Live data from Hacker News

If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

derekthompson.org

231–240 of 1001 posts

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#231

because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries

That isn't a coherent argument; the latter does not support the former. The median American has a lot of money and disposable income compared to almost any other country.

Yes, lots of money and no taste.

And by lack of taste I don't mean McMansions. The entire country is a little bit of a corporate dystopia. It's the end result of capitalism running with very little restraint. Sure, lots of people make great paycheques. But cities look and feel like crap, lack good mass transit, lack human scale, public education is on the ropes, healthcare is rationed according the level of wealth rather than need and people make individual choices that are just textbook cases of the Tragedy of the Commons. Good (at least in the short term) for them individually and disastrous for the society as a whole.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization" And yet we elected Jesus.

A reaction to that very same secularization. Religious nutjobs feel threatened and this is their answer.

The fact that so many Americans listened to and followed those religious nutjobs and they were able to sweep the government with such little effort suggests no such "secularization" ever took place.

They're like people who see some pernicious "gay agenda" infiltrating all aspects of their lives just because they see two gay characters in a sitcom. Their fears are just projection. The power centers of the US have always been biased towards Christian conservatism. It's absurd to claim the US has ever been a truly secular nation when it isn't even possible for a President to get elected without professing Christian belief, because it's impossible to get elected President without the blessing of the deeply Christian south.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#233

I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself. If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG.…

I think it's a symptom of American mentality that atheism and deep meaning are considered opposites.

I don't think you're wrong to analyse your friends, I think you're right that Americans pivot toward religion (or the ill defined "spirituality") when they feel they lack that something else.

But in many other places, including where I live, it's natural to lean on philosophy, personal connections, family, teaching, social work or any other "deep fulfillment activities", and in fact the kind of empty success you describe is frowned upon, among atheists just as much as among religious people.

Philosophy is part of the basic school curriculum from secondary school, and dealing with the big questions is not left for mass.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's quite that simple, but this does seem likely to be a big factor. I say this as an atheist myself. Religion does seem to give people a purpose and a community that's difficult to find elsewhere, and that translates to happiness. Sometimes I wish I could do it, but I can't. While a fall in religiosity may be part of the cause, I don't think a return to religion is the answer. We need to find ways to replic…

I think this is a common reaction that I used to agree with but no longer. I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality that atheism excluded by definition. There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?

Large sections of China, Japan, etc are atheists. Why do you think it hasn't worked?

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#235
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has atheism anything to do with this?

Because the article's question is 'how did America get so sad' and the answer is 'because it lost Christianity' because Christianity makes people less sad.

Religion is a symptom of irrational belief and groundless hope.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#236
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies by location and by what we mean by rich. In New York, for example, you're totally right. But for most of America the model is country club + suburb, 6,000 sqft house with a pool, big public school district that is very well funded, SUVs, &c. for the "rich". And in some cities you actually have both. Where I live we have these big, wealthy suburbs (New Albany for example), Delaware County in central Ohio is…

in new york you're not remotely right. the suburbs around new york are some of the richest in the world. Scardsale, every town near the ct border, rye, huge parts of li, montclair nj and the towns around it. the average household net worth in westchester which is a huge county is $1m, thats on the same tier as wealthy parts of any major city. Sames true of the suburban sprawl of the bay area and dc.

Net worth means little when you have to spend 2+ hours commuting via public transit 5 out of 7 days per week, so that you basically only live for weekends. Obviously, it's a choice to give up your 30s/40s for a secure 50s/60s or whatever, but the definition of "wealth" is not so clear to me in that scenario.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#237

I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself. If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG.…

Religion has nice side effects (community), but vast downsides (non-scientific worldview, brainwashing). I think you can get the community feeling also by simply meeting with people you know, in hackerspaces for instance.

"non-scientific worldview"

I find this an oft repeated meme. The men to whom we own our scientific understanding were all deeply religious (not just lived in a time when everyone went to church)

For example - Darwin had trained to be an Anglican vikar prior to his journey on the Beagle and wrote to his future wife letters full of discussion of divinity.

Newton was obviously deeply religious and wrote more about religion than about physics. In fact his view of gd as singular was considered to be heretical by the Anglican church but was perfectly aligned to the old testament - what I am getting at here is that he didn't just happen to have faith by default but had a very deep and personal one. At the conclusion of principia Mathematica he wrote tons friend that he believed this work would make it obvious to a thinking man that presence of gd.

Georges lemaitre who came up with the big bang theory was a Belgian Catholic priest. The secular science at the time was adamant about the Greek model of the eternal universe, and we owe our modern view of it to someone who came into the situation already believing a moment of creation.

Einstein was famously a non practicing jew who nonetheless at age 11 had taught himself Judaism and later in life advocated for he study of talmud. I can't claim him to be a practitioner but his own writing speaks to a certain expectation of how the universe ought to be (that was later proven out in math) and a belief in a sort of spirit of the universe. The point isn't that he was an orthodox jew but that he is very far from a modern atheist.

So I don't actually agree with this idea that religion is non scientific when we owe our deepest scientific understanding to men who saw themselves and the universe through a religious lens.

That's not to say that there's no ignorance in some religions and among some practitioners but rather that religion at its best can claim really significant contributions that I don't think are matched by atheism at its best.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#238

Every time I read one of these it’s the same. No one ever even tries to look at quality of life measurements, or cost of living relative to income, or measurements of precarity (e.g. How secure is my job? How secure is my housing?). What I think everyone in this country knows intuitively is that relative quality of life is constantly getting worse, there’s no indication that it will improve any time soon, and there a…

I mean there’s that quote from Bezos: “ When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right”

Sure a single anecdote is unreliable, but common feelings of a generation probably point to the data not capturing reality well

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#239

Every time I read one of these it’s the same. No one ever even tries to look at quality of life measurements, or cost of living relative to income, or measurements of precarity (e.g. How secure is my job? How secure is my housing?). What I think everyone in this country knows intuitively is that relative quality of life is constantly getting worse, there’s no indication that it will improve any time soon, and there a…

> relative quality of life Relative to what?

- relative to last year

- relative to peers in other countries

- relative to my parents when they were my age

- relative to how hard I’m working to find housing or a job

- relative to the way braindead economists talk about the economy in their newsletters

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#240

Every time I read one of these it’s the same. No one ever even tries to look at quality of life measurements, or cost of living relative to income, or measurements of precarity (e.g. How secure is my job? How secure is my housing?). What I think everyone in this country knows intuitively is that relative quality of life is constantly getting worse, there’s no indication that it will improve any time soon, and there a…

> relative quality of life Relative to what?

Relative to itself. I.e. the QoL for the upper, middle, and poor are each getting worse.
Post reply on HN