No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse • Hacker News Board

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#121

Post by t-3 » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 1:33 AM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #73

slg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were no federal student loans. This is a hilarious one to include on your list because it shows you are missing the forest for the trees. Federal student loans didn't exist because they didn't need to exist as college was cheaper, living a middle class life didn't require college, and low paying jobs still paid a high enough percentage of living costs to allow people to pay their way through college by workin…

Colleges may have been cheaper 50 years ago, but it was also roughly half as common to go to college. It was especially uncommon for women and POC to enroll. Overall, the government is subsidizing colleges more, but the subsidy is spread thinner. In-state tuition without assistance tends to be $6000-12,000, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. As a slight tangent, student loans and grants tend to be the le…

People I know who went to college 40-50 years ago talk about paying for college by working summer jobs at the grocery store. People I know who graduated in the last 10 years talk about how they're still paying off loans.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#122

Post by rayiner » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 1:39 AM UTC

vore wrote: post #110

rayiner wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're depressed. You’re assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state that I don’t think is warrant…

It's incredibly ironic that you're accusing the parent post of "assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state" while up and down the thread you're making gigantic reactionary assumptions about what cultural factors are causing teens to feel less fulfilled today. It feels good and easy to pine for the "good old days" where 50% of kids flipped burgers at McDonald's or whatever but t…

> while up and down the thread you're making gigantic reactionary assumptions about what cultural factors are causing teens to feel less fulfilled today. It feels good and easy to pine for the "good old days"

To be clear, Taylor Lorenz is the one pining about the 1950s. She’s the one saying “things are worse now” and arguing that changes since then are making young people unhappy.

TFA rejects Lorenz’s premise by pointing out that the economically, young people aren’t worse off. I’m simply pointing out that, unless you want to dismiss Lorenz’s (quite common) view altogether, it’s worth looking at what other things have changed.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#123

Post by rayiner » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 1:49 AM UTC

somewhereoutth wrote: post #22

rayiner wrote: post #5

> [Lorenz] went on to suggest that the young people of the 1950s enjoyed objectively superior material prospects than young people do today This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc. But it’s…

What has changed since the 1970s is a greater proportion of productivity improvement has gone to capital vs labour. This means working people have to work much harder for comparatively less. Ascribing the resulting unhappiness to departing from some sort of communal idyll where young people 'knew their place' is rather regressive I'd suggest.

Productivity is up due to technology, not increased working hours. Americans work a lot less now than they did in the 1950s: https://www.humanprogress.org/senator-sanders-and-the-averag.... In fields where technology doesn’t help, productivity is basically flat for decades.

Likewise, capital’s share of GDP is flat since the 1950s and if you factor out real estate, has declined from 25% to under 20%. https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall...

I would also posit that moving far away from grandma and not being forced to socialize with mixed-age communities at church had a much greater impact on ordinary people than whether capital has 20% or 25% share of GDP.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#124

Post by rayiner » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #86

rayiner wrote: post #5

> [Lorenz] went on to suggest that the young people of the 1950s enjoyed objectively superior material prospects than young people do today This is why I think culture is more important than policy. Lorenz’s point is obviously non-sensical. She mentions the “safety net.” But Medicaid didn’t exist in the 1950s. There were no federal student loans. There were no food stamps. Almost nobody went to college. Etc. But it’s…

What percentage people owned their own homes back then, and what percentage of income did people they spend on their houses mortgages? I'm willing to bet those statistics are telling.

Home ownership is up significantly since 1950: https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-united-state...

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#125

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 2:59 AM UTC

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #105

notch898a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that would be preposterous. What adds to the conversation is to snipe arguably at least 2nd if not 3+rd comment regarding the use of the word, then simply say the comment doesn't add to the conversation and nothing more. I truly appreciate this non-hypocritical value add.

The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body. The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor"…

>The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no".

"Good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" are simply figures of speech. If someone is taking them to literally mean a neighbor and subsequently literally a neighborhood, they are demonstrating a gross lack of understanding in the subject matter.

Being a "good neighbor" means being a man of good character. What is a man of good character? Treating others with kindness and professionalism, respecting property and privacy, reciprocating generosity and respect, and protecting the weak and helping those truly in need. None of this is mutually exclusive with individualism.

"Taking care of your neighbor" means to proactively involve yourself in the lives of others, which may or may not be appreciated depending on the recipient (anecdata: I know many people who don't) and is either way none of your business to initiate.

I am making this distinction between "a good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" in my original comment because the two are very different things, and the commenter I replied to was conflating the latter with the former.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#126

Post by korroziya » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 3:44 AM UTC

gretch wrote: post #13

LatteLazy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or post the 2008 crash where everything governments did for young people was slashed...

+1 to this How many teens had to watch their parent come home and announce that they got laid off from their job and that this year there wasn't going to be a yearly family trip?

>no family trip this year

Rich kid problems.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#127

Post by sershe » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 4:12 AM UTC

woolion wrote: post #17

The logic here is absolutely astounding. People _killing themselves_ is not an indicator that life is worse? What is it an indicator of, Mr Levitz? Are they unable to tolerate so much happiness? Are these people dumb? Defective? Arguing that life is objectively better because you are going to make a better salary than in the fifties is plain gaslighting, but I don't believe there are a lot of people who will still fa…

Note "objectively". Subjectively, their lives are worse. Why? Coddling of the American Mind is a great book that I think has part of the answer. Personally, I also think social media, general political polarization, and general grievance/doom focus of left-wing politics are too blame, in some order. Objectively speaking, their lives are better or at least not worse on most metrics, and far better than most of the world. Perhaps due to all of the above they don't have a good reference to judge against.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#128

Post by loeg » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 4:13 AM UTC

mountainb wrote: post #21

nhchris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were no federal student loans. [..] Almost nobody went to college. How much did college cost? How necessary was a college degree for success?

There was the GI bill, which both of my grandfathers used to get professional degrees essentially for "free" (one accountant and one doctor). I guess it wasn't really "free" because one of them had to fight through North Africa and Italy to get it, and the other one had to drop a few bombs on Germany before spending the rest of the war in a POW camp.

Notably, the GI bill's college funding mostly benefited white veterans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill#Racial_discriminatio...

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#129

Post by anonymouskimmer » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 4:49 AM UTC

notch898a wrote: post #108

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body. The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor"…

giraffe used the pattern of "X is not A" I used the same pattern to further weaken it to "X is not A of type B" (which, logically, must be true if giraffe's statement is true). They've said it's not 'A.' My statement was COMPATIBLE in fact with their original statement being true, it just leaves open the door that it may not be. It's certainly possible something could be both not a community and not the community the…

> I'm really struggling to understand why my comment suddenly crossed the line to you.

1) I've seen the "arguments over definitions don't add to HN" morale stated here before and decided to try it out when it seemed pertinent.

2) I wasn't too on board with giraffe_lady either, and yours was just the figurative last straw. Also if I'm going to try to interject in what I think is a non-productive back and forth I figured I'd do so at the end of the chain, not with multiple comments throughout the chain.

Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse

#130

Post by anonymouskimmer » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #125

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body. The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor"…

>The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no". "Good neighbor" and "taking care of your neighbor" are simply figures of speech. If someone is taking them to literally mean a neighbor and subsequently literally a neighborhood, they ar…

> "Taking care of your neighbor" means to proactively involve yourself in the lives of others

It often means this given the type of person most likely to "take care of their neighbor", but it doesn't have to. Rare people can make it known that they are willing to help with anything a neighbor may ask for help with without actively butting in. It's difficult to do without making it seem like you're sincere and not just saying a platitude, but I am sure that it can be done, and has been done.

I'm neither community or neighbor oriented, so I don't have a horse in this race.(1) I just thought I'd comment on this particular statement of yours.

(1) - To the extent I butted into the conversation with my comment toward notch898a it was mostly an experiment.