Let's Talk About the American Dream
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Let's Talk About the American Dream
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Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#2Disclosure: I helped organize this event at Cooper Union in NYC.
For those interested, Jeff Atwood (Stack Overflow/Discourse/Coding Horror) and Alexander Vindman (former NSC official) will be discussing the future of the American Dream. They'll explore how we might bridge our current divisiveness, which I'd say has been accelerated by technology.
The conversation happens in Cooper Union's historic Great Hall, where Lincoln delivered his "Right Makes Might" speech in 1860. They'll address what core values unify Americans today, how to rebuild a collective sense of purpose, and approaches to economic mobility in an era of inequality.
It's a free event on March 20th, but registration on EventBrite is required for in-person attendance (first-come-first-served).
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#3[flagged]
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#4Related previous discussion of "Stay Gold": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42620278
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#5I can't make it, but I'd be interested in a summary of the event afterwards.
> How do you make long-term structural change that creates opportunity for everyone? It is an incredibly complex problem. But if we focus our efforts in a particular area, I believe we can change a lot of things in this country. Maybe not everything, but something foundational to the next part of our history as a country: how to move beyond individual generosity and toward systems that create security, dignity, and possibility for all.
In general, if you're talking equal opportunity, I won't be hard to convince. If you're moving "beyond individual generosity" to a system which forces others to be "generous" (via taxation) in order to achieve equality of outcomes, I will be very hard to convince.
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#6[flagged]
I’m trying to understand how you took that message from this. The best I can figure, maybe the allusion to Col. Vindman’s bravery sounds a little like it’s referring to his early-career sacrifices in the Iraq war?
I think Jeff may have been referring to the circumstances of Vindman’s dismissal: namely, in retaliation for reporting up the chain (then testifying honestly) near the end of Trump’s first term when Trump held up Congressionally-apportioned aid to Ukraine (in order to extort support for his political allegations against his electoral competitor, as I recall).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Vindman
…I get the impression that Jeff’s “Stay Gold” program is not especially compatible with that kind of zero-sum, might-makes-right MAGA behavior and ideology.
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#7I can't make it, but I'd be interested in a summary of the event afterwards. > How do you make long-term structural change that creates opportunity for everyone? It is an incredibly complex problem. But if we focus our efforts in a particular area, I believe we can change a lot of things in this country. Maybe not everything, but something foundational to the next part of our history as a country: how to move beyond…
Note: The event will be live-streamed and replayable on Cooper Union's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@cooperunion
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#8[deleted]
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#9Disclosure: I helped organize this event at Cooper Union in NYC. For those interested, Jeff Atwood (Stack Overflow/Discourse/Coding Horror) and Alexander Vindman (former NSC official) will be discussing the future of the American Dream. They'll explore how we might bridge our current divisiveness, which I'd say has been accelerated by technology. The conversation happens in Cooper Union's historic Great Hall, where L…
Is Jeff Atwood among the group of people who can speak with insight on how to "bridge our current divisiveness"? The whole reason he's a public figure is from his blog posts that include a bunch of deliberately placed attitude and bombast of the sort that turns a lot of people away but is selected for anyway because it gets just as many (or more) followers, and attention is only additive.
Re: Let's Talk About the American Dream
#10I can't make it, but I'd be interested in a summary of the event afterwards. > How do you make long-term structural change that creates opportunity for everyone? It is an incredibly complex problem. But if we focus our efforts in a particular area, I believe we can change a lot of things in this country. Maybe not everything, but something foundational to the next part of our history as a country: how to move beyond…
I’m curious what the is would look like to you, I mean everything in degrees, because one could argue something like billionaires can afford to fly everywhere they want, and taxation for highways is used to provide equality of outcome.
So are you arguing taxation is theft and we should abolish the IRS and let private organizations fund through donations fund everything, or are you just on a different area of the continuum than I am.