[Gigachad]

Social media is probably somewhat responsible, but I don't think it's the biggest problem here. It's the fact that Gen Z is checking out on life, for many people there is no hope of owning a house even if you give up all luxury spending and grind, it's impossible for many on a typical job.

It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces. Every business needs to pay increasingly high rents, and charge increasing amounts. You could go out to the bar and spend $100, or you could stay at home and play video games for free.

We are living in an era where the old and rich have taken over and continue to extract every last drop of wealth from the people who have the least.

[techblueberry]

“It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces.”

It was a very narrow window of history, if at all where this wasn’t true. Like I spent most of my teen years at people’s houses or backyard or parks and it was fuckin great. All my best memories were spent doing nothing with people I liked. Even my clubbing years while fun were relatively forgettable compared to the mischief of running around with my teen friends not spending money.

Smoking has gotten more expensive though, maybe we should subsidize cigarettes for young men.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

> Even my clubbing years while fun were relatively forgettable compared to the mischief of running around with my teen friends not spending money.

When people say that hanging out is getting expensive they didnt mean when they were 10-15 or so. Its easy to not spend money at those ages. Its not when you're 20+. You cant run around the neighbourhood anymore, or eat stuff your parents bought

[techblueberry]

For most people in my parents generation, going out to eat at all was a luxury. Some of the most tightly knit cultures of the world are also the poorest.

[esalman]

I was a terminally online youth in 2000s, both before and after social media and proliferation of smartphones.

Money is not and issue here. I was a middle class youth in a developing country, and internet was expensive. People who didn't have the means simply didn't go online. Contrast with the present, even lower income people have smartphone with free carrier provided Facebook. Radicalization is much easier now.

[thefz]

> We are living in an era where the old and rich have taken over and continue to extract every last drop of wealth from the people who have the least.

That's capitalism and its effects for you, sir.

[FeloniousHam]

Ugh, capitalism

[FranzFerdiNaN]

> We are living in an era where the old and rich have taken over and continue to extract every last drop of wealth from the people who have the least.

Exactly as capitalism always intended. We are finally reaching the dream of the system, arent we happy all!?

[Gigachad]

I feel like this is a lazy answer because there have been plenty of examples of eras where wealth equality was much better, for long periods of time. And they weren't periods of radical communism or whatever.

We just didn't tax the middle tier of workers so intensely while giving everything for free to the ultra rich. That isn't really a part of capitalism itself. It's just the specific scenario we ended up in today.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

> We just didn't tax the middle tier of workers so intensely while giving everything for free to the ultra rich. That isn't really a part of capitalism itself.

This is literally capitalism. It's the very first sentence on Wikipedia: 'Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.' Its literally the owners get the money, so the ultra rich get more and more the money because they own more and more. There is absolutely nothing in capitalism that says that workers should get anything. Its just an annoying part of doing business, that companies do their very hardest to avoid as much as possible.