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Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#141

Post by russellbeattie »

redmen wrote: post #127
russellbeattie wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> watch their eyes light up if you tell them you are a Canadian and not American. This is such a cliche. I just deleted a long wordy message as to why, but I've lived abroad, speak Spanish, traveled all over and have tons of extended Canadian family, including my maternal grandmother. This sentiment is 100% not true. I could be in the middle of Tehran or Cairo and tell someone I'm from California and will inevitably…

Lol I literally just did it. I have friends from around the world that talk shit about Americans constantly. They love Canadians. America and loud obnoxiousness are synonyms in lots of the world. People laugh at loud people and say oh they're probably american. When I was in Holland this is exactly what my dutch friends said everytime they saw loud people. In Mexico there are lots of resorts where people literally tr…

Ah! OK, I don't agree with you in general, but you inadvertently brought up a good point. There's the perception of Americans online and that in person, and I'm sure Russia has done it everything it can to make sure we're hated abroad as much as possible.

You have a bunch of friends online who think Americans are all fat, loud, obnoxious and ignorant. Join the club. Most Americans think that as well.

Definitely another thing we need to focus on.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#142

Post by 1270018080 »

It sounds like he's saying the solution is middle of the road centrism? That's not very convincing. Centrism is what we've been trying since after the civil war (minus FDR). The government can do nothing when things are going great. But when purchasing power is down, wealth inequality is high, healthcare/education/everything is more expensive, you can't just sit on your hands and do performative politics.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#144

Post by lamontcg »

He's putting the cart before the horse.

The problem is the stupid bankrupt politics in the USA.

Social media is just gasoline being thrown onto the fire, with the billionaire class pumping as much gas into it as they can.

I think there's one throwaway paragraph in the middle of the whole article that addresses the political shift in the 90s that led us to where we are. That should have been front and center.

The USA needs universal health care, child care and college (and probably UBI) meanwhile the Democratic party has shifted to the right and fully engaged in punching left as hard as it can to avoid this happening, while losing elections to the right wing (which is on a slope towards outright fascism) because they can't deliver anything which significantly moves the needle for the average american. That is why the last 10 years have been particularly stupid. And the one thing that both sides pump up is the social wars and identity politics in order to avoid talking about the economic changes that have to happen.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#145

Post by zeruch »

rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

"The stupidity of current discourse uses social media, of course, because that's the dominant media, but I don't believe they caused it. " And certainly based on past statements he's made, I took that the tech augmented the issue, but was not being posed as the root cause. Like you I think Turchin is on to something, but Haidt here is also largely pointing out a symptom that has immense influence in the current day.

To that, I'm not sure if he is as much "afraid/impressed with tech" as much as pointing the human inability to think remotely (or even care most of the time) about laws of unintended consequences, let alone how to address them when they inevitably arise.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#146

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ouid wrote: post #116
sweetbitter wrote: post #48

> Banks and other industries have “know your customer” rules so that they can’t do business with anonymous clients laundering money from criminal enterprises. Large social-media platforms should be required to do the same. That does not mean users would have to post under their real names; they could still use a pseudonym. It just means that before a platform spreads your words to millions of people, it has an obliga…

Instead of talking about the dangers of anonymity, I think we need to reframe the argument in terms of the dangers of social credit score. I don't mean dangers from authoritarians, of course. Everyone understands how the Chinese system is terrible, for instance. I mean the dangers of a "natural", "emergent" social credit score. The kind that you get for free when you attach a way to establish who is who to otherwise…

> Move to anonymous or pseudonymous boards immediately and never look back except in grave,

To accomplish what you describe here, you need to go beyond "anonymous" and "pseudonumous" boards, to completely untagged boards. You don't know me, but you (can come to know) my moniker "PaulDavisThe1st". This is just as much of an identity to build trust upon as whatever may actual name is.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#147

Post by zeruch »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #134
zozbot234 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption at all levels is far more "endemic" to large organizations than small ones. It's also less visible, because size correlates with a lack of transparency.

Don't agree. Corruption "at all levels" requires coordination and/or a common stance towards it. Finding that in an organization of 3 people is not always so hard; finding it in an organization of 30k people is almost impossible.

"Corruption "at all levels" requires coordination and/or a common stance towards it."

No such thing is required beyond the common stance of 'venal self-interest' regardless of organizational mandate. Without checks and balances (and penalties) you can get a loosely coupled "corruption" at all levels with little effort.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#148

Post by DoingIsLearning »

inter_netuser wrote: post #66
mymythisisthis wrote: post #44

40 years of austerity in the west. Life span actually decreasing. Desperate people act out.

The west hasn’t seen proper austerity yet, just barely warming up. Maybe soon.

> The west hasn’t seen proper austerity yet, just barely warming up.

European Troika (EC+ECB+IMF) debt induced Austerity literally _caused_ deaths in the heart of Europe. [0]

This pretty much seems like 'proper' austerity unless you feel that we need perestroika living conditions for austerity to be real.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2018/08/31/the-t...

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#149

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

redmen wrote: post #140
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't agree. Corruption "at all levels" requires coordination and/or a common stance towards it. Finding that in an organization of 3 people is not always so hard; finding it in an organization of 30k people is almost impossible.

There can be corruption at all levels without coordination. Example: greed. There is such a thing as unorganized corruption. Example, in lots of third world countries where their infrastructure and systems are so bad it breeds corruption. No need for a top down version of it.

But if the greed is not coordinated, it's not going to pull an organization in a unified direction.

Yes, I agree that you can see examples in some parts of the world and in some time periods (including today) where even uncoordinate corruption is very damaging to a society. But - and this is important given the context in which I started talking about this - it does not appear to be a pathway to regulatory capture nor the formation of giant corporations in the sense that was proposed up-thread, in which a powerful "federal" organization is used to enable such organizations to exist.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#150

Post by redmen »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #149
redmen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be corruption at all levels without coordination. Example: greed. There is such a thing as unorganized corruption. Example, in lots of third world countries where their infrastructure and systems are so bad it breeds corruption. No need for a top down version of it.

But if the greed is not coordinated, it's not going to pull an organization in a unified direction. Yes, I agree that you can see examples in some parts of the world and in some time periods (including today) where even uncoordinate corruption is very damaging to a society. But - and this is important given the context in which I started talking about this - it does not appear to be a pathway to regulatory capture no…

Maybe only a unified direction towards dysfunction lol

But yes in the context in which you have laid down you are correct I believe.

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