These people probably think Karl Marx is Satan, but my god at least he was able to understand and respect Adam Smith better than whoever’s trying to magick wealth out of this absolute idiot soup! Looks like capitalism the ideology is just as unsustainable as capitalism the economic system.

“The millenials were so well paid in tech jobs during the boom that they nevered bothered to invest in homes” is … a take

Gonna copy this in because there’s a lot to unpack, and I don’t want to do it alone.

From: Peter Thiel
Date: Sunday, January 5, 2020 at 2:44 AM
To: Mark Zuckerberg, Nick Clegg, Antonio Lucio
Cc: Sheryl Sandberg, Marc Andreessen
Subject: RE: Milennials

There are many themes that could be developed
more here; let me make a few quick points for now:

Nick -- I certainly would not suggest that our policy
should be to embrace Millennial attitudes
unreflectively. I would be the last person to
advocate for socialism. But when 70% of Millennials
say they are pro-socialist, we need to do better than
simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid
or entitled or brainwashed; we should try and
understand why. And, from the perspective of a
broken generational compact, there seems to be a
pretty straightforward answer to me, namely, that
when one has too much student debt or if housing
is too unaffordable, then one will have negative
capital for a long time and/or find it very hard to
start accumulating capital in the form of real estate;
and if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then
one may well turn against it.

1. Part of me wishes that the font were just a little bigger. This way, the word wrap would come to 10 syllables a line, and we could pretend this was a lost Shakespeare monologue.
2. I’m almost disappointed by this. Thiel, suggesting that it might not, in fact, be the children that are wrong? Where’s your ideological purity, Thiel? Didn’t know you started reading r/GenZedong.
3. Also, it’s Peter fucking Thiel lecturing Nick fucking Clegg, former leader of the lib dems in the UK, on paying lip service to socialist policy in order to stymie any real societal progress???

That Michael Kove guy is one un-self-aware twat. Apparently all millennials work in high paying tech jobs.

Huh, I had missed the part in 2020 when Peter Thiel just flat out stated outright that it only makes sense to be in favour of capitalism if you’re a capital owner.

A whole generation is leaning more socialist because homeownership is unattainable and student debt is crushing. The solution is whatever is the latest big tech fad.

Just like all of gen X’s problems would have been solved with more .com, right?

The replies are a long sequence of different stupid takes… someone recommending cryptocurrency to build wealth, blaming millennials for not investing in homes, a reply literally blaming too much spending on starbucks, blaming millennials overreacting to the 2008 crisis by not buying homes, blaming millennials being socialists, blaming millennials going to college, blaming millennials for not making the big bucks in tech. About 1 in 10 replies point out the real causes: wages have not grown with costs or with real productivity and capitalism in general favors people holding assets and offering loans over people that have to borrow and rent.

I’m a Millenial (even if I think these labels are dumb) and I find these kinds of things fascinating. Esp when they describe things I do not recognize in any way in my peers, re them talking about the causes of people disliking capitalism. Sure I’m in a more progressive/leftwing bubble (of which I’m prob the most extreme nowadays in various ways), but I know a lot of people who are looking into buying houses/have bought houses who still are not fans of musk/tesla etc. Seems like they forget people can have principles, and just look at a simplistic view of ‘material conditions’ (I hope people paid attention to the recent bsky shit on what this actually means in historical context). Flashbacks to r/ssc talking about ‘leftwing polticians not thinking about X’ while the leftwing politicans I knew irl were actively talking about it. Feels very like im looking at an alternative world. (Prob also quite true as im Dutch, and this is about the US (with right wing fan fave Poland having a honorable mention)).

Do think it is amusing Millenials get blamed for everything still. The punching bag generation. Poor Gen Z, for which this is now starting up.