Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#31

Post by djabatt »

briholt wrote: post #17
rhizome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's tons of jobs out there for people with only a high school diploma. "Web Developer" is one of them.

Genuine question: have you ever heard of an uneducated, fifty-year-old unemployed factory worker becoming a successful web developer? Maybe there are a tiny number, but I've never heard of such a thing. Re-educating fifty-year-olds into complete new fields on any mass scale is just not realistic. We're talking about millions of people that have minimal math skills, mediocre writing skills, and no computer skills. Eve…

Your point is totally solid. Btw Web Developers today will on day be the auto worker of yesterday. It's cycle that capitalists systems follow. Reduce head count to boost profitability and stock performance. You do this by automation, productivity enhancements in supply chain and outsourcing. Replacing people with shell scripts is going to be a big part of what AI with do for low and high tech worker. A lot of programmers may find out how harsh capital markets feel in tight labor market. Retraining the US worker is not a sustainable prospect. So many middle age workers will find it more ugly and difficult to survive. This NYtimes article is particularly difficult to read because I know how bleak it is for many of these fallen men. In a nutshell it sucks. The US social network for such people tends to be an Ann Rand novel followed with an empty: sorry buddy. Good luck with that.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#32

Post by marincounty »

Maybe my math is wrong, but the raising rate is .134 percent?

I'm in that group of guys now. I sometimes wonder if white males are getting enough vitamin D. I never really gave it much thought, until I saw a friend's blood work-up. His doctor is routinely checking his level of vitamin D. I just chalked it up to his good insurance plan.

I know I don't get the amount of sunshine my father got. My father always had a tan, and made sure to get outside as much as possible. I, on the other hand, spend too much time looking into a screen. Maybe I'll get a few more years in because I have exercised, but it's been at night for years.

Depressing. Sometimes the Internet is really depressing.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#33

Post by uououuttt »

littletimmy wrote: post #19

You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these poor middle-aged white people. The greatest success of capitalism has been dividing people along gender and race lines - not letting them show any class solidarity. If people did, they'd realize that the difference between a poor white and a poor black is a rounding error compared to the difference between a poor guy and a rich guy.

> You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these poor middle-aged white people.

Speaking of "dividing people along gender and race lines".

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#34

Post by [deleted] »

shams93 wrote: post #11

Speaking from experience Im 43 years old but been rejected by women my entire life in LA for being a "white guy" its certainly depressing that no matter how well you do you have to spend your entire life alone have to be ignorant of sexuality because its cut off from you , theres never any reward for my efforts no matter how well i do only puniahment for being born the wrong ethnicity.

[deleted]

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#36

Post by zipwitch »

artur_makly wrote: post #10

"Visit some formerly middle class suburbs of cities in the Midwest and you can see exactly why this is happening. No decent jobs, no social clubs, no children playing outside, sports tickets out of the budget of anyone but the 1%, no decent restaurants and obesity everywhere. Add decayed infrastructure and empty malls. You should see it. Horrific. " "These sad statistics should come as no surprise given the pummeling…

Parts of the US are turning into Third World conditions.

But don't tell the elite that. They're doing fine, and they have numbers that tell them how great everything is. Orwell meets pre-collapse USSR, with homages to a number of empires of yesteryear, overlaid with a Gilded Age veneer.

Something with as much momentum as the United States will not peacefully come to a full stop. It may continue to slide to a slow halt, or explosively disassemble in some fashion.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#37

Post by zipwitch »

artur_makly wrote: post #10

"Visit some formerly middle class suburbs of cities in the Midwest and you can see exactly why this is happening. No decent jobs, no social clubs, no children playing outside, sports tickets out of the budget of anyone but the 1%, no decent restaurants and obesity everywhere. Add decayed infrastructure and empty malls. You should see it. Horrific. " "These sad statistics should come as no surprise given the pummeling…

Parts of the US are turning into Third World conditions.

But don't tell the elite that. They're doing fine, and they have numbers that tell them how great everything is. Orwell meets pre-collapse USSR, with homages to a number of empires of yesteryear, overlaid with a Gilded Age veneer.

Something with as much momentum as the United States will not peacefully come to a full stop. It may continue to slide to a slow halt, or explosively disassemble in some fashion.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#38

Post by carsongross »

artur_makly wrote: post #10

"Visit some formerly middle class suburbs of cities in the Midwest and you can see exactly why this is happening. No decent jobs, no social clubs, no children playing outside, sports tickets out of the budget of anyone but the 1%, no decent restaurants and obesity everywhere. Add decayed infrastructure and empty malls. You should see it. Horrific. " "These sad statistics should come as no surprise given the pummeling…

Ross Perot was right, and he was crucified for it.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#39

Post by nostrademons »

zeckalpha wrote: post #22

Is this a case of Simpson's paradox?

Don't think so. Simpson's paradox applies when you have two groups and independently rates of your variable are increasing within both, but the population of the lesser group is increasing faster. For example, if death rates for both whites and blacks were decreasing but blacks had a higher death rate, and the population of blacks was increasing, you would see overall death rates increasing. If death rates for both uneducated & college-educated white Americans were increasing but there were an increasing number of college-educated white Americans, you would see death rates decrease.

Neither of those seem to be the case here: it's just one group who, tragically, is killing themselves or self-medicating to death disturbingly frequently.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#40

Post by awl130 »

vfrogger wrote: post #4
SHIT_TALKER wrote: post #2

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014. This should surprise no one. These are the people who work marginal jobs and they have been the most affected by so much manufacturing moving offshore, the resultant shift to service sector employment, and the downward push on service wages created by massive immigra…

I don't think you can tie this to economics alone. After all, blacks and hispanics have been feeling the economic pressures as well. Suicide, drug use, and alcoholism have deeper cultural ties. I have no idea what those ties are, but it likely won't be fixed by a 4% annual increase in wages. I can't help but wonder if perhaps this increase in self destructive behavior is due to an increase in secularism. Blacks and H…

Good theory but the same cohort in Europe has not seen the same Effect despite even higher secularization
Post reply on HN