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

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

#881

Post by lawlorino »

tharkun__ wrote: post #702
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me. I'm not anti-social by any means, and I like people, but constant chatter around me drives me nuts. So I put my headphones on and now I'm unapproachable. It's tough.

This. And on top of that, headphones at office suck, at least for me. They don't drown out enough even with large, well insulated cups. So you add noise cancelling. Which drowns out more but not everything. In fact it keeps some very annoying stuff around that is suddenly actually audible VS being drowned out without the headphones. And having noise cancelling on for 8 hours straight for days in a row actually create…

> The next idea is music to drown out what's left but that just distracts me too.

You could try using white noise, either an app or if you have a Mac or iPhone they have native white noise generation (Accessibility -> Hearing -> Background Sounds iirc)

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

#882

Post by tzs »

traderj0e wrote: post #664
mvdtnz wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if COVID revealed to Americans how toxic their individualistic culture is. For a long time it kind of seemed like individualism was working well for you but COVID was the first crisis since WW2 where the country was asked to pull in the same direction together and it really just fell apart. I'd be miderable too if I learned my entire worldview, and that of my countrymen, was dangerously wrong and there's no…

But individualism turned out to be ok in that case. By the time vaccines were out, it had already mutated enough that it didn't make much of a difference whether or not people vaccinated, and most people ended up getting some variant of it. The bickering stopped, and US ended lockdowns around the same time as other countries. If we were less lucky and it turned out to be super deadly and only solvable with more coope…

> By the time vaccines were out, it had already mutated enough that it didn't make much of a difference whether or not people vaccinated, and most people ended up getting some variant of it.

Vaccines made a huge difference in whether or not when you ended up getting it you got a severe case with a significantly higher risk of hospitalization or death or got a case that was just in the mild to really annoying range.

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

#883

Post by satvikpendem »

davesque wrote: post #411
cvoss wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has an enormous land area and the cost of living varies dramatically across it. Intense pockets develop where the high paying jobs are, and everyone wants to cram in there to compete for those jobs, and then they're competing for the housing there, so the prices skyrocket, so the jobs have to pay higher still. Wealthy as the average person may be, the poverty slope is very steep in such places. The SF / Bay Ar…

Then why did houses used to be affordable even in those dense regions with high paying jobs? People act as though housing has always been prohibitively expensive in city centers but it hasn't. My dad bought a house in Boulder, CO of all places easily in the 90s. And of course he made a killing off of it because the housing market went completely insane over the next two decades. I now make more money than he ever did…

Zoning laws is why. No one wants new development because it could devalue their own house.

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

#884

Post by WalterBright »

dingaling wrote: post #871
WalterBright wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an amazing story. There are several biographies of Musk which go into a lot of detail how he did it. None of his wealth was transferred to him.

> None of his wealth was transferred to him. Mr Musk's move to the USA was funded by his father, and his first company was started with a loan from his father. The advantages of the family running an undocumented emerald mine in Zambia. Not 'inherited wealth' I concede, but still not something available to Average Joe.

[flagged]

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

#885

Post by kubanczyk »

monideas wrote: post #695
lpcvoid wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> this is trivial to prove

Please don't forget to state the axioms before building the proof.

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

#886

Post by intended »

trhway wrote: post #657
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, yes. My 24 year old coworker makes $65k/year and has a $2200/mo mortgage. It's an old starter home in the Midwest, nothing fancy. It stresses him out to the point of not going to a happy hour once in a while unless there's a buy one get one deal or something or I offer to buy (which I do happily). No vacations, no eating out, no fun. It's super sad to see. He talks about being in his prime but…

fast-forward 15-20 years. He has most probably paid out his mortgage (salary growth/inflation, etc. so most people i know paid their mortgages in about 15 years, and some by that time got second or even 3rd property - the observations are over the last 30 years here, included are only salaried employees and excluded are the ones who made "exits" which is completely different game level). Even if he is still paying hi…

If we are talking hypotheticals, then why not just assume he wins a lottery? That’s Easier than assuming they can venture into startup land?

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

#888

Post by camgunz »

Aurornis wrote: post #618
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…

> 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? Gen Z home ownership is outpacing millenial home ownership at the same age. There's a lot of denial around this topic because everywhere you turn there's a Reddit post or news headline about how housing is impossible to afford. > Pay's less. Less than the narrow window of…

> Gen Z home ownership is outpacing millenial home ownership at the same age. There's a lot of denial around this topic because everywhere you turn there's a Reddit post or news headline about how housing is impossible to afford.

It's more the case that Gen Z is giving up on having the homes that Millennials want in the places they want them. They're buying fixer uppers, moving into 3rd/4th tier cities, etc. They also have some benefits millennials didn't have: inheritances and way less student loan debt.

You can look at this in a number of ways, but it's clear we didn't solve the problem of "so you want to live in NYC/LA/Chicago/SF/Seattle".

https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/how-gen-z-...

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

#889

Post by Zizizizz »

xyzelement wrote: post #295
majorchord wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion is a symptom of irrational belief and groundless hope.

Which is seemingly the superior strategy for happiness and survival.

Yeah tell that to all the people who avoided the bare minimum of advice during COVID for their own beliefs and subsequently died.

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

#890

Post by imtringued »

tharkun__ wrote: post #702
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me. I'm not anti-social by any means, and I like people, but constant chatter around me drives me nuts. So I put my headphones on and now I'm unapproachable. It's tough.

This. And on top of that, headphones at office suck, at least for me. They don't drown out enough even with large, well insulated cups. So you add noise cancelling. Which drowns out more but not everything. In fact it keeps some very annoying stuff around that is suddenly actually audible VS being drowned out without the headphones. And having noise cancelling on for 8 hours straight for days in a row actually create…

Wearing over the ear headphones all day can contribute to cranial pressure, tiring out your jaw muscles and strain your temporomandibular joint.

It can also encourage ear infections and clogging of the eustachian tubes, because covering or plugging your ears slows down the self cleaning process.

At first you won't notice, but after a decade, these problems will slowly creep up on you and fixing them is very expensive, because you're basically slowly deforming your bones.

I personally wouldn't let kids/teenagers use headphones that apply any amount of noticeable pressure.

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