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

derekthompson.org

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

#941

Post by wat10000 »

hunterpayne wrote: post #742
riversflow wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study. Moreover Atheist don't need to go to church together to indoctrinate their beliefs, that happens every day when no miracles happen and the world continues to be kill or be killed anywhere animal intelligence has not overcome that reality in some small pocket. Atheist also tend to understand that their is no forgiveness and they have to sit with their action…

"I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study." It should be, but is it? If this is the case, why has the reproducibility of papers fallen off by so much? In the past, this wasn't the case but it also wasn't the case that society was so secular. In fact, secularism and inability to publish reproducible papers is positively correlated. While I'm not a believer, it does seem to me that somehow without re…

Are you blaming the replication crisis on atheism?

If you want to play the "lack of piracy is correlated with global warming," consider that secularism is negatively correlated with things like child mortality and firebombing civilians. If we're going to blame atheism for anything that has gotten worse in the past few decades then we also need to credit it for everything that has improved.

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

#942

Post by NoGravitas »

cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #352
pelasaco wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do feel this trend in my life. I have a job which I'm grateful for but nothing feels satisfying anymore, and I feel like it is much harder to connect to people or form deep relationships, especially in this field, unless you already have a clique in your workplace. do you have kids? Family? That is the ancient receipt for a great and happy life.

Yeah, it was, but now we have AI and there is no future for our kids, so it's even worse.

Yeah. I had kids, but the fact that I can't see a future for them, but have to live as if I do, is crushing.

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

#943

Post by abustamam »

amluto wrote: post #778
traderj0e wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a house is always affordable to someone , and it's not like all the single-family homes are owned by huge landlords renting out. Some areas have become more sought-after, so young adults there are finding that they can't afford to buy a house where they grew up.

> Yeah, a house is always affordable to someone It’s actually not true that a house is affordable to the person living in it. First, plenty of people own houses, paid-off even, but have little else in the way of income or assets, and, other than not wanting to move, they might be much better off if the home magically turned into cash. Second, taxes. In the US, in HCOL markets, selling your house may involve large amo…

My in-laws bought a house in the East Bay area in 2000 for about $400k. Worth about $1.5m (according to zillow and similar homes in the neighborhood that have recently sold). Fully paid off now, and they're retired.

If they were to sell it, they'd have to pay taxes on 1.1m of "profit." sure they can write off renovations and deduct $500k but that's still a lot of taxes to pay!

So yeah, they wouldn't be able to sell and rebuy even their own house because uncle sam just took about $100k on the sale of their house.

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

#944

Post by NoGravitas »

throw4847285 wrote: post #570
nathan_compton wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I'm a die hard nihilist and atheist and I'm married, have kids, friends, and think life is beautiful and generally ok. I don't see why people need to believe in imaginary stuff and I don't really see how it makes people happy.

You don't sound much like a nihilist to me.

Existentialism and/or Optimistic Nihilism. I'm a pessimist, myself.

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

#945

Post by NoGravitas »

tock wrote: post #223
xyzelement wrote: post #75

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.…

Counterpoint: I know plenty of very religious families with multiple kids who are deeply unhappy. In my experience friends and family are the primary contributor to happiness. Provided they are good people. Else its a train wreck. It doesn't matter if they are religious or not.

They're more motivated to pretend everything is okay, at least.

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

#946

Post by dlivingston »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #859
dlivingston wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way out is through. This transition sucks but (1) is necessary (and INEVITABLE) to become an advanced civilization, and (2) the cat is out of the bag, it is not going back in, and burying one's head in the sand is no solution at all.

The cat can be put back into the bag. Go see the plot for “the creator” or “dune” to see what doing that looks like.

I've seen the latter but I'm not sure I get the relevancy.

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

#947

Post by nathan_compton »

NoGravitas wrote: post #944
throw4847285 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't sound much like a nihilist to me.

Existentialism and/or Optimistic Nihilism. I'm a pessimist, myself.

I'm not optimistic. I think an accurate assessment of the world is, in a sense, pretty pessimistic. But I don't see any reason to get worked up about it. It would be very stupid to let my mind tell me that I cannot experience pleasure in the world just because the long term situation looks bleak. I can't control any of that stuff anyway, so why bother feeling bad about it?

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

#948

Post by abustamam »

> Americans are rich and getting richer, by most conventional measures. More Americans are breaking into the upper middle class, and workers at the bottom of the income distribution have seen their wages grow faster than those at the top in the last few years.

I think it's important to define rich. Is it high net worth or high income? High income means nothing when you're paycheck to paycheck paying mortgage and bills.

Also, I'd argue that America itself isn't rich. The 1% certainly are rich. Corporations are sure rich. But the rest of us? We're dealing with the world the rich people put us in.

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

#949

Post by anon291 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #875
anon291 wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is a terrible president and person. Unfortunately, Trump derangement syndrome is also a real thing. We are a country full of fools of one persuasion or another.

[flagged]

Is this comment supposed to make me think Trump derangement syndrome is a fake diagnosis? Because all I've gathered is that you seem utterly broken by the presence of this man.

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

#950

Post by mannanj »

bdangubic wrote: post #340
mannanj wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I want all social media to be banned. Until that happens - nothing else matters... What I am doing about it - I do not use social media apps of any kind (since 2017), do not allow my offspring to be on social media, trying to convince my wife she should do the same (she is on facebook still because of marketplace), and absolutely ridicule anyone that uses social media (in a fun way)...

Love that. Lol the losers on social media need to do something more productive (and I guess I count, since hacker news is like sometimes social media, look at some of the posts out here! haha).

In all seriousness though, I have gone through similar and eventually got back on social media more intentionally as the benefits of it are nice to have (if the cons can be overcome). wish we had a better system to just use social media for us to get what we want though and I wish some agents like open claw could just get us the positives, only.

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