“I think my generation is overcorrecting for the lack of emotional availability of their own parents...”

"It was true for a time. Back when MySpace was popular, I had friends moving to college or moving out of state with their families, and even a few moving out of the country. Keeping in touch with them was easy; status updates and posting pictures were natural conversation starters.

Then older people joined, and the big switch to Facebook happened, which felt more mature, I guess. After that, corporations started using profiles for advertisements, and things snowballed from there."

"I tell young people all the time: 'Your employer is not your friend or family. They 100% do not care bout you or your welfare. You are the largest cost center for every employer, and if they can cut you loose, they absolutely will. 

You are in a transactional relationship with them; they pay you for your time, and you provide them that time.'"

"It's the same with video games, and cars in the future will be going in the same direction, with unlocking their features by software unlocks. It's wild."

"As the federal government had less money due to cutting taxes for the rich, it cut money going to state and local governments, who in turn now had less money. To operate, they raised taxes and fees, which mostly got paid by ordinary people. Without going into specifics, that is what happened in the US... along with huge increases in the national debt because they had to borrow money to make up for the taxes they no longer collected from the rich.

Now, here's a reality check: In all of history, when rich people had more money, how often have they raised workers' wages? Rarely. They instead just kept the windfall for themselves. Trickle Down Economics is a false premise, and Republicans knew that when they sold it to us — it's all been a big lie. 

As a result, the rich got richer and a good portion of the middle class has sunk into the ranks of the working poor, while many of the working poor have become unhoused or at least had to move back in with their parents to survive."

"It pisses me off so badly when boomers get mad at us for buying into that lie, when they spent our entire childhoods drilling it into our heads. We were kids following the advice of people we should have been able to trust, and we get blamed for following their terrible advice."

"As of the current day, I'm one exam away from being a fourth-level power engineer. It's nothing close to my life's passion, but there's plenty of industry for it, and it pays well.

I've witnessed people with similar goals move far away or give up and switch careers, or crash and burn.

I wanted that dream, but I wasn't willing to end up unhoused to chase it. You can't make a video game with no tech."

"I think my generation is overcorrecting for the lack of emotional availability of their own parents."

"It allowed the establishment of planned obsolescence rather than buying for life. How is turning the tap off while brushing your teeth going to help? Maybe look at the water waste with processing ugly carrots into those cute snack-sized carrots or literally any industrial-scale production, and you'll realize that the problem isn't plastic straws; the problem is we are loading garbage onto barges and shipping it overseas, and it's getting dumped in the ocean away from prying eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for 'waste not, want not.' There's no reason to leave the tap on while brushing your teeth, but there is also no reason to support industries blasting ugly carrots with gallons of water to make them pretty before eating them."

"It’s interesting how we value 'maturity' and 'character' in art, wine, or old objects, but when it comes to women’s faces, everything is expected to remain untouched and eternally young."

"Do what you're good at so you can do what you love in your time off."

"So maybe 'you can't fix that' is also up there. It's not that modern stuff can't be fixed; it just takes different knowledge and tools than the past. 

Before, most stuff could be fixed with a typical kit of hand tools, but now you need electronics knowledge and stuff like oscilloscopes, soldering irons, etc., to do it. 3D printing has also made it possible to fix a lot of the broken plastic stuff you find."

"Because most people aren't staying home to take care of their aging parents in this economy; they live states away doing a job that they couldn't find where their parents live. Your kids won't have time to take care of you when you're older. 

Society knows that, and yet everyone pretends like having kids is the ultimate 401K."

"Greed and self-interest are the ideology of a pigeon eating bread until its stomach ruptures, a horse eating grain until it's sick, or a snake eating its own tail — they are lower, primitive ways of being, not human ways.

Now we wonder why our communities are falling apart, society is being pushed to the brink, and mental and physical health are at all-time lows. We've convinced ourselves that our animal instincts are virtues when the reality is that empathy and compassion are our evolutionary advantage."

"People now feel comfortable waiting longer to have kids under the mistaken belief that, when they're ready, they can just have kids.

Kids can take time to make, and if you wait long enough, they may not come at all."

"And you wonder why Gen X just shrugs. We shrug because all of it is a lie; the whole system is a lie to keep you clutching on to the little bit that they’ve let you have while the rich take everything else for themselves."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.