Understanding Millennial Burn-out | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

[@jemag]

It is not about end of life wealth accumulation, but rather about what the Boomer generation could afford at the same age. For the Boomer generation, buying a house in your early 20s, on a single salary and after paying your student loans was actually something realistic. The fact is, inflation in some key areas has risen tremendously without the salary following suit.

[@nickgeffen8316]

Cal, I love your body of work, and use it as a pillar of my own lifestyle design approach. You also provide compelling social explanations from internal industrial-technological dynamics - the Silicon Valley convergence with the job market, etc. - for how it is that certain professional norms entrench themselves. Thank you. I wonder if you'll consider some good-faith critical feedback for a moment. It seems you consistently misunderstand the historical development of capitalist political economy, and too breezily dismiss, but never with persuasive reasons to do so, and it comes across as reactionary. The capitalism of today has markedly novel features - hyper-financialisation, aggressive market deregulation, globalised flows of capital and commerce, historically impotent labour movements, advanced privatisation of public services, digital surveillance and omnipresent predatory advertising. Each generation does experience society differently, and while we can't generalise from Instagram alone (as you rightly point out), there are more serious macro-economic analyses of the millennial generation freely available. Our generation (I'm a younger millennial myself) is significantly more precarious than the previous (see: the explosion of the gig economy, the increase in costs of living, and the enormous wealth transfer to the billionaire stratum in the last 25 years or so). Given all of this, your pronouncements on the socio-cultural origins of our individual, industrial or generational experiences come across as flippant, myopic and superficial when you rebuff materialist economic analyses. My concern is that this undermines your credibility as a social commentator, and associates you more with the 'tech bro' world, in which digital creators reduce trends to individual workplaces and habits rather than sweeping societal phenomenal that have structural roots. It turns away millennials who see your work as a potential resource for living better in an increasingly unhinged economic system that prioritises short-term profit at the expense of the health of its people and the long-term viability of civilisation in the face of anthropogenic mass extinction. George Monbiot's work covers a lot of this, as an accessible first port of call, should you be interested in researching for yourself.

[@poorbob1122]

No one will see this, but Cal missed something on the capitalist argument. The new thing is the availability of the worker and expectation of availability after “work hours.” In my last job, I routinely had meetings up until 7 PM and messages through 11 PM.

[@bradypenn3856]

As a fan of Cal and his work, I disagree with his interpretation of several of these premises. 1. Age indicating wealth is a given but does not account for the fact that millennials are doing worse financially when compared to past generations at the same age, for example home ownership rates are far lower amongst millennials. 2. Social media use and hustle culture content engages hundreds of millions of people every month (in some ways the majority of social media content emphasizes "I'm doing more than you"). Perhaps older millennials are growing out of social media addiction (I doubt it) but most people are using social media more than ever by a substantial margin and can't escape the inferiority complex that comes with it. 3. Income inequality is at historic levels, capitalism for all of its benefits, can be discussed as part of the cause. Feeling like you're spinning your wheels and burn out in a world where you don't feel you are getting ahead in spite of hard work, is predictable. All that being said, the meaning gap discussion at the end of the video was spot on in my view. These videos are always interesting even when I have a different view, thanks Cal!

[@velvetimpulse]

Yeah I was surprised by how off the mark Cal was on some of these topics. A quick Google search gives you tons of really high quality data and studies that prove exactly what you're saying.

[@nickgeffen8316]

Amen, Brady. My thoughts exactly.

[@milphoenix91]

This. Exactly.

[@autumblak]

This is what we have been missing... I do agree.

[@kristellfox4731]

Great insight. I agree with you about the meaning gap.

[@veronicaolivares9150]

Excellent!

[@taylorjanegreen1]

Beautiful!

[@rid.h.tom.4296]

Great content.

[@madhavraj1650]

Young people pay tax that go to old people In usa and other European countries old people have larger voting power and if you look at your congress and senate most of them are old . So they will make policies that benefits them and their old voting segments. I amazed usa 🇺🇸 is very young compare to other western or European countries but your congress and senate are old as fuck.

[@jmtoobin]

That's because the US government was founded by people who wanted to see how the Roman Empire managed to last as long as it did, and make a few improvements of their own to see how much longer their country could last. An experiment, if you will, but an exercise in futility all the same. The only thing to take away from that is that such a practice for empirical rule should never try to be repeated again.

[@nickshaw3503]

Is this meaning gap addressed by anyone good out there?

[@kiel7960]

John Vervaeke does a lot of work on this kzbin.info

[@veronicaolivares9150]

6 moths ago