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Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

I see it more as the entitlement generation. A generation that thinks things should be handed to them (why should I pay for music? The musicians don't deserve to earn a living!) and that by graduating from college, they will be handed a $70K/year job (occupy wallstreet).

I believe this was the mantra of the 60s generation as well. If you see what happened in the Haight-ashbury area of the country during that time, it almost parallels the occupy movement exactly. The only difference was that there were many more people in the Hait and the collapse was much much worse than the occupy movement.

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I don't think it's a sense of entitlement as much as it is a sense of equity. And I think that some of what comes out of it is unrealistic but some is justified. But as I posted below - this isn't new and it's good.

We learn in our youth that the world is messed up - some sooner than others. Then at some point, if we are fortunate to live somewhere where it is possible, we reach a point where we also realize we can try to do something about it.

Later a lot of that idealism and energy can get beaten out of us. But that's o.k. - we need it.

If your not a young person in this generation you know nothing about it. 70% of young people work jobs during college now and if your not rich is even worst. We are expected to just lay down and accept either a less education, less wealth, or to simply fail. 70k a year is nothing when you just racked up 50k a year in debit for 4 years. We built thing your generation most likely could think of. Is it not fair to want to go to school without working 40 hour weeks, graduate to job any job that you can use your degree, then be able to get house without having to look over your should because the previous generation started caring more about the rest of the world than it's own people.

I don't agree with him either but your first sentence is wrong. That you would feel this way is normal but I promise you, we've been in your shoes. And when I was a 'young person' I thought our circumstances were unique too.

You've just summed up every generation that reached working age during a recession.

Life isn't fair, and never has been. Some of the greatest success stories are born from times like these, because the sheer difficulty and pain tempers and refines a person who is tenacious enough to keep going and clever enough to recognize opportunities.

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