John Della Volpe - Understanding Gen Z | The Daily Show

Gen Z IS living in a different economy than the rest of us. It's a lot easier to weather a storm when you already own a boat than to have to build one while trying not to drown.

The difference between the nuclear strike preparedness and the shooter drills is that the nuclear hit didn't happen, the shootings they experience on a shockingly frequent basis.

Kids today know the world is dying and they see no one in power is stopping it but keeping a foot on the throttle

Jon, I know you are a youngster, but when we protested in the 60s, most of our peers were just angry with us for doing so. They always talk about how active the boomers were in the 60s, but in my experience, most who stood up for human rights were demonized in their communities except in rarified environments. Also, yes, we dove under our desks, but we never witnessed our fellow students being shot in the classroom. Yes, we were in Vietnam, but we didn't have the suffering first hand in most cases. Meanwhile, I jumped job to job in youthful freedom and never worried about where I might stay because there were places to live that were affordable and offered a roof, even if not fancy sometimes, at least it was a roof and a bed. Let's listen to these young people. Let's listen to one another.

When I graduated from college in 1970, I moved into an apartment in California that was $50/month. It was minimal as an apartment, but I didn't care. One week at minimum wage paid the rent. Today, my college tuition would have been maybe 10X more, and the apartment I rented would be at least $2000/month. Oh, and there were very few people who were homeless. It is tougher now. The rich are too powerful now.

Jon touched on something I think is worth talking more about, previous young generation political movements ended as he said when they got jobs. The real thing they got was stability. If you have a job that sustains your living situation and leaves you comfortable you are not going to have nearly as much of a reason to continue in politics. However if, for example, it continuously felt impossible to own a home or have a vision of what your retirement could be, people are not going to stop making a fuss.

I'd love to hear an interview with Volpe by someone who won't interrupt him and trivialize his points.

As an Elder Millennial myself (born 1983) I'm actually quite impressed by Gen Z. The Gen Z people I know shock me by how self aware and genuinely mature they seem to me. I was NOT as actualized at that same age. It took a while. Which is why it's so infuriating how much our society is failing them. These truly impressive young people...who feel deeply hopeless about the world they find themselves in. Scott Galloway is someone I have _plenty_ of disagreements with, but he just did a TED Talk fairly recently that absolutely hit it out of the park on how America is utterly failing young people. I didn't agree with all of his solutions....though I did agree with most of them, and entirely agreed with his framing of the problems, AND could not agree more with the sheer righteous anger he gave voice to. Worth a watch if you haven't seen/heard it yet...

I have 3 kids, 16-21, and I do my best to listen. The one that I believe is most likely to make a looooot of money tells me he thinks he'll never be able to afford his own house. This interview is hitting so hard right now

Watching this as a Gen Z person made me feel like I was having a conversation with my most out of touch uncle at Thanksgiving.