Time is a pendulum. It swings back and

forth between trends and vibes,

consistently changing. At the two ends

of the pendulum's path, we have two

different kinds of feelings. It's so

over and we're so back. For the past

five to eight years, we've been on the

it's so over end. Nihilism dominated our

culture. Big tech got more powerful. A

burning world analogous to Wall-E seemed

inevitable. But the pendulum is starting

to swing the other way again. If history

has shown us anything, it's that humans

are fallible to the same silly mistakes.

But we're just as susceptible to fixing

them and improving the human condition.

Welcome to Gen Z's optimism era. Elon

Musk is the world's first trillionaire.

Pretty baffling statement to open up a

discussion about optimism, right? If

things were truly getting better,

wouldn't Elon have donated like half or

three quarters of his money to some

charity? Well, in order to make a

convincing argument for why things are

going to get better in the future, we

first have to talk about the power

structure plaguing the present day,

gerontocracies. A gerontocracy is a form

of political organization in which power

and leadership are disproportionately

held by the oldest members of a society.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the

oldest presidents in American history.

From 1951 to 2025, the number of House

members that are 70 or older

skyrocketed.

>> America is a nation that can be defined

in a single word.

I was going to put him in

>> Power is synonymous with wealth, which

has also been disproportionately

accumulated by older people. In 1981,

the median age of home buyers was around

31. Today, it sits at 59. And the

average age of American millionaires

rose to 61 in 2022 from 57 in 1992. At

the first layer of observation, are

people saying, "Yeah, so what? You're

supposed to get wealthier as you age.

You've got to work for decades to accrue

a substantial amount of wealth. Why

should young people expect to get rich

quick? That's the problem with you young

people. You want handouts." Of course,

this is a straw man for why people are

actually outraged with the system.

Almost nobody disagrees with the idea

that as you age, your skills increase

and therefore your ability to provide

value to the world and make money should

gradually increase with it until you're

too old to work. The issue lies in the

fact that the people with the money are

now so old and able to hoard so much of

it that the barrier to entry for even

basic stability is unreasonably high.

Since the advent of modern science, the

average lifespan has consistently risen

save a few troughs. Combining that with

the fact that young people have been

having less kids and it's no wonder why

more and more money has concentrated to

the geriatric elite. Additionally, as

you age, you begin to develop fears

around losing that money before you're

dead. The average retirement age has

steadily increased since the '90s partly

because older people feel like they have

to work just to pay for rising

healthcare costs. And when you're in

that state of mind of scarcity, you're

thinking to yourself, "Okay, if

everything goes wrong and I'm unable to

work because my health gets so bad out

of nowhere, I need to be prepared. So, I

better retain all my assets like my

house and my stocks." This gerontocratic

system has also led to laws that make it

easier for older people to keep the

wealth in their hands. In the Harper's

Magazine article, The Old Guard, Samuel

Moyn states, "The primary agenda for old

people has long been avoiding property

taxes even when the immunities they win

are regressive in the extreme as is the

case of California's Proposition 13."

Passed in 1978, the law caps property

taxes at 1% of assessed value,

constrains future increases, and limits

reassessments auguring a wave of similar

legislation across the United States.

The purported rationale for property tax

relief is that old people no longer have

the salaries coming in that they would

need in order to pay their share to the

state. But, this is mostly a smoke

screen because of just how much property

wealth many older Americans control.

What makes this doubly worse is that the

wages of labor have failed to keep up

with rising costs. As a result, the

wealth gap between older and younger

Americans has widened dramatically. In

2009, households headed by adults older

than 65 had improved their median net

worth by 42% over the prior quarter

century. By comparison, the median net

worth of households headed by adults 18

to 34 fell by 68% during the same

period. And what amplifies these trends

is the growing generational divide

between cultural values and the impact

of technology. Older generations cannot

truly understand the negative

psychological impact of advanced

technology without guardrails. They are

much more receptive to any and all

technology, whether that's AI getting

smarter or social media becoming more

addictive, because by the time all this

stuff was created, their lives were

already set in stone. The way that

scrolling TikTok affects us is not

nearly as detrimental as scrolling

Facebook Reels is to someone with an

established income, fully developed

prefrontal cortex, and lengthy list of

assets. So, most of them just see it as

this cool, fun, new thing to play around

with. And the older people who do truly

understand the full repercussions of

algorithms designed to prey on your

limbic system have already built lives

resilient enough to withstand much of

that damage. So, we live in a system of

old heads. They have increasingly

occupied offices where the most

important decisions are made, and many

of those decisions are out of touch with

the younger population. On top of that,

tech CEOs are more interested in pushing

us towards the future where we're

convinced we can do nothing to change

what is happening, giving the green

light to technologies that are actively

destroying our cognitive faculties,

self-esteem, and environment. Doesn't

seem like the best recipe for optimism,

right? Well, for those who are chained

to the idea that these trends will only

exacerbate over time, I want to offer

you a rebuttal. I call it the

gerontocracy inflection point. For all

our faults, eventually we will all reach

a point where we die, and old people are

least impervious to that certainty. The

question is, what happens when they're

gone? When the old systems, both

literally and figuratively, are no

longer propped up on the ones who

established them, who is going to take

over? Gen Z. Gen Z is the first

generation to grow up with the crockery

of the old systems and all the knowledge

they need to change them. They are the

first generation to truly feel the

disastrous effects of technology without

guardrails from the moment they were old

enough to read a tweet. [music] And they

are the first generation to be young

while at the tail end of a world that

has been shrouded by nihilism for

decades. Nihilistic thoughts without

answers can plague you, sinking you

deeper into your vices. You need some

sort of slow, patient process of

introspection to get you out of it, and

one of my favorite ways to do that is

today's sponsor, Headspace. I've been

meditating for about 8 years now, and if

I had to point to one of the most

important practices that has increased

my self-awareness and led me towards

being the most mentally, physically

stable I've ever been, it would be

mindfulness meditation. I personally use

Headspace for 5 minutes in the morning

when I wake up and 5 minutes before bed.

There's a meditation called "Jumpstart

Your Day," and the narrator's calming

voice, paired with the intentional

breathing exercise, helps me relinquish

any negative thoughts I may have started

the day with, and more importantly,

makes the stressful situations I'll

inevitably face throughout the day much

easier to handle. Take a second to

listen and follow along.

>> As you breathe in,

allow the air of taking in fresh air as

the lungs expand.

And as you breathe out,

just noticing how the muscles in the

body soften and relax.

>> My emotional regulation after listening

to that is just so dialed in. At night,

I use the deep breathing for stress

relief meditation. I can literally feel

my entire body melt when I'm done with

this one. And on days when I don't do

this, there's a noticeable difference in

how quickly my thoughts move and how

much I toss and turn in my bed before I

fall asleep. If you're someone who

doesn't meditate because you feel like

you don't have the time, honestly, you

don't need the time. Everyone has 5

minutes in their day to meditate, and

research has shown that just 5 minutes a

day can reduce stress. So, if you want

to keep your anxiety and nihilism in

check and slow down in a world that

shouts at you to speed up, you can try

Headspace entirely for free for 60 days

by going to the first link in my

description box or scanning the QR code

that you see on screen right now. It's 2

full months of free access compared to

the standard 2-week trial available on

their website. The way I like to think

about Gen Z's growing dissatisfaction

with the gerontocracy is like Chinese

water torture. Chinese water torture is

a psychological torture tactic where the

victim sits or lays tied to a bench as

small drops of water periodically fall

onto their forehead. In the beginning,

the drops of water feel refreshing,

almost comforting, like a gentle

rhythmic tapping or meditative session.

But, after enough time, the water

becomes something threatening,

inescapable. If the torturers change the

temperature of the water or make the

drops come out at irregular times, the

victim slowly loses their sanity,

causing delusions and panic attacks. The

old systems we move through as a child

initially feel like the beginning of

that Chinese water torture. Formal

education teaches us a curriculum in a

classroom with a single instructor who

does their best to transmit their

knowledge to their students. We are told

that if we do our best to listen and

apply this knowledge, we will have a

bright future with a career we enjoy. We

consume these claims like the first

drops of the water torture, partially

against our own will, and submit

ourselves to the idea that the current

school system is the best way to take in

information. Additionally, we believe

that the information we learn will be

extremely relevant to our careers and

life outside of school, but the real

world is often not so kind. Companies

today are not seeking college graduates

as often as they were in the past few

decades, deciding to opt for older

candidates. On top of that, the job

market is just extremely competitive

because the amount of people with a

degree is increasing and online

applications and ghost jobs have totally

disrupted the process of finding a job.

Tying this back to our Chinese water

torture analogy, the drips start to feel

less like comfort and more like a

trickery designed to induce pain.

Another part of the metaphorical Chinese

water torture is the design of our

cities' infrastructures. Again, in the

beginning, it seemed that car-centric

cities solved a fundamental problem. How

do we get around quickly without needing

to wait for public transportation,

giving us more autonomy? The answer was

using urban planning in a way such that

our roads put cars first, parking lots

first, and human connection second.

Utility and function were the basis for

practically all of our design decisions.

Apartments were designed to be easily

replicable and therefore low quality

with no real intention regarding how it

made someone feel being in these

buildings. That was the cost of

efficiency. Social media offered a

similar introduction into our

metaphorical Chinese water torture.

Being able to connect with anyone at any

time in the 2000s and 2010s felt like a

net positive for society. I can text and

message my friends even when I'm not

with them. I can post cool stuff I'm

doing and get validation from strangers.

Sick. A decade later and now all we're

left with is companies exploiting our

attention for profits, prioritizing

speed and quantity over quality, and

destroying our ability to focus on

anything for the amount of time it takes

to deeply engage with it. But it does

not have to be this way and it is only

this way because not enough in the

present are taking enough action to set

restrictions and regulations on these

advancements that are clearly ruining

our lives. The fact of the matter is

there are already a lot of Gen Z'ers

using their optimism to enact the

changes we all want to see. The early

signs of the gerontocracy inflection

point are already happening. Recently,

Jared Henderson made a video talking

about groups of people revolting against

technology called Luddites. It's a

fantastic video by the way and I really

recommend you watch it. In the video,

Jared brings up a New York Times article

discussing Luddites, groups of college

and high school students vehemently

opposed to technological advancements.

These students meet in groups once a

week to actively participate in being

chronically offline and remind

themselves that they do in fact have a

choice in whether they want to

continuously engage with technology, but

especially social media. You know what's

crazy? This article was written in 2022.

Since then, this trend of revolting

against modern technology has only grown

in size. Now, I did make a video about

why being permanently offline is pretty

unrealistic for most people because so

much of our livelihood depends on it.

But, if we were more intentional with

what we're trying to gain from

technology, and we only used it to

enhance our cognitive faculties and

connection rather than hinder them, kind

of like the Luddites do, then companies

would have to shift the way they design

these platforms to retain their users.

The biggest lie you were ever told was

that technology is neutral, that every

new technological advancement, social

media, artificial intelligence, and its

effects are entirely dependent on the

user. But, that just doesn't tell the

whole story. Technology can never truly

be neutral because there are always

humans, biased, flawed, morally

compromised humans behind its creation.

When people say, "Oh, social media is

all about how you use it. If it's making

you depressed, it's your fault." There

is some truth to that, like you do have

to take agency over how you use it, but

at the end of the day, social media

algorithms are designed to appeal to

your lower-level brain areas. They are

intentionally designed in such a way

that you stay on the platforms as long

as possible, and that your limbic system

gets triggered, giving you an unnatural

amount of anxiety. Not how true a piece

of content is, not if it's actively

promoting something that produces

nuanced, productive discussion. The most

important metric these companies care

about is whether this piece of content

made you stay on the platform for

longer. That's it. So, if that's the way

these technologies are intentionally

designed, no matter how much you curate

your algorithm, you will still

occasionally get fed content that makes

you feel worse about the human

condition, that highlights the worst

aspects of humanity. The people in

power, both the ones who designed this

and the ones who have an interest in not

setting proper regulations to make sure

we stay exploited by these platforms,

know this. Many of them want you to feel

like the world sucks and that humans are

worse than they actually are, because

they know that when you're nihilistic,

you're way more accepting to whatever

new technology without guardrails they

develop, because you'll just be like,

"Oh, yep, this stuff was totally

inevitable. Just goes to show how much

humans suck." Don't you understand that

they programmed you to think this way?

Don't you understand that we are in

control of what gets passed and whether

or not we have to adapt to this new

technology based on how much we, the

average person, engages with it? And

this whole idea that, "Oh, AI, the way

that it's developing, the way it's

coming, it's inevitable." It's just

total These people that tell

you you need to get used to AI, there's

no stopping it, it's going to take over

every industry until we're all out of a

job, are completely oblivious to the

fact that if we had people in power

concerned with the ways these

technologies gather information and

train themselves and how easily we're

able to use them to offload our critical

thinking, it wouldn't be designed the

way it is. This is where the era of

nihilism stops, when we realize that we

have access to everything we need to

shoot more optimism and hopium into

everyone's veins. We have all the

studies, all the research, all the

history to show what makes most people

fulfilled and happy and what makes them

miserable. Yet, despite having all the

answers, we're letting the gerontocracy

use everything we've learned about human

psychology to create garbage

architecture, exploitative, addictive

social media apps, unregulated

artificial intelligence, gambling slop,

and we're all just sitting here taking

it up the ass. And the more awareness we

gain around this stuff, and the more we

feel the negative impacts of it as we

have been feeling over the past decade,

the stronger the urge is to actually

shift into an era of optimism and start

changing things. Now, this is the most

important part, the actual change that

needs to happen. What we do leading up

to the gerontocracy inflection point

determines everything. So, please, I ask

you to pay attention to this section of

the video because everything we've

talked about so far was just build-up

for what actually starts getting the

pendulum to swing towards optimism.

While Gen Z's interest in politics is

commendable, it is still not nearly

enough. In 2024, the alarming median age

of a primary voter was 65. In New

Mexico, it was 71. Nationally, turnout

among the over-65 set was six times

higher in primaries that year than among

those aged 18 to 34. We have to organize

and vote for politicians that align with

our values. Local elections are the best

place to start because they're the

easiest place to make a difference. If

your priorities are restoring the

environment, building more walkable

cities, or protecting young people from

the harmful effects of addictive

technology, which I assume they are if

you're watching this video, then just

please spend 30 minutes researching the

people asking for your vote. Read their

official campaign websites, compare

candidates on non-partisan voter guides

like Ballotpedia and vote411.org.

For example, when I go on Ballotpedia

and put in my address, I get all the

elections for all the ballots in the

Texas Travis County area. From there, I

can go to the candidates' websites or do

a Google search on them to see what

their priorities are. Then, look up your

city council, county commission, school

board, or state legislature to see how

those officials have actually voted on

issues that matter to you. Once you've

decided who best represents your values,

actually show up. Register to vote.

Check that your registration is current.

Find your polling place or request a

mail-in ballot if you prefer that or if

it's possible. Sites like vote.org and

vote411, which I mentioned earlier, let

you do all of that in just a few

minutes. I will leave links in the

description. Also, your city council

decides whether your neighborhood gets

bike lanes, sidewalks, parks, housing,

and public transit. Your county

commissioners influence everything from

infra- structure to public health. Your

school board shapes the education that

the next generation receives. These

meetings are public. You can attend them

and drive public comments during them,

and you can volunteer at advisory

committees, and you can even run for

office yourself. If we want cleaner

cities, architecture that inspires

rather than bores, healthier

communities, and technology that serves

people instead of exploiting them, we

can't expect older generations to solve

problems they largely didn't grow up

with. There's this general sentiment in

Gen Z's ears that politics, talking

about it, is fundamentally uncool, and

participating in it is just whatever,

it's not really going to change

anything. Or if we do discuss it, it

should be just arguing back and forth

against each other and not actually

voting for what we want or changing

anything. We really need to start

showing up and voting for people who are

in our interests and have the interests

of future generations. And then, after

you do all that, the is going to

sound so cliché. I understand, but it's

just so true that being the change you

want to see in the world works. It just

does. I talked a bit more about this

aspect in my video about the Gen Z

Renaissance on my second channel, which

you should check out. But, what I

basically said was like be the one who

studies the that we want to change.

Think about designing cities that

inspire and evoke awe with their design

rather than disincentivize community.

Work in urban design. Pursue a career in

which you make decisions around how we

should redesign the educational system

so it instills the importance of

literacy and tech literacy without

making our brains dependent on

technology to the point where we can't

think without it. Create solutions for

technology in which what we produce

works with the environment rather than

against it. Actively seek out good news.

On June 20th, Barcelona bombed their

residents and visitors with 100,000

poems inspired by the historical

bombings the city endured during the

Civil War or transforming an act of

destruction into one of peace and hope.

More than 75 data center build-outs

worth $130

have been successfully blocked in the

first 3 months of 2026. I highlight

these stories not to be some toxic

positivity guru saying, "Oh, look at all

the good things happening in the world.

There's actually nothing wrong going on

the world." I highlight these stories to

show you just how much good is actually

going on in this Earth and how much

these algorithms have siphoned us into

negative cycles of thinking. Lift

strangers for no reason other than to

help your neighbor. Smile at people when

you pass by them. Engage critically with

a long text or book. Take notes and put

what you read into your own words. Write

essays on stuff that interests you.

Discuss meaningful topics in groups in

real life. Continue rebelling and voting

against the gerontocracy that wants to

keep you convinced that you're powerless

because we hold the keys to the future,

not the ones who are close to leaving

this Earth.

Thank you very much for watching this

video. Like I said near the beginning,

check out Headspace. You can get 60 days

entirely for free. Meditating is

awesome. It's one of the best things I

ever incorporated into my routine. Link

in the description or scan the QR code

that you see on screen right now.

Usually, I'd tell you right now to watch

another one of my videos, but obviously

I'm not going to do that cuz that'd be

super hit hypocritical

on this video. So, go enjoy life and go

smile at people and just just enjoy

life, bro. Just enjoy life.