I'm getting increasingly angry and depressed for our children's future.

[WhenWillTheShitEnd]

To think that my hard working son, who gets minimum wage is now strugglying to make end meet because of an egotistical, corrupt, millionaire/billionaire pervert is giving me sleepless nights. To think that the whole world is being held to ransom by men like Trump and Putin is making me so depressed and angry that its affecting my every day life. I feel so utterly helpless. We are all recycling, being told not to use our woodburners etc, while the like of the US and Russia are pumping colossal amount of CO2 into the atmosphere with their bombs. I'm so FUCKING ANGRY.

Yes, I totally relate to this.

I feel blindsided by it all. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do, bought a house, had kids, worked hard, and the carpet has been pulled from under my feet in all the assumptions I made about the world and what my children’s lives would be.

I couldn’t watch that moon launch, I m struggling to see any joy in it. Because I can only think about what that money, intelligence and effort could be used for.

Agree. Breaks my heart seeing my own and other teens working away. Only to hear “AI”
will take all the interesting valuable and fun jobs. Oh fucking great then 🙄

We give people like this way too much power

And we elect politicians too old or too entrenched in normality bias to put brakes on them

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/23/sam-altman-openai-energy-use-datacenters

I am not sure people are complacent, but more resigned to the fact that there is very little we can do. We have some power via the ballot box, but when swathes of the electorate are fooled by people like Trump and his would-be pound-shop UK version Farage, that is not much help.

But it's complacency, admittedly in conjunction with other factors, that allow people to be fooled by them. If you tell yourself that climate change isn't happening, or isn't man made, then you can allow yourself to elect the charlatan who tells your that your individual freedom to own a fossil fuel belching diesel vehicle (as cheaply as possible) is incredibly important.

DS has just been offered a great job after 6 yrs of backbreaking work at school, uni and then a taught masters. The first thing he said " This job won't exist in two years because AI will be doing it." I hate that he has to think like that. I hate that AI is wiping out everyone's hard work.

Surely minimum wage jobs are where people start, not consider for their whole career? start at the bottom and work your way up? Shouldn’t we be promoting ambition to our DC?

Careers services were useless years ago but much better now, embrace career services, company visits to schools and colleges, get your DC motivated.

New World Rule Number 1: Female heads of state/prime ministers only.

And by female I mean those born female, you know XX and all that. 🙄

It's going to be awful, because our standard of living will get worse and worse.

That's the difference with the 70s and 80s - we had (realistic) hope that things would get better. Now you'd be delusional to think that.

Climate wars/displacement is my biggest fear tbh. And now seeing oil fields burning ... humans are awful.

My children won't have children, and I think that's the right decision.

I hope my kids won't have kids but one wants to!

That’s always happened though. Most of the jobs our grandparents did no longer exist and we’re doing jobs that didn’t exist then.

My mum lost her job on the switchboard when it ceased to exist. My aunt had a typist at work. The world kept turning when jobs changed.

You are right, but I think the scale and impact will be huger and more catastrophic. Already news of massive layoffs in the U.S.

All I can do is encourage both DC to develop AI skills. Too late to retrain as electricians or plumbers, as everyone suggests.

But that's the thinking that worked for previous generations. The aspirational jobs that people traditionally worked up to aren't safe from AI. I'm a lawyer, but I think twice before advising people to go into law now.

Oracle laid off 30,000 people yesterday, and not because they're struggling for profit.

We need to get back to living a simple life. Each family having a small homestead. Growing the majority of our own food. Generations living together. Green energy. Forgetting about jetting off to the sun for a few days....its not sustainable. Ditch fashion, make our own clothes that will last for years. It sounds a fantasy but we used to live like this before capitalism and greed took over.
Think about all the things in your home that you've spent money on (and time working for), do you really need them? humans make so much disposable shite that we really dont need.....

I don't have a car, I don't eat meat, buy mostly from charity shops and my kids live with me ( off and on) and pay zero rent.I am already there! 😀

I might say though that multi generational living is very challenging.

I'm worried for my two young adult sons. One has a good job in London, but I'm constantly worried that ai will replace him. The other is doing a humanities degree at a top uni and is thinking about doing a masters, but I have no idea about what it will lead to. He enjoys learning though and is good at what he does. I can't imagine him being unemployed though, he'll go crazy with boredom. He's like me, he has to be productive and occupied.

I keep reading articles about these ghost jobs and I feel so bad for the poor folk who are applying for them. How bloody soul destroying.

What you're describing there is still a relatively privileged life by historical standards. Most families historically didn't own land. If they were rural, they lived on the Lord of the Manors land and everything they worked for belonged to him. They could keep a few chickens and grow a few crops for their own use in what little spare time they had, but their life belonged to the Lord of the Manor. And even the Lord of the Manor lived a very basic life by today's standards.

If they lived in a city, they were probably in service somewhere or worked in godawful conditions in a tannery or a brick making factory and slept where they worked.
Modern life isn't anywhere near that level yet and we have to be careful where we vote to keep it that way.

To be honest Trump and your son earning minimum wage are two very separate things. Why is your son only earning minimum wage, what is his plan to progress his career and are you able to help?

That would be my focus personally.

Why are you thinking like that rather than thinking of how you can help your child so that when she enters the job market she is resilient, capable and in demand?

My oldest daughter is a year behind her and we invest our time building her not pitying her.

How are you building her? I don't mean that in a snide way. Am asking.
My kids are already adults so can't guide them as much.

Consuming a lot of news output will increase anxiety - I limit what I read and watch. I do not understand why people are not helping their children navigate the job market. It really is not helpful to anyone.

There is some naivety here. I work in tech and most of the people that run tech companies would love nothing more than to replace all the employees with AI - they resent every penny they pay us and hate that their businesses rely on people with specialist skills and knowledge, because that gives us some leverage, but if AI continues to improve we won’t. I hope it becomes more expensive to use AI over a person seeing as though it’s been heavily over-invested in but we’ll see. So teaching your dc to be resilient and resourceful and educated and employable is awesome and we should totally do that but it won’t mean they will get a good job if there aren’t any to have and the few there are have global competition for them.

I’m putting my resources into my dc and I hope it’s enough that they can live a happy life, but I have no control over global politics, climate change, AI etc etc and I don’t feel anyone who does have any control gives one shit about me and mine, they only care about themselves.

Exactly. Does anyone think the parents of the 30 k laid off at Oracle didn't guide them to be resilient and educated and employable?