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War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, her penis.
Is everything falling apart?
801–810 of 970 posts
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#802Earlier quoted context omitted.
Furthermore, collapse doesn't happen everywhere the same, nor all at once. It's more like things break down slowly, and never get fixed rather than explosions on the street, until one day you are a third world country. And third world countries still have very nice neighborhoods, and very rich people. But everything around gets much worse.
> collapse doesn't happen everywhere the same, nor all at once. Frankly, I have a “living experience” of a practically instantaneous collapse. January 1, 1992. Prices were “freed”, (hyper)inflation started, people life savings were burned to dust, monthly pensions - at once - begin to cover just about a week of food (and were not paid until 3 months later). Policemen’ salaries became meaningless and the police - in t…
USSR? Because if yes, the Baltic countries started having an amazing time then (I'm from Estonia).
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#803Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if one's "guy" is in office, I don't think we feel the same about it the way we did even as recent as Obama, and his administration was when we really began to see the social cracks forming. I really don't see it that way - this isn't at all a new phenomenon. What feels different to me is the intensity and pervasiveness of division, but then again that could be attributed to being more generally aware of thing…
> In my view, our "tribes" broadly descend from pro- vs. anti-slavery camps Fact: George Floyd wouldn’t have died if he didn’t resist arrest. I’m certainly not pro-slavery, and agree people can be racist, but there is certainly something wrong if people can’t openly discuss taboo truths without being slighted as a racist themselves, utterly dismissed, or censored.
> there is certainly something wrong if people can’t openly discuss taboo truths without being slighted as a racist themselves, utterly dismissed, or censored.
There are things that are true and impactful and worth talking about, and some of those conversations get shut down because they make people feel uncomfortable. Your statement is not in that group.
There are statements that, while technically true, are misleading. They do not illuminate. They are so _obviously_ cherry-picked from the range of all possible statements that they reveal the bias of the person presenting them. Your statement is in this group.
Personally, I’m fine with people who reveal themselves to be racists to be labelled as racists. I’m fine with this category of statements being utterly dismissed. I’m fine with these statements being “censored”, as in people choosing not to publish them.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#804Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…
I always thought that the open ability to perform damaging speech against institutions and public figures in the west was “cool” — a major distinguishing factor between free countries and non-free ones. But I was also always a little skeptical of that ability. It seemed ok in small doses, just to prove we can do it. Now we’re grappling with the full import of nonstop destructive speech coming from all sides and being…
I think it's a temporary phase introduced by the hyper-reflective nature of the internet. Younger generations will handle it better because they grew up in the new environment. Older generations are struggling to adapt.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#805Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…
Oh yeah no doubt; I collate trends into reports for rich investors. Lately they have been focused on youth trends, and some numbers are wacky. 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Youth participation in sports, especially full contact sports, had been going down since before covid which just accelerated it, leading to forec…
> 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared.
We’re just going to ignore the trend of states eliminating general licensing for that age group and replacing it with time-, purpose-, and passenger-restricted provisional licensing that happened between the 1980s and now as a driver of that trend?
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> IL DMV seems to give away DLs like they are candy. In the USA DLs are by far and away the most common form of identification. Many people don't have passports, just DLs.
You can get a non-drivers ID in the exact same place, in the same way, just without the driving test.
Yeah. I can back up the OP's claim with some anecdata as well. If you've ever had a license in IL, you can pretty much guarantee they'll give you a new one with no testing right now.
I know 3 people that have renewed in the last 6 months. They all commented that the experience was weird. They'd be told that they would need to do all sorts of exams, but never end up having to do them. They would just get the new license.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#807Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from them at any one time. This doesn't need to be a ponzi scheme though. Even if population size is stable, if people on average work longer than they are retired, they have to pay less than they receive, all things equal. A problem here has been that people get increasingly older, so they spend a larger percentage of their life being retired, maki…
The biggest issue with social security funding is there is a cap on it. Once you put in so much a year, you don't have to put in anymore. It's essentially a regressive system. A guy who makes a million bucks a year only has to pay social security as if he made $147K. For example, in 2022, everyone only pays social security tax on their first $147K. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html
I don't have to pay more for my house insurance if I make more money either.
So what?
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
>And the baby boomers who created the upset of the 60's are now in charge, and their disillusioned leadership is pushing these divisions ever wider. Why do people think of an entire generation of people as a single minded entity? Might as well say, "women," or "men," or "humans." Did you know the majority of baby boomers weren't hippies? Looking at documentaries of the era, you'd think they were. Many boomers hated h…
Is this sarcasm? It's truly laughable if you don't think boomers had a clear advantage in comparison to Millennials, Gen X, etc; I'm sorry you didn't reap the benefits of the most benevolent time in America's history but plenty of your Boomer counter-parts sure as hell did. I've met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers as a whole. Just like a huge percentage of my generation totally ga…
>> It's truly laughable if you don't think boomers had a clear advantage in comparison to Millennials, Gen X, etc;
Baby boom generation started in what, 1946?
In 1946 almost half the houses in the US didn't have full indoor plumbing. That's some era of prosperity to be born into.
I'm not of that generation, but my parents were. My mom and her brother were driving tractors and operating other heavy machinery on a farm when they were still in elementary school. That was how a large part of the baby boomers grew up.
You kids have no idea. Now get off my lawn.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#809Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Is it urbanisation? I've noticed this trend in the suburbs in my country too and there seem to be a couple of reasons: 1. Driving tests have gotten progressively more difficult and more complex over the last 10-20 years. 2. The cost of learning to drive is insane and getting more expe…
Can you even get a license at 16 anymore in all states? I know when I was getting mine two decades ago it was already getting to the point where people were saying “I might as well wait until 18”.
IMO the only real downside of waiting till 18 is that your insurance rates are gonna be sky-high for the first few years regardless of your age when that happens. If you've held a license for 2 years with no accidents then your rates are gonna be cheaper, regardless of whether you actually drove anywhere.
That's offset by teen driver education being a fucking racket though. The entire thing is just a scheme to extract a grand from mommy and daddy.
Wait till you're 18 and suddenly the need for that course and the hours of supervised driving will vanish. Pass the driving test and the written and boom, there's your license.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#810Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't progress, it's exporting the work that has to be done, someone has to grow potatoes. We have exported that hard work to poor people across the globe at horrible cost. Cost to the environment, cost to stability, cost to geo-political safety. Someone has to have their hands in the dirt, we act like it's progress because it's cheap and fragile because we don't have to do the work. Is it progress to pay artifi…
Eh, first world countries produce a lot of food. Farming is generally heavily mechanized. Nobody needs to have their 'hands in the dirt'. In fact, I expect most potatoes will not be touched by a single human hand until they reach the person who actually cooks and eats it.
That's a huge part of the problem, farming shouldn't be heavily mechanized in the way we do it. Monocrops, pesticides, fungicides, and huge feed lots all have terrible environmental costs. Even aside of Climate Change, soil erosion is a massive problem.