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Shit life syndrome

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Re: Shit life syndrome

#51

Post by omarqureshi »

wizofaus wrote: post #38
lordnacho wrote: post #15

https://www.ft.com/blackpool Seems like it's not paywalled. FWIW Blackpool looks like a heck of a lot of seaside places in the UK. Whatever problems are described in this article are problems all the way around the coast. Visit a seaside town here and it often feels like you're back in the early 90s. There's a certain style that hasn't been updated. Arcades, chip shops, betting shops. Ok the betting shops look modern…

From an Australian perspective the idea that "seaside" towns are especially susceptible to economic decay and being left behind seems quite odd - even in parts of country without year-round beach weather, coastal localities here are usually the desirable places to live with subsequently healthier economies. Are there other countries that have experienced similar patterns of development to the UK?

The UK is vulnerable to this because the weather is miserable.

Other than last year, I can't remember a year in the last 2 decades where going to the coast wasn't such a massive gamble.

Even I have given up and decided to spend a week in Turkey.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#52

Post by ricardo81 »

louthy wrote: post #26
ricardo81 wrote: post #22

The UK has typically had the highest levels of income inequality in Europe. A previous Prime Minister had been quoted 'A pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country than a pound spent in Strathclyde', Croydon being in London and Strathclyde being an administrative area in West Scotland that ceased to exist in 1975. The quote was from 2012. WFH has allowed me to continue working from rural Scotland, to…

Although Croydon is a London borough, it's quite far outside of central London, to the point that it doesn't really feel part of London. It's also quite a deprived area. So that quote is weird on a number of levels!

I think his general idea was that money invested in London was of greater economic benefit to the whole country than investing the same amount elsewhere.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#53

Post by tete »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #47

I’ve always wondered if a brute force approach to this is to money bomb these areas and let people get large amounts of funds to leave the area and go somewhere where they are slightly more likely to have positive interactions.

Or UBI to make people have some way to actually think about what they wanna do.

I see the pattern that people are too busy with their lives to realistically start thinking about how to come out of it.

But I don't think that will ever happen, because it lowers power of other people. If you have someone that is too busy with the life (job, maybe children, etc.) you get cheap labor that and work force that is just above slavery.

It would also make stuff like involuntary (if there is a voluntary one) prostitution, cheap apartment cleaning, etc.

But then the power that people have over other people would be severely cut, so short of a revolution giving people the power to get out of a shit life isn't likely gonna happen.

People having the means to have meaningful lives or simply things they want will reduce that power.

Of course it won't remove workforce or reduce productivity. That's been proven in many studies. The opposite is true.

But it also means that if you right now have some kind of workforce that ruins their physical and/or mental health for you they'll at the very least ask for adequate compensation. The reason is that people do strive for more. So even if they have enough to come by they will want that car, that vacation, that travel, that iPhone, etc. So they'll work. But they are less likely to damage themselves in the process, if they have air to breath, to think about stuff, or bluntly to have options.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#54

Post by skrebbel »

tetris11 wrote: post #2

I hope there comes a day when the rich and influential look for the next money-making venture in which to invest in, see only a sea of machine-generated uncertainty on the stock market, and decide "actually, the most profitable thing I can do to protect my wealth is to invest it in the public" One day maybe.

That’s basically every rich lefty. “I’m rich” -> “I gotta vote for small government and low taxes” is not an obvious step to me at all. I’d much rather live in a town with happy people, low crime and high income equality than in a gated community full of rich people with guards and fences to keep the bums out.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#55

Post by fnordpiglet »

_8j50 wrote: post #7

This is so weird. Is it another way of saying "being poor is expensive"? Or poor people get sick more? If so then this some next level captain obvious stuff. Or do the authors have such a nice societal experience that this seems very peculiar to them? I mean, this is one if the top reasons people want money right? At least they have NHS in the UK, in most of the world and most of human history people either adapt or…

No, it’s more about pervasive lack of well being induced more lack of well being, including degraded health. It discusses poverty more, because it’s maybe a more encompassing topic and easier to identify, but they also mention abuse induced disorders and unwellness in general inducing SLS.

I don’t think the wealthy or whatever are exempt from SLS, but you do tend to find more abuse and other factors in communities crushed by poverty.

But overall it reads to me as SLS is essentially “things are so bad they compound on each other, further perpetuating a downward trend in quality of life, affecting everything around them including their health.”

I don’t think there was an implication this is unique to the UK, but it is interesting to note even with the NHS there’s a sense they don’t have the resources to address the scale of the problems they’re seeing.

Basic income might help, but it also might just mean a marginal increase in life comforts to prevent the most extreme poverty but not enough to move the needle in something like this. At its core it sounds like an issue of lack of education, opportunity, hope, and mental health.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#56

Post by fellowmartian »

dwb wrote: post #27
dougmwne wrote: post #24

I think that poverty really is a state of mind, and so SLS, as a thing separate from mental health, inadequate health care or material deprivation makes a lot of sense to me. Once you start seeing life as shit, something where no good change is possible and no effort is rewarded, you really are stuck in the shit reality. On the other hand, it’s possible to be materially very poor, but totally happy. To see life as fu…

This is the sort of rhetoric that harms poor people. Being poor can cause states of mind, but is not a state of mind in itself — it is clearly and simply an economic position. The article is not talking about people thinking of themselves as simply poor and therefore unhappy or unhealthy, but a much more complex relationship.

On individual scale you’re right, but on the collective level I think both you and GP are right, it’s a feedback loop.

Places become poor for different reasons: shifting economic realities, fall of the previous civilization (eg USSR, which is my experience), etc.

Places remain poor when people feel trapped inside vs consciously deciding to call the place home.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#57

Post by croisillon »

Uptrenda wrote: post #32
padolsey wrote: post #5

This is quite darkly hilarious tbh. And consistent with my experience of Blackpool. I once went there on couple-week-long driving course when I was a teenager, hoping but eventually failing to get my license. I was put up in someone's house that was run as a sort of unlicensed b&b. The entire place, the curtains, the linen, the pillow,.. all smelled of old nicotine and damp. On my first evening I went out by myself t…

Amazing writing. If you have a book I'd read it.

Well you’ll be delighted: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789957648

Re: Shit life syndrome

#58

Post by Liquix »

yosito wrote: post #25

I'd say my hometown in middle America is significantly affected by Shit Life Syndrome. Thanks to my career in tech I broke out of that and moved away, but I've definitely had my seasons back at home where I get sucked into the Shit Life Syndrome around me. I had some post-Covid health issues and spent a month back in my hometown to recover. But after a month I couldn't stand to be around so many struggling people whi…

Crabs in a bucket :(

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

Re: Shit life syndrome

#60

Post by ransackdev »

padolsey wrote: post #5

This is quite darkly hilarious tbh. And consistent with my experience of Blackpool. I once went there on couple-week-long driving course when I was a teenager, hoping but eventually failing to get my license. I was put up in someone's house that was run as a sort of unlicensed b&b. The entire place, the curtains, the linen, the pillow,.. all smelled of old nicotine and damp. On my first evening I went out by myself t…

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