Does anyone else have captcha issues with archive.is these days? I just hit an infinite loop of repeated asks to solve a captcha. This is a relatively recent issue.
Here's an alternative link from the Internet Archive:
FYI if you get stuck in a captcha loop, try an audio captcha, it'll tell you that there's an error and you can't proceed, but for whatever reason the visual captcha will happily keep you clicking on signs and traffic lights even though you can't ever pass.
Often the cause seems to be the captcha service itself getting too much traffic end not your IP or browser.
It’s so interesting to see this play out the same in both China and the US; a generation that can’t afford to buy a home, were told higher education would lead to a secure career and it doesn’t, falling fertility rate accordingly, etc. “Eat bitterness” indeed.
have you read the article? youth unemployment rate is far higher with many, even in STEM degrees, struggling to get any jobs. social pressure to succeed academically is far higher in China and there is nothing equivalent in the US. 996 culture is an insane concept. censorship in entertainment is pervasive. rampant sexism.
its easy to say "oh yea the US has these problems too" but it is 1000x worse in China, and its extremely privileged to even try and say its the same as in the US. The cultures are so incredibly different in every single way.
Plus, some aspects of Chinese society make the end impact of youth dissatisfaction worse than in the US.
For one, the CCP's rule and legitimacy are tightly coupled with performance. China has experienced unprecedented economic growth in these past decades, and that makes the citizens more willing to tolerate the annoying (or outright evil) things the CCP does because at least it's helping everyone in aggregate. But now that that growth is slowing, they have to worry that their justification to power is in jeopardy. And because the CCP obviously doesn't run elections or allow any dissident groups, the only way for widespread dissatisfaction with their performance to surface is unrest. Their bungling of the latter half of the pandemic certainly didn't help their case here.
For another, as the article alludes to, it's thought of as impossible for a man to get married without owning a home, and failing to start a family is failing as a human (particularly as the CCP explicitly calls for citizens to have more babies). Skyrocketing home prices compared to stagnant wages are growing the pool of "logistical incels" who have no realistic trajectory to ever being married or starting a family, which was already a grave problem due to lingering sex imbalance from the one child policy. The CCP is deeply concerned with this because large pools of incels tend to grow unstable and even turn to violence, out of desparation.
And for yet another, the extent to which Xi Jiping is able to promulgate and impose his philosophy has no analog in the west. If that philosophy is "you need to stop whining roll up your sleeves and be willing to work long hours in a factory like we did during the Mao era, even if that means your degree is wasted" -- which is a message the CCP is currently pushing, as cited in the article -- that's going to dramatically exacerbate the frustrations the young are already feeling, again even moreso because they have no way to voice their hopelessness. The nihilism compounds.
The Economist does a great job covering China in general, and especially in pointing out the ways that though their challenges and structures may appear superficially similar to Westerners, often the subtleties make them completely different. I'd especially recommend their podcast Drum Tower, if you're into that.
Exactly. It all sounds comparatively samey, like "well hey, people over here feel defeated too, lol" and thus you get whataboutism propagating really easily.
Anyway...I'm probably overreacting...I should probably go focus on figuring out a few sneaky emoji I can use, so that I can write Joe Biden's name in my social media posts without getting blocked or officially identified as a critic...
Different system start points for sure (representative democracy and shades of capitalism vs authoritarianism and faux capitalism), but the outcomes being similar is undeniable. Why? That’s what’s interesting. Is it solely a demographic compression story? Generational inequality also appears to be a contributing factor.
It’s hope (or lack thereof), which is a lever for aggregate motivation across a labor force participation cohort. No hope, no effort. Meaningful work is also a component.
Education, however, consistently leads to better outcomes. White collar workers are doing well across the country (US). Forget about tech, accountants, HR professionals, economists, risk analysts, project managers, etc. are all doing well. It's predominantly the un- and under-educated that are being left behind.
Unless of course you took out massive student loans for that education and failed to study an employable skill, those silly 18 year olds, not able to understand the shifting labor market and make sensible 30 year predictions on what skills will be desired.
I was in undergrad during 2008 and I am still pissed that the game was changed on us and we've gotten no assistance. I made very smart choices in 2005 when I was choosing what to do.
It's not a matter of predicting the labor market, it's a matter of understanding debt. There are very few possible job markets where the kind of debt we're talking about makes any kind of sense. What's missing in our high school education is any form of basic financial literacy.
It's still unfair to blame the kids (technically, brand-new adults) for the system's failure to teach them, but you don't have to be an oracle to predict that $100k in student loans isn't going to pay for itself when compared to a comparable degree from a lesser-known school for $32k.
If only someone with access to thousands or even millions of repayment histories and income estimates could evaluate default risk on such loans. /s
The problem is that the incentives for everyone are broken. Usury has been banned or made into a crime throughout history, why did we legalize it when it comes to student debt?
Yeah I bet there’s something deeply different about the collective psychological impact of being trapped because of an ostensible bad decision (the wrong major) vs simply having no options regardless of what major you choose. When I talk to my debt-shackled American friends there’s some acknowledgment of studying the wrong thing, even knowing that as kids we’re not equipped to make a smart decision, as you say. In China it seems a lot more bleak, like whatever you study you’ll likely end up unable to use it.
Also, in the US there isn’t pressure to do factory work specifically if you can’t get a job. That’s a particularly rough job, especially if you were pursuing white collar work, but it’s where the ccp is pushing folks.
And not to forget the amount of "follow your passion" that's thrown around with almost never mentioning employability or earning potential or practical long term outcomes. Now, that leads to an 18 year old picking Egyptian heiroglyphics as his focus and then realizes that he/she has a lot of debt but that the field doesn't employ as many people as accountants. Granted a 18 year old should have known this but a mistake at 18 shouldn't have such long lasting and serious consequences.
I totally agree with this. A union may not be necessary in many cases, but some sort of organization definitely is. Many of my examples have self-organized, self-regulations associations that manage their own credentials and establish rate guidelines for their services. Other professional pools should learn from this.
I've been advocating for guilds for a while. The software industry should learn from the actors. It's artistic work with a labour pool comprising of vastly different capabilities, yet they managed to find a way to band together. Moreover, exceptional talent is still compensated above and beyond, unlike a union: Being part of the guild does not restrict the likes of Tom Cruise or Margot Robbie from being paid buckets of money, getting a gross of the profits, etc.
From an American perspective, the problem seems to be of payoff timelines. Struggling and working hard for years doesn’t sound so bad if there is a great reward on the other side.
But when that reward is 15-20 years away, and is a basic house you can barely afford… something has gone wrong.
Nicely put. Makes us wonder - we are all pawns that our leadership uses to divide us on, while really leadership is all buddy buddy at a higher level! I suppose art imitates life. You see this in your international governments, you see this in corporate politics. Reality is we (demographic X) have a lot more common with the same demographic X in another region/country/corporation.
Yes absolutely. Not only that, but they run those stories through various state channels with the intent to propagandize...even to non-US/UK countries, and even via media like shortwave radio.
(While also actively jamming other radio stations in that case)
I think the time most recently when I’ve felt this was talking to a young adult from Hong Kong in a hostel in Switzerland last month and he was surprised that the tap water is safe to drink in most of America
Likewise my wife from Mexico was highly suspect of the tap water everywhere we'd go till we went over just how different the tap water situation is in the US compared to Mexico.
Western teen and millennials are perfectly capable to do that on their own. It was us millennials that elevated grievance politics and cry-bulling into an art form. From the moment I turned 18 it was continuous barrage of news how fucked up everything is.
Funny. From my perspective, it was we Boomers who responded to everything that the younger generations did as if it were a great grievance against us. We fought, and still fight, bitterly against a ton of things that just don't affect us, usually "for the children".
(I am strictly Gen X but when they say "ok Boomer" I know they mean me too.)
Yes, as a fellow kid, I can say for certain that it’s a lack of respect for our elders and too many avocado toasts that have placed us in this position. We should have walked in and applied for a job with a firm handshake and maybe then we’d own a house.
>We should have walked in and applied for a job with a firm handshake and maybe then we’d own a house.
Or the fact that people with higher education try to cram themselves into select couple of US, UK and EU cities.
It's notable that the average millennial whiner I encounter on tik tok is not a farmer/sailor/oil rig worker or trucker. But someone with liberal arts or some humanities degree that is mortally offended that the universe refuses to provide them with the lifestyle that they have seen on friends or sex and the city.
The article is looking at China specifically, but this doesn't seem to be a local trend (over-qualified labour with wages below cost of living) by any means.
The standards for ‘living wages’ are much lower in China and they have a very poor social safety net.
So, objectively they are in a far worse situation. The CCP has long quelled dissent by saying yes things suck but look at fas things are improving. As that breaks down they are in for problems.
I’m not disagreeing, but I’ve not seen a single homeless person in China on two separate trips lasting a couple months. I was in big cities and in rural areas. It’s only a personal anecdote but just wondering if your claim is actually objectively true?
Though it’s hard to get accurate figures. “In 2011, there were approximately 2.41 million homeless adults and 179,000 homeless children living in the country.[1] However, one publication estimated that there were one million homeless children in China in 2012.[2][unreliable source]”
China doesn’t want embarrassing figures known and actively hides such things, so it’s very hard to compare them with other countries. However, they have zero problems cracking down on homelessness populations and forcefully relocating them.
"In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated roughly 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night,[4] or 0.17 percent of the population." [1]
So, given the best estimates, about the same homelessness rate.
> In the United States, the number of homeless people varies from different federal government accounts. In 2014, approximately 1.5 million sheltered homeless people were counted.[3] In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated roughly 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night,[4] or 0.17 percent of the population.
I don't quite understand what exactly the two numbers are measuring, but that sounds more like something between 1.5 million and 553,000 people. (At least assuming the number didn't somehow drop by a million in 4 years, which would be an absolutely spectacular improvement that I think we'd have heard about)
That 1.5 million includes people living in government provided housing designated for homeless people.
Someone given temporary access to housing has shelter, but you need to keep providing them shelter so you need to classify them as a person in need of housing Aka homeless. You may also see the terms Houseless, Unhoused, or Unsheltered used to make the distinctions more clear.
PS: There’s also a long continuum from owning a home with plumbing etc and living on a park bench. Governments want people in permanent spaces that provide adequate shelter and have a mailing address for a host of different reasons.
I am not saying those numbers are correct just that even China acknowledges they have millions of homeless people.
Also that 2.41 in 2011 excluded 0.179 million kids so 0.19%. The 3 million figure in 2015 so 3m / 1393m = 0.22%.
However, elsewhere it was suggested that children alone might be closer to 1 million. I am not suggesting it’s accurate just that their estimates are suspect. Hell I just looked at a paper suggesting homeless was close to 300 million in China. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.12324 That seems unlikely, but the idea it’s even possible to mention suggests we don’t have adequate figures.
(Edit: Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and is based on information before 2015)
China is good at controlling public opinions like this. I grew up in a "third line" city and we were always told if we don't have good grades, we end up having to clean the streets. But we were also told there is "social safety" for medicine.
In reality, you need a job and need to pay a monthly fee for "social safety". And in reality, people with low grades can end up in gangs or prison. Only the obedient type can get a hard labor job.
Many of these lucky ones would sleep where they work or stay with families or sleep at "migrant worker hotel/camps". It's not a life anyone would want to live.
In terms of quality of health care, even though all workers pay into "social safety", most cannot be seen by good doctors. For surgeries, they often had to travel to bigger cities and pay out of pocket. And " social safety" mostly covers visits to clinics (baiscally a consultation at a third world version of your Walgreen pharmacy counter).
I know people tend to hate the USA but it's not worse than China.
The article mostly focuses on educated youth and white collar jobs (though it does touch on blue collar). But why would they start with an example of someone making less than half the average income of Chinese (about 10000 yuan iirc)? Sure, if you are in the bottom 25% of income, things will look bleak. I am not saying that is not the issue, but the article is not about that topic.
I am happy to read and discuss an article about bottom 25% too. But don’t start a topic describing someone in the bottom 25%, and then use him to preface for an entirely different population
As Putin once said, "I've created a brilliant scheme to pay you all $2000/mo for basically nothing, and here you are too lazy to show up at the nearest recruitment center"
Distinction without a difference. Just because we give our unhappy youth's misery a name and send them home with a bottle of pills doesn't mean they're not unhappy.
I personally know people (20s to mid 30s) who are simply unhappy that they did everything they were told and couldn't get jobs in their field, and can't afford a house (so they rent one and which pays for somebody else's mortgage).
Myself and everyone that I know in that age range who has followed "the formula" (STEM degree -> workforce) has plenty of money and a house or could buy a house if they wanted to.
My point was you can be unhappy with the system and not be mentally ill.
When I was in school STEM was not considered the only path to success. The oft repeated argument was you're a better candidate for high level jobs with something like an English degree than somebody with no degree at all, which turned out to be pretty terrible advice. I only had one teacher who said that was a terrible idea (he compared it to a degree in underwater basket weaving).
> Young people in the West who are unhappy are mostly mentally ill
Dude. Young people in the west have PLENTY to be very unhappy about, without being mentally ill. The completely fucked housing market for example (here in Western Europe at least), or the complete lack of drastic actions to reduce climate change.
> Have you talked to any young people in the West lately? Do you even know WTF is going on in your own countries?
Okay, I'm not super skilled on my fallacies, but this seems like a tu quoque, no? Western youth disillusionment doesn't preclude Chinese youth disillusionment, unless you see it as a zero sum competition.
85 comments
[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 201 ms ] threadHere's an alternative link from the Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230819151745/https://www.econo...
Firefox, Chrome, Brave for Android and Firefox for Windows - infinite loop
Edge for Windows - no captcha
https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/
Often the cause seems to be the captcha service itself getting too much traffic end not your IP or browser.
its easy to say "oh yea the US has these problems too" but it is 1000x worse in China, and its extremely privileged to even try and say its the same as in the US. The cultures are so incredibly different in every single way.
For one, the CCP's rule and legitimacy are tightly coupled with performance. China has experienced unprecedented economic growth in these past decades, and that makes the citizens more willing to tolerate the annoying (or outright evil) things the CCP does because at least it's helping everyone in aggregate. But now that that growth is slowing, they have to worry that their justification to power is in jeopardy. And because the CCP obviously doesn't run elections or allow any dissident groups, the only way for widespread dissatisfaction with their performance to surface is unrest. Their bungling of the latter half of the pandemic certainly didn't help their case here.
For another, as the article alludes to, it's thought of as impossible for a man to get married without owning a home, and failing to start a family is failing as a human (particularly as the CCP explicitly calls for citizens to have more babies). Skyrocketing home prices compared to stagnant wages are growing the pool of "logistical incels" who have no realistic trajectory to ever being married or starting a family, which was already a grave problem due to lingering sex imbalance from the one child policy. The CCP is deeply concerned with this because large pools of incels tend to grow unstable and even turn to violence, out of desparation.
And for yet another, the extent to which Xi Jiping is able to promulgate and impose his philosophy has no analog in the west. If that philosophy is "you need to stop whining roll up your sleeves and be willing to work long hours in a factory like we did during the Mao era, even if that means your degree is wasted" -- which is a message the CCP is currently pushing, as cited in the article -- that's going to dramatically exacerbate the frustrations the young are already feeling, again even moreso because they have no way to voice their hopelessness. The nihilism compounds.
The Economist does a great job covering China in general, and especially in pointing out the ways that though their challenges and structures may appear superficially similar to Westerners, often the subtleties make them completely different. I'd especially recommend their podcast Drum Tower, if you're into that.
Anyway...I'm probably overreacting...I should probably go focus on figuring out a few sneaky emoji I can use, so that I can write Joe Biden's name in my social media posts without getting blocked or officially identified as a critic...
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/698968.html?amp
It’s hope (or lack thereof), which is a lever for aggregate motivation across a labor force participation cohort. No hope, no effort. Meaningful work is also a component.
https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3122636/give-ch...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672... (PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20210219205525/https://dukespace...)
It's still unfair to blame the kids (technically, brand-new adults) for the system's failure to teach them, but you don't have to be an oracle to predict that $100k in student loans isn't going to pay for itself when compared to a comparable degree from a lesser-known school for $32k.
The problem is that the incentives for everyone are broken. Usury has been banned or made into a crime throughout history, why did we legalize it when it comes to student debt?
Also, in the US there isn’t pressure to do factory work specifically if you can’t get a job. That’s a particularly rough job, especially if you were pursuing white collar work, but it’s where the ccp is pushing folks.
I've been advocating for guilds for a while. The software industry should learn from the actors. It's artistic work with a labour pool comprising of vastly different capabilities, yet they managed to find a way to band together. Moreover, exceptional talent is still compensated above and beyond, unlike a union: Being part of the guild does not restrict the likes of Tom Cruise or Margot Robbie from being paid buckets of money, getting a gross of the profits, etc.
So, if everyone had 2 phds ( assuming phds are the pinnacle of educational heights) almost no one (or very few) would be left behind?
But when that reward is 15-20 years away, and is a basic house you can barely afford… something has gone wrong.
(While also actively jamming other radio stations in that case)
(I am strictly Gen X but when they say "ok Boomer" I know they mean me too.)
Or the fact that people with higher education try to cram themselves into select couple of US, UK and EU cities.
It's notable that the average millennial whiner I encounter on tik tok is not a farmer/sailor/oil rig worker or trucker. But someone with liberal arts or some humanities degree that is mortally offended that the universe refuses to provide them with the lifestyle that they have seen on friends or sex and the city.
Is it China's fault I got screamed at by a homeless man on the subway last week?
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/03/WS64cb948ca3103526...
So, objectively they are in a far worse situation. The CCP has long quelled dissent by saying yes things suck but look at fas things are improving. As that breaks down they are in for problems.
I’m not disagreeing, but I’ve not seen a single homeless person in China on two separate trips lasting a couple months. I was in big cities and in rural areas. It’s only a personal anecdote but just wondering if your claim is actually objectively true?
Though it’s hard to get accurate figures. “In 2011, there were approximately 2.41 million homeless adults and 179,000 homeless children living in the country.[1] However, one publication estimated that there were one million homeless children in China in 2012.[2][unreliable source]”
China doesn’t want embarrassing figures known and actively hides such things, so it’s very hard to compare them with other countries. However, they have zero problems cracking down on homelessness populations and forcefully relocating them.
"In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated roughly 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night,[4] or 0.17 percent of the population." [1]
So, given the best estimates, about the same homelessness rate.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...
I don't quite understand what exactly the two numbers are measuring, but that sounds more like something between 1.5 million and 553,000 people. (At least assuming the number didn't somehow drop by a million in 4 years, which would be an absolutely spectacular improvement that I think we'd have heard about)
Someone given temporary access to housing has shelter, but you need to keep providing them shelter so you need to classify them as a person in need of housing Aka homeless. You may also see the terms Houseless, Unhoused, or Unsheltered used to make the distinctions more clear.
PS: There’s also a long continuum from owning a home with plumbing etc and living on a park bench. Governments want people in permanent spaces that provide adequate shelter and have a mailing address for a host of different reasons.
Also that 2.41 in 2011 excluded 0.179 million kids so 0.19%. The 3 million figure in 2015 so 3m / 1393m = 0.22%.
However, elsewhere it was suggested that children alone might be closer to 1 million. I am not suggesting it’s accurate just that their estimates are suspect. Hell I just looked at a paper suggesting homeless was close to 300 million in China. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.12324 That seems unlikely, but the idea it’s even possible to mention suggests we don’t have adequate figures.
China is good at controlling public opinions like this. I grew up in a "third line" city and we were always told if we don't have good grades, we end up having to clean the streets. But we were also told there is "social safety" for medicine.
In reality, you need a job and need to pay a monthly fee for "social safety". And in reality, people with low grades can end up in gangs or prison. Only the obedient type can get a hard labor job.
Many of these lucky ones would sleep where they work or stay with families or sleep at "migrant worker hotel/camps". It's not a life anyone would want to live.
In terms of quality of health care, even though all workers pay into "social safety", most cannot be seen by good doctors. For surgeries, they often had to travel to bigger cities and pay out of pocket. And " social safety" mostly covers visits to clinics (baiscally a consultation at a third world version of your Walgreen pharmacy counter).
I know people tend to hate the USA but it's not worse than China.
Just how "AND" are we talking here...one needs to know this to determine how well certain state machinery is working overseas, thanks in advance
I personally know people (20s to mid 30s) who are simply unhappy that they did everything they were told and couldn't get jobs in their field, and can't afford a house (so they rent one and which pays for somebody else's mortgage).
When I was in school STEM was not considered the only path to success. The oft repeated argument was you're a better candidate for high level jobs with something like an English degree than somebody with no degree at all, which turned out to be pretty terrible advice. I only had one teacher who said that was a terrible idea (he compared it to a degree in underwater basket weaving).
Dude. Young people in the west have PLENTY to be very unhappy about, without being mentally ill. The completely fucked housing market for example (here in Western Europe at least), or the complete lack of drastic actions to reduce climate change.
Okay, I'm not super skilled on my fallacies, but this seems like a tu quoque, no? Western youth disillusionment doesn't preclude Chinese youth disillusionment, unless you see it as a zero sum competition.
Not only in 2023, in 60s & 80's as well.
Seems like there was/is demand supply mismatch always.
Extra hard for young Chinese people as they can't vent out openly.