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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#611

Post by gambler »

I think this kind of framing of the question is very close to being a sly form of gaslighting.

What people want to know is not whether the current state of things is "normal". After all, death, sickness, war, hunger, disease and crime are all perfectly normal. Everyone gets that at some level. What most people want to know is what the fuck happened with the metanarrative that we were fed for the last several decades. Is it defunct and debunked? If it is, that has obvious implications in terms of who we should trust and who we should empower.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#612

Post by nradov »

dwater wrote: post #583
nradov wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why defined benefit pension plans are so risky for retirees, employers, and taxpayers. We need to completely eliminate them and use defined contribution plans such as 401(k) instead. That way retirees actually own the assets in individual named accounts and those can't be taken away if the employer is sold or goes bankrupt.

Pensions do have risk, but you act as if 401(k) style plans don’t. Imagine how difficult it would be to plan fastidiously for your retirement and then have the stock market collapse and wipe out 1/4 or 1/2 of your savings. Yes, you should diversify your investments to reduce your exposure, but in this instance the risk and responsibility is on you the individual. Isn’t it strange how two different systems that on pap…

In practice there is no risk of defined contribution plans getting wiped out unless the account holder does something exceptionally stupid. Most plans default to using target date mutual funds which automatically rebalance to reduce stock exposure every year. If there's a major stock market crash then older employees will have very little exposure and younger employees have plenty of time to financially recover.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#613

Post by acuozzo »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #529
dv_dt wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at life expectancy in the America, it has been flat to reversing. Understandably with added pressure from Covid, but at a rate higher even with Covid higher than all other well resourced major nations. This not because we are unable, but because those with the power are unwilling to engage fundamental issues. Covid is not the only issue for which this is the case - it was happening before covid. Multiple…

As obesity reaches 50% and higher, it’s not surprising that life expectancy would decrease. If people want to choose to live shorter and less healthy lives, is there anything we can really do?

Framing obesity as a choice is at least as useless as framing any other drug addiction as a choice.

I don't understand why the discourse on this topic so rarely focuses on its root cause: food addiction.

Is it just easier to think of fat and obese people as weak-willed rather than addicted?

Is the goal to shame them rather than help them?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#615

Post by artificialLimbs »

America is having a Pluto return. Traditionally this is a period of time when nations are dissolved or at minimum completely transformed in their nature.

It's currently turning retrograde and will scrape back across the US natal Pluto on July 12th, and will be conjunct again December 28th for the beginning of its next 246 year cycle. If it matters by that point.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#616

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dragonwriter wrote: post #247
marginalia_nu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, there have been institutions with almost absurd longevity in history. The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II. Ancient Egypt was already thousands of years old when Socrates harassed aristocrats in Athens. It's very easy to forget that the revolutions of Britain, France, America, Russia; it happened just a few generations ago, and upended most of t…

> The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II. No, it really didn't. > Looking back we've had republics with longevity, we've had autocratic dynasties with longevity. But democracy? Besides Athens, which had a very different shape of political system, this is really a first. Modern democracies are almost entirely representative democracies, more like histo…

What historical examples of long-lived, stable republics do we have?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#617

Post by zanny »

almost_usual wrote: post #310
TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

US real estate has gone up significantly in _desirable_ markets. There are plenty of cities in the rust belt where neighborhoods are in decay, you can buy a home for 20k if you wanted. What we’re going to see is either govts incentivize people move back to these places. Or more housing in desirable locations. I think the former will happen more than the later.

Theres a generational rift that will stop a lot of decaying areas from seeing repopulatin from newer generations.

My wife and I saving to house shop soonish, but one of the primary requirements of our residency will be transit access. We don't like driving, don't like having to own a car, and definitely do not want to have to drive up and down the east coast to visit friends and family. Amtrak access is thus basically required, and anywhere we can avoid buying a car to live is valued dramatically higher than alternatives.

Its a growing sentiment the younger you get, where the veneer of the 50s American dream is more and more eroded and we are realizing humans in the 21st century should be living denser, with public transit, and walkable access to day to day needs, than to live in gated communities without a sidewalk or any human contact.

And 99.9% of US real estate is built up totally in antithesis of this, largely on racist fundamentals dating to the early 20th century.

Like we legit were looking at areas and when talking about just over the DC border into MD the conversation always immediately goes to "yes the properties are a third cheaper, but theres no metro access" and its just off the radar. Pittsburgh is our joke city since it has no usable Amtrak routes out of it (and yes, I know its urban core is nice, but its also tiny and unable to grow).

None of these decaying places can afford the capital investment to redevelop to be walkable and sustainably dense. They already are burdened to maintain a million acres of suburbia that is all tax negative. And nobody wants a "top down" solution that involves displacing millions to redevelop cities so the demographic trends going forward want to live there.

For anyone looking, Philly is actually pretty affordable. Its combined income tax is 6% in the state, the sales tax isn't outrageous, and property costs are a fraction of NYC or DC. Its definitely near the top of our list considering how unaffordable the parts of Portland, Seattle, and Baltimore with transit are.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#618

Post by idiotsecant »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #502
newbamboo wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not talk about nuclear war? It’s one of several elephants in the room. The full collapse of a nuclear super power is unprecedented. Who gets the weapons?

They still have them. Even more than pretty much anyone else.

They still have most of them.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#619

Post by TimPC »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #556
TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

On the flip side, a collapse in real estate prices would be an excellent entry to the property ladder for people who previously couldn't afford it.

If that collapse is accompanied by real estate no longer being a property ladder then the entry might be less relevant or desired.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#620

Post by throwaway602ee »

Minor49er wrote: post #557
throwaway602ee wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, the thing which bothers me the most is that people don't even try to educate themselves. Nuance is really important. I mean, I even agree with some of the concerns from social conservatives about transitioning and self-identification and "social contagions" and such. We should try to understand as well as we can, and not push anything on people they may not have felt themselves. It's important to not tell som…

Are you having a conversation with yourself? Your posts follow an uncommon, yet identical formatting and phrasing

No. I copied the person I was replying to's formatting because I thought it improved readability, and if there is any similarity in phrasing, it is coincidental.
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