Live data from Hacker News

America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

derekthompson.org

181–190 of 196 posts

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I give you the nature parks. That being out of the way: drinkable water isn't really an achievement, we have it in all of western europe. Maybe even in all of europe. However, in the USA you have these places there the water is heavily poluted due to fracking. That is bad in itself. But even worse is that the political / judicial system in the USA is unable to fix this. Being a country for 250 years is ... neither go…

> drinkable water isn't really an achievement, we have it in all of western europe. Maybe even in all of europe Absolutely not. Water tastes bad in plenty of parts in Europe and isn’t even drinkable in plenty of parts. > But also in the western world 250 years aren't that much. I would like to know which countries you are talking about. > yeah, the USA started and/or participated in many wars I was talking about wars…

Yea, like the water in San Diego. Water tastes bad in plenty of USA. Not only due to clornination.

In in the fracking counties it isn't even drinkable.

Also note that I actually used the term "western europe" in my post. I was in UK, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Czech, Romania, Hungary, Poland ... and everywhere was tap water totally drinkable. In Mallorca (Spain) it didn't taste that nice, but it was drinkable. Germans travel a lot, and when you book a travel, you get some information about your host country. And never ever did I read "don't trink the tap water".

So of all places I've been, "tastes bad" only was once true. "Can't drink" was never true. Your "plenty if parts" is definitely hallucinated.

However, I've not been in many places in south-east and east europe, like not in Albania, Moldavia, Slowenia, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, the Baltics, Belarussia, Slowakia, Ukraina, Russia etc etc etc. So I have no idea on how their water is.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#182
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I would disagree with that statement. When I talk about "rent control" I'm talking about it in the form of "general price controls" that keep the price of things from meeting supply on the demand curve. The controls in the party platform have everything to do with already subsidized housing that isn't actually on the demand curve anyway. The distinction is subtle but matters. Similarly, a price-shock dampener that al…

When the government tells you what rent you may or may not charge, it's rent control, and will diminish the supply of rental housing.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is a very context dependent language, so the phrases "surprised by how much" and "surprised by how little" actually have opposite denotations. Mechanically, sure, they're interchangeable, but using the "incorrect" form carries extra connotations. You've used the counterintuitive form, demanding the reader more carefully consider your meaning, which heavily implies you're making a point beyond what appears in…

What do you mean by "I've used"?

They mistook you for the author of the original post (abirch). A little ironic for a comment regarding focused analysis of what someone has written.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link doesn't seem to cover the Greatest Generation. Also, the Democrat party has steadily moved leftwards over time. I don't have statistics, but combat veterans voice very negative opinions on Jane Fonda and her support for N Vietnam.

> Also, the Democrat party has steadily moved leftwards over time. the only way someone thinks this is if they have fox news blaring all day every day. the dems keep moving rightward step by step to appeal to "moderates" while the right wing keep moving the overton window even further right.

Mamdani and Spanberger are more right-wing than those who came before them?

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link doesn't seem to cover the Greatest Generation. Also, the Democrat party has steadily moved leftwards over time. I don't have statistics, but combat veterans voice very negative opinions on Jane Fonda and her support for N Vietnam.

Lol Democrats have moved left over time ok. Yeah, maybe since antebellum but the democratic party has been on a rightward march for a long time.

Would you say the same of the Democratic Socialists that have been elected as of late?

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild to think there were people who as adults lived through all of the railroad buildout, WWI, the 20s, the depression, and then WWII. Complaining about AI buildouts causing electronics prices to regress by a decade or so begins to seem rather trite in comparison.

[flagged]

*tough

iI you're going to indiscriminately insult an entire generation of people, maybe listen to spell properly?

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#187
Something that really helped me understand how similar and yet bizarrely alien the 1920s are to modern eyes was watching the films of Buster Keaton. They're still pretty entertaining and relatable and all available for free on YouTube. They really drive hone the notion of "the more things change the more they stay the same".

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#188
post #14

I an a completely unabashed leftist who has been "radicalized" (if you call free school lunches "radical", which apparently it is in modern America) by seeing the rapidly accelerating wealth and income inequality since 2008. I mean it really kciked off in the 1970s but the effects post-2008 became impossible to ignore. In the spirit of all models are wroong but some models are useful and that generational politics is…

> talked to the rising anger in young people at the lack of opportunity, the possibility that they'd never own a house or have a good-paying job or they'd have a family. The disillusionment and anger has only grown. This should be the absolutely only thing that Democrats talk about. Every single day, with a big graph and call in number, so people can call in to say if this was fixed for them or not. And if it's not f…

The insane thing is that nobody listens when they do talk about it.

A huge thing in the Harris campaign was that her policies polled much better than Trump's (including housing accessibility by increasing construction, regulations for a fairer rental market, downpayment support for firstime buyers). Nobody knew the policies were hers, though, just like awareness of the accomplishments of the Biden admin seem to be shockingly rare.

You can put part of that on the Democratic party, which could clearly up their media game.

But especially in the algorithm age, a lot of what you see is based off your preferences. This makes people who think their main leverage is their resentments really easy pickings. Someone posts content about how the housing market is unfair and politicians aren't doing enough and everyone who agrees teaches their algorithm that's what they find engaging and important -- not that housing policy and who is doing what is important.

So who hears about this?

https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/press-re...

The people who tell their algorithms that's what they want or are more deliberate about their communication channels and what they go looking for.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Democrats have moved left over time ok. Yeah, maybe since antebellum but the democratic party has been on a rightward march for a long time.

Would you say the same of the Democratic Socialists that have been elected as of late?

The democratic socialist races that have recently concluded do not represent any kind of powerbase in the party. They are in the news cycle now but as soon as they aren't the party will begin the process of co-opting, corrupting, or ultimately crushing these upstart elements. The party is kid gloves when it comes to fighting fascists but when it comes to suppressing internal dissent you see the gloves come off. Every time.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, you're saying that copper piping is not healthy for water lines? Any info you could help link to?

Apologies, I meant lead pipes. Plenty of pre-war homes have lead pipes.

Thanks for the reply. I'm sure there are plenty of elements that could cause issues (acid flux, leaded solder, bursting, etc), I just hadn't hear the same things as galvanized or, like you said, lead piping.
Post reply on HN