Atlas is Shrugging

[KilroywasNOTHere]

I did something that I've not done in a very long time. I commented on a yahoo article.

'Working my tail-end off just to get by’: This Walmart worker blasted older Americans for calling young folks lazy — blames them for 'creating' the inflation crisis, ruining the economy


the TlDR can be summed up in this quote.

"Twenty years ago, when you were getting started [with your career], you could live on your own. Twenty years ago when you first started, you were able to do everything that I am now struggling to do," she said.

The video has struck a chord, amassing 6.2 million views, 1.4 million likes and more than 36,000 comments at the time of this writing.

Chailyn's frustration is palpable as she voices the sentiments of Gen Z when confronting the criticisms often directed at her generation.

"You can sit here and call Gen Z lazy all you want, but I have been working my tail-end off just to barely make it by, and respectfully, I don't want to do that for the rest of my life," she said. "I don't want to work my tail-end off, wasting all of my life working, just to barely be able to pay my bills."

Older generations namely boomers have been reacting as much as one expects and I think this comment sums up what older generations think about Gen X-Gen Z

This child has no perspective whatsoever. She doesn't know a thing except to blame others for not providing her the privileged life to which she feels entitled.. Look, the world owes you NOTHING just because you are here. NOBODY cares what you don't want to do. No one said to you that if you work 40 hours you were entitled to have this or have that. EVERY form of life struggles to survive and humans are no exception. 40 hours per week is nothing. I worked 40 hours per week plus went to college full time. A typical day for me was 6:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. every day for 7 years to get through college and professional school. And I had it comparatively easy. My grandmother worked as a domestic for .35 cents per day and walked 7 miles to work each way. Generations of Americans ate from public soup kitchens and would have taken any job AT ALL but there were none. Millions of American children stopped school in the second or third grade in order to work on farms to survive. You have no idea what hardship is and no one gives a rat's behind that you don't "want" to work for the rest of your life. Millions and millions of us have done just that with nothing to look forward to except more work, and then you die. Welcome to the struggle, little girl. Either play the game or check yourself out.

Here is the thing it was the older generations that sold the lie of the American dream from the word go, They came up with and sold the idea of the subrbubian home with the car (sometimes multiple cars) they told us "You can be whatever you wanted to be" they gave us the participation trophies and yelled at the teachers saying we could do no wrong...and they created the likes of the internet. The Iphone.


Gen Z DOES have a work ethic issue. According to the Entrepreneur over 57% of Gen Zers want to be influencers the other 43% the ones like the woman in this article seem to be sick of being sold a dream of independence that just does not and never has existed. The previous generations claim they wanted better for thier kids and they probably did? But should it not be raising eyebrows that we are seeing Xers Millennials and Zers moving away from the big cities and trying to relearn those ancient skills and reestablish that old lifestyle of hunting and working on the farm to survive...except we are doing so not just to survive but find fulfillment? We laugh at videos like the Goth Farm girl yet she's just the surface, the face of something deeper. Arlas is shrugging, for context I shall quote the book this expression comes from.

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"

I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"

To shrug."
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

The working portion of Millennials and Gen-Zers, that 43% are realizing how behind they are in terms of skillset, how far behind they were in terms of the things that matters most (To the majority of humans) and they realized it was because of chasing after a false dream. Sure that 43% aren't moving to some dessert island like the characters in Atlas Shrug did but they are increasingly breaking away from society at large, and in truth (and this is my conspiracy theory self talking) I think The boomers are scared not for us but for their SS. SS is a pyramid scheme that needs new taxpayers, city taxpayers to pay into the system and if no one pays into the system, then it means the end of that retirement pool. They've not saved their money and so they have nothing else to fall back on.


Previous Generations wanted their kids to have better than they did, and they've been selling that dream ever since. But what people really want is reality, because at least if you know how to circumvent the storm of reality, you can find peace contentment and even meaning within the storm.

I will leave you with this well-known bit from George Carlin, (Warning: coarse language)

 

[posh-goofiness]

Respectfully disagree. If you think the 43% of productive Gen-Zers are, collectively, Atlas then you've forgotten what the book was about. Atlas in the book was the small, small number of people who hold the complex systems of the modern world together and the people who drive forward progress with their prodigious talents, work ethics, or cunning. Of those 43% I would be surprised if even 5% of them are actually worth what they estimate they are worth. Fuck, I'm great at my job and I don't think I'm worth what I'm paid.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Respectfully disagree. If you think the 43% of productive Gen-Zers are, collectively, Atlas then you've forgotten what the book was about. Atlas in the book was the small, small number of people who hold the complex systems of the modern world together and the people who drive forward progress with their prodigious talents, work ethics, or cunning. Of those 43% I would be surprised if even 5% of them are actually worth what they estimate they are worth. Fuck, I'm great at my job and I don't think I'm worth what I'm paid.

What I'm saying is that you are starting to see a rejection of progress and a return to primitivism/traditionalism. They are rejecting the cities and the (often false) promises of modernism and returning to that lifestyle their grandparents and great grandparents loathe so much. Except they aren't doing it just for survival they are doing it because it provides a sense of meaning and accomplishment. It's...fun in a different sort of way. in that sense, Atlas is shrugging. I don't think Ayan Rand ever envisioned people wanting to return to hunting and substance farming which is what we are starting to see.

The funny thing is I don't think Ayan Rand was either. but that's a different topic and the people that are are the ones that in her time would have burned down her father's shop. Look at the likes of Bill Gates and Bezos and their ties to the WEF.

 

[Bacle]

What I'm saying is that you are starting to see a rejection of progress and a return to primitivism/traditionalism. They are rejecting the cities and the promises if modernism and return to that lifestyle thier grandparents and great grandparents loath so much. Except they aren't doing it just for survival they are doing it because it provides a sense of meaning and accomplishment. in that sense, Atlas is shrugging. I don't think Ayan Rand ever envisioned people wanting to return to hunting and substance farming which is what we are starting to see.

Funny thing is I don't think Ayan Rand was either. but that's a different topic and the people that are are the ones that in her time would have burned down her father's shop. Look at the like of Bill gates and Bezos and thier ties to the WEF.

Ayn Rand lived and published that book before the internet and mass social media was thing, and before so many companies tried to put hooks into their products to control their customers ability to use them.

The idea of "Right to Repair" needing to be a battle that was fought likely didn't occur to Rand, same with the way global trade was impacted by the internet and social media, and the Wu Flu showed people how important it is to have some amount of self-sufficiency, lest they be fucked by supply chain snarls.

If you grow your own food and try to go purposely low/old tech to avoid the hooks in modern tech, or just to get something not designed for 'planned obsolescence', you suddenly find yourself free of many concerns people who rely on modern society for everything worry about daily.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Ayn Rand lived and published that book before the internet and mass social media was thing, and before so many companies tried to put hooks into their products to control their customers ability to use them.

The idea of "Right to Repair" needing to be a battle that was fought likely didn't occur to Rand, same with the way global trade was impacted by the internet and social media, and the Wu Flu showed people how important it is to have some amount of self-sufficiency, lest they be fucked by supply chain snarls.

If you grow your own food and try to go purposely low/old tech to avoid the hooks in modern tech, or just to get something not designed for 'planned obsolescence', you suddenly find yourself free of many concerns people who rely on modern society for everything worry about daily.

and the less of that crap you have to worry about the more you can focus on things like building a family, getting closer to God (Or whatever from of spiritualism you believe.) etc. We may start seeing generational homes (several generations living under one roof and passing the home down from generation to generation) become a thing again for better or worse.

 

[Bacle]

and the less of that crap you have to worry about the more you can focus on things like building a family, getting closer to God (Or whatever from of spiritualism you believe.) etc. We may start seeing generational homes become a thing again for better or worse.

Generational homes will likely be the norm, just due to housing prices.

Expecting every 18 yo to move out and 'start anew' from college on is going to be looked at as a foolish bit of expectations that didn't match reality except for in a rather small period of time.

Shit, even having a generational home will be tricky with some inheritance tax issues, and the second thing break and need to be fixed, the homes may end up with code violations from updated building codes that cost massively more to bring up to code.

Atlas has not just shrugged, but has decided to use the world as a bowling ball, and modern society is the bowling pins at the end of the lane.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Generational homes will likely be the norm, just due to housing prices.

Expecting every 18 yo to move out and 'start anew' from college on is going to be looked at as a foolish bit of expectations that didn't match reality except for in a rather small period of time.

Shit, even having a generational home will be tricky with some inheritance tax issues, and the second thing break and need to be fixed, the homes may end up with code violations from updated building codes that cost massively more to bring up to code.

Atlas has not just shrugged, but has decided to use the world as a bowling ball, and modern society is the bowling pins at the end of the lane.

Like with all dreams eventually you have to wake up.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

I notice that I think a lot of the older generation (mostly boomers and older Gen Xers) can't fathom why my generation and younger is rejecting the modern world. They see being an influencer as this sort of dream job. "I would have killed to have the time you guys had to complain all day" not realizing that people chase clout in some vein attempt for purpose and meaning. Followers have replaced family and clout has replaced meaning. A fake reality offering fake substitutes. but the problem is at some point people see through the illusion and realize they were sold a bunch of crock.

The american dream is often sold as "You leave home at 18 get a job and a wife/husband and a house with a two car grage have 2.5 kids go to the PTA meetings and the whole cycle starts over with the next generation. the reality is you leave home and trade one set of roommates for another (Often more sketchy set) of roommates, you work two sometimes three jobs plus trying to juggle an education which may or may not actually help you and by the time you reach your mid thirtues you might have enough for a morgage on a house with a stupid high interest rate and being able to dating material is questionable let alone getting mrried and having kids. Mentally your still struggling just as much as you were if you were a poor substance farmer except now you have Zero family support and more importantly zero roots, and you can't really establish those roots because all you know is chasing that American Dream.

I can't help but think of the first half of a certain parable.

"
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!"

In this case previous generations were the ones that went out into the city and it's the current generations that are starving, not physically but mentally and spiritually and like the lost son we are starting to see people reject the gleam of modernism and going back to the houses (lifestyle and professions) of their forefathers/

 

[Cherico]

Modernity as we know it began with the french revolution.

We are not the first civilization to go through a modern period a period of civlizational wide experiementation, but the thing is at the end of the day. Sooner or later the experiements scientific, and social and otherwise. Must end. The data the real data must be collected.

The experiements that work they get added to tradition and codified the failures they get put into the trashbin of history. Our era this modern era, has produced wonders and great horrific terrors, its an era that is now in my opinion thankfully dying. Good riddance lets hope that our grandchildren and the future generations learn from our arrogant and haunty stupidity and are far wiser then ourselves.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Modernity as we know it began with the french revolution.

We are not the first civilization to go through a modern period a period of civlizational wide experiementation, but the thing is at the end of the day. Sooner or later the experiements scientific, and social and otherwise. Must end. The data the real data must be collected.

The experiements that work they get added to tradition and codified the failures they get put into the trashbin of history. Our era this modern era, has produced wonders and great horrific terrors, its an era that is now in my opinion thankfully dying. Good riddance lets hope that our grandchildren and the future generations learn from our arrogant and haunty stupidity and are far wiser then ourselves.

The question is what do we do in the meantime. I myself (and I doubt I'm alone on this) the world begins when you are born and ends when you die and you work with the world seed (to use video game terms) you are given. personally I have the prediction that amoung men you're going to see greater age gap relationships as men for the most part are not going to want to deal with their "Yaz Question Slay peers" some women who do merry later will try to go for kids at said later age for good or for bad and those women that can't have kids because they waited will either adopt or just straight up fall into dispair and for those who have ruined their bodies beyond repairs...I don't want to think about it.


I really don't think you'll see a "get back to the kitchen" mindset at least not as a whole because contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe a society can't function when it completely disregards one half of the human species after all it takes two to tango when we see records of sexism with either sex in a nation it's during a nations decline (Israel prior to the rise of Christianity, China, the middle east, the USA...)
I do worry however worry about race relations and I worry for those who are gay and keep to themselves and those who suffer gender dysphoria and need legit help as the left has done a thorough job of driving conflicts. How long before you can advocate for replacement like its some kind of terrorist manifesto before people start treating it as such. Racism is going to absolutely spike and I'm fearful a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt as a result. How many people are going to be labeled as race traitors?

 

[Bacle]

The question is what do we do in the meantime. I myself (and I doubt I'm alone on this) the world begins when you are born and ends when you die and you work with the world seed (to use video game terms) you are given. personally I have the prediction that amoung men you're going to see greater age gap relationships as men for the most part are not going to want to deal with their "Yaz Question Slay peers" some women who do merry later will try to go for kids at said later age for good or for bad and those women that can't have kids because they waited will either adopt or just straight up fall into dispair and for those who have ruined their bodies beyond repairs...I don't want to think about it.


I really don't think you'll see a "get back to the kitchen" mindset at least not as a whole because contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe a society can't function when it completely disregards one half of the human species after all it takes two to tango when we see records of sexism with either sex in a nation it's during a nations decline (Israel prior to the rise of Christianity, China, the middle east, the USA...)
I do worry however worry about race relations and I worry for those who are gay and keep to themselves and those who suffer gender dysphoria and need legit help as the left has done a thorough job of driving conflicts. How long before you can advocate for replacement like its some kind of terrorist manifesto before people start treating it as such. Racism is going to absolutely spike and I'm fearful a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt as a result. How many people are going to be labeled as race traitors?

Anyone who cares enough about race to deem someone a 'race traitor' is someone to simply marginalize in return; do not turn the other cheek, and do not let race relations backslide.

It takes active effort to keep closet racists from becoming powerful enough to come out of the closet and try to enforce their bigotry via force or legal means.

I think that once the DEI bureaucracy is removed from a lot of the corpo world for simply being unprofitable and excess weight in a slimmer economy, and that alone will help race relations mend to a massive degree.

However, I think that recognition that taking care of family is a JOB IN AND OF ITSELF will return as part of the multi-generational households.

However, there may be so few people around, and fewer having kids, that we may enter an almost 'Children of Men' level fertility crisis, where the survival of our species, not simply any nation, is on the line because so few people are being born at all.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Anyone who cares enough about race to deem someone a 'race traitor' is someone to simply marginalize in return; do not turn the other cheek, and do not let race relations backslide.

It takes active effort to keep closet racists from becoming powerful enough to come out of the closet and try to enforce their bigotry via force or legal means.

I think that once the DEI bureaucracy is removed from a lot of the corpo world for simply being unprofitable and excess weight in a slimmer economy, and that alone will help race relations mend to a massive degree.

However, I think that recognition that taking care of family is a JOB IN AND OF ITSELF will return as part of the multi-generational households.

However, there may be so few people around, and fewer having kids, that we may enter an almost 'Children of Men' level fertility crisis, where the survival of our species, not simply any nation, is on the line because so few people are being born at all.

I give you a like because I agree with 3/4 of what you are saying. I think the "Children of Men" concern is a bit much. the species as a whole can survive with 10,000 people and we have something akin to 3,000,000,000 people on the planet now. It would take several generations of going through what we are at the moment before you deal with a "Children of Men" scenario. it's not like 1 in 3 people are sterilizing themselves (Not yet anyway)

 

[Bacle]

I give you a like because I agree with 3/4 of what you are saying. I think the "Children of Men" concern is a bit much. the species as a whole can survive with 10,000 people and we have something akin to 3,000,000,000 people on the planet now. It would take several generations of going through what we are at the moment before you deal with a "Children of Men" scenario. it's not like 1 in 3 people are sterilizing themselves (Not yet anyway)

My fear is exactly that we are in a scenario were we are already a few generations into the process, and the Wu Flu impacting fertility and now the new wars simply killing off parts of a already small generational cohort, while the actually living/economic conditions for trying to have kids keeps getting worse.

Remember, missing population echos into the next generation and the one after that too.

We'd need several generations of above average fertility globally to try to offset what is likely coming down the line.

Because none of this accounts for future natural disasters and fertility loss.

The only reason overpopulation memes are a thing is because so many Greatest Gen and Boomer believed that everyone going forward would have their standard of living and child production, and bought the lies of Malthus, so they discourages the younger gens from having children when they were actually at the most fertile part of their lives (18-30), and push off child birth further and further.

Add in the later women wait to have kids, the increasing chances of genetic issues from the fact her eggs are aging too, and you start have a cascade of issues.

Making child care and having kids cheaper would help, and some places are incentivizing increasing number of births with tax cuts and credits, but usually not by enough to matter or offset economic issues.

Humanity won't go extinct, but we may shrink so much there simply aren't enough people to keep modern civilization functional, and that could lead to extinction in the event of severe natural disasters that a large population might have been able to survive, simply due to having more people around to help each other and have kids after.

Yellowstone in particular is a worry in this regard, given what it will likely also do to the US Breadbasket. With Ukraine's farmland full of UXO's it would render two of the best agricultural areas unusable for a while, and kill plenty directly or indirectly.

This is why I support Musk's Mars plans, because it does give us a civilizational/biological back-up that might be able to get back to Earth and unfuck us or restart humanity down here.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

My fear is exactly that we are in a scenario were we are already a few generations into the process, and the Wu Flu impacting fertility and now the new wars simply killing off parts of a already small generational cohort, while the actually living/economic conditions for trying to have kids keeps getting worse.

Remember, missing population echos into the next generation and the one after that too.

We'd need several generations of above average fertility globally to try to offset what is likely coming down the line.

Because none of this accounts for future natural disasters and fertility loss.

The only reason overpopulation memes are a thing is because so many Greatest Gen and Boomer believed that everyone going forward would have their standard of living and child production, and bought the lies of Malthus, so they discourages the younger gens from having children when they were actually at the most fertile part of their lives (18-30), and push off child birth further and further.

Add in the later women wait to have kids, the increasing chances of genetic issues from the fact her eggs are aging too, and you start have a cascade of issues.

Making child care and having kids cheaper would help, and some places are incentivizing increasing number of births with tax cuts and credits, but usually not by enough to matter or offset economic issues.

Humanity won't go extinct, but we may shrink so much there simply aren't enough people to keep modern civilization functional, and that could lead to extinction in the event of severe natural disasters that a large population might have been able to survive, simply due to having more people around to help each other and have kids after.

Yellowstone in particular is a worry in this regard, given what it will likely also do to the US Breadbasket. With Ukraine's farmland full of UXO's it would render two of the best agricultural areas unusable for a while, and kill plenty directly or indirectly.

This is why I support Musk's Mars plans, because it does give us a civilizational/biological back-up that might be able to get back to Earth and unfuck us or restart humanity down here.

ok yeah you and I are on completly different planets regarding concerns buddy.

 

[Bacle]

ok yeah you and I are on completly different planets regarding concerns buddy.

Maybe.

But the fact we both end up at similar conclusions about generational issues should help reinforce the point that the problems are becoming so evident that people with different concern priorities are seeing and worrying about a lot of the same problems.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Maybe.

But the fact we both end up at similar conclusions about generational issues should help reinforce the point that the problems are becoming so evident that people with different concern priorities are seeing and worrying about a lot of the same problems.

not really though. We both agree that modernism sucks...and that's where the similarities end. I'm concerned about the individual and spiritual aspects, your concern is the environment and the survival of the species. Those aren't as similar as you think.

 

[Bacle]

not really though. We both agree that modernism sucks...and that's where the similarities end. I'm concerned about the individual and spiritual aspects, your concern is the environment and the survival of the species. Those aren't as similar as you think.

I guess I just think in much longer timeframes than most, when it comes to human civilization issues.

Though spiritualism isn't much different than environmental issues from my view, because I see more of the divine in nature than in humanity.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

I guess I just think in much longer timeframes than most, when it comes to human civilization issues.

Though spiritualism isn't much different than environmental issues from my view, because I see more of the divine in nature than in humanity.

We'll have to disagree.

 

[Simonbob]

Going back to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged for a moment?

There's proof that Ayn Rand had a point. Right now, in South Africa, as they drive the whites out, they also drive the capable engineers out at the same time.

Over the years that the capable left and were not replaced (Fucking Commies), as a result law and order, clean water, electricity supply and more has slowly broken down. As the racism continued to get worse for the white there, so did the living conditions.

 

[posh-goofiness]

Really puts into perspective the trash fire at Boeing. They're slowly removing the competent to make room for the... aesthetically pleasing... so to speak. Planes are falling apart to stupid shit like untorqued bolts. Imagine in 10 years when planes enter crash loops in software, turbines blow out from inner debris, or just... fall apart.