191–200 of 715 posts
In France "generation 69" are the boomers, to simplify. Therefore a rough translation of the title would be: "Boomers, the 30 something don't thank you".
It passes, in a humorous way, through all problems which later will be more and more magnified.
https://www.michalon.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&...
> The informed public – wealthier, more educated, and frequent consumers of news – remain far more trusting of every institution than the mass population. Is “informed public” an accepted term of art in social science research? Because if not, that seems like an incredibly (and gratuitously) biased label.
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How much social mobility we talking? Statistically nobody goes from trailer park to billionare by working hard. You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments. edit: I'm only talking about the US
> You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments. That is a laughably low bar, and it is unlikely for the trend you are describing to continue past the move from poor to lower middle class. In a fair society, with equality of opportunity, it should be…
Every time I make this argument on HN I'm met with two responses
1) I worked my ass off when I was young to get to where I am, why should we make this easy for anybody, it will just create a lazy society
2) why should MY money go towards helping anyone else
Both are really hard to argue against no matter how much statistical data you pull out showing that improving equality of opportunity improves the society overall, because both are very emotional arguments. People feel that way and it's hard to change.
PS - the "funniest" response I had to this was someone saying that US has "perfect" equality because literally anyone from any walk of life can become rich or a president. Yeah he acknowledged that some people have it much harder than others, but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day anyone can get rich so everything else is irrelevant.
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This is the first I've heard of tipping trash collectors. Apparently it's a thing? How, logistically, does one even accomplish that?
Tape an envelope prominently to the top of your trash cans; or go out and catch them for a face to face chat.
Does hard work make you rich? Does it guarantee you a specific source of income? There are plenty of examples against those propositions.
Does hard work help provide for you and your loved ones? The world is complicated, but there are many jobs that pay fine and mostly ask you to reliably show up and pitch in. So generally, hard work is a good bet.
I don't know why folks expect to see billionaire janitors before they believe hard work is wise.
If your roof has a hole in it, it will take hard work to fix that hole; but your life will get better once you have. The same but moreso if you have no roof at all to begin with.
I don't think "hard work for others benefit" was specified in the questions, it's just assumed as part of the context, probably more in my USA context than in other cultures with less unicorn fart in their air.
Every morning, I get up at 5, and go for a two-mile walk. Often, my walk coincides with the route of the garbage collection truck. Man, those dudes work hard . It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them. They are fast, energetic, efficient, and precise. Around here, they are generally Latinos, and they have quite high-paying jobs, compared to a lot of their peers. It's a dirty, dangerous job, and the benefits are…
This is the first I've heard of tipping trash collectors. Apparently it's a thing? How, logistically, does one even accomplish that?
There was a short window of time (anthropological scale) in the western world where this was seemingly true. The American conservative propaganda latched onto it and tricked people into thinking it was true. The fact is whenever quick upward mobility has been possible anywhere for a large number of people, it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour. It was someone else's hard work that w…
If you had another person on the island, you could share and exchange, and if you both of you worked, you'd both be better off.
By induction, adding more people can result in more people being better off, especially when you add specialization, etc.
Where that breaks down is when others start using force to take your/others stuff. Then you don't see the product of your labors, since someone else is stealing it.
Exploiting colonies fits that, so does the modern warfare/welfare state, the late Roman empire, and communism/socialism. _Anywhere_ that force is used to "reallocate" the products of someone's labour, the people start to get the feeling that working more won't get them ahead, because someone else will take what they produce.
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> has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour As far as I understand, this is actually a myth - at least the first two. It's a common cynical refrain that the current level of abundance would be impossible without slavery. There are many many places where there has been slavery throughout the years, and they have not ended up richer for it. The American South, where slavery was more prevalen…
> The American South, where slavery was more prevalent, is poorer than the North. Since the north is more rich than the south, that's supposed to be an example of how they weren't enriched from slavery? They both benefited tremendously from slavery, ending when they fought a devastating war over it. A slavery based economy does not transition well into a world where slavery is illegal. Not to mention that a lot of th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour As far as I understand, this is actually a myth - at least the first two. It's a common cynical refrain that the current level of abundance would be impossible without slavery. There are many many places where there has been slavery throughout the years, and they have not ended up richer for it. The American South, where slavery was more prevalen…
> Northern Europe, not known for their abundance of slaves, is wealthier. Northern Europe didn't import a lot of slaves but they sure as hell benefitted financially from the slave trade. > Colonialism was not a huge success for England when you look at how much it cost. It was great for national pride and as a symbol of their "greatness" however. The motivations for colonizing were primarily economic. Do you think th…