111–120 of 197 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's obviously false, given that the price of steak is not up ten million fold or whatever over the last decade.
Housing, health care and education are all massively inflated. The price of steak isn't a major expense in comparison.
"Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short." I find it funny how first-worlders are horrified by the idea that they might have to live in mild discomfort. Maybe try looking at how most of the world that isn't the US and Western Europe lives before saying people's lives will be "nasty, brutish and short" because they won't be wo…
I have a somewhat modified view, in that articles like this (and ones regarding income inequality) need to be specific in exactly what they mean by comments like "nasty, brutish, and short", or inequal wealth distribution. Do they mean decreases in life expectancy? Student debt? Homeownership? Disease prevalence? Violent crime? It's continually stated as an axiom, but poor writing such as that really weakens their ar…
When Hobbes coined the idiom "nasty, brutish and short" he was thinking of a lifestyle with next to no guarantees. You might be dead at any moment.
Compared to that, I can't really see how first worlders being a bit less comfortable than previous generations is a valid use of the phrase.
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Is this sarcasm?
No, not really. More of a statement on how out of touch with reality it seems first world inhabitants are, to the point where they think not having a guaranteed well-paying job or not being as rich as their parents is comparable to the kind of life Hobbes was thinking of when he coined that idiom.
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Except bitcoin derives its value from...USD. It’s there because you can buy and sell with...USD. You see where I am going?
Value is subjective. For me, Bitcoin has value because it can't be inflated, and I can carry it on my head over any country's frontier without governments harassing me because of it. Sure, Bitcoin is a means to an end, I can only "use" it by exchanging it for something else, but so is any other currency.
BTC will continue to be inflated for another 100 years. Inflation of BTC is currently higher than CPI in the US.
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If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.
thinking about, building, and running a business is pretty much the only real future. This may look like becoming an expert and contracting oneself out, or it may look like finding a niche and exploiting it for all the market value it's worth. Working for someone else has been the "easy" route (mentally) for a long time, and easy things never pay well.
Much like the GP comment, if more people start their own businesses then expected returns from running your own business will regress to the norm.
Socialism provides a "yes" to every "no" in this article. Authors critiques are good, but author too lapses into nihilism.
Even cryptocurrency is not beyond rescue, it is only beyond rescue under a capitalist mode of production. Technology is the cause and effect, but we _do_ have agency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, not really. More of a statement on how out of touch with reality it seems first world inhabitants are, to the point where they think not having a guaranteed well-paying job or not being as rich as their parents is comparable to the kind of life Hobbes was thinking of when he coined that idiom.
Having your frame of reference defined by your own circumstances and the standards of the society you live in is not "out of touch." People in other parts of the world might have it worse — that is completely irrelevant when it comes to personal happiness.
This kind of overly dramatic phrase is not accurate nor conducive to productive debate. Its only reason for existing is to make people indignant and unaware of their own privilege in order to make them support your cause of choice - or, more frequently, in order to make them fight the people who you designate as the "cause" of their "suffering".
There's also a personal aspect to my comment, in that I live in a country where, even if the USA's living standard keeps falling for the next 50 years, it will probably be just about comparable to here. Watching the most privileged people in the world be all "woe is me, I might not be as rich as my dad!" is not something I'm very able to take seriously.
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Housing, health care and education are all massively inflated. The price of steak isn't a major expense in comparison.
Even if inflation literally only tracked those things, it is still many orders of magnitude off BTC's growth.
> Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short. Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. But why? Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Why…
> Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Because not everyone is predisposed to be a programmer, engineer or statistician. Not everyone can become a whitecollar worker. This is reality of the world we live in, no amount of though experiments will change that. What you are really doing is blaming victims of a system set against those people. Our society should be built so those people can have decent lives too. Ie…
Also in China art graduates make more than STEM graduates since a STEM grad is a dime a dozen.
"Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short." I find it funny how first-worlders are horrified by the idea that they might have to live in mild discomfort. Maybe try looking at how most of the world that isn't the US and Western Europe lives before saying people's lives will be "nasty, brutish and short" because they won't be wo…
What I did there-- and what you are doing-- is referred to as "one-downmanship." Essentially, attempting to ignore or downplay suffering by talking about a case of worse suffering that you have experience with.
When not part of comedy sketches[1], it's usually considered disruptive.