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

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

#471

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #393
tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

Just speculation: The houses got expensive because homeowners wanted housing to be an investment, so they voted for laws that make it harder to build or densify housing. Cars are expensive because the government puts tariffs on perfectly good imports to protect the American car companies. The American car companies produce garbage, and even the electric car companies like Tesla and Rivian are producing super-high-tec…

Sorry, a Tesla is neither luxurious nor a yacht.

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

#472

Post by bryanlarsen »

Note that one of the assumptions isn't necessarily true.

> The culprit has to fit the crime. Most importantly, it has to fit the timing of the crime. What we’re looking for is something that happened around 2020 (uh, seems obvious) and then didn’t recover (ah, that’s the hard part). This timing rules out several otherwise plausible suspects.

You can pile straws on a camel as part of a continuous process and then observe the breaking of the camel's back as a discontinuous result.

Any explanation that doesn't fit the timing (like the "decline of religion" example he uses) may still be relevant. It can't be automatically ruled out, but the timing is a strong piece of evidence against it. The theory needs to include a solid explanation for why the timing doesn't seem to match. I don't think decline of religion has such a solid explanation, but other theories might.

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

#473

Post by redleggedfrog »

bontaq wrote: post #409

My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…

I'd also add that healthcare is serious shit-show as it currently stands and the best strategy is to just stay as healthy as you possibly can to avoid having to go to the doctor, if you can even find one who will see you.

Remote work is an interesting one. Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity, and if you were lucky, people you enjoyed. Even if you didn't enjoy the people, you were at least social. Remote takes that away, and as the article noted, social contact is a definite plus for well-being.

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

#474

Post by ActorNightly »

mannanj wrote: post #309
mancerayder wrote: post #289

Our CEOs are happily, gleefully, boasting about how we're replaceable. That sort of stuff causes pitchforks to rise up in other countries. We Americans are hard-working sheep, and we deserve all the motivational Corpspeak we have to suffer through on LinkedIn posts. I've worked in this industry (tech) a very long time, and in every job I have peers that boast about off hours work. We get what we deserve.

We don't deserve that, at least I don't feel like I do. I don't identify with "hard-working sheep" and everyone else, I identify with setting an example around transparency, honesty and dignity. There's a famous post about dignity written by someone who said something along the lines of "We have allowed being in the worker class in American become inherently undignified" and I think its more along that line: the very…

The problem is that there is no incentive, because if you take the average set of behavior of a human, nowhere in that set is the willingness to go against the grain to to what is morally right versus what is currently "socially acceptable".

For example, taking a stand against Tesla, when you go buy one right now, you really don't feel any sort of general animosity from people, even though its morally not the right thing to do.

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

#475

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Poverty sucks, but if you think material wealth is sufficient for or even the key to happiness, then you've already lost the plot.

The key is virtue. Ethics is the science of the good. You cannot be happy as an immoral person. That's where you should look for sources of misery or unhappiness.

(We could also distinguish between happiness and joy, where, according to this distinction, happiness fluctuates because it is dependent on circumstance, while joy is grounded in permanence.)

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

#476

Post by asdfman123 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #215
asdfman123 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people with good jobs who live in dense urban areas seem uniquely unhappy, though.

So then the obvious follow up question is whether it's the young, the job or the urban area (or all three) that's making them unhappy?

My theory is that unhappiness is not all the various factors other people are talking about, not fundamentally: not money, not neighborhood design, not living in the city vs. living in the country -- its a deeper spiritual problem.

If you really want to understand something you need to integrate all the evidence, of course, and not just the parts that support the easy conclusion.

It's under-discussed, because we, the technocratic class, have no tools to measure it and not much language to talk about it.

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

#477

Post by jimbokun »

mancerayder wrote: post #289

Our CEOs are happily, gleefully, boasting about how we're replaceable. That sort of stuff causes pitchforks to rise up in other countries. We Americans are hard-working sheep, and we deserve all the motivational Corpspeak we have to suffer through on LinkedIn posts. I've worked in this industry (tech) a very long time, and in every job I have peers that boast about off hours work. We get what we deserve.

My one vacation to Paris I was very concerned about the protests/near riots, things being set on fire, and garbage piled high because of strikes I saw on television.

But we ended up having a great time. Got used to the piles of garbage, and the fires and protests were scheduled in advance so easily avoided. And I gained an appreciation for the willingness of French workers to stand up for themselves.

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

#478

Post by jcranmer »

bontaq wrote: post #409

My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…

> Great, have they increased by as much as inflation?

Yes, real wages have been on the rise for the past few years. With the exception of the somewhat artificial COVID peak, median real wages are the highest on record: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

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

#479

Post by lo_zamoyski »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #459
bontaq wrote: post #409

My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…

Money should only have the purpose of realizing ones goals, it has no purpose in itself. The whole society has lost its goal when the only target is to maximize money.

Popularize the notion of chrematistics.

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

#480

Post by johnsmith1840 »

tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

I don't think you've seen starving people if this is your opinion.

I have never seen someone in america starving.

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