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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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can educate people as much as you want, the majority aren't going to be able to become engineers and physicists. Unless we can get to the point where we can manipulate genes to increase intelligence that's not a solution to the problem

It sounds like your argument is that the ability to become an engineer or physicist is an in-born trait, which no amount of study and work can overcome, which sounds absurd to me. As the high school coach used to say: "You don't need talent to practice!" Barring people truly born with mental disabilities, anyone can do it with the right attitude and resources. I'd be less worried about the gene pool and more worried…

> It sounds like your argument is that the ability to become an engineer or physicist is an in-born trait, which no amount of study and work can overcome, which sounds absurd to me.

Do you have evidence of the contrary? Of the top X% of highschool students who make it to engineering programs at my university, roughly 40% fail or switch majors. If they can't do it, how do you expect average or lower people to?

It is simply not feasible.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're seeing faster innovation in certain areas (software, mostly), but much slower in others (material science, medicine, sensors, transportation). Remember that line in The Graduate (1967) - "I want to say one word to you: Plastics." You get a new Javascript framework every 6 months, but the last major materials to gain consumer adoption were carbon fiber & titanium in the 80s. The post-war years saw rapid…

Counterpoint: it took less than 10 years for 77%[1] of the US to own a smartphone, which has made many new businesses viable, including arguably the entire IoTs. Then you have the secondary effects: the chips that are used as sensors in the phones are now cheap enough to put into everything. I have an e-parking device that automatically stops and shows the time when I park (many parking spots here are free, but can o…

If you read Carlota Perez, this is consistent with a particular technology wave being near maturity. As markets/industries/economies mature, the number of new opportunities decreases significantly and they become progressively harder to spot, but the speed at which the few successful opportunities grow, the size of their markets, and the eventual valuation of the company increases. Basically, the whole population already has the prerequisites for technology adoption, so if somebody discovers something genuinely new, it'll spread very quickly. This is counterbalanced by there being very few such opportunities.

The mature technology wave also tends to incubate the next wave as well, like how digital computers grew out of the dying gasps of mass-produced factory manufacturing, and the Internet grew out of the dying gasps of desktop & workstation software. It's likely that whatever comes next will incubate & get initial distribution on top of the Internet.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>encounters with the police result in getting fatally shot or seriously injured Which absolutely enrages a large portion of the populace. The state can't just put down protests with violence and expect things to get better. Ruling through fear never works for long. History is littered with revolts that only became popular after everyone involved were slaughtered and normal people became sympathetic

> Ruling through fear never works for long. Define 'long'. North Korea has been a mess for a while.

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

#264
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Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#265

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 difficult to imagine a violent uprising in a state with such militarized police and widespread, distributed armed forces presence as the US. When even outside of times of unrest, encounters with the police result in getting fatally shot or seriously injured much more frequently than in comparably high-HDI states [1][2], it would take the cooperation of police and the military to allow unrest to take its course i…

Don't forget that both the police and military aren't part of the "elite" so I don't think it's fair to say they'd all blindly oppose any rebellion or uprising. They could very easily help it as well. Many police and military are greatly underpaid and underappreciated. And Im sure most of them would want a better America.

Some might consider me naive but I believe many if not most all police and military are good wholesome people who will try to do their best for the people. A few bad media popularized outliers does not represent the whole.

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

#266
post #93

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 anger that got trump elected is just the beginning if things don't change Try to get a single Democrat to acknowledge this. They are still belitteling and stigmatizing those who share these concerns (and riduculing them for their audacity of hoping that Trump will be able to change anything).

>Try to get a single Democrat to acknowledge this. They are still belitteling [sic] and stigmatizing those who share these concerns

This is half-wrong. What you, and most people on the right, fail to see and understand is that (just like the right), the left is divided into different camps. In this election, the Democratic Party was clearly shown to have two main camps: the "Progressives" and the "Establishment". Hillary's staunch supporters were in the latter camp, and Bernie's supporters were in the former.

The "belittling" you see is from the establishment Democrats, who are mostly people actually IN the party (not just voters) if you're looking at stuff in the media, or are a small number of actual voters. Quick question: how many Hillary bumper stickers did you see last year? I barely saw any. In fact, around the DC area, I saw far more 2008/2012 Obama bumper stickers (in 2016!) than I did Hillary stickers, right up until Election Day. There just wasn't any enthusiasm for Hillary at all, except for party faithful. Maybe the DC area isn't representative of other Democratic strongholds in the country, I dunno, but I thought this was telling.

Anyway, the point is, talk to any Bernie voter and you'll very likely have complete agreement about the establishment Democrats refusing to acknowledge the concerns of many Trump voters, and about how utterly out-of-touch Hillary and her side of the Party were.

Now, the following is all obviously my personal opinion and wildly speculative at the end; the sad thing is that Trump won by claiming to be anti-establishment and winning votes from more conservative people, but in reality he's going to be mostly pro-establishment: just look at his AG pick Jeff Sessions, who's pro-police-shooting-unarmed-people-in-the-back, pro-private-prisons, and anti-marijuana-legalization-and-decriminalization. Trump is pushing budgets and tax plans that favor lower taxes for rich people. The Trump voters voted for Trump mainly based on racism and xenophobia, as best as I can tell, and would have been much better off if they had organized, registered as Democrats (in states where you have to do that to vote in primaries), and voted for Bernie, and then elected him in the general election. He was the one who really addressed income inequality and other issues of real concern to the lower and lower-middle classes. Politicians like him, widely regarded as honest but also clearly seeing the issues that need to be addressed and having enough popularity at the national level to get elected, don't come along very often, and we've probably missed our shot: Bernie is nearing 80 now and isn't likely to be feeling up to another Presidential run in 2020. Most likely, we'll have either Hillary or another really lame Dem candidate run, they'll lose to Trump, and the economy will continue its downward spiral. This will eventually end up with the dissolution of the US and large parts of the country (esp. the South, probably also the Northeast) will be much like Italy: formerly economically powerful but now relative backwaters infamous for corruption. The west coast cities may stay economically powerful after forming their own independent nation, or may be get dragged down. Long-term, I'd say that China will be the new world superpower in 50+ years. There's probably an alternate universe where November's election turned out very differently, Bernie won, and the US and the rest of the West avoided collapse, but we're not in that universe unfortunately.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Many of my friends from high school went on to do undergrad, and then master's degrees in Art History. One of them is working as an intern at the Met now. The other three are living on their trust funds. I don't understand why any sensible person would get an MA in the humanities. It's all well and good if you are doing for your own intellectual curiosity, but it's not so great if you expect a living wage on that deg…

[deleted]

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

#268
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…

There is such a vast difference between someone "not academic in the slightest" and someone who is actively limited by severe learning disabilities. I'm sure you mean well by this statement, but I feel like it leads to the attitude that even the disabled just aren't trying hard enough, and if they'd only pull themselves up by their bootstraps the problems in the article would go away. I find it borderline condescendi…

I certainly don't think "the disabled just aren't trying hard enough", I think you are extrapolating quite wildly there and I find the implication quite offensive. The point I was trying to make is that having supportive parents can really help, and the poster is obviously very supportive of his son. Every situation is different though.

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

#269
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> big innovation deficit. >> not enough fundamental research going on to generate new technological opportunities. And on the other hand, the news is full of items about technologies with large market impact, in almost every industry, and a lot of new technological building blocks. Some of it is crap, but still. >> We see this in the returns to innovation .. rareness of those returns. Maybe this is because of more i…

I think we're seeing faster innovation in certain areas (software, mostly), but much slower in others (material science, medicine, sensors, transportation). Remember that line in The Graduate (1967) - "I want to say one word to you: Plastics." You get a new Javascript framework every 6 months, but the last major materials to gain consumer adoption were carbon fiber & titanium in the 80s. The post-war years saw rapid…

My list of innovations, currently happening is a bit longer:it's yours, plus IOT, VR, synthetic bio, food engineering across the board, ~AI, robotics and automation, genetic engineering(maybe hundreds in clinical trials?), a lot of innovation in medicine, transportation(even without self-driving, on-demand microtransit could replace lots of cars, EV's, affordable super-sonic airplane in development, lighter-than air transport, etc), affordable mri and a possible brain science revolution, etc etc. Potential for a lot of change, some of it very deep.

EDIT: also i think there's a fundamental step up in the nature of scientific discovery - with the combination of miniaturization, robotics, and machine learning and simulation(sometimes) is a new, very potent discovery tool.

And a lot of this is at the commercial level, and while more r&d could probably accelerate things, even staying at the current levels,we'll see a lot happening.

But i'm not sure how can we compare what's next to what was before? what can compete with 0 infant mortality and nuclear weapons ? let's say we cured cancer, is it enough? Maybe not. Maybe a fully automated world can ? maybe.

Naturally that's far harder than some vaccines and a critical mass of a bunch of stuff. But we may be getting there.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He didn't say that parenting had got less supportive, he said that many people with severe structural disadvantages come from badly broken families.

He said that in the context of a discussion of deteriorating conditions, so I think it's fair to bring it up.
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