We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

If you look up data, you will see my observations matched by readily-available data, other than the claim about fast food prices. Fast food prices have still risen much faster than inflation, but 5x is only true if you examine the cheaper menu items and becomes more obvious when you pay attention to menu item replacements and changes.

On the other hand, your claim that prices have risen 20-30% since 14-18 years ago doesn't even hold up to BLS inflation numbers. Try 46-59%.

edit: I'm also wrong about rice. Rice commodity prices are the same as 2015, retail price is up 15%. I will say that if you don't shop at the right places, though, you're now getting gouged on the rice.

The activists should be blamed for causing disruption at the local level for a problem that can only be solved at the federal level.

There isn’t a thing Seattle can do to fix drug addiction/mental health/housing costs (it will remain a high priced local for the foreseeable future). So why should the people of Seattle fall on their sword because the rest of the country won’t get their act together?

In fact, the rest of the country loved that activists in certain cities take on the brunt of the problem, as it lowers their costs.

> Who cares what the federal minimum wage is if anyone who walks in to get a job at McDonald's can make twice as much?

You need to read more carefully and make less assumptions. My state has no minimum wage. We never gave up slavery, instead becoming a prison state with more prisoners per capita than any single country in the world. We only have an effective minimum wage because of the federal minimum wage. You walk into McDonald's here without experience and you're getting paid $7.25. McDonald's does not do twice that much here.

> The entire point I was making, and the which you are trying to deny by your argument (you may have quoted some factual info, but you're putting it together to make a specific argument to back up your opinion), is that it's actually not that hard to go out and entertain yourself, in person, with friends, for cheap or free.

I'm aware you'd like to make that point, and while focusing on this is moving goalposts/ceding parts of your argument, it's still entirely ignoring everything I explained to you.

I barely drink, and my girlfriend and I do all sorts of things that are cheap or free in addition to things that aren't. But that is not the culture in my state. The entire state suffers from alcoholism, and traditional third spaces are harder and harder to come by. The average person simply does not do anything other than go out and drink and eat. Ask anyone who lives here. It's a seriously depressing state of affairs and for most people, there is not another solution waiting. It's self-reinforcing; I just made plans to catch up with an old high school buddy and the only way I'm going to be able to do that is by meeting him somewhere for some drinks and going to see a movie. And all of his friends are the same, and once most of your friends are at the bar, why wouldn't you be? Almost all of us have been bartenders at one point or another. One of my friends even bought a bar in order to provide a third space to our community (we come from a small town and we all know each other).

My girlfriend and I wanted to go swimming two weekends ago. We tried going to the local community center's swimming pool, but it's now closed indefinitely because some black kids broke in just to swim, but one of them had a weapon on them, presumably for protection (my city floats around the top 5 highest homicide rates in the US[0]) and so the racist community center operators took it as an excuse to close the pool indefinitely and temporarily shut down another of the very few third spaces we have.

Instead, my girlfriend and I had to rent a hotel room just to use their pool for the evening.

The bottom line is you are not from here, you have no idea what it's like living in Louisiana, and you frankly have no idea what you are talking about. Instead, you should listen to what I'm trying to explain to you about an extremely dire, worsening situation that is continuing to erode whatever sense of community we have left here. And it's no accident, this is engineered by an owner class interested in squeezing every last nickel and drop of blood out of our citizenry.

The wealth gap here is just frightening, we're running out of places to go, and the average social pipeline for inner-city youth here typically involves committing crimes and putting yourself in danger. Especially when there are purposefully designed prison funnels intended to bring in profit for the private prison industry and businesses that exploit cheap inmate labor instead of providing those jobs to free citizens.

Consider yourself blessed and privileged to not understand what it's like here.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/murder-ra...

This ignores many things. Legal requirements have pushed up home and lot sizes. In the suburbs of NYC a drive will take you from 1910 era suburbs with 800 square foot homes where 80% of the lot is building or useful infrastructure that are now illegal to build, to just built 4000 square foot mansions on lots large enough for apartment buildings with a mandated 20-30% lot coverage maximum. You are also ignoring the fact that even with modern power appliances and automation it takes a lot of time money and people to maintain those new lager homes.

Fear. People are afraid of rejection, because some experiences are bad. But some experiences being bad doesn’t make all (or even most) experiences bad.

It’s the definition of having to “get back on the horse” after falling.