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Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

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81–90 of 329 posts

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

#81

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…

If he can physically hack it then a career in Landscaping. It's just that it is physically demanding. Cutting Grass, planting trees, interlock, etc.

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

#82
post #34

We've been on a collision course with this since we left subsistence agriculture and started living in larger groups. Automation's rate has accelerated since the industrial revolution, but it's been happening for thousands of years, which is why I think more people don't see it as a problem. Society's increased consumerism and rising standards of living has allowed people to move into producing things other than food…

That is nonsense. Things got horrible for average workers at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Then they improved markedly due to progressive reforms, and are now rolling back in the face of regressive policies and rising inequality. It's not really that complicated. Progressive policies, regulation, and tax policy have better outcomes. There are just powerful and wealthy forces with vested interests working har…

The beginning of the industrial revolution was harsh, but it beat starving to death during a bad harvest year in previous eras. Also, you got to own more than one or two outfits over your entire life as Adam Smith noted.

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

#83
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…

They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though

>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.

Do you specifically disagree with this?

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

#84
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…

I think that life has always been like this for many blacks. Whites - even working-class whites - used to be more immune to this kind of despair. What's different is that the lack of economic opportunity is starting to destroy whites as well. (Yes, it always was there to some degree, but the intensity is new.)

Now, we as a society should have cared when it was happening to blacks. But it is a significant change that it is increasing dramatically among working-class whites.

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

#85

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.

Of course rent is important. But we don't need a 3/2 when a 2/1 will meet all of our needs. I feel like we are driven to buy things beyond our needs and our inability to afford those things is one of the drivers of despair.

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

#86

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…

The bible speaks of Jubilee, the 50th year where debts are wiped clear, and land is pooled and redivided among the people. There are Christians who believe this should be a thing in modern society, and it is quite practical.

Note: I say this as an Atheist, ex-Catholic.

Jubilee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_%28biblical%29

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

#87
post #10

> 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…

Its the power of capital over labor, whereby capital is extremely stratified in the hands of very few people, and they have shifted political power so as to avoid investment in the laborers (aka everyone below themselves) and ensure they do not become a threat. Additionally, they will usually influence monetary policy to ensure their status is never challenged, which is why rapidly rising housing prices aren't a majo…

Interestingly, capital holders are complaining all the time as well. There are very few places to put money now with a decent return. Savings accounts pay roughly 0%. Bonds are at inflation, or sometimes less. The S&P 500's P/E is at 25, which is historically very high, implies a rate of return of about 4%, and makes the risk of a correction significant. Real estate is inefficient; property prices are so high that the IRR on rents is only a couple percent.

Basically the only place to get decent returns these days are in startups, which is why valuations have gone sky-high. This in turn cuts the average return, although in tech startups this is manifested as a big chance of losing everything and a small chance of a great return rather than a small chance of losing everything and a big chance at a small return.

I think what's actually going on is a big innovation deficit. We're at the end of the current scientific & technology paradigm, and there's not enough fundamental research going on to generate new technological opportunities. We see this in the returns to innovation (which are sky-high: if you come up with a technical breakthrough that legitimately makes things better for lots of people, you become an insta-billionaire) and the rareness of those returns. Historically, the last time this happened was the Great Depression, and WW2 broke us out of it because the war department funded a good deal of research that could never have happened in peacetime, which were then commercialized over the ensuing 50 years or so.

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

#88

> 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…

> Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction...

Yet.

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

#89

> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there,” said Sue Johnson, who lay next to her son’s corpse for an hour. It made my heart sink to read this sentence. Edit: Highlighted the part that made me sad. You never get over the death of a child.

It's heartbreaking.

> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there”

I think though, that this is a near universal aspect of the human condition.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Canada has US is 60% white roughly. It's a bigger deal because it's a more noticeable issue.

Depends on the area. The coasts are very different.
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