What are the pros / cons of living now compared to 30 years ago?
I'll throw some out first:
Pros:
Flexible working arrangements
Generally better working conditions
Potentially higher paying graduate jobs (e.g. Quant)
Access to information for personal use is amazing
For diversity candidates, diversity has become a much bigger thing
Potential to see some of the greatest steps imaginable for mankind (e.g. Space civilisations, AGI etc)
Cons:
High paying jobs are MUCH harder to get (access to information makes recruiting much more competitive) and future returns are likely compressed (e.g. AM/S&T/non-Quant HF all declining)
Climate is fucked, and we will have to pay economically to fix it
We missed the golden age of not only finance, but the stock market in general (tech stock boom)
A lot of the developed world's young people are addicted to social media / games
Internet has ruined mental health
Well, you've certainly given this some thought! Let's dive in.
Pros: 1. Flexible Working Arrangements: Absolutely, the rise of remote work and flexible hours has been a game-changer. It's allowed people to balance their personal and professional lives more effectively. 2. Better Working Conditions: Generally speaking, there's been a lot of progress in this area. Companies are more aware of the importance of a healthy work environment. 3. Higher Paying Graduate Jobs: Fields like Quantitative Finance have indeed opened up opportunities for high-paying jobs right out of school. 4. Access to Information: The internet has made it easier than ever to learn new things and stay informed. 5. Diversity: There's still a long way to go, but it's true that many workplaces are more diverse and inclusive than they were 30 years ago. 6. Technological Advancements: From space exploration to artificial intelligence, we're living in an exciting time for scientific progress.
Cons: 1. Competitive Job Market: With more people having access to higher education and resources, the job market has become highly competitive. 2. Climate Change: This is a significant challenge facing our generation and will require global cooperation and significant resources to address. 3. Missed Stock Market Boom: While there are always new opportunities in the market, it's true that the tech boom was a unique period of rapid growth. 4. Addiction to Technology: The rise of social media and online gaming has led to new types of addiction and mental health challenges. 5. Mental Health: While the internet has many benefits, it can also contribute to issues like anxiety and depression.
Remember, every era has its challenges and opportunities. It's all about how we adapt and make the most of the circumstances we're in.
Does my head in, this ChatGPT bot. Every response with some generic, fluffy disclaimer at the end of “remember, it’s up to you, it’s situational, it’s based on your circumstances, it depends”.
General advancement in healthcare
If you were talking about now versus 150 years ago, definitely. But 1993 medical care (in wealthy countries, at least) wasn't much less effective than 2023 medical care for most conditions. There have been improvements in treating edge cases- better survival rates for certain types of cancer and so on. But not much improvement on the basics.
The rise and fall of various unhealthy behaviors (more smoking then, more overeating and opiate use now) have had bigger roles in public health outcomes than changes in the quality of medical care.
Life expectancy is now declining in the U.S., so medical advances are not happening at a sufficiently fast pace to offset the increases in rates of pathological behaviors.
Hip and knee replacements are so much better than 1993 that it's astounding--this is a major boon to quality of life for older persons. Surgeries for athletes, from elbow surgeries for baseball pitchers to ACL repairs, are so much better that it beggars belief. Even methods for healing broken bones are vastly improved from the days of signing casts.
Wait till alzheimers drugs get approved bro
On pros -- HC is better if you are indeed in the upper middle class or higher
On cons -- I could not agree more on the Internet, net-net it's been absolutely negative for society as a whole. It's brought everyone down to the lowest common denominators, made politics way more volatile and has wrecked mental health & overall well-being. We socialize far less than ever before, we don't tolerate moderate viewpoints anymore without demanding they take a radical side, etc. Knowing what we know now, this is one technology we'd have been much better without
I saw an interesting take on the solution to the Fermi paradox. Basically, the aliens that have existed got developed enough to realise the point of development at which they were most happy. They then 'reset' to this state, and refused to progress further. Maybe space travel / communication wasn't included during this period, hence why we haven't made contact.
I do wonder if the same could happen to us in 100 years. Maybe we keep healthcare advances, and set the internet back to square 0.
That is an utterly fascinating thought experiment. Medical science is the one clear area where we likely should keep innovating, though even then we should stop short of some applications which are bound to lead to negative outcomes (i.e. human cloning).
Unfortunately it's pretty hard to put the genie back into the bottle. Even if nukes wiped out most infrastructure and all humanity, the internet would still exist. At this point it's unkillable, only really regulat-able (which democracies are ill equipped to do).
As a society, there's not too much we can do here other than judiciously use the internet up to a certain point and try to live outside of it as much as possible. Just my two cents
Do you think your life would be better without the internet?
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You can make absolute bank in healthcare as a private practice doc 30 years ago and pharma sales would give you insane perks while they try to sell you their drugs (making a million as a surgeon specialist working 60-70 hours a week back then was very feasible even in HCOL areas). The average salaries listed for docs in the 1990s online severely underestimate them. An ophthalmologist that my parents know opened up a ton of private practice locations in the 1990s and drove a new Ferrari / Lambo every few years. Can think of at least one other 'doctor' couple I know who made a fortune back then too opening private practices.
Disagree on net negative. Yes there's a ton of cons but access to information is such an enormous pro. I'd be a complete retard if I was born 50 years ago (especially because of poor background)
If you're going to add diversity as a pro, you ought to list the fact that it averages us down overall.
As someone who is applying for spring weeks, believe me I was close to putting it as a con. Then I realised I was being selfish and dumb.
It does make me laugh though when employers claim to 'not discriminate' beneath an opening for a Women's/BAME only internship. Such is life I guess.
Well I always thought of “diversity” meaning that people of all races and backgrounds could have an equal opportunity to succeed in finance without discrimination, less so the forced diversity programs of late…
Pros - Healthcare, representation for women/diversity, more charitable organizations, social programs that help underprivileged. More off topic but I do feel like things like food and drink have improved over the years compared to 30 years ago when chain restaurants were considered solid restaurants.
Cons - Internet, which has caused us to have to respond to work stressors on a 24/7 basis and allowed overbearing bosses to invade lives further than work hours. Constant advertising from trillion dollar companies developing ML algorithms to sell you toothpaste when they know your in the grocery store. Social media evangelizing superficiality and non-stop comparison to others.
Overall id say its 70-80% negative.
Pros:
Things (Flatscreen TV’s/Computers/Etc.) are cheaper than ever on a relative basis
Easy Access to information
More Experiences available now and cheaper travel
Access to Higher Standard of Living and Luxury Experiences (also somewhat of a con)
Cons:
Median home prices in my T1 market are $1.2M which gets you a basic 1-2 bed apartment unless you’re willing to move over an hour away inland. I’m from Southern CA and median home prices are exactly the same there. $1.2M will get you a place built in 1950 that’s 1-1.5K square feet in a bad neighborhood that needs to be renovated. Growing up in the early 2000’s one of my friends parents were hourly workers at a grocery store and were able to afford a house in a nice neighborhood through their savings. Today an MD at a bank/consulting firm would struggle to afford a basic house in that same neighborhood, which is insane to me. I don’t know where we go from here but I’m not optimistic (personally I think we’re on a bullet train towards some form of UBI and conditions similar to serfdom where those that own assets have an inordinate amount of control over peoples lives).
Consolidation in industries like IB and other fields has made knowledge work more difficult to get while expanding the candidate pools due to access to information. Moving forward I expect the number of these jobs to continue to shrink and don’t think that we’ll ever see some of the pre GFC comp levels that our senior people enjoyed in industries like banking.
Generally QoL is improving due to gains in healthcare and technology, however things like housing affordability are at all time lows and likely won’t meaningfully improve. If you want to live in a place like Los Angeles or NYC your quality of life is going to be orders of magnitude worse than prior generations. It’s literally not even enough anymore to be in the top 1% to be able to afford a nice house in one of these markets as you need to be in the top .05%. Places that sold for $500-750K 20 years ago are now selling for $10M+ and now it costs $2M to buy a house with air conditioning in South Central. At the same time it’s never been easier to rent luxury apartments, experiences and other amenities which is weird to me. It’s always been cheaper to rent/lease but now it almost feels like a necessity if you want to live an upper middle class lifestyle. It’s ironic that some people in high finance posit themselves as masters of the universe and yet these same people aren’t going to be able to afford houses in nice neighborhoods or exclusive communities that they previously could or be able to afford to live anywhere they want.
Ones I can think of
Pros - Some advancements in medicine (albeit not a ton)
Cons - GDP growth was financed by deficit spending globally. We’re the generation now that gets to pay for our costs plus prior.
Air quality is much better today than 30 and 40 years ago: https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary#air-quality…
Housing costs are totally out of control--worst affordability since 1984: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/homes/home-affordability-worst-since-198…
Both of these good and bad trends are directly and specifically tied to government policy.
Do you understand the climate situation at all? If so, then it's not a new thing. We're slowly marching toward something which could be a major issue 100 to 200 years from now. We are basically in the same shape 30 years ago as we are now. If you don't understand this, get educated instead of buying into non-scientific panic.
Better educational resources, more entrepreneurial opportunities, more content and media available
Takes longer to buy homes, inequality, overemphasis on political correctness yielding significantly higher density of cuck personalities, increased divisiveness
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