You can still buy one for that, as long as you don’t mind living in Flint and like the taste of lead.

        • @Asifall@lemmy.world
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          227 months ago

          I got one in a niceish area for that. All you have to do is buy a small foreclosure and then spend literal years renovating while you live somewhere else and run up a bunch of high interest credit card debt paying for those renovations. 🥲

          • @ExfilBravo@lemmy.world
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            27 months ago

            Man you just dashed my only last real dream of home ownership with your reality. I was like yeah I’ll just find a fixer upper and make it work. I know better now. Thanks for the heads up.

    • @hansl@lemmy.world
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      167 months ago

      I came in to say something similar. Don’t focus on the price of the rent. The problem is the salary. Rent to salary has been going up and someone is pocketing the difference.

      • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The problem is both.

        Edit:

        Of course this isn’t universally applicable, but in my city there’s basically six large landlords that own and manage the types of large, multi-family apartment buildings where the majority of people live.

        There’s no competition in housing and it shows in the pricing, which has been skyrocketing not coincidentally as the firms consolidate and then all “somehow” price align using the same software market rates.

        • @hansl@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          That’s not how an inflationary economy works. Rent will always go up in yesterday’s money.

          If the market was doing its job, salaries wouldn’t be much behind. So the ratio of rent:salary would be relatively stable.

          • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            27 months ago

            So you’re saying solely blame employers for consistent rent increases that top 10% year over year in some markets?

            Employers aren’t going to keep raising everyone’s salary 10% every year to compete with the amount of greed in housing markets. Small ones can’t afford to, and large ones will be punished brutally by their investors for doing so.

            Two things can be true: salaries can have stagnated, and rents / housing prices can have skyrocketed as well.

        • @Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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          57 months ago

          Houses were smaller back then and priced more appropriatly because they weren’t being bought up for renting and as financial safe-haven by financial entities. The majority of new homes are 2,500+sqft, average new homes in the post-war era were around 1,000sqft. In the 70s average homes were around 1,500sqft.

          There are a lot of homes in the 1,000-1,200sqft range that are under $150k. In my area there are about 1k homes under $150k(2/3 under $120k), there are about 3k priced $150-350k.

          You referenced the adjusted price and I am talking about $150k homes because the homes under $120k tend to be houses that need $30k in renovations/repairs because the previous owners stopped doing maintenance and haven’t updated in decades which leaves first-time buyers holding the bag.

          Home prices aren’t even the problem, stagnated wages are the problem. The size of homes increasing doesn’t help and people demoing reasonably priced homes to build 2.5+sqft homes doesn’t help. If builders had incentive to build sane starter homes and wages were where they should be, the housing market would be in better shape for people trying to start a life and own property.

        • @SCB@lemmy.world
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          47 months ago

          Home prices and minimum wage not linked and linking them would cause a spiral upward in home prices, as available spending money would go up but supply would not.

            • @SCB@lemmy.world
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              27 months ago

              This is not happening in any way the way it would if home prices were somehow tied to wages.

              Do you really not understand that bad things can become worse things?

                • @SCB@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  More like “don’t offer suggestions that will make things demonstrably and predictably worse or someone might point out how much worse things will get”

                  Not all solutions are equally valid.

                  In our current situation, I can’t think of many ideas worse than “tie wages to home values” aside from maybe just burning down a fuckload of apartment buildings. It’s that bad of an idea.

      • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        67 months ago

        'Adjusted for inflation ’ is kind of a joke. If inflation worked the way the adjustments would have you believe, the average home of today would be $120,000 apx. It’s about three times that.

      • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        37 months ago

        ‘Abysmal?’ Because they didn’t have computers and air conditioning? Are you saying that improvements in technology are dependent on inflation?

        If you think that they were terrible because they were smaller than the average house today, I suggest you look at the tiny houses and multiple room mate situations people are looking at today. In 1960, If you had three house mates you were probably in prison.

  • @Cagi@lemmy.ca
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    568 months ago

    I’m a disabled millennial. I live in a dangerous old house with 5 roommates and I am still spending over half my money on rent.

    • @Raine_Wolf@lemm.ee
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      147 months ago

      Well there’s you’re problem! You’re disabled, so therefore unprofitable. It’s criminal that you have the ability to live while someone who could make profit for our corporate overlords might not. Shame on you for being a leech on society! (In case it wasn’t obvious, /S)

      • @SCB@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Disabled people are literally paid just to be alive.

        Trying to paint reality as a hellish dystopia only works if you say true things.

        • Snot Flickerman
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          7 months ago

          Disabled people have to jump through years of hoops for those payments.

          Further, the top payout is around $750 a month and they aren’t allowed to generate any kind of income outside of that or they will lose it.

          This means they can only afford to live in subsidized housing which can take years of being on a waiting list to access.

          We pay them far less than subsistence level and many of them end up on the street because of it through no fault of their own.

          For five years I gave change to an old man who begged for change while he waited for his name to come up on the housing availability list. He lived out his car the entire time up to that.

          We do not pay them to live. We pay them and go “hope you can figure it out” and kick them to the street.

          • @SCB@lemmy.world
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            17 months ago

            If we subsidize their housing, we’re paying for their housing too.

            We pay them to be alive, yes. You can argue we could pay them more, and id support that, but we very much pay them just to exist.

            • @clockwork_octopus@lemmy.world
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              47 months ago

              I’m referring to your comment about disabled people. I can’t imagine being such a piece of shit that I can’t see the value of anyone beyond what money they can bring in through physical labor. What a way to view the world.

                • @clockwork_octopus@lemmy.world
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                  27 months ago

                  Your comment “Disabled people are literally paid to be alive” heavily implies that you view disabled people as though they have no value at all, and are nothing but a drain on society. If I’ve misunderstood, please feel free to explain.

  • Uranium3006
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    498 months ago

    the traditional way of life has been snuffed out by the forces of capitalism. there’s no point trying to live a normal life anymore, we have to forge a new path

    • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Let me stop you for a second.

      In North America single family houses became the norm after the second world war, that means you might still have living relatives who weren’t raised in what you think is the “traditional way of life”.

      It’s more traditional for North Americans to live in multi generational housing or housing provided by their employer than it is to own their own house and expect to only be two living in it once their kids leave.

      Everyone getting their own single family homeis unsustainable and 70% home ownership is an historical anomaly that pretty much only concerned WASPs. It’s the American dream, not the American tradition.

      • Snot Flickerman
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        37 months ago

        That’s very true. Although it’s also true that forcing people into cramped quarters with one another for long periods exacerbates interpersonal issues, and people need the ability to walk away from one another and decompress.

        Whether that’s as simple as having their own room where they can close the door, or having a “third place” where they can go without needing to spend money to decompress and not have to be around others, you can’t just endlessly force people to live together, especially when it keeps leading to domestic violence outcomes.

        I agree, for most of history humans lived in shared, community housing, and that’s not a bad thing, however I do think it’s bad to promote the idea that we all need to be crammed into incredibly tiny spaces with multiple people living with them.

        It would be different if housing was equitable and we didn’t have billionaires using up massive amounts of housing literally for only themselves while the rest are stuck in tiny boxes that they can barely fit inside. Housing size needs to be an equitable issue, because housing size and cramped quarters is a mental and physical health issue.

        • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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          27 months ago

          Although it’s also true that forcing people into cramped quarters with one another for long periods exacerbates interpersonal issues,

          I dislike this take. Before the Baby Boom, you lived with, moved around with, interacted with…well…everyone. Being familiar with others reduces stress, fear, xenophobia, etc. A lot of the problems we now face are due to people who have no empathy or concern for others and instead live within their own bubble.

          • Snot Flickerman
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            17 months ago

            Millions of LGBT youth abused by their birth families would wildly fucking disagree.

            Before the baby boom? You mean segregated USA?? Wtf are you smoking?

            • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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              17 months ago

              I’m gay, but ok, tell me about my lived experiences or something. And you seem angry for some reason, so I’m gonna go ahead and disengage.

  • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    357 months ago

    That’s hardly a new situation.

    The only people I know that live alone do so in extremely tiny apartments in unpopular areas.

    The only real way to buy is as a couple, and has been for decades.

    • @9715698@lemmy.world
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      107 months ago

      Yeah no kidding – I moved out of my parents at 18 in 2006, and had a roommate all through univeristy and afterwards until getting married (and I couldn’t afford my current flat without my partner’s salary). Very few people I knew had a place to themselves, and if they did they were either scraping by, or they had help.

    • Right? I had some kind of roommate every place I lived into my early 30s. And I’m GenX.

      This is not a new situation, it’s rediscovering the wheel by this new generation. The boomers were probably the only generation that could graduate, grab a good Union factory job, and buy a small home in suburbia in their early 20s. Everyone else I know had a transitional period of working smaller jobs and sharing an apartment for a long time until they got a really good job or paired up and married.

      • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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        17 months ago

        In my father’s case, he worked part time pumping gas at Sears and had an apartment with three friends while still paying for all of college in cash. The early 1970s were the place to be, apparently.

    • @SheDiceToday@eslemmy.es
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      7 months ago

      Right, does no one remember the ubiquitous TV show of young, modern life: friends? It had two groups of folks living in threes. Now, yes, their apartments were mansion-sized for New York, but the premise was still there, and that was the 90s. Heck, my boomer mother talked about how it wasn’t uncommon for people she knew on the east coast of the US to live with parents until early 30s. ’

      This isn’t a completely new phenomenon, but the percentage of the paycheck it costs to afford housing, even with a roommate, still seems to be on the rise.

        • @SCB@lemmy.world
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          27 months ago

          Only by people who didn’t watch the first episodes in which they explain how they got the main-stage apartment.

          Everyone that doesn’t live in the free apartment has a very nice job, a roommate, or both (as with Chandler and Joey).

  • Queen HawlSera
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    337 months ago

    We need a new deal, I mean a new new deal. Because this is getting ridiculous, I’m lying it was ridiculous 20 years ago, now it is just the reason why dystopian fiction is impossible to write, how can you top real life?

    • @guacupado@lemmy.world
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      167 months ago

      What kills me is when you go into the realestate subs and they talk about how they have to constantly increase every year because the cost of everything is going up.

      Nah bruh, I’ve had my house for 4 years and nothing has increased at any noticeable level.

      • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Yeah boy am I glad I pulled the trigger on a real estate purchase when I did. My costs (mainly HOA, and to a lesser extent taxes) have gone up very slightly in the last few years, but nowhere near the 30-40% increases I used to get smacked with renting over the same timeframe.

        It’s like 1.5-2x as expensive as it was to rent in this (already expensive) area 3 years ago.

        I’m determined to never rent again. Landlords are unbelievably greedy.

      • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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        57 months ago

        My father is in real estate and recently had a “talk” with me about how putting 15% into retirement won’t help me and that the only way to secure my future is through real estate. I didn’t have the reverse “talk” with him where I would have pointed out how he’s completely underestimating how much money it’s going to cost to change his diapers in a couple years and how that house will only offset the costs rather than repair them.

    • Melllvar
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      87 months ago

      Square Deal (1908)

      New Deal (1933)

      I Have Altered The Deal (2024)

  • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Gen Z are what… 26 at most?

    Yeah, not many millennials or gen X were able to afford to live alone before their 30s, stop thinking you’re the only ones who had it hard for years after being done with school.

    Heck, my parents came out of university with unemployment at 12+% and interest rates at 18+%, sounds like fun, right? Good climate to think about owning a first house! I wonder what they did… Oh, that’s right, they rented an apartment from my great grandmother and lived right above her and my grandparents! A fucking dream, right?

    They purchased their first house when they were in their early/mid thirties.

    Wanna know how I managed to do better than them? I got 10k from my father’s life insurance after he hung himself when I was 26 and let me tell you, I would rather have continued renting.

    • @brambledog@lemmy.today
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      207 months ago

      I truly thought shittymorph had come to lemmy.

      You are angry and you deserve to be, and you should talk to somebody about it, but not like this.

      • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        I’m just tired of Zs acting like they’re the only ones who were delt a bad hand, it’s just a way to turn people of different generations against one another while the real issue is billionaires manipulating is into hating each other.

        I don’t see you telling them they’re angry and should talk to someone and that’s it.

        • @NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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          47 months ago

          Because they know they’re angry and those that can afford to talk to someone already are. Hell most of my millennial friends are in therapy.

          And if you really don’t want to see division between generations, well, you’re the impediment there. If gen Z says things suck, and your response is stfu everyone has always had it bad… you’re the problem.

    • Queue
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      117 months ago

      It’s not an oppression-depression Olympics. Because someone else has something worse off or similar does mean you win. Because someone else has something better off than you does not mean you lose.

      There is one thing you can do; Organize. Help people not ever have the same situation you and your family had. Make it so anyone who faced such hardships doesn’t need to, nor anyone else would again.

      I’m sorry you had a rough life, and I hope you feel better soon, but the people who are struggling are not your enemy, they are compatriots in a similar mental struggle. They are not the ones who caused your family pain and strife, but feel it in a similar vein. They are not your enemy.

      • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        127 months ago

        Sorry that’s how you interpreted it, my message was intended to make people realize that it’s not a gen Z thing, it’s a systemic issue that’s affected many generations.

  • @bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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    238 months ago

    Completely off topic, but in the article they say some apartment complexes are offering “private liquor lockups.” Wtf?

    • @stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Would it surprise you to learn that the demographic most likely to be rendered homeless is Boomers because life got expensive around them? As best I can tell, they are also among the worst generations for having prepared for their retirement.

      • @SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        137 months ago

        You’re not wrong, but at least they got a chance to prepare.

        I asked my boomer mother why her generation wasn’t leading the revolt. I took the first job I remember her having when I was just a wee one, asked her that pay, extrapolated inflation on it and showed her that she’s making the same amount of money today as she was then. Inflation, as a tool to control the masses, has robbed her of every “pay raise” or advancement of her entire life.

        Her story is not unique.

        That doesn’t let them off the hook for the housing market tho, that shit, intentional or not, is literally just robbing their kids and grandkids futures for themselves.

    • Snot Flickerman
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      388 months ago

      But now thirty, forty, and fifty-somethings get to have them, too!