Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#361

Post by luciusdomitius » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:09 PM UTC

don_esteban wrote: post #346

luciusdomitius wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, answer the simple question. I refuse to go by the collective will and there could be no violence involved. What happens next? I cannot believe that you went on insulting large groups of people while being unable to answer a simple 6 words question. P.S. I speak relatively fluent Latin, so the etymology play made me chuckle a bit.

you will become pariah until you leave or change your mind?

If Pariah means the collectivist people not trading or communicating with you and no violence then I am OK with that.

Now, could you explain how this is collectivism and not voluntaryism?

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#362

Post by pmyteh » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #347

pmyteh wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, you have the same three choices you have in any other situation where you don't like what's going on: loyalty, voice, or exit. In the first, you decide to accept the general will in order to maintain your individual credit, hoping that by cooperating on this occasion you encourage people to encourage with you later. Alternatively, you can protest the decision, hoping in doing so to encourage your fellow t…

Look. It is a very simple question. The township has a 1 promile property tax. I never pay it and refuse to leave my property. What happens next? You guys wrote 5 walls of text just dodging the easiest question on Earth.

I gave you an answer. You can suck it up, complain, or leave. And yes, those choices are unpleasant.

If this was supposed to be a 'actually it all comes down to the threat of violence' gotcha then, sure - if you insist on your property rights, don't pay your taxes and then decide to fight the bailiffs you're going to have a bad time. Sorry.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#363

Post by Miner49er » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

recuter wrote: post #352

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

Do you have to be a neoliberal to think the way those protests were organized with the hand signals was ridiculously silly? Great, income inequality, important subject to tackle. Are we going to get creative, involve serious people, suggest intelligent chang-- oh, you're flashing signs at each other aimlessly for days on end. Cool.

> Great, income inequality, important subject to tackle. Are we going to get creative, involve serious people, suggest intelligent chang--

Arguably, Occupy was just the start. I'd say it did end up setting the groundwork for doing much more. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns, for example.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#364

Post by ameister14 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #338

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

Agreed - media portrays OWS as broken movement with no goals and no hope of changing anything. That's neo-lib PR - corp media does not want you take OWS issues (pro-union, anti-corporate, Medicare for all, etc) seriously.

Without the media portrayal, at the time I thought OWS was a broken movement with no goals and no hope of changing anything. That's having gone there and having friends that stayed.

It was a bunch of people against something vague but with no real agenda. Soon enough it changed from anger at wall st to anger at the cops saying they couldn't camp there. Nothing was accomplished.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#365

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #217

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way this stuff is measured is broken. The baskets of goods aren't comparable. Given the choice between a $1000 (real) basket of goods from 1956 and a $1000 (real) basket of goods from 2022, which would you pick? To me the answer is obvious, 2022. Everything you get will be better. Better textiles, better food, cheap electronics...

From 1956? I'll take the automobile, please.

I should've specified whether it was 1956 dollars or 2022 dollars. "Real" means inflation-adjusted. I was thinking of 2022 dollars, so you can't have the automobile.

Were we doing it the other way around, $1000 1956 dollars is only $10,700 2022 dollars. You might be able to get a car for $1k in 1956, but it's going to be strictly worse than a 2022 car--the two things aren't comparable. Which is a large part of my point.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#366

Post by don_esteban » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #347

pmyteh wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, you have the same three choices you have in any other situation where you don't like what's going on: loyalty, voice, or exit. In the first, you decide to accept the general will in order to maintain your individual credit, hoping that by cooperating on this occasion you encourage people to encourage with you later. Alternatively, you can protest the decision, hoping in doing so to encourage your fellow t…

Look. It is a very simple question. The township has a 1 promile property tax. I never pay it and refuse to leave my property. What happens next? You guys wrote 5 walls of text just dodging the easiest question on Earth.

You never leave your property and live a happy life in solitude there until you die of boredom or starvation. Everybody is happy to not have to interact with you anymore.

Now stop bringing up absurd examples. Just living in a state exposes you to state violence, e.g. for not obeying the (tax) law.

If you wanted a realistic example of non-violent society, there are only few, mostly small remote tribes in deep jungle. Not surprisingly, those are very collectivist societies. The standard response to repeated badly non-conforming behavior in such societies is eviction from the community. Yes, that can be done non-violently.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#367

Post by engineeringwoke » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #360

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

To be fair to libertarian types (conservative isn't all that Liberal these days...), the critique of progressive ideas is that they never reach their real benefits and instead get sidetracked (corrupted), but not before concentrating power among the elites again. Point being, this post seems to be describing that outcome.

which, in my eyes, is a conservative view. Why even try to change the system if it just corrupts itself again? wink wink The Atlantic is a "liberal" rag because they talk about the culture wars... but changing the system? Oh, impossible. We'll just hang here on the cross, unable to change our fate. Those meanie conservatives just won't go to heaven, the meek will inherit the earth!

Nothing about this story seems odd to you? The focus on American cultural events, big corporations, billionaires? Literally none of those things matters, even if it is popular here to identify with them. A better article would just be a chart of the gini coefficient over the last sixty years.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#368

Post by Tenoke » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #343

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

Occupy failed because it didn't have any clear asks or metrics to track. They were against the bailouts. Did they vote anyone out of office? Did the re-election rate of 90% budge? Are there "Occupy Democrats" like there were "Tea Party Republicans"? But most importantly, did they stop future bailouts? The original uproar about the 2008 bailouts (TARP) was originally authorized to spend $700 billion, of which they spe…

>Occupy just taught the politicians how to do things under the radar.

Was it under the radar though? It seems like as many people know about it, but that this time the target and reasoning for the loans was just more liked by the general public.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#369

Post by ameister14 » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

engineeringwoke wrote: post #344

avidphantasm wrote: post #332

“He described the nihilism of the many protest movements of 2011 that organized mostly online and that, like Occupy Wall Street, demanded the destruction of existing institutions without offering an alternative vision of the future or an organization that could bring it about.“ Calling Occupy nihilistic is strikes me as blinkered, and shows the neoliberal bias of the author. Occupy is where the 99% vs. 1% lens arose,…

It's absurd how the author (and presumably their editorial board) are so willing to paint a picture that absolves them of guilt for the inequality in their country. News flash. If you say that you are wealthy/powerful and "politically liberal", but don't support policies that would give away that wealth or power to those with less of it in society, then you are not "politically liberal", you are conservative. I don't…

>I want to house the homeless. The Dutch can do it, but somehow in the discourse here, it's "impossible"

I mean the Dutch don't do that. Homelessness in the Netherlands has been rising for years and is higher per capita than the US. It's also one of those "very hard" problems - SF spent something like 300 million a year to try and house 8,000 homeless people and failed at it.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#370

Post by emkemp » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #347

pmyteh wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, you have the same three choices you have in any other situation where you don't like what's going on: loyalty, voice, or exit. In the first, you decide to accept the general will in order to maintain your individual credit, hoping that by cooperating on this occasion you encourage people to encourage with you later. Alternatively, you can protest the decision, hoping in doing so to encourage your fellow t…

Look. It is a very simple question. The township has a 1 promile property tax. I never pay it and refuse to leave my property. What happens next? You guys wrote 5 walls of text just dodging the easiest question on Earth.

Well, for starters, you may lose important local services.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39516346