The Movie Every Screwed Millennial Should Watch

[jtuck004]

...
That’s my experience of being an unemployed millennial in the 2000s. Long stretches of unnerving silence. Being one of a handful of unlucky young people walking aimlessly around in the middle of the day when civilized people are at work. Failing to make eye contact with each other or speak because we’ve forgotten how to have in-person conversations. Turning to social media or aimless Web surfing to fill the long stretches of emptiness, of boredom.

I’ve joked, darkly, that the worst thing about being unemployed isn’t not having any money but not having anything to do.

And to a large extent that’s what “Advantageous” is about. Yes, the eerily empty streets our characters walk through might be a result of the film’s limited budget — but it also makes sense within the film’s setting. All the buildings are empty; all the stores are closed. Homeless people wander the parks and sleep in the bushes and stare numbly into the distance. (At one point the characters try to walk into a restaurant only to find that it’s been boarded up and the owner, sitting inside, ignores them. They treat this as a normal, everyday occurrence.)

We’re told that the world is in the grip of a tech-driven economic recession. There’s no jobs for anyone — anything the small elite of wealthy customers need done, they can get a machine to do for them better than any human can. Our protagonist, Gwen, is a spokesmodel for a cosmetics — essentially an eye-candy job.
...

"... not having anything to do." Alternet, here.

The investment in people that providing some opportunity to simply do any damn thing they want for a small income would be returned a thousand times.

What's it worth to have citizens who can't look each other in the eye because they are unemployed?

Instead people are left to wander around looking for something to do. Finding food, joining a terrorist org, whatever.

We cost ourselves so much by trying to be cheap.

[Autumn]

1. Thanks for this. It sounds fascinating, going to look for it.

[phantom power]

2. Humans need not apply

[Wounded Bear]

3. Reminds me of a Vonnegut story...

name escapes me right now. Maybe Mother Night?

[Nay]

5. Player Piano, I bet. Wonderful book. nt

[LiberalEsto]

16. Definitely Player Piano

Vonnegut made predictions in it about the sociopathic corporate mind-set, the development of robots that can take over many human tasks, the valuation of people by their academic tutles and willingness to serve the corporate state, and the misery of masses of people lacking any sort of meaningful work. It's a wonderful book; one of my favorites by Vonnegut.

[Egnever]

4. In my opinion the greatest disservice we do to our children is

Telling them they need jobs. What we should be doing is teaching them how to make their own jobs.

[Enrique]

7. regardless of what we tell them

lots of people will need jobs

[jtuck004]

8. Yup. Actually, since about 1 in 5 homes needs food stamps to eat, what we are

teaching them in some cases is that we feed animals at the zoo before we do them.

We know, of course, that nutrition can never be "fixed", so they are damaged forever, as we use the money that would have, say, let their parents pull themselves out of poverty, instead to make bank$ter/donors richer., and enacting policies to help the rentiers as they threw 7 million families out in the street for profit, among other things.

First I think the adults should behave as if other people's lives matter, because for too many they really don't, as far as I can tell.

I think that would serve as a great example to kids who, instead, get the message that the adults think they don't have to take any responsibility, and instead will just breed themselves out of their problems.

[Samantha]

10. That is exactly what I was headed to the bottom of this thread to post

I am a baby boomer, and I wish someone had given me that advice when I was starting out. My generation was a bit more fortunate in that good jobs were still available -- even pretty goods one -- but as our age started inching toward that of being a senior, employers started easing us out to save money by hiring younger people, paying them less, and denying them the benefits they had given us.

Once when I was in my 30s, a vice president in a very large corporation with whom I had never even spoken, came to my desk and said anyone who works as hard as you should be working for himself. At that point of my life, that was something I could not even consider, having a daughter preparing for college and looking at high tuition payments.

But in 2007, having finished my responsibilities, I walked away from an excellent job and started working for myself. Over a period of time, I have made this work for me, but I have always regretted not having started something of my own on a part-time basis while holding down a position in the orthodox workplace to pay family bills. This is something I now believe every person should do at a younger age, building their own business so that eventually they can work solely as their own boss.

That vice president was absolutely right. Anyone who is willing to work extremely hard at what they do should find a way to channel that for him or herself, not to another.

In the overall scheme of things only YOU can count on YOU to keep yourself employed, and how much effort, research, time and demand for your product or your service will dictate your financial rewards. YOU will never lay yourself off in order to hire a younger person, YOU will never deny yourself needed sick leave or a vacation and YOU will never undercut YOU. Only YOU can count on YOU through good times and bad.

Sam

[Egnever]

13. I have a similar story

I worked for years for other people making them money and what was my hoby at the time started to be more and more in demand from my friends and family. One day I decided hey why don't I try to make some money selling my services to people and ten years later I have hundreds of customers I work when I want I go on vacation when I want and I only answer to my customers. If I don't like working for a customer I can tell them to find someone else to do their business with.

I only wish someone had encouraged me earlier to do what I am doing now. It took a couple of years to build into something I could depend on to be sure but I now getaid to do something I love instead of shleping for someone else.

[AuntPatsy]

6. I can,relate, feels very lonely

[jtuck004]

9. People don't get what it feels like to worry about every stinking penny every hour of the day.

And the fact that you can't approach anyone else, since their cares are not yours, and they could cost you just by saying hi.

We have the technology to fix this problem, I think, but not the will, and that simply astounds me.

[AuntPatsy]

11. No they don't, I leave the house and cannot seem to feel a part of things, almost

Like sleep walking... Very strange feeling .....its numbing... but hope I've learned from this experience and so it does not go to waste if we ever come out of it...

[noiretextatique]

12. sounds like me in 1980 during raygun's "morning in america"

i could not find a job after i graduated from college and had to live with my parents for a couple of years.

[marions ghost]

14. lots of parallels with today and the 80's

--boomers were hoping their kids wouldn't have to face the same job uncertainty and lack of opportunity. But here we are are again. Everything is even more expensive.

[noiretextatique]

15. sad, but true

i wish we could lower the retirement age. i would LOVE to leave the job market and let the younger folks work. sadly, i have another ten years.