Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by jstream67 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #350

inglor_cz wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any legitimate wedge issues in your opinion, or is just everything artificially made up? Your take feels very cynical, along the lines of "religion is opium for the masses". In this view, people are dupes stringed along by Machiavellist figures, who cannot possibly have strong feelings about various topics themselves. Gun laws may not be very relevant in India, but neither are caste-related topics in the US…

There are legit issues, and wedge issues aren’t necessarily bullshit. But the right-wing playbook is the same everywhere , frame these issues in a way to maximize fear and link that fear to nostalgia of a better past. In the US guns are big. In Russia there’s an appeal to the bygone Soviet era where all Russian speakers were under one flag. In the US, the gun argument is the most transparent. Gun marketers evoke (mos…

To add a counterpoint - it seems to me the main reason the democrats are antigun is that is where most of their funding comes from. When you take money from Bloomberg or Soros you agree to be antigun. This is not something that is controversial to say, Bloomberg and Soros are very proud of it. They directly inject vast sums of money into local elections to force in anti-gun candidates, and they have been very successful at it.

Despite your own personal viewpoints guns are very popular in the United States among both parties.

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

#382

Post by catawbasam » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #361

don_esteban wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you will become pariah until you leave or change your mind?

If Pariah means the collectivist people not trading or communicating with you and no violence then I am OK with that. Now, could you explain how this is collectivism and not voluntaryism?

If you define collectivism is group activity enforced by violence vs voluntarism being group activity not enforced by violence then this entire discussion is a word game and a waste of time.

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

#383

Post by incomingpain » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

blindmute wrote: post #373

Overall, red side wants things to stay the same or go back, and blue side wants things to change. If the gap between them is widening, it's because blue side is trying to change things too rapidly. Red side seems to want to go back to 1950 at the earliest; it doesn't seem to me like they're increasingly backing up into 1800s or earlier. But the blue side is increasingly pushing for things that many are not ready to e…

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-d...

Put your finger on the median democrat line, leave it where it starts in 1994 and remember where republicans are in 1994 and 2017.

There is no question the democrats moved left, republicans followed and then moved right back to where they were. The democrats than moved further and further left.

>You can have one or two things change in a decade and people will adapt, but the current velocity is not sustainable.

You are describing the culture wars that are over. What we reached now isn't so much this. Social factors aren't even a huge consideration. It's about UBI. It's about wealth redistribution. It's about people who ignored advice, got a liberal arts degree putting $50,000 in debt and can only pay the interest payments from their mcjob.

I figure there was a period in time when this political division would turn into a civil war... but it won't.

Imagine the democrats clean sweep the midterms in november.

Imagine the republicans clean sweep the midterms in november.

What do you think happens in either of those cases?

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

#384

Post by engineeringwoke » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #369

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

>I want to house the homeless. The Dutch can do it, but somehow in the discourse here, it's "impossible" I mean the Dutch don't do that. Homelessness in the Netherlands has been rising for years and is higher per capita than the US. It's also one of those "very hard" problems - SF spent something like 300 million a year to try and house 8,000 homeless people and failed at it.

I have argued at length with people on this board about this very subject, and the answer is the way that the problem is measured in either country. The HUD survey is a farce; it's designed to underestimate the problem. You could easily infer with data who is homeless and who is not, and that's what the Dutch do. Maybe you are Dutch and unaware of the discrepancy, not sure. Housing and the tax benefits are very hot button issues in the Netherlands and the youth hate how cynical the old are considering the subject, so I get that their system is not perfect. But being critical is how things change.

I also find it hard to believe that you could accept a fact like this so easily. There is a very visible homeless problem in every large American city that you don't see in the Netherlands. And Amsterdam used to have a very similar problem that was only recently cleaned up in the mid-2000's.

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

#385

Post by recuter » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

Miner49er wrote: post #363

recuter wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to be a neoliberal to think the way those protests were organized with the hand signals was ridiculously silly? Great, income inequality, important subject to tackle. Are we going to get creative, involve serious people, suggest intelligent chang-- oh, you're flashing signs at each other aimlessly for days on end. Cool.

> Great, income inequality, important subject to tackle. Are we going to get creative, involve serious people, suggest intelligent chang-- Arguably, Occupy was just the start. I'd say it did end up setting the groundwork for doing much more. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns, for example.

OK, so make the argument.

Embedded in what you're saying, as I understand it, is that Bernie and socialism are the answer and Occupy tee'd it up.

Well, not everybody feels that is the answer, even amongst the people who were involved in Occupy.

I don't see any coherent through line or economic thought whatsoever. Much easier to complain there is a problem than offer up viable solutions.

In this case, knowing wasn't half the battle and they didn't do half the work, they did at best... one percent.. of the work.

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

#386

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #347

pmyteh wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, you have the same three choices you have in any other situation where you don't like what's going on: loyalty, voice, or exit. In the first, you decide to accept the general will in order to maintain your individual credit, hoping that by cooperating on this occasion you encourage people to encourage with you later. Alternatively, you can protest the decision, hoping in doing so to encourage your fellow t…

Look. It is a very simple question. The township has a 1 promile property tax. I never pay it and refuse to leave my property. What happens next? You guys wrote 5 walls of text just dodging the easiest question on Earth.

You will starve as people refuse to provide you food, or allow you to use collective infrastructure, unless you leave. Your property will then become collective property.

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

#387

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

suction wrote: post #244

mathlover2 wrote: post #5

This is the dumbest thing I have seen come from Jonathan Haidt. If social media is this powerful a destabilizer of societies, I wonder how Haidt explains first world countries like Germany, Canada, and most of the rest of the planet that have social media but haven't fallen into the same sort of divisiveness the US has.

I can only speak for Germany, but Social media here still is much, much less widely adopted than in the US, because sharing one's life with strangers is culturally not as well regarded as it is in the US. This also applied before social media - telling one's life story to strangers was just not done. Now, this is changing for younger generations, but even they are still not nearly as willing to share as their America…

Has Germany seen the same rise in young people adopting strongly entrenched positions on racial identity politics and not tolerating a diversity of opinion? E.g are undergraduates trying to ban speakers they disagree with? Can a person under the age of 40 voice agreement with a traditional feminist like JK Rowling without being socially and professionally ostracized?

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

#388

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

pjerem wrote: post #266

mathlover2 wrote: post #5

This is the dumbest thing I have seen come from Jonathan Haidt. If social media is this powerful a destabilizer of societies, I wonder how Haidt explains first world countries like Germany, Canada, and most of the rest of the planet that have social media but haven't fallen into the same sort of divisiveness the US has.

Oh no, the rest of the planet isn’t immune to this. We, in France, will choose our next president in two weeks between a man who spent the last 5 years breaking all the public services he could or an openly fascist woman. The EU countries just have more social safety nets that renders them more socially solid. So we are not doing as bad as America right now but don’t be fooled, the trend is the same one.

You don’t seem to be identifying the same trends; you just seem to be voicing your left wing sympathies.

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

#389

Post by cle » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

> Oh, our country is "too big". Oh my god, stop.

I wouldn't gloss over this, the US presides over 330 million people across 3.8 million square miles, whereas the Netherlands has 17 million people across 16,000 square miles. This size and diversity of the US is a significant contributor to the national political dynamics IMO.

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

#390

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #341

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another hint: coercion is not necessarily direct violence. Capitalism is almost completely coercive and controlling, but direct violence is mostly reserved for minorities and for war adventures in distant countries. At home it's coercive through financial violence (especially income restriction and forced debt), extreme economic apartheid, and overt and covert behaviour modification narratives in the various media. "…

How can someone force you to take debt? Can you give one example when someone was punished physically for refusing to take debt?

Punishment goes beyond physical means. You have the choice between poverty, or debt, which is definitely a form of coercion. Coercion is the use of a power differential to make someone act against their interests, physical force is not necessary.