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Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

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

#71

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

cmahler7 wrote: post #35

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up ag…

It's not the robots, otherwise we would have seen skyrocketing productivity. Also, the easy solution to the robot problem is to allow everyone to own robots.

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

#72

Post by MichaelGG »

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.

So is it just the stigma that prevents people from getting 100K a year? I mean if it's as easy as it sounds in your comment, there should be loads of people signing up. And I'm guessing you don't end up with 80K+ in student loans?

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

#73

Post by jhpriestley »

dkhenry wrote: post #28

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…

The trend of higher suicide and overdose deaths is specific to white Americans actually.

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

#74

Post by Touche »

The article doesn't support its conclusion that drug addiction is caused by people's dim prospects. The man in this article was already an addict before he was old enough to have any perspective on his future potential.

I think the deeper problem is that kids are not inspired to gain their own ambitions. So many people walk through life with no ambitions beyond what they plan on doing next weekend.

I think a huge issue is the way material is taught in school tends towards hero worship. Scientists, authors, are all looked at as mythical creatures who achieved things that mortal man cannot. It makes us all feel as though the best we can ever achieve is being a cog in a wheel. It took me many years after school to realize that something as simple as starting your own business was actually achievable (by me!) and not something relegated for those who had been born of a higher caste, or of some superior skills.

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

#75

Post by gramstrong »

cmahler7 wrote: post #35

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up ag…

>Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure

This will literally never happen. The labor force will look a lot different, the average person will be much more educated. But we are never going to be in a perpetual state of leisure, or anything resembling it, lest we want to halt human progress in place. All automation does is allow us to focus on larger problems, or create new ones.

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

#76

Post by ebola1717 »

temp246810 wrote: post #12

The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.

It's true though. We talk about the loss of industrial jobs and NAFTA as a white working class phenomenon, despite the fact that people of all races are affected. We pathologized drug use for decades, until the recent opioid crisis hit rural areas. We talk about the loss of mining jobs, but rarely mention the loss of retail jobs. The Brookings report showed that while white people are dying more, they're still dying at lower rates than blacks. Gentrification, which is a huge economic issue for marginalized populations, is batted away as the way things have to be. Not to mention the treatment of issues like redlining. The biggest political impediment to social welfare policies that would have helped poor white communities has always been "welfare queen" rhetoric that pathologizes black poverty. Moving forward as a country requires us to acknowledge the racial biases in the ways we talk about economic issues.

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

#77

Post by magic_beans »

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…

How does your son do with physical objects? Could he learn plumbing or handyman work? Both of these trades still bring in enough money to live, and in some cities, enough money to live extraordinarily well.

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

#78

Post by jnicholasp »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #43
temp246810 wrote: post #12

The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.

Why is it a load of crap on so many levels? To take one example, the media and politicians have put a huge spotlight on the plight of coal and manufacturing job losses, while only recently did we learn that in fact we're losing even more retail jobs. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-sil... Want to guess at the racial and gender makeup of those manufacturing jobs vs. retail?

I'm not making an argument here, since I don't know the answer to my question, but is it possible that a higher proportion of coal and manufacturing jobs were traditionally living wage, support-a-family type jobs, as compared to retail jobs? And if so, wouldn't it be reasonable to focus attention on the losses in the two categories somewhat differently?

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

#79

Post by mtberatwork »

throwanem wrote: post #49
wonderwonder wrote: post #21

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…

Joy and happiness are nice things to have. Making rent every month is nicer.

Indeed: "When asked whether it was more important to them to have financial stability or to move up the income ladder, 92 percent of Americans choose security, an increase of 7 percentage points since 2011." [1]

[1] http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-brie...

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

#80

Post by ModernMech »

ryandrake wrote: post #4

> The fates of the less-educated and those who graduate from universities diverge in dire ways. Middle-aged white Americans without four-year degrees are at increasing risk of dying, a well-documented trend driven not only by drug use but also by alcoholism, suicide, and slowing progress against heart disease and cancer. While that's pretty damn horrible, the fate of people with newly-minted bachelor's degrees isn't…

> unless you happened to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible. Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects

Very much this. I came out of a good school with only $30k in debt and a degree in a tech field. My wife came out of an okay state school with $60k in debt (much of that private loans with high interest rates) and a masters in art history and really no job prospects.

I'm supporting both of us now on a salary which sounded like a lot to me at first, but we live in the Bay Area. After my $2500 per month rent on a 1 bedroom (low for Bay area standards), and $1600 per month for student loans, we're not left with much each month. I certainly never thought I'd be living paycheck to paycheck on my current salary. We're postponing kids and a house for now, while my parents had both at my age. We don't go out much, we don't buy much. We're comfortable, but not really flourishing.

And now I'm starting to see the words "Ballistic Nuclear Missile" and "Napa Valley" in the same sentence. My wife said to me last night she's scared of the future, and for the first time in my life, I'm starting to get a little worried too. As long as I can remember the future was the brightest, most desirable place for me to be. Now? I'm not so sure...

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