They had it so easy but didn’t realize that that’s not the norm at all. They still expect the same to happen now. As if one can work through college and pay off all debts, or if just going to college meant landing a job, or even if you landed a job it would do little more than just make you live paycheck to paycheck.
They had it so easy they’ve all been conditioned to believe that life is simple and easy. Not that it had nothing to do with their “effort” or “skills”, was easy as a direct result of complex external geopolitical and economic conditions (by chance), or that previous generations fought hard and paid for those conditions.
People are also shit at math, and inflation is unintuitive. My boomer parents are extremely sympathetic to the situation of younger generations, but still thought their mortgage in the 80’s was comparable to current. After I punched it into an inflation calculator it was about 30% less than I would pay on a 2 bedroom UNIT; they paid that on a 2 bedroom HOUSE, and only for a couple years at peak interest rates.
TL;DR: people are simple creatures and civilizations are complex machines 99.99% of us couldn’t possibly understand; even the most intelligent and best intentioned. Every one of the best minds in all of history were deeply flawed in some way (in hindsight).
They had it so easy but didn’t realize that that’s not the norm at all. They still expect the same to happen now. As if one can work through college and pay off all debts, or if just going to college meant landing a job, or even if you landed a job it would do little more than just make you live paycheck to paycheck.
They had it so easy they’ve all been conditioned to believe that life is simple and easy. Not that it had nothing to do with their “effort” or “skills”, was easy as a direct result of complex external geopolitical and economic conditions (by chance), or that previous generations fought hard and paid for those conditions.
People are also shit at math, and inflation is unintuitive. My boomer parents are extremely sympathetic to the situation of younger generations, but still thought their mortgage in the 80’s was comparable to current. After I punched it into an inflation calculator it was about 30% less than I would pay on a 2 bedroom UNIT; they paid that on a 2 bedroom HOUSE, and only for a couple years at peak interest rates.
TL;DR: people are simple creatures and civilizations are complex machines 99.99% of us couldn’t possibly understand; even the most intelligent and best intentioned. Every one of the best minds in all of history were deeply flawed in some way (in hindsight).