Live data from Hacker News

Educated Fools

newrepublic.com

271–280 of 281 posts

Re: Educated Fools

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is the suggestion that they need help in the first place. So what Joe the garbage truck driver didn't go to college? So what he has a small house in a kinda shitty neighborhood? Maybe he's doing the best he can and maybe he actually has a pretty happy life. The working class doesn't need pity and suggestions to move or go get a degree. Here's something novel: why are the roads in nice neighborhood…

The situation at that level is far more dire. A non-union garbage truck driver doesn't have a house. Can't afford a family. No health insurance. No retirement plan or pension. And if you go to any large company, you'll find that it's the same there unless you're in the upper "employee" caste--you're working for a contractor company, and have the same bad deal. For all the discussion of diversity, any pathway out is p…

Garbage truck drivers are actually surprisingly well paid, if I recall correctly, as the job is quite dangerous and dirty so not many people want to do it.

Re: Educated Fools

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it sounds like you’ve been watching too much TV/Twitter. No one I know in real life is concerned with that stuff. Another article on the site talks about the “exhausted majority.” Indeed.

I agree with you that the majority is exhausted, but unfortunately there is a very vocal minority in the liberal sphere, and they are not particularly known for being reasonable people. It makes it seem like the average person's problems and concerns are getting put on the back-burner, while the liberal favored special interest group of the day gets the spotlight. How can someone not be resentful? I also want to poin…

Well that applies to the right as well, doesn’t it? I’ve heard of school districts reducing science education and talk of arming teachers.

Re: Educated Fools

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that the majority is exhausted, but unfortunately there is a very vocal minority in the liberal sphere, and they are not particularly known for being reasonable people. It makes it seem like the average person's problems and concerns are getting put on the back-burner, while the liberal favored special interest group of the day gets the spotlight. How can someone not be resentful? I also want to poin…

Well that applies to the right as well, doesn’t it? I’ve heard of school districts reducing science education and talk of arming teachers.

Absolutely, though this article is focused on the left. The anti-science movement is especially frightening. I think it is related to what the article is talking about. The rejection of science being a kind of blowback

Re: Educated Fools

#275
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We took away your unions and safety net, but by golly, we'll protect your "dignity." Organized labor may not have been targeted explicitly like by Republicans, but Democrats haven't really been a friend to them either [1]. Both parties have been on board with the neoliberal agenda for 40 years. [1] http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/democrats-paid-a-huge...

The “Neoliberal agenda” didnt surface in search results for me. Anyone have a link to a copy please, I’d be most grateful.

Neoliberalism is broadly defined as the extension of competitive markets into all areas of life, including the economy, politics and society.

See Mont Pelerin Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society

... and Friedrich Hayek, Frank Knight, Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, George Stigler, and Milton Friedman.

Implemented by Reagan and Thatcher.

Biases:

• The Market is efficient => give it free-reign

• The State is incompetent => remove it

• Trade is win-win => open borders

• Society => There is no such thing (see Thatcher)

• Finance is infallible => 2008?

Re: Educated Fools

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand your position, and sympathize with it, but it seems a bit shortsighted given that you have to live with these people, and things won't improve for your "brothers and sisters who didn't escape" if things don't get better for them. They'll happily drag you and yours down with them. This is all to say that we're all in this together, and while your indifference towards their plight may be justifi…

In general: Give hate and antipathy no quarter. Where there is pain, it must our pain, or there will inevitably be revolution and chaos. Love without discrimination, even with those you disagree with, because they cannot be moved if we act like impetuous children by refusing to talk to them. Prejudice also cannot be convenient, or we likely possess internal inconsistencies we must face if we are to be honest and have…

[deleted]

Re: Educated Fools

#277

TBH I'm indifferent to the rural working classes plight. I'm LGBT and they've proven time and time again that they aren't my friends (both growing up in flyover country and later after I escaped that wasteland by how they vote and how they treat my brothers and sisters who didn't escape). If they want to vote against our shared interests and suffer the consequences, so be it. Me and mine will keep building without th…

Thanks for screwing over fellow minority groups by opposing solidaristic politics. Those of us whose identity group only makes up 2% of the population don't have the luxury of excluding anyone from coalitions -- we've never been big enough.

When did I say anything against solidarity with other minority groups? That's where all my time and attention goes, not rotting rural white cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

Re: Educated Fools

#278

TBH I'm indifferent to the rural working classes plight. I'm LGBT and they've proven time and time again that they aren't my friends (both growing up in flyover country and later after I escaped that wasteland by how they vote and how they treat my brothers and sisters who didn't escape). If they want to vote against our shared interests and suffer the consequences, so be it. Me and mine will keep building without th…

I completely understand your position, and sympathize with it, but it seems a bit shortsighted given that you have to live with these people, and things won't improve for your "brothers and sisters who didn't escape" if things don't get better for them. They'll happily drag you and yours down with them. This is all to say that we're all in this together, and while your indifference towards their plight may be justifi…

I don't have to live with these people anymore.

Their "communities" are dieing, their businesses are failing, and their smart kid leave. The only question is whether those fools death throes doom the rest of us.

Hilariously, on the fringes they're being supplanted by refugees from metro areas that got priced out. Those people are bringing sanity to the wasteland with them like pilgrims in an unholy land.

From my perspective, I can do little to nothing to influence how all this plays out besides voting, living my life as I see fit, and directing my time and attention toward those I deem worthy. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

"You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly and didn't give a fig for anyone who wasn't." C.S. Lewis

Re: Educated Fools

#279

TBH I'm indifferent to the rural working classes plight. I'm LGBT and they've proven time and time again that they aren't my friends (both growing up in flyover country and later after I escaped that wasteland by how they vote and how they treat my brothers and sisters who didn't escape). If they want to vote against our shared interests and suffer the consequences, so be it. Me and mine will keep building without th…

Where there is pain, it must our pain and your pain too. Identity politics, hating and us-vs.-them doesn't get us anywhere but divided-and-conquered into the greedy hands of the amoral elites. Hate the ideology but not the person, or we'll convince no one and divided we fall. Do you really want to go back to segregation, lynchings or pushing LGBT+ people off buildings so long as it doesn't affect you?

What are you even on about? I live in LGBT land.

Copy-pasting unattributed quotes doesn't make you look smart.

Re: Educated Fools

#280
I'm not sure how no one has figured out that the long-term goal of the Democrats is to eradicate the middle class entirely.

To be fair, it's not a Democrat or Republican thing at all; although, in recent years, the Democrats have become the public face of the (dare I say it) Deep State. Almost everyone in congress is someone else's puppet, controlled through blackmail or bribery. They do the bidding of faceless, nameless, un-elected globalists, who's long-term agenda is, and has always has been, the total control of all aspects of society.

Their mandate is to vote in favor of policies that benefit the elite, not the working class.

It is no accident that the education system in the US has become what it is today. It does not educate, it indoctrinates. It teaches kids what to think, not how to think. And those that do manage to get a four-year degree are often no better equipped to step into high-paying jobs than they were before. So they're not getting the job offers and they now have huge student loans to pay off.

The elite do not want a population of thinking individuals who ask questions. They want people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but not so smart that they start questioning the system.

As Trump said, "The system is rigged". And as George Carlin said, "It's a big club, and YOU AIN'T IN IT."

Post reply on HN