&gt; <i>I&#x27;m not sure how you claim that civil rights have improved with the uncovering and continuation of wide-scale surveillance that wasn&#x27;t physically possible in the past...</i><p>Try being black, brown, red, yellow, or a woman.<p>&gt; <i>I personally don&#x27;t believe that they&#x27;re less willing to work hard than previous generations.</i><p>I can&#x27;t argue with your personal beliefs, but my personal belief is that they are less willing. I see gen X as being less willing than the boomers, too. I&#x27;m not comparing snapshots-in-time - you can&#x27;t compare 20-year-olds to 40-year-olds to 60-year-olds effectively. 20-year-old boomers were more willing to work hard than 20-year-old Xers, and in turn the Xers more than the Ys. The boomers worked less hard than the generation before them.<p>&gt; <i>There&#x27;s no hard scientific proof in economics, but it seems like our society is more capable than ever, but the benefits are distributed more narrowly, while general wages are flat to declining, the risks individualized with lesser margins in the income, those all feel like fundamental reverses in important life areas.</i><p>See my earlier comment about perfection. Just because we&#x27;re facing challenges at the moment <i>does not mean</i> that earlier generations had it easier. When I hear the usual &quot;it&#x27;s so much harder now&quot; stuff, there&#x27;s never anything like references to things like conscription. Or the stigma of daring to be pregnant in public. Or the much narrower selection of food available. Or the lesser resources available for dealing with domestic abuse. There&#x27;s a lot more to life than unemployment rate.