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Stay Gold, America

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: Stay Gold, America

#31

Post by throwpoaster »

booleandilemma wrote: post #23
gary_0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin, like 30 years ago. Just after he observed that "hard-working people of modest means continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them."

I've often wondered why our politicians should be so rich. Why are so many of them millionaires? It would be nice to have laws preventing this, somehow. Or maybe force them to donate x% of their wealth to the areas they represent every year, in addition to the standard taxes. Do politicians even pay taxes? :)

Maybe the people who serve society at the highest levels should also have the biggest stake in its successful outcomes.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#32

Post by ForHackernews »

That chart of prices is a great example of "cost disease" [0] - as some industries (software, finance, etc) become dramatically more productive from economies of scale, other industries that don't scale (healthcare, education) will become more expensive.

Q: Why should anyone be a nurse when they could be a frontend developer instead and make way more money?

A: You're going to have to pay your nurses a hell of a lot more.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

Re: Stay Gold, America

#33

Post by oefrha »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #27
eunos wrote: post #4

On the cost increases graph, As always, things that got cheaper are things that American import from other countries while things that got more expensive are things that you cant import and solely depends on American workforce, more or less. So I found it very funny that right now there are more and louder voices on reducing trade deficits and bringing manufacturing backs. Well, are most folks ready to have the black…

People need something to do, and you can complexify the already recursively self-referencial bullshit loops of finance, marketing and tech only so fast. Not to mention, the good jobs, like selling the ability to sell to sellers selling sellers the sales of things to sell (for whatever $things, it doesn't even matter at this point) - those are unavailable to most Americans anyway.

According to the unemployment is at historical low crowd, people apparently have more than enough to do. Never mind the puzzling reports from people actually looking for employment.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#34

Post by alecco »

As a foreigner, I think this is too naive. The Western elites are in cahoots, that's why they meet all the time. They negotiate things and then they make a DUAL narrative to be pushed by ad-controlled media and social networks so they can divide and rule.

And, sadly, we are getting dumber and easier to manipulate.

Grassroot movements with legitimate concerns are infiltrated and destroyed. Elite made "grassroot" movements are allowed to do things while it fits the dual narratives.

There is active suppression of talking about safety, housing, jobs, food quality, economic prosperity (of the people not corporations or state!). This is replaced with endless arguments about race, abortion, guns, immigration, religion, scare tactics, and war.

The recent H1-B drama was telling. The elites tripped and exposed their lies. There was a collective "wait a minute" that united antisemites and Jews, right wingers and Bernie Sanders, cats and dogs. And the system got scared like with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.

Stay safe. It looks like it's going to get rough either way.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#35

Post by geraldwhen »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
noduerme wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in a country with compulsory voting (Argentina), I find the notion charming but I can scarcely say it leads to more intelligent outcomes.

Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

[dead]

Re: Stay Gold, America

#36

Post by gandalfgeek »

Most charities on that list are on sharp sides of deeply polarizing culture war issues and it is not at all clear that their causes align with the “American Dream”.

If the last election was any indication then more than half the country explicitly rejected many of them.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#37

Post by noduerme »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
noduerme wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in a country with compulsory voting (Argentina), I find the notion charming but I can scarcely say it leads to more intelligent outcomes.

Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

This is an excellent point. Turnout may be an important signal which is lost with compulsory voting, and certainly any politician trying to suppress votes is dishonest.

To play devil's advocate and to argue for compulsory voting for a moment, however: It is a potential antidote to the type of voter apathy by which a somewhat demoralized but popular party (e.g. Democrats in the last US election) put themselves out of power by not being as motivated as a smaller group.

So while knowing the width of the motivation gap is useful, a polity could also just compel everyone to vote and then ask if they would have done so if not compelled, to get that information. Which is worse: Inaccurate data about voters' excitement, or sudden and surprising political shifts because people were sure they didn't need to go out to vote because they assumed their party had the majority?

Without compulsory voting, only those with strong motivation will vote - and there is no guarantee that an outsized motivation on one extreme side of the spectrum will not drastically and surprisingly take over if most people felt safe staying home. Austria right now seems to be a good example.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#38

Post by dijit »

geraldwhen wrote: post #35
alkonaut wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

[dead]

Since this is illegal in most western democracies, I would have told the police if I had witnessed this.

In fact, in the UK the polling staff are told that they need to assess the competence of the person voting ahead of time and that the person voting must do so alone and without duress, else they should not permit the vote to be accepted.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/...

> You’ll talk to voters as they arrive and make sure they know what to do.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/p...

> The role of polling station staff is to ensure that voters are able to cast their vote in secret, free from influence and in a calm atmosphere.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#39

Post by 627467 »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #22
throwpoaster wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is the best country in the world for growing something new. Source: I am a non-American who does business in America.

Even if I assume you’re right, upward mobility and ease of starting a business are quite different things.

My thinking has been that society only pays attention to the mechanisms that favour upward movement while completely neglecting how to push down - from the top.

Maybe because of naive concepts like "enlarging the cake for everyone" or - more likely - the top won't allow the protections they raised to be lowered.

Re: Stay Gold, America

#40

Post by msoad »

saagarjha wrote: post #13

> I've always felt Stack Overflow and Discourse are projects for the public good that happen to be corporations. I mean, we're watching what happens to them due to them being corporations in real time. I find it difficult to interpret that statement in the way the post intends for it to be read.

Hating Stack Overflow is fashionable but it really helped me solve me many problems that would've been much more effort otherwise. I agree that it's a victim of its own success.
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