I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time • Hacker News Board

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#161

Post by chgs » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

arrowsmith wrote: post #152

chgs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major change to income levels has been the massive increase in minimum wage. This removes the incentive to work hard and get skills because they aren’t valued, especially outside of London. The other major change is the continual divergence of wealth. If you are a 20 year old living near London you can get a crap paying junior job and live rent free for 5 years with parents while you save a 100k deposit (which us…

We've also seen a huge compression in net income as the tax thresholds haven't kept up with inflation. So someone who paid a 20% marginal rate twenty years ago is now paying 40% on the same real-terms income. And the 0% personal allowance has been eroded too. Not to mention the 60% effective marginal rate between £100k and £125k - 69% if you have student debt, oh and that's not even counting employee's NICs. And don'…

Everyone goes on about the 100k issue. For 10 years I paid 60% between 50 and 60k due to child tax. The child tax has recently shifted to between 60k and 80k and reduced so it’s now about 51% (plus student loans)

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#162

Post by ferbivore » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #154

teamonkey wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gini coefficient usually only measures income inequality. Wealth inequality is hard to measure for various reasons but… https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/ “for the UK as a whole, the WID found that the top 0.1% had share of total wealth double between 1984 and 2013, reaching 9%.” “If the wealth of the super rich continues to grow at the rate it has been, by 2035, the wealth of the richest 200…

Highly unlikely because the rich are now just running away from UK pulling all their cash with them; it's likely that leftists will get what they want - reduction of wealth inequality - just not in the way that pleases them: with the cash being simply gone.

Sounds good to me. The problem is the rich don't actually take their money and fuck off, they just keep owning wealth here forever. I expect that won't change until the UK gets an actual leftist government, which seems unlikely to happen in the next 10 years.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#163

Post by decimalenough » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

quantumgarbage wrote: post #95

jl6 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.

Switzerland and Afghanistan have an almost equal Gini coefficient. My point is: the Gini coefficient might indicate what your country's income distribution looks like, it however does not tell anything about actual life conditions.

The Human Development Index, on the other hand, does. Switzerland is #1 at 0.967, improving at 0.25% per year. Afghanistan is #182 at 0.462 and dropping, the UK is a respectable #15 at 0.940 (between Finland and New Zealand) and also improving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#164

Post by graemep » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #67

zmgsabst wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that your last paragraph has the cause-and-effect reversed: We’re entering into a populist phase because the managerial class is incapable of addressing the problems experienced by most people — so they’re going to try dismantling the current elite systems and rebuilding them. To say that the problem is elites inability to suppress populism is to miss that the elites own chronic failures is what caused the…

The only issue is that - in the past - weapons had to be wielded by people. The same working people that revolted. There is very strong evidence that this will not be the case by the time this wave you have imagined gets really rolling. I hope it does not happen for decades yet, because frankly: I cannot see the working class (of which I am part of) win that conflict.

Change does not have to be violent, let alone be a violent internal conflict.

I think between the rise of China, America's reaction to it, and the general shift in economic power to Asia from the west, and the lack of trust in government in the west, things will change.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#165

Post by okkdev » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:32 AM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #66

jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

[flagged]

How is this your #1 problem? We have so much serious issues and you are hung up on women having sex? Let them fuck how much they want. Nobody stopped men from fucking and if it works, doesn't that indicate a different problem?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#166

Post by Terr_ » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

svat wrote: post #15

Loved the fact that this post didn't go where I expected it to (or at least, didn't remain there). That a book like this probably wouldn't be published today, or would be less popular today, is a point that has been made many times by many people, about many different books, TV shows, jokes, etc. But the author actually moves on from there; the observation is that even in his own opinion , the same joke isn't funny t…

The same phenomenon exists when people talk about the movie Blazing Saddles.

It's transgressive content worked because it was satirizing "wholesome" Wild West shows, holding up a funhouse mirror to their less-obvious absurdities and racist aspects. It was so successful, its targets don't exist anymore.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jzMFoNZeZm0

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#167

Post by SamJordison » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

Author here. Noticed a lot of traffic from this post - so thanks. Thanks especially for all these thoughtful comments. Just dropping in to say I appreciate the attention - and am grateful that most posters here don't seem to mind that I'm unable to draw hard conclusions in my original article. I also like the posts here that point towards the fact that atomisation maybe has had something to do with things (as well as the hardening of inequalities and etc.) Interesting! Perhaps it was more possible to share jokes in 2003 than it is now? (The concept that jokes either punch up or punch down seems an indication of that... Feels quite recent to me. And What if the intention isn't to hit anyone, really, just to make each other laugh?)

Anyway, to respond to a couple of other things on here. I'm not really a comedian. Sorry! I do work in the publishing industry, so while I can't prove my ideas about publishers being nervous, I would hope I have a reasonable insight and instinct.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#168

Post by tarkin2 » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:36 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

> We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it.

This, I believe, is because the problem is psychological more than political: social division and alienation.

Of course, an increase in economic prosperity will lessen populism.

But if people continue to be alienated then they will be drawn to populists offering collective causes against perceived wrongdoers.

The large majority of online activities increase social alienation and social division.

Local, apolitical activities that breed cohension rather than division will decrease the psychological benefits that populism offers the alienated. I see no other solution.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#169

Post by anovikov » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:36 AM UTC

lifestyleguru wrote: post #65

amiga386 wrote: post #18

> There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years I will, it's ChavTowns. https://web.archive.org/web/20061013053524/http://www.chavto... Still running as https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/ Also the owner is giving up on it as of the start of this year -- mainly because nobody visits the site; churnalists just freeboot it and they rank higher on goo…

> organisations who despite their name, do not give a flying ** about their social housing stock > and run-down decaying towns in the whole country You cannot simultaneously have landlords living in Spain and well maintained local housing. Both are expensive. Pick only one. There exists a sweet spot when people are desperate enough to live in a place and pay every rent for any housing, but the sugar coating has washe…

Not sure how living in Spain is expensive compared to UK. Cheaper living, lower taxes.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#170

Post by taurath » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

chgs wrote: post #143

arrowsmith wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

The major change to income levels has been the massive increase in minimum wage. This removes the incentive to work hard and get skills because they aren’t valued, especially outside of London. The other major change is the continual divergence of wealth. If you are a 20 year old living near London you can get a crap paying junior job and live rent free for 5 years with parents while you save a 100k deposit (which us…

Shocking how similar the fates of the US and the UK are similar. I’m in my 30s and the divergence is starting to become extremely stark between people who had middle class financially supportive parents and those who didn’t.

Kids who’s parents who are well off but wouldn’t pay for college is an entire cohort who are functionally locked out of the housing market. For most of my generation, there is little opportunity, only gatekeeping.