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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?

#691

Post by treis »

realo wrote: post #558
anovikov wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure where "houses got expensive" come from. Houses certainly did not increase in price (per unit of area) in last ~80 years, inflation adjusted - they tightly fluctuate around the same point. Housing affordability is in fact 4th best in the US among all countries in the world, and it got better in the last decades (although with fluctuations, and periods when it was getting cheaper were not pleasant as…

Interesting. This posture contradicts quite a few testimonials we can read about everywhere, including here in HN. Maybe it's the salaries, then, that are half what they should be?

It's very true for LA, SF, NYC, DC, and other similar cities. It's far less true everywhere else. Here in Atlanta you can find homes <250k and condos <150k

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

#692

Post by hunterpayne »

joe_mamba wrote: post #374
nephihaha wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do. I don't live in the USA and things are worse since lockdown. Don't believe the propaganda that Nordic people are happiest. I reckon it's probably one of the Pacific islands.

>You do. I don't live in the USA and things are worse since lockdown. Yep, this. It's been worse everywhere since then. I didn't know how much I'd be missing the days of 2014-2018 right about now. If only I knew how good we had it. >Don't believe the propaganda that Nordic people are happiest. When you have the highest rates of suicides, coffee, alcohol and antidepressant usage, you're only left with the happy people…

Those happiness studies are more about cultural norms of communication and how questions about emotions translate into various local languages. They have little to do with happiness itself and say more about how cultures shape languages.

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

#693

Post by adamwk »

hunterpayne wrote: post #673
pepperoni_pizza wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN comments are sadly mostly just people pushing their favorite thing, whether COVID denialism, "everything is going bad because people are atheists" or whatever, without engaging with the article at all.

[flagged]

Where do you see the word ‘Evil?’ I don’t see the word in the title or anywhere in the article itself.

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

#694

Post by james_marks »

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…

At almost 50, I feel like there has been a cultural shift since I was a kid.

It isn’t enough to be middle class, to have the proverbial white picket fence. The reach now is for glamor and wealth, which is by definition out of reach for the majority.

If that’s the ideal you compare your own life to, you will be unhappy. And the debt, etc you take on to mimic it will make you even more unhappy.

The shift was already happening pre-internet, but social media took it to the next level.

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

#695

Post by monideas »

lpcvoid wrote: post #199
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.…

Religion has nice side effects (community), but vast downsides (non-scientific worldview, brainwashing). I think you can get the community feeling also by simply meeting with people you know, in hackerspaces for instance.

> non-scientific worldview

Existence itself is beyond science and this is trivial to prove. Everyone with an above room temperature IQ can understand Aristotle's Prime Mover argument.

Note that this concept (which again, is at least as old as Aristotle) has nothing to do with religion.

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

#696

Post by jerlam »

slaw wrote: post #531
ryandrake wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of those cities, though, there really wasn't a "lockdown." Nobody was forced to stay in their homes. People treated it as optional and were out and about despite the utterly unenforced "stay at home". Around me, it had a minor impact on traffic, but no noticeable impact on stores, restaurants, and socialization.

National and state parks were closed. Flights cancelled. There was not much to do outside.

There were a lot more people outside during lockdown. There were running and cycling booms.

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

#697

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #473
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…

The fully remote teams that I have been a part of all started a tradition of leaving a persistent ${VIDEOCONFERENCE} running that we can just hang out in. It isn't perfect, but is enough to retain the sense of community and support from an office.

I'd love to see a dedicated tool that does "virtual office hangouts" well, where you can spin up rooms, share screens/files/text, easily drop in and out, and see where people are. There are a few out there that come close, but I haven't seen any that let you browse to see various groups/individuals to match walking the halls.

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

#698

Post by bonyt »

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

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

#700

Post by tharkun__ »

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #697
redleggedfrog wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The fully remote teams that I have been a part of all started a tradition of leaving a persistent ${VIDEOCONFERENCE} running that we can just hang out in. It isn't perfect, but is enough to retain the sense of community and support from an office. I'd love to see a dedicated tool that does "virtual office hangouts" well, where you can spin up rooms, share screens/files/text, easily drop in and out, and see where peop…

Meh. YMMV as always.

We tried that on the team when Covid hit and we all went remote. Lasted like a week and we were sick of it. Never reintroduced.

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