Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair • Hacker News Board

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#21

Post by wonderwonder » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

A four year degree is no longer an advantage but rather a base which allows you to have even a hope of competing. Not having a degree is of course a disadvantage.

As automation and outsourcing continues, the issue will only worsen. On top of that we are constantly bombarded with images of the life we should be living via advertising and television. Not meeting these media driven standards leads to further depression and despair.

Doctors prescribe opioids because drug companies encourage them too, leading to an easy addiction and escape for the depressed.

We need to start treating people like they matter and help them understand that there can be joy and happiness in even the simplest of lives.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#22

Post by ageofwant » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

Many of the Beautiful Machines science fiction from the 60's promised now exist, but not for you or me. We never stopped to think who these things would actually belong to and who would benefit.

The 'liberation' of business that replaced the controls put in place before has brought us to a place where corporate feudalist rules supreme. Those that defend capitalism and democracy frequently confuse the one with the other. Hating on 'communism' while being oblivious to the fact that the capitalism they so feverently defend has died 20 years ago.

Mark Blyth has a lot to say on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#23

Post by vajrabum » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #9

I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be accurate.

The part that applies specially to young and white is the elevated mortality. Life expectancies for that group are declining which isn't true for African-Americans and Hispanics or Asians.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#24

Post by cpayne624 » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #9

I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be accurate.

I think they specify 'White' based on this passage:

"While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context.

“For whites, their reference group is previous generations of whites,” said Shannon Monnat, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies the opioid epidemic in rural America. “When they look back on their parents and grandparents, it feels like their generation is doing worse.”"

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#25

Post by gambiting » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

"America is not a great place for people [....]"

It seems to be true in general, unless you have a boatload of money, but then I would argue you would be ok pretty much anywhere. HN has been bombarded with such grim news of the US that I honestly feel bad for Americans(maybe I shouldn't, I don't know), but at least on paper, the world's greatest country doesn't look that great to live in anymore(UK is looking worse and worse by the minute, so maybe it's a general trend).

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#26

Post by kevindqc » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #11

cryptarch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.

Programming is extremely memory intensive.

and the order of things is pretty important

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#27

Post by analyst74 » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #9

I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be accurate.

An interesting thing I noticed after moving to America, is that race is such a big deal here that many issues have to be labeled by race, even if they apply universally.

Canadian medias on the other hand, seem to be much less interested in playing the race card.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#28

Post by dkhenry » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic status. This is the flip side of a media that has espoused the ideals of identity politics, they can't even see past someone's racial grouping to identify a problem facing all Americans ( and most likely other nations too in our globalized economy ). Bloomberg should be ashamed of their journalistic quality and integrity

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#29

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

sbardle wrote: post #19

irrational wrote: post #6

I worry about this for my oldest son. He has dyspraxia and apraxia. In practice that means he has difficulty with memory (at 15 he still doesn't know his multiplication tables) and putting things in order (such as speaking - you have to put phonemes, words, sentences together in order to speak). But, he doesn't look like he has a disability and he doesn't speak much so people don't readily realize he doesn't talk lik…

I went to a school where a number of friends were not academic in the slightest. They left as soon as they could often with no qualifications but gradually learnt trades. Many now have their own businesses (one is a plasterer, another a builder) and they earn good money, own their own homes, and have no student debt. The reason? They had supportive parents. Many of the people who are falling into despair tragically c…

I'm guessing the successful people you're describing do not have severe learning disabilities. And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#30

Post by stinkytaco » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

posguy wrote: post #16

cryptarch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.

For plumbers, electricians and a few other trades you can become a journeyman apprentice in the US, and after a few years you can earn high 5 digits to low 6 digits with healthcare usually. That being said, its a mature industry and not highly regarded in the US as it is a "blue collar" job. Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs.

You also likely can't work into your 60s doing work like this. Some people move into management, assessment, inspection, etc, but not everyone can do that. There's more going on here than stigmatization (which I rarely see in real life), these jobs have a different set of concerns that we aren't good at dealing with socially.