Rant: Young People are Getting Terrible Advice and it's Destroying Our Culture

8669 sats \ 80 comments \ @Undisciplined 6 Apr culture

Somewhere along the way advice stopped being about the world that exists and became about the world upper middle class white liberals want to exist.

As should be clear to everyone, I'm super libertarian about all of this stuff. People should live their lives in pursuit of their own visions of happiness or flourishing or whatever term encapsulates what they find fulfilling. With that said, I'm often bothered by the directions young people are pushed in. I think it's leading to them having worse lives than they could have had and it's severely damaging our culture as a result.

@kepford had a great post along these lines that didn't get enough attention: #478976. However, please don't take that to mean he approves of the following message.

College for Everyone

This was my first taste of this bad advice phenomenon and I had many servings of it. I haven't been in a government school in over 10 years, so I don't know if this has gotten worse, but I have enough college contacts to know it hasn't gotten better.

High school kids with severe cognitive deficiencies are systematically pushed towards college. Everyone knows that these kids have no shot at completing college, but they're too "nice" to set realistic expectations. That is not kindness. It is in fact a very perverse type of cruelty to knowingly set mentally disabled kids up for failure like that. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. The adults in these schools should be helping these kids develop attainable skills, so that they can actually know the joys of success.

Beyond kids with cognitive challenges, many young people are not going to get much out of college. To a first approximation, all of the returns to college accrue to the top handful of STEM students. For everyone else, it's a wash at best financially.

If people want to go to college, great, but most college students are decidedly less than enthusiastic. Given the extreme expenses involved, it seems like kids in high school should at least learn about alternatives.

Relationships vs College

This segues right into my next point. The prevailing "wisdom" is that long distance relationships are impossible, so high school couples should just break up before going to college.

If you're in love, you can absolutely manage a long distance relationship.
Finding the right partner is vastly more consequential than going away to college.

The single most important choice you make in life is who to spend it with. If you make that choice correctly, you can manage everything else in time. Sacrificing all these relationships on the alter of college is pretty sickening considering the point I just made about the returns to college in the previous section.

It was not long ago that people were getting married and starting families right around the age we now all leave for college. Why did our culture decide to radically devalue these relationships all of a sudden?

Putting off Having Kids

There will always be reasons to put off having kids and our cultural messaging doesn't help. There are real biological constraints at play here and many people find that they've run out of time to have the family they wanted. That's the rest of their lives spent wishing for something they could have had. Good thing they waited to start until after getting that promotion, right?

We have friends who started their family much younger than us. Their oldest is midway through high school. All the kids will be adults by the time our friends turn 50. They'll likely get to see all of their grandkids grow up and start families. They get to spend about a decade more with their kids than my wife and I get to, because we put it off. That's a pretty big deal.

Does anyone ever hear that simple perspective when they're young?

Romantic/Sexual Landscape

At least the alternative to maintaining those relationships and starting families is equally fulfilling, right?

Oh, wait, no, it's a complete disaster of empty hookups and loneliness. At least that seems to be the reporting on the ground. More and more, young people just aren't even trying to have meaningful romantic relationships.

Romantic bonds are how we propagate the species. It's our strongest preprogrammed urge and somehow it's been beaten out of us.

Maybe glorifying casual hookups wasn't a great idea. Young people probably don't need encouragement to be irresponsible, after all. Maybe teaching girls to see any attention from a boy as some sort of assault is not working out so well for either sex.

What do Happy Lives Look Like?

It's valuable to have a culturally expected path through life. People can use the same benchmarks as previous generations and know it at least sort of works: start dating in your teens, start a family in your 20's, support your family until they're grown, etc.

That doesn't mean people must follow the path. When you're innovating, it helps to have those benchmarks to know what you're building off of. The absence of those expectations leaves people rudderless. It's a form of the Paradox of Choice. Most people actually prefer to follow a plan than to have to create everything de novo.

Without that shared vision of the good life, people are vulnerable to adverse pressure. For instance, most people get more fulfillment from their families than from their jobs, yet the pressure is almost always to sacrifice family for career.

Gender Differences

Now for the potentially touchy point. Remember, I'm libertarian guy, live the life you want, I'm not trying to proscribe anything.

We have ample evidence from psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, history, etc., to state simply that men and women tend to value different things.

It is not helping young people when we pretend that men and women are exactly the same and push them all into the same direction. It might help them to know things like husbands and wives both tend to prefer when the husband makes more money, for instance. Or to know that many women want to take extended time out of the labor force after having kids (this is actually normal in many places, gasp).

TL;DR

There are a ton of areas where the advice young people are receiving is unmoored from reality. It's doing them an extreme disservice.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the subject, especially if you think I'm off my nut on some of this.

view all related items

621 sats \ 11 replies \ @grayruby 6 Apr

Agree. Do you think the pendulum swings back to some level of normalcy on these issues as the distrust in institutions, media grows and leftist orthodoxy continues to get rejected?

131 sats \ 9 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Apr

One can hope. But I think the lies that @Undisciplined highlighted are especially entrenched in the ruling class. That makes it harder to dislodge because they control so much of the culture and knowledge making institutions.

50 sats \ 8 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Gen Z does seem to be reacting pretty strongly, but I'm not sure they'll get things back to normal. Several people have highlighted the growing political and ideological divergence between Gen Z men and women. I can't imagine something more culturally toxic than pitting men and women against each other politically.

I see some people speculating that Gen Z women will realize that they were sold a bill of goods once they hit their 30's and start realizing they actually do want families. At that point, maybe the cycle breaks and they start offering the advice they wish they had gotten. I hope that's right.

50 sats \ 7 replies \ @grayruby 6 Apr

Good point about the gender political divide. Is it fair the say the bill of goods young women are being sold is the complete opposite of the bill of goods they were sold say 60-80 years ago.

Then: no sex before marriage. stay married no matter what. have a bunch of kids. taking care of the kids, the house and your husband is the most important thing in your life.

Now: have a lot of casual sex. stay single. no kids or delay having kids. your career is the most important thing in your life.

I know these are broad generalizations on one issue but I present them to back up my point that maybe the pendulum swings back to the middle a bit.

50 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I think that might be a fair characterization.

I feel like the bill of goods 60-80 years ago might have been the pretty intense gender essentialism that pervaded and what you describe was a consequence of that.

What I'm not sure about, since I wasn't there, is whether they had abundant evidence to know this was bad messaging.

50 sats \ 5 replies \ @grayruby 6 Apr

If you don't mind me asking, does your wife work? I thought you mentioned before that she didn't is the reason I bring it up and I wanted to comment that I think many women are now choosing to have a life more akin to what was thrust upon them as an expectation 60-80 years ago.

My wife works part time now because I am not really doing much but when I had my business and was working 50-60-80 hours a week depending on the week, she never worked and didn't really want to. She was happy to stay home and take care of the kids.

I know a number of women who are choosing this life. I am not saying many gen Zs will also choose this life but we do change as we get older.

50 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

When I was in grad school my wife worked to help support us. One of my goals was to earn enough that she wouldn't have to take a job for the money. So far, she's been taking care of all the household stuff and childcare, but she's keeping an eye out for attractive jobs.

She's also long wanted to write a novel and recently she really got back into writing, to the point that it's like a job.

I've also noticed a lot women in our social circle who are less attached to the labor force than our mothers were. I take that as a positive development, since it seems aligned with what they want, rather than being imposed on them.

50 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby 6 Apr

That's great that your wife is pursuing her passion while also taking care of the house and little one. I do think things are shifting a bit. The other homeschool family we know in our area the wife does all kind of baking, canning, preserving, has a small garden. This is stuff she is passionate about and her and my wife were talking about putting together a little business to sell some this stuff at local farmers markets etc. I think there can be a balance where it doesn't have to be all career or all homemaker mindset.

Let's be honest, bitcoin will break your brain on the career thing. When you get into bitcoin and learn how "fucked" the fiat system is, chasing the next dollar isn't that thrilling anymore.

view replies

101 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 6 Apr

Maybe when they realize they were lied to and misled.

420 sats \ 7 replies \ @cryotosensei 6 Apr

My friend, you need to take a chill pill n breathe.

I don’t know enough about the situation in the States, so won’t comment about high school kids with cognitive deficiencies being pushed towards college. I think student loan debt in American is bloody shitty. Nonetheless, even though tradespeople can earn a respectable living, the truth that college-educated people earn more throughout their lifetime than people with a high school diploma is irrefutable. I guess it depends on how self-aware n driven the high school kid is. If he has no clue about what to do with his life, I can imagine myself asking him to apply for college because isn’t college an avenue to explore options and get in touch with the individual he is? If he is more self-possessed, then sure. Enrol into a vocational college or take a gap year or be an influencer. You will have Sensei’s blessings.

Oh come on, statistically speaking, most high sch couples break up when they spilt ways during college. The version of this in Singapore is: most 18-20-year-old couples should just separate when the boy gets enrolled into compulsory military conscription and the girl sets off for university. Well-meaning parents n friends advise them to break up because the girl is likely to meet someone else when her social circle expands in college. Still, I think you are forgetting the role of the couple in this. Love-struck couples, especially defiant ones in their late teens, will ignore conventional advice n give it a go, regardless of the odds. What I’m saying is that those high sch couples who succumb to this conventional advice aren’t really in love in the first place.

I think you’re ignoring the additional pressures on young people these days. With inflation n skyrocketing costs of living n increasing job insecurity, of course young people wanna secure their bread n butter before they think about procreation. Just yesterday, I met up with friends who are based in Sydney. They are professionals, yet priced out of the exorbitant housing market. Not to say that renting is wrong. But not having the option to buy your own house surely puts stress on some young people who then chase after the next promotion. Because money not enough.

Personally, I’m a late parent. Reaching my mid 40s n my baby girl is just 15 months old. Still I have no regrets about not being able to meet my grandchildren, should she decide to have kids. I mean, in my early 30s, I was happy travelling all over Japan. Honestly, I wouldn’t swap that for anything.

In general, I think just being self-aware n taking ownership of your life choices are keys to living out your life. I wanna my children to not give a fuck about anything if they are hell bent on pursuing the path that they deem will bring them happiness n fulfilment.

I suspect this might be the longest reply I wrote here. Why are you triggering me on a lazy Saturday afternoon?!

Hugs

150 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

the truth that college-educated people earn more throughout their lifetime than people with a high school diploma is irrefutable

My friend, I'm a labor economist and this is not true for most students. For one thing, it's only a minority that finish college. So, that''s a negative return for most right there.

Then when we look at graduates, it's true that the average returns are positive, but that's because they are very large for the best students and basically zero for everyone else. For most people who finish college in America, it's a wash with what their lifetime earnings would have been if they hadn't gone.

That particular research is pretty new, though, so I'm not faulting anyone for not knowing it. What isn't new at all is knowing that most people don't finish college. Kids in American schools are not presented any alternatives to going to college. That strikes me as a horrible disservice when most will have to make their way without a college education.

Oh come on, statistically speaking, most high sch couples break up when they spilt ways during college.

Do you think that has anything to do with everyone telling them it's not going to work? Doesn't Singapore have one of the worst fertility declines in the world? Maybe these aren't healthy norms to be enforcing.

What I’m saying is that those high sch couples who succumb to this conventional advice aren’t really in love in the first place.

Fair point. I still think it would be better for our cultures to take these relationships more seriously and encourage commitment. I don't think people need encouragement to give up when things are hard.

you’re ignoring the additional pressures on young people these days

I know it's tough to get started. It was tough getting started during the last financial crisis, too. If young people had more clarity about what they wanted to get out of life, though, they could start making decisions earlier that would help them get there. What I'm reacting to is a whole array of cultural messaging that systematically orients people away from the kinds of lives that most people find fulfilling.

Honestly, I wouldn’t swap that for anything.

I'm glad to hear that. I don't want to suggest that there's one path through life that everyone should take. What I'm bothered by is how many young people seem to be floundering in the hyper-novel environment our culture has become.

In general, I think just being self-aware n taking ownership of your life choices are keys to living out your life. I wanna my children to not give a fuck about anything if they are hell bent on pursuing the path that they deem will bring them happiness n fulfilment.

In this we totally agree. If I could reframe my point slightly, I'd say that I don't think young people are being equipped with the realistic expectations that would make those things more attainable.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

50 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei 7 Apr

Several things strike me as different about the Singapore situation.

Culturally, we don’t have an issue of people not finishing college. I don’t even know if there are statistics that highlight the non-completion rate. About 60% of each cohort move on to college. So we have the problem of too many University graduates.
Graduates in some fields earn more than others These figures are published transparently, so young people know what they are getting into. I think many young people are savvy these days. Their main job is just one way of getting an income. Everyone seems to have a side hustle these days. Haha
Because we live in such a compact country, we are hyper-sensitised about comparing ourselves with the Joneses. People tend to take a pragmatic view towards life. There is this whole race about saving your first $100k before the age of 30. $100k is arbitrary, but many people subscribe to it because we are a competitive people. I think culturally, we are wired to give up on things if we CANNOT see a future at this point in time rather than wait to see how things will evolve.
Just wanted to end this with a video about a Catholic boy converting to Islam because of his Muslim girlfriend. Not a LDR but the obstacles they went through to reconcile both families just send goosebumps down my spine. Which leads to my original point: couples who are really in love will give it a go, no matter what.

49 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 7 Apr

Do you have a sense of how undergraduate college education compares in difficulty between Singapore and America?

My only points of reference are that European and Chinese colleges are considered easier than American, although good Chinese colleges are much harder to get into.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 7 Apr

I only know anecdotally that American colleges focus a lot on expressing your opinions aloud in class - and how some students fluff their way through with statements that sound grand but have no substance haha

Tbf I think it’s more difficult to complete college in the States. In Singapore, a natural support system exists. You arrive at the campus grounds, already knowing seniors or peers from tuition centres who have paved the way for you. We are a competitive people but most of us genuinely share our insights n notes with our friends. There’s this this sense of looking out for those around us. Some of us may live on campus, but it just takes us at most 1.5 hours to reach home and seek solace in the comfort of family.

Compare this to either a hothoused kid from a rich background or his counterpart from an inner city school. Having to fend for himself in a state he may not be familiar with, building up his support system by making friends from scratch, having to manage his own finances, succumbing to so many temptations like alcohol partying sex, feeling the giddy feeling of freedom - it’s just too many unknown variables to expect an 18-year-old to juggle with

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 7 Apr

some students fluff their way through with statements that sound grand but have no substance

Can confirm

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @0fje0 6 Apr

the longest reply

Well, also the reply I was hoping to see here.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Me too

297 sats \ 3 replies \ @falsejaguar 6 Apr

People are free agents. You are describing people choosing to succumb to the social pressures of an Idiocracy society. They don't have to get into debt and be single, they chose to because they are trying to attain the "dream" which is literally consumerism. Houses, cars, family, etc. they get the debt for education because they all think they are gonna be at the top yet only 1% actually will be. The other 99% have debt and interest payments essentially creating money for the economy through the need to make the interest payments stealing from the future. Lol. Women were told they didn't need men and should work instead, so no kids have been born, hence immigration. The trans stuff? Goth was already done, so what can they do to offend you? Change genders is only way left for them to cause controversy and create "unique" identities.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I don't want to blame people for succumbing to relentless propaganda campaigns that they grew up in and making bad early life choices as a result. Adults have the responsibility to be passing along helpful information.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @falsejaguar 6 Apr

The problem is the boomer generation were hippies and rejected capitalism, yet the world is capitalist regardless. They didn't understand finance and didn't teach investing and putting capital to work.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

That's one of the problems. I think more broadly, the problem is the sort of utopian egalitarianism that boomers elevated above reality. Capitalism is just one of the things they carelessly rejected.

256 sats \ 1 reply \ @HodlTWashington 6 Apr

"To a first approximation, all of the returns to college accrue to the top handful of STEM students."

This was 100% my college experience. Started off in a non-stem major, but luckily switched over & even got to keep a good amount of credits. Has made literally all the difference in my life. & of course this was against the prevailing advice I was receiving at the time, but I paid the weird looks and snide comments no mind.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

It's somewhat recent research that finally looked into the distribution of returns to college within a class. We knew for a long time that they were accruing to STEM majors, but I was shocked to see how unequal the returns are within each STEM major.

I shouldn't have been surprised, of course, since that was exactly my experience, until I went to grad school.

102 sats \ 1 reply \ @riberet19 6 Apr

Hard times create strong men, Strong men create easy times, Easy times create weak men, Weak men create difficult times.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

That certainly came to mind.

84 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford 6 Apr

Excellent post. Spot on.

they're too "nice" to set realistic expectations. That is not kindness. It is in fact a very perverse type of cruelty...

This nice vs kind thing is all over US culture. It is truly hard to find someone that cares enough to be kind. Few have the love required to speak truth in love. Sure there are mean people that speak truth but it can be hard to accept it because they could just be trying to hurt you.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 7 Apr

Yes. Despite that whole "be kind" thing that you see on posters and t-shirts everywhere.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 7 Apr

Yep, its BS

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

A friend of mine drives this point home with his students. Part of his courses is students presenting material to the class and relying on their feedback for correction. He doesn't weigh in.

He always explains that it's much kinder to correct the presenter than to let them carry on in error. That message really stuck with me.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 6 Apr

It took becoming a parent for me to learn this.

71 sats \ 2 replies \ @evbosats 6 Apr

Okay boomer

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 6 Apr

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Boom! Roasted!

I hope you're right.

122 sats \ 3 replies \ @Coinsreporter 6 Apr

IMO, young kids definitely need a persuasive guidance, not in the sense they should accept this by default. There's a great difference between advice and guidance. Advice is particularly based on the interests and view of the advisor, whereas guidance necessarily aim at shaping up of young ones into what they really want with their lives.

Being a college teacher, I have never tried to impose pieces of advice on my students. I have preferred to guide them to form their own approach.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I like that. I think I am talking about replacing the prevailing advice with guidance. When I was teaching in college I took the same approach.

I'm curious if any of this resonated with you, or if it's mostly a western thing.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 6 Apr

Yes definitely. It's not a western thing, it's been practised in India since ancient times.

The gurus used to guide shishyas (students) to skill up their own interests.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I meant if any of my cultural concerns resonated. I had no doubt that India has a much longer running tradition of guidance than the west does.

60 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 9 Apr

You hit on a lot of points here. I only want to focus on one. COLLEGE. I believe if you dont know which direction you want to go, you shouldnt go. The student debt can be crippling, and many people are better off going to a trade school and learning a specialized skill. That is my two cents.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 9 Apr

I agree and at the very least kids should be told about that option.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @plebpoet 14 Apr

I'm a young person and I agree with your assessment. I've written one personal article and one academic article along these same lines if you want to hear from me :)

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 14 Apr

I read the personal article. It's very good.

a staggering abundance of freedom and little meaningful opportunity

That line jumped out at me. Something my wife and I talk about often is how people seem to really struggle in the absence of clear expectations.

It's such a difficult tension to navigate, because we want people to be able to lead the lives that fulfill them. That seems to mean removing stifling norms and oppressive traditions. However, it's just not working out that way for so many people. The amount of things that each person has to discover for themselves has become oppressive and the lack of shared expectations has become stifling.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 14 Apr

Thanks for sharing. I'm very interested.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Zk2u 8 Apr

Fantastic thread (coming from someone who’s at the age where I might be going to uni but feel like it’s not the way).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 8 Apr

Thanks!

I'm interested in the feedback I've gotten from your generation. Do you feel like I missed the mark on anything? Are there other points I should have highlighted?

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 7 Apr

Thanks for the very well thought out post, I enjoyed it.

Just commenting on a couple topics - I completely agree on college being (most of the time) a time and money wasting scam. If anyone hasn't come across the book "The Case against Education" by Bryan Caplan, it's a great read.

I also wrote in a previous post about the kids of some friends of mine, and their college experiences. It was for many of them ultimately a failure, especially considering the cost in time and money - (#404473)

Also in terms of travel instead of having kids early - I did lots of travel in my 20's. I would swap that in a nanosecond for having had more kids, earlier. But all the propaganda I was exposed to was pro-career, and anti-children. That was a while back. Now, the situation is far worse, and the anti-children propaganda is more explicit.

This is the website of an interesting couple - https://pronatalist.org/. I found it fascinating. They were originally interviewed on the Stephan Livera podcast - https://stephanlivera.com/episode/524/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 7 Apr

Thanks for sharing. I second the Caplan recommendation and vouch for the strength of his claims.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 7 Apr

You nailed this one! I’m trying to turn the tides but it’s not easy. People need hope and belief!

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 7 Apr

Thanks!

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @IamSINGLE 6 Apr

Yes, you're right. I wanted to be a doctor and I had great interest in medicine but one of my relatives advised me not to do medical because I couldn't afford that course.

Now I am old enough to understand that his suggestion was based on his own way of thinking about the world. Students who are poorer than I have done and are doing medical courses.

I don't regret it only because I got successful in another field.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I like the point @Coinsreporter made about the difference between advice and guidance. When someone knows what they want to do, I would like to people support them in that. Part of supporting someone is making sure they understand what to expect, which may be a lot of difficulty, but that's different from trying to dissuade.

50 sats \ 9 replies \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

Everything will be alright.

11 sats \ 8 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

For me and my family it will be. I wish I felt the same way about many young people.

50 sats \ 7 replies \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

That's all that matters. It's just you. The rest is illusion. Take care of your family.

110 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Well, the whole point of this post is that I'm concerned for the generation after mine. I think it matters if their generation is a cultural disaster. We're all going to pay a price for that.

50 sats \ 5 replies \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

I understand what you are saying. To me there is only the now. Everything else is illusion. When we take responsibility for the now, we can shift our whole reality. Everything is right where it belongs. Nothing to fear.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

I believe that all that "bad" stuff happening is simply our reflection. We must change our vibration to reflect a new reality. I agree with most your point though. I'm just looking at it a bit different.

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I hear you. It's an important Stoic insight that we should focus on what's within our control, which I generally do.

It just sucks seeing so many people floundering when it seems like it didn't have to be that way.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

Fantastic post by the way. I really need to step up my game here. I love seeing people put so much thought and effort into sharing here.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Thanks!

reply on another page

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

I agree. I am in pain when I am observing the way things are on a macro level. This is why I live in the middle of the desert. It hurts me a lot to see other beings in pain. And it is sad out there.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 6 Apr

Thank you for shedding such light on this important topic. City life can be incredibly draining and challenging for children. I grew up in a village and I believe it's an unparalleled environment for a child's development, while also fostering a strong connection to their culture. Unfortunately, I no longer live in the village and haven't been able to provide my children with the same experiences I had growing up there.

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I can relate to that, but I think there's more going on here than the age old rural vs urban concerns.

50 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 6 Apr

Wasn't expecting this one:

If you're in love, you can absolutely manage a long distance relationship.

Finding the right partner is vastly more consequential than going away to college.

I don't have anything really useful to say, but here's a perspective. In my small-ish town, a ton of people made decisions on where to go to college based on being in a couple. Sometimes this was a pretty big sacrifice, where the individual choices would have been different from the group choices. But they did it in service of the relationship.

To my knowledge, none of those couples endured. And my own perspective then, which has strengthened substantially in the intervening years, is that this was a dumb choice for them. When faced with a wider array of opportunities, people tend to grow in very different directions from their high-school selves, and imo this should be encouraged. It would be hard to overstate what a dipshit I was in highschool. I'm glad I was able to become someone else, relatively unencumbered. Although opinions vary whether I have transcended dipshit-ness.

Anyway, my point is that a cultural expectation that your high-school romantic relationship will not be a permanent one, overwhelmingly resembles the actual state of modern (e.g., post 1950s) reality, and an expectation that accords with reality is a useful one. If someone has found an epic love that ought to endure for all time, then fighting through the thin normative veneer around this issue shouldn't be too difficult.

60 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I don't think people should expect that their earliest relationships will endure either, but I think people should treat whatever relationship they're in as though it might. Yes, kids should absolutely receive the information that most HS relationships will not survive college. If they choose to break up, that gets to a point @cryotosensei made about those couples not really being in love.

If I had written this as more of a thesis than a rant, I would have emphasized that we're systematically devaluing the most valuable parts of life and our culture is struggling in exactly these places.

The messaging that I really don't like is of the form "You should break up before going to college so that you're free to experiment." I would prefer if people tried to make it work, even if ex post that looks like a mistake. It's a better habit for life, imo, to see if you can persevere through temporary hard times.

Of course, every case is special, so this isn't one-size-fits-all. It's more like, if we're going to have our thumbs on the scales, it seems like they're currently on the wrong side.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 6 Apr

Yes. Because the messaging should be, “Most high school couples break up, but you know what? here are the things you can do to survive a LDR,”

I should know. I not only survived a LDR, but also went through a long-distance marriage. Seriously, being married n having freedom at the same time? Win-win!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I'm a fellow LDR survivor, but not LDM. I've had a few friends and colleagues whose wives were still in Asia while they were in grad school or starting their careers. I have a ton of respect for anyone who pulled that off.

I should have mentioned in my first response that I discouraged my (now) wife from transferring to my college. It didn't have the same opportunities for her to follow her interests. It's still a minor point of contention between us and I'm not sure if I was on the right side of it.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Enemy_of_the_state 6 Apr

Get out of the cities, life is different.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

True, but most people live in the cities and I'd like their kids to have a better chance of happiness.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 6 Apr

We have a weak, effeminate society - worse the further west, in ideology, one ventures. The thing is we can have equality or equity without the emasculation. Honor diversity. Men and women are different. Honor it. We have too many reared in feminine (male or female) dominant attitudes.

It starts and ends with you. What choices do you make? How do you manage your domain? Your relationships? Your home? How do you rear your boys? And girls?

50 sats \ 3 replies \ @Fabs 6 Apr

Yep, it's a true shit-show out there. That's why I pretty much made my peace with staying single: much better for my mental health and general way of living, the chance of finding the right one nowadays is close to zero, IMHO, why bother.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

Shit, that's bleak. I'm really sorry the couple of generations that preceded you failed so badly to pass along something worthwhile.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @clownworld 6 Apr

It does seem bleak. I think you’re right about everything in the OP.

Fact is, you have to change culture with kids before they reach adulthood, and the institutions that prevented the things you describe are gone. The leftists won the culture war by destroying those institutions.

Just as an example, parents and schools don’t expect celibacy before marriage, and society doesn’t enforce it. Schools don’t have wholesome dances, but twerk fests with all black music. There’s literally no more music ever played or promoted by adults in our society derived from white culture that’s fit for actual pair dancing. And once in college, there are no more dorm supervisors, no sex segregation, no hard rules on heavy drinking or anything that leads to all the moral malaise you describe.

All of this began to fall apart in the 1960s and it was essentially complete by the mid-1990s.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 6 Apr freebie

Bleak, well, what can one do? It's the behavior and expectations people have nowadays that I can't align myself with most of the time. I'd rather stay put and be me than the other way around.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 6 Apr freebie

Young people are not the problem in my eyes. It is just that they are growing up in a system that is not serving their interests.

Loosely related, but what really sticks with me is how quickly in less than a decade society transformed the role of women. It very quickly became accepted norm for both in the household to work to prop-up the fiat experiment and work, to sustain sufficient wages for the household. Not that it’s wrong per se for both to work, but accepted norms drastically shifted to be different from the 1970s. Just look how quickly attitudes (and accents) change:

🇬🇧1973: https://x.com/DurhamWASP/status/1726614378823450694

🇦🇺 1976: https://youtu.be/t1Uu-VTXfRE

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I hope I didn't come off as critical of the younger generations. They have my immense sympathy for how badly their predecessors screwed the pooch.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @wopwopwopwop 6 Apr freebie

deleted by author

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

I don't think you're right about me. If it looked like gen z was thriving, I wouldn't be concerned. All the evidence seems to indicate that they're really struggling though, and in ways that past generations more of less had figured out.

I'm not conservative, despite what may have come across in this post. I'm glad many cultural norms have changed since I was a kid. There was a lot of room for improvement.

If you have evidence that Gen Z is thriving, I'd love to see it.