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

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

#111

Post by cryptarch » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

stinkytaco wrote: post #67

pc86 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barring accidents, injury, or bad luck (e.g. a car crash or something), you can absolutely save enough to retire as a plumber before your body starts to break down. Especially if you assume SS will still be around for a new plumber's retirement, which may or may not be the case. Even without, it's doable. I know two plumbers socially and both are in their late 40's. One owns a plumbing business so mainly does office/…

Which brings up another issue: manual jobs involve non-trivial amounts of physical risk. Not only does getting injured negativly affect your life you will always do better working than on disability. And I agree that it's possible for some people to own a business or or do office work, but not everyone who is a plumber today will be able to do that. There are fewer owners than workers. I don't think we should discour…

Is that where insurance and/or trade cooperatives come in?

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

#112

Post by mrkgnao » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

thesagan wrote: post #15

posguy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Within capitalism itself, some economists also argue that wealth concentration tends to suppress investment opportunities, because there aren't as many "moneyed eyes" on economic events worthy of capital and management; investment gets tunnel vision. I don't have any links on-hand but there's plenty of material out there (from reputable sources, and not-so-reputable ones) with a quick Google search. https://www.googl…

Linus' law? :)

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

#113

Post by will_brown » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #29

sbardle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.

Look at the trends of the past few decades: divorce; single parent; and dual income households. There is in fact remarkedly less two parent, supported by single income households, meaning it's a rareity for a child to simply have a parent at home when they return from school to fix them a healthy snack, ask how their day was, or help with homework. Certainly it's not a single cause, but stability in the home is indisputably tied to mental well being of the child.

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

#114

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #62

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…

It's a shame that the party that's in favor of subsidizing education didn't do better in the election. Education decreases fear and prejudice, so there's a catch-22 where we can't get people more educated and fix that without convincing them first that the problem isn't immigrants seizing a large amount of resources in a zero-sum game.

"In favor of subsidizing education" isn't the same as "actually getting people educated", though. And that party's policies, even when enacted, haven't created an educational system that does much better at actually educating people.

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

#115

Post by Jtsummers » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

gramstrong wrote: post #100

cmahler7 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

majority of people simply won't be able to help with the complex problems that push human progress forward. What do you suggest we do with them?

Educate them with all of the free time created from automation, then put them back in to the work force.

That requires economical access to education opportunities, which is presently not the norm in the US.

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

#116

Post by nonaime » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

rfrank wrote: post #69

heavyheavy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my perspective, it IS racist that American cares so much about rehabilitation and empathy for the white drug problem while the black drug issue was dealt with with violence and tearing apart famalies. Is it wrong to want white drug users to go to jail just like black ones were?

> Is it wrong to want white drug users to go to jail just like black ones were? Yes, if you're of the "drugs should be legal" perspective. Revenge isn't justice.

Revenge isn't the answer. The answer for the problem presented is for other groups to receive the same empathy that poor whites are receiving. For other groups the answer is "we'll build more jails".

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

#117

Post by DamagedProperty » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #29

sbardle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am an example of one of those people. I DID have a learning disability (officially tested for and documented). Failed high school and now I am middle aged, have my own business making mobile games for clients. Also went back to college late 2000's and 3.8 GPA. (I would have had a 4.0 for my BS like I did for my Associates but got struck with H1N1 virus).

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

#118

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

rfc wrote: post #46

ams6110 wrote: post #18

“America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon,” said Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist. Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. It seems very typical for those with education to look down upon the less-educated. The truth is, US high schools miserably fail the non-colleg…

This. 1,000x. Some of the most successful folks I know went into trade, became "masters of their domains", and then bridge their skills with business to create their own businesses. As an example: A friend from back home got into boring right out of high school. 20 years later, he runs one of the most successful directional boring companies in the region and is a multi-multi millionaire. He was told in high school th…

No offense, but isn't this just anecdata? I don't deny that people can do extremely well taking non-traditional paths, they certainly can. But pointing out the existence of exceptions isn't a substantive response to the observations about the larger trend. You can always find exceptions to any trend but generalizing from them is fallacious, as any casino owner will be glad to confirm.

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

#119

Post by kalmari » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #18

“America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon,” said Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist. Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. It seems very typical for those with education to look down upon the less-educated. The truth is, US high schools miserably fail the non-colleg…

how are we defining success. also colledge never neccissarily meant rich. there is the pursuit of knowledge(among other things) which was a lot harder without the access we have today.

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

#120

Post by Steuard » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

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.

I think that the despair that people in these situations are facing is terrible and destructive and yes, a crisis. We need to find some way as a society to address the deep structural issues that has created this malaise. It's a really big deal.

But... can you explain why it's a load of crap to point out that this crisis of despair and drugs and early death is being treated differently than previous ones that mostly affected blacks and other minorities? Reporters could have written awfully similar articles about hopelessness in the inner city at just about any point in the past few decades, and at least a few of them did, but society's response wasn't "Oh no, how could we have let this happen? How can we give them hope and a future worth living for?" as it is in this case, but rather the War on Drugs and mass incarceration and police militarization and condemnation of black culture (and many other minority cultures).

To be clear, I'm absolutely not advocating for white, rural America to be targeted by no-knock raids and public blame for its own predicament! I think that "How can we help?" should be the response to all crises like this. But we as a society are still heavily invested in the War on Drugs and a whole host of other forms of structural racism. So yes, I'd be a lot more comfortable with this treatment of the drug crisis facing white communities if it were going hand in hand with a similar reevaluation of the parallel challenges facing minority communities as well. But it's not.