> I think things are going to get really weird for the youngest generation
Hasn't that been the case for almost every generation since the industrial revolution, or are things moving so quickly now it's beyond precedence?
To some extent, but many system dynamics people think we're headed toward unique crisis in coming years - more Dark Ages than Great Depression.
Things are happening that haven't happened in many centuries, like our youngest will probably see falling population and with it some sort of deflation across the entire globe (first time since the 14th Century when the Plague hit Asia and Europe, though not Africa and America as far as I know). And of course, we are living through the fastest extinction of species on the planet and the most widespread since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. We are seeing global temperatures changing faster than any time since the beginning of human civilization. The latter will have huge economic effects, but also major cultural effects - 70% of Austrian ski areas are expected to stop being viable sometime between 2050 and 2100. The place I grew up defines itself by skiing and maple syrup. Barring some serious genetic modification of sugar maples, the latter will almost certainly be gone and the former likely so.
And on the "advancement" side, we're soon to have machines that will simply have more neural connections than humans and will beat us not just at "simple" problems like chess, but perhaps complex problems, like poetry and fiction.
Humans have not generally conceived of themselves as unique because of their ability to move earth and cut trees, so the development of chain saws and bulldozers don't change things conceptually in the same way machines as write better poetry than we do.
Could be that it's just more change and we've always had change, but I think the speed, breadth and scale of the changes that will come in the next 100 years is going to significantly overshadow that of the 20th century, and already that pace of change was difficult for people.
In prior centuries you might have a political or religious revolution that would leave the older generation behind, but I don't think those people saw the economy, technology, climate, botany and zoology change around them in such visible ways.
I'm an overwhelming optimist in general, but I do find things have gotten pretty scary.