what do old farts mean when they say ”the world is harsh” like genuinely? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by opiumfree@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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like most people, a significant part of my childhood consisted of old senile farts telling me i have to toughen up cause life is harsh. however, now that i look at it, i dont understand what the fuck they were talking about and i think our generation has it way harder than the previous ones.

most old farts lived either in the USA cold war bloc where they had:

social democracy (with resources from the global south of course) where you could afford a home on one income with several kids
post WW2 rebound woke
post civil rights rebound woke
sexual liberation (first in their entire bloodline to have an actually enjoyable orgasm)
easy job market
easy to find a spouse
socializing was easy
abundance of consumer products

old farts in the communist bloc had:

socialist system with secure housing, free health care, free education
low misogyny
got rewarded by the state to have kids in many cases
easy to get married
socializing was easy, society was warm and high trust
generally woke and discouraged antisocial behaviours and fascism

our generation has:

WORST job market ever seen
healthcare super expensive
late stage capitalism pushes for extreme gender division, women and men hate each other so no marriage for most of us
no sex for most of us either
everything expensive
loneliness epidemic
far right sentiment at its peak
we are constantly recorded and posted online without our consent

(to be fair most old people lived through sort of war/drafting situation but i will die before i respect the military)

our generation has it way harder because we live in end stage capitalism... what exactly were they warning us about?

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[-] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago

I wrote a long thing about it, but I think what I wrote is too much biased by the misleading generational view even with caveats. Instead, I'd say we need to examine the contradictions and the tension that forms from them. One example might be how in the US, more people are living with their parents for longer / later into their life, but this is not well accommodated for culturally, creating a lot of distress and confusion about how to handle it, as well as a certain amount of finger-pointing.

[-] big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

it's probably a mix of generational gap ("why those kids don't have their own home? at their age i was able and i didn't have a degree! they probably don't want to work hard!") and a good dose of capitalist brainwashing ("the state giving handouts to the lower steps of the ladder is evil communism! the good ol' days of my youth is because this is a capitalist country that thinks in the free market! not hippy ideas like imperialism in the global south! marx was just a lazy bum! reagan was right!")

[-] pyromaiden@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago

Misanthropy.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

in was only harsher only in the sense that things required more manual labour, in that sense everything is much easier now. however everything else is much harsher now. also, you'd get whacked from not much back 50 years ago then althought that's taken a turn for the worse recently.

[-] Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago

Life is harsh for the poor, no matter the generation.

[-] IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com -2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I basically just read the title... And I don't know about communism.

But I always took the saying to mean chaos owns the world, and no matter how mush you try to create a utopia it will never succeed because safety and peace isn't and never will be a constant by law of the universe. So in understanding that... "The world is harsh" and it will never stop for you or anyone.

...yet humanity still wars to fight against the universe. A never ending battle that causes more problems for innocent people. And it's the same idea for the peaceful protestors. Both sides seem to fight acceptance of what reality actually is. Both are distraction and fear from understanding and accepting honest reality that is owned by the workings of the universe.

this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026

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