13 ms·

Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

194 points by randomname2 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mrmffh 10y ago
I'd argue this is a positive trend. Hopefully it leads to more innovation in governance.
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
  And has it been positive in practice so far?
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  I see it as the perfect storm, trust collapse is causing apathy, not desire to reform. when they say government is migrating toward a gerontocracy is not just because politician are from the older classes, but also because younger participate less in the democratic debate, whether in the first line or by voting. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Uk_general_election_2005_by_age.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Uk_general_el... https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/25/1348584518824/Voter-registration-by-age-008.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=86ceb3e78c1dbe61afe66b08d8756f0f https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pict...
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    We didn't have apathy in the recent UK referendum, voter turnout was very high.
    - Sacho 10y ago
      Voter turnout among the young was half compared to voter turnout by the elderly, I think, so that would reinforce parent's point. Here's a FT article with a graph* of voter turnout by age - https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473496f https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473... - it seems like, besides one particular anomaly, voter turnout among young people has been steadily declining and Brexit was a continuation of that trend. * the graph in question - https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ft.com%2Fftdata%2Ffiles%2F2016%2F07%2FScreen-Shot-2016-07-01-at-02.39.41.png?source=next&fit=scale-down&width=600 https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2F...
    - rinze 10y ago
      If I understand correctly, there was a significant gap between the turnout rate for the young people and the turnout rate for the elderly. https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473496f https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473...
      - JBReefer 10y ago
        So? Are young people inherently more valuable or more correct?
        LoSboccacc 10y ago
        no, but are underrepresented because the mistrust trend seems to hit them harder and in a bad way. also, while I'd argue older people have more world experience, they are also disconnected from society advancements (which is a struggle as old as dirt) and I'd say a healthy society needs not just voting to act as an average between the groups but a dialogue where input from both sides are taken for advancement. to be honest I'm in the apathy group myself, not because I mistrust politician but because I mistrust a system that promotes a dichotomy between winners and losers on interest groups instead of leveraging both sides needs and wants synergically
        ionised 10y ago
        No, but they have a lot more riding on the future of their country than pensioners do.
- collyw 10y ago
  All I see is more draconian measures put in place to keep the status quo (i.e. keeping the rich rich). Nothing positive in that.
- mtreis86 10y ago
  I agree. I find groups of people scary. Not in the anxiety manner. I mean that I don't know of a single instance of a person doing massive damage to anyone or any thing, when compared to damage by groups or by people with group backing. All the worst atrocities of the past few centuries were carried out by groups of people. The US constitution is supposed to protect individuals from groups, but that seems to have been (mostly) subverted in the name of preserving our institutions (banking).
  - marklgr 10y ago
    But humans mostly want to be part of some group, and that's the problem with the current trend of ultra-individualism: people will be much easier to influence by dangerous groups that fill their need for belonging. If there were a stronger sense of community in the first place, instead of the strong emphasis on the autonomous, self-sufficient and competing individual, one could wonder if radical religious or ultranationist groups would be as significant.
    - mtreis86 10y ago
      I agree with the hierarchy generally followed by emergency management systems - protect yourself first and your family, then your neighborhood, then if they are all safe help the wider community.
- m-i-l 10y ago
  Like there was plenty of "political innovation", especially in Europe, after the Great Depression in the 1930s? I'd argue that didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time its different.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
    You can hope, but does Trump and brexit look different? And if so, does it look better?
    - m-i-l 10y ago
      I think that was the point of the original article - the mistrust of "authority" following the financial crisis is leading to irrational behaviour such as blind faith in charismatic leaders (who are typically reactionary rather than progressive). Based on historical precedents (e.g. the swing to political extremes following the Great Depression) I don't think this is "positive trend" for a brighter better future, but I hope I'm wrong.
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      Yes, very. Brexit was a decision about a policy, Trump is a decision about a man. The key personalities of Brexit are now all gone. What remains is the policy.
      - m-i-l 10y ago
        Brexit should have been a decision about policy, but appears not to have been - that is one of the points of the article. The EU appears to have been too complex a subject for many voters to fully understand, and there was allegedly widespread distrust of the "experts", leading to large numbers basing their decision on emotional responses instead, such as "I don't trust the experts so I'm going to do the opposite of what they recommend" and "I like this bloke who talks about listening to the 'little people' and 'taking back control'". I know there are some people who voted Leave for well-thought-out reasons, and that I can respect, because it is rational. But most analysis suggests the majority who voted Leave did not do so for rational reasons. In which case it is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And it is not as though this was a local or a general election - this has made England and Wales look very bad on the world stage, and is something we're all going to have to live with for a very long time.
dschiptsov 10y ago
Why should people trust any government in the first place? Governments nowadays came to replace institutions of organized religions as the way to gain a high social status and security, and hence became as bloated, inefficient and corrupted as old, unreformed churches of the past. No sane people would 'trust' such social formations which sole purpose is self preservation and parasitic growth.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  I think you need to look at "Churches of the past" a little harder. Churches had their time and while we haven't managed to get rid of them yet, we are a lot better of with a separation between them and the state.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tremon 10y ago
    But we replaced it with the Church Of Capitalism, which has its own sets of dogma. Maybe we need a separation of finance and state?
  - dschiptsov 10y ago
    The idea of "service to common men" goes back to antiquity. Mahayana Buddhists modeled their bodhisattvas after Brahmana priests in order to justify why peasants must pay taxes to monasteries, or why a monastery owns all the land. Catholic Church is famous for its middleman's role between men and god, where one could buy release from one's own sins. Actually, all organised religions degrade to this or that form of bargain with help of authorized servants of the common folk. Governments just have reused this thousands years old meme that they are necessary public servants, that without them whole world would collapse the very next day they stopped performing their rituals. We are not even speaking here about primitive authoritarian governments which have nothing but self-preservation and continuous increase of power and wealth in their agenda.
  - rmsaksida 10y ago
keithpeter 10y ago
>> Edelman said that people tend to trust businesses more than governments, in part because “business gets stuff done” while government is seen as “incapable.” People trust technology companies in particular because “they deliver value.” << UK Brexit vote: most (not all) business leaders were advising a remain vote. Apart from the 'immigration' trigger, the 'take back control' trigger does come up in my conversations with those who voted leave. The Labour party spokesbeing on the radio this morning was developing a vaguely anti-globalist line about spreading the fruits of recovery more evenly and defending social spending. We shall see.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. The race to the bottom started with Ireland, suggestions are to cut the tax to 15% in the rest of the UK, with some voices pushing for 10% or even 5% corporate tax. Of course this has nothing to do with using the opportunity created by the brexit power vacuum to reward some special interests.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    > The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. < The same taxes that the larger corporates avoid in the first place? This seems a flawed plan.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      It's just some nice pork for the friends of those that made this decision, other than that I don't think it has even a remote chance of working. Businesses favor stability over almost everything else and the way the UK has been going in the last couple of weeks the degree of uncertainty is so large that they'd have to set the rate at a negative percentage to attract new business. Nobody in their right mind is looking to move their currently successful business to the UK unless it is a business that can be moved out at a moments notice.
retrogradeorbit 10y ago
In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalist. Capitalism operates quite well in a fair and open market with a strong rule of law. But Neoliberalism is not this. Neoliberalism is destroying public institutions and utilities through financial plunder and then selling the organisation whole-sale and off market at bargain basement prices to the corrupt politician's corrupt mate in the private sector who then goes and cuts services, jacks prices, and gouges the captive public with their new found monopoly, then back channels the money through the lobbyists to the political party that enabled it, and calls it progress... and then the people cheer that the institution is 'profitable' again) [Edit: sorry. this rant is a little off topic...]
- tajen 10y ago
  Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fascists. A hard-core split was bound to happen as long as liberals/socialists didn't want to hear about immigration quantity. And it may happen again in France, as long as lefties don't discuss about problems we have.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > lefties Ah, one of those comments. Most of the EU countries where immigration is currently an issue have had 'right wing' parties leading them for a very long time. Immigration is just the easiest populist button to press to get a large number of people to vote against their own interests. One of the problems underlying all this is not immigration per-se, but the rapid and unbounded expansion of the EU to include countries with a huge range of incomes and costs-of-life. Add to that the ability and willingness of people to leave behind their old lives and/or families in order to go abroad to make some money and you have an instantaneous problem. But the powers that be have it right: in the longer term the only way the EU can work is by giving everybody the right to relocate to wherever they want. That way at some point it all levels out again. Try to imagine a USA where someone from Texas would not be able to move to LA or NYC or the other way around. Border controls against movement on every state-border. If you find that hard to imagine try to come up with a really good argument why it should be any different within the EU. Finally, there are people that wish to migrate to the EU from regions outside of it. The EU made a strategic mistake here, which is that they have been partially (together with the US) responsible for the destabilization of the region just outside of it. That this could lead to a huge influx of refugees was a risk they took knowingly, and that I feel it is only responsible to deal with. It would be nice if the countries that are not walking distance from those regions or that are protected by a body of water that is not easily navigable would take their responsibilities in this as well.
danieltillett 10y ago
This just the masses realising that they have been decapitated. In all western countries the intelligent are identified at a young age and brought into the ruling class via education. There is no one left to speak for the interests of the bottom 90% nor formulate a plan to change the status quo. Faced with this it is not surprising that the masses get restless and thrash out at any symbol of authority no matter the consequences to themselves.
- pilsetnieks 10y ago
  So you're saying that the masses are dumb, and the ruling elites are smart?
  - DavidHm 10y ago
    I think that is what he is saying. Though he is saying that the ruling elites are ruling because they are smart, and not that the ruling elites are smart because they are ruling.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      Exactly. If you left the ruling elite to breed amoungst themselves you would end up with something like the Russian nobility - idiotic and doomed.
    - Noseshine 10y ago
      It's a circular definition though - it's not falsifiable, because if they are in power they must be smart, defining smart as "ability to get into power", if they can't get power evidently they are not smart enough... Not very useful, except if you enjoy making "winning" arguments that you can't lose.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Yes. They know they have been conned, but they don't know how to fight the elites. They are strong, but leaderless and so are left with only the Sampson option.
  - 10y ago
jacquesm 10y ago
If with 'around the world' they intend to mean 'The USA and the UK' then I'm all in agreement. But the rest of the world is not that much different from 12 months ago. The article sugggests strongly that these other countries had a completely different view of their governments in the recent past but I see very little evidence of that. But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) there definitely is a populist shift in progress. The French, the Italians, the Russians and even the Dutch have had a substantial trust issue with their governments as long as I've been alive, I don't know enough about the local politics of a lot of the other countries listed there but I suspect that given the fact that none of the ones that I am familiar with would warrant the label 'collapse' that it is not as alarmist as the title would have you believe. What is happening is that there is a slow but steady push towards more nationalist representation in the various parliaments and this is a source for concern. And this is all not to say that a Trump presidency and an exit of the UK from the EU can't/won't do plenty of damage, but with some luck they will cause some real political reform in those two countries. It's either that or a very good chance of serious economic upheaval.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  > But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) > there definitely is a populist shift in progress. In Germany too, at least partially: The right-wing and very new "AfD", a relative newcomer, now has almost 1/10th of the votes (depending when you take the poll, results fluctuate).
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    Out of EU immigration (intra -EU too, but it is a bit subdued) is of great concern to great many people. Since the AfD is the only German party willing to listen about said concerns - you can safely assume they will become more popular.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      That's not even true. Not a single German party has been pro out-EU immigration. Not a single one. In fact, the current government even made it harder for asylum seekers to stay, or bring their family, and expects to deport the majority of them in less than 3 years. Please read the official parliamentary protocols, and not the very wrong spin the media put on it.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> A “person like me” is now viewed as twice as credible as a government leader I wonder what this statistic looks like over time in China and India.
arca_vorago 10y ago
Ok, First of all, I feel like "around the world" is stretching it a bit much for the purposes of the article. Secondly, I don't think you can explain the core reasons for this without talking about a specific country, because despite the similarities of even, say, the US and the U.K., the underlying causalities are much different. Thirdly, it is ominous when the author talks about the media consuming educated group, because the main thing being ignored in that front is the fact that operation mockingbird never went away and (the US at least) has turned propaganda into an invasive art. People are dangerous when they are easily propagandized, but especially moreso when they don't even realize it. Of course that's why in politics the 50-80 year olds are the primary target. Because they vote and they consume the bullshit off $TVStation with little incredulity. This is also why the Internet is under increasing threat from the supranational oligarchy, because the anarchistic freedom of thought it encourages is dangerous to them. I could tell you about where this trend is going, but that would involve conspiracy theory and nasty confrontation of facts that most people don't want to do to be honest. As for why "the people" are trusting "the government" less, I think while much of it is the natural reaction to a government with corruption run amok, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the increased distrust for government is a deliberate play by the supranational oligarchy vying to undermine the only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck, and that's government. The other main factor is the lack of the rule of law. I think the lack of it has always been there, with varying degrees by subject of course, but now people find out about the true extent of the corruption and lack of rule of law via the Internet and I think it's breeding revolutionary attitudes. When everyone sees stuff like bankers do obviously illegal, immoral, and amoral stuff, then get paid for it, and then get no legal repercussions, the rest of us are slowly gonna start saying "fuck it", and abandoning faith in institutions.
- marknutter 10y ago
  Who bailed out the bankers? Oh, that's right – the institution you describe as the "only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck". I'm not surprised your prediction involves a conspiracy theory.
  - arca_vorago 10y ago
anoplus 10y ago
To get trust you need transparency. And by transparency I don't access to information but to information in the form of knowledge. We to to upgrade government to the digital age to do so.
edraferi 10y ago
The book It's Even Worse Than It Looks is a great resource for understanding this phenomenon in the United States. The authors are longtime congressional staffers who are horrified at the institution's decline. They argue that the US Congress really isn't working well, degrading the performance of the entire US government, and the primary cause of this dysfunction is a deliberate campaign by the Republican party, starting with Newt Gingrich in the mid 1990s. I remember learning about the Contract With America is school, but I had no idea it was so insidious. The GOP intentionally broke congress to get people angry about crappy government, under the theory that they, as the party of small government, they would make relative gains. This has now baked for 20 years, and has been pretty effective. This is why you see Republicans stonewalling things they should logically support, like nominees they explicitly praise as qualified, Obamacare's extensive market mechanics, etc. It's also why Congress can't pass laws even when thr majority of the population supports them, and real crises like the Debt Ceiling debacle. Institutions are critically important. We have to fix this before we can fix anything else.
paradite 10y ago
I understand the point that the author is trying to make, but "around the world" seems to be an overstatement. More like around the America and Europe. In countries like Russia or China, trust of government is the very basis of governance. The country would collapse rather fast if a sizeable portion of people stop trusting the government.
tim333 10y ago
Most people don't know what's going on in government and judge things by how life is around them. Unfortunately that's been bad in many places due mostly to deflation of a type not much seem since the 1930s IMHO. This then gets blamed on the politicians, immigrants and the like as most people couldn't even tell you what "insufficient aggregate demand" means.
- marknutter 10y ago
  Y'know, it also gets blamed on the rich and corporations which is just as populist.
2suave 10y ago
Seeing how the general populous deemed George Bush a "trustworthy" president I'm really starting to worry about the judgement of the common man.
yAnonymous 10y ago
I don't think there was ever much trust in (western) governments. People only put up with the politicians' crap, because they were well off. Bread and circuses is now over in many places, at least compared to the recent past, and people are facing the reality of the political fuckups of he last few decades.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  But the graph in the article shows otherwise.
known 10y ago
Before elections, Govt is promoting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud And after elections, Govt is colluding with http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindia
known 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida
neximo64 10y ago
I think the assessments given by many people are a bit silly. You can't be a bigot or a facist in voting for Brexit. It's absolutely ridiculous people overlook the basic issues at play such as Ireland having to charge for water or basically allowing an entire group to set up laws and have very little say in the process (Its an EU wide law and there's basically no say about it). I think years from now once the enchantment of free movement is over people will realise the beast (Thte EU) that it is.
digi_owl 10y ago
Sorry, i need to brain dump something. A: the free travel of workers within EU was basically there since the early coal and steel agreement. B: said workers still needed to present passports etc when crossing borders. C: the Schengen agreement removes the passport requirement (UK is not a signatory to it though). D: EU expands eastwards, leading to an influx of workers that can underbid locals. E: refugee crisis ends up being the straw that breaks the camels back.
- peterclary 10y ago
  Regarding "D: EU expands eastwards", my understanding is that this was largely driven by the then British Conservative Government as a ploy to prevent further integration between EU countries. "Wider, not deeper" was the theory. So the free movement of Eastern Europeans into the UK was due in large part to the Tories.
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    It was done under New Labour, and it was Blair/Brown who chose not to activate transitional controls. So not the Conservatives. However I'm sure they'd have done the same thing if they had been in power at the time. Resentment about EU immigration followed the entry of eastern European states into the EU (with the UK being one of the only countries to allow their populations in from the start).
speeder 10y ago
I read all comments on HN so far here. No mention to the huge shift in South America. Also I am from Brazil. First, what I mean by huge shift: During cold war, us backed, violently (for example by threatening to bomb rio de janeiro with and aircraft carrier if the then elected president resisted the coup, and later with cia "disappearing" dissidents, and actually bombing other countries) a couple of brutal dictatorships. When cold war ended and people wanted change, left wing parties, some that were guerrilla during the cold war and also had lots of blood on their hands (and they fought for communist victory, not for freedom as people like to believe) decided to use the opportunity to take power themselves and join the establishment. The left created an organization named foro de São Paulo, and steadily won elections (not necessarily fairly...) and managed to take over almost every single country in South America. Then, they implemented policies that remember us democratic party policies, not truly left or communist, but a big state, with socialist and neoliberal policies, lots of crony capitalism, with money flowing freely between big corporations and politicians. Now they are all falling, but we are not sure who will take their place, Argentina had Maurício Macri victory, Brazil is seeing a rising popularity of Jair Bolsonaro (kinda like a brazilian Trump, except he explicitly defended the cold war dictatorship, militarism and torture), other countries are also unstable or trying to open without losing power (Cuba for example... that is one of the foro de São Paulo founding members) I wrote all this to say that those dismissing the headline because it is only about us and uk are wrong. ------------- Now about the subject. I am someone that grew up with a leftward education, but shifted to a reactionary/regressive right wing view in my adulthood. I will write some points as for why, and I am sure a couple of them will fit for most Trump/brexit/Bolsonaro/golden dawn/that rising Japanese nationalist party voters. Where I started: my dream as a kid was have a completely normal life, wife, kids, "salaryman" job. My political position was that "capitalists" (what now I know are cronism) were hurting people, and that everyone having equal rights and opportunity is great. 1. Women didn't get the right to work, they already had that right, during industrial revolution they were the main workforce... 2. Women instead lost the right to be mothers, they were obliged to work, obliged to compete with men, wanting to be mother, have low status but easier job, or not wanting to earn like men and work like men became a bad thing, enemy of "the cause". 3. Workforce suddenly doubled. And when corporations noticed. 4. In a world with rising automation, sudden workforce doubling is bad idea. 5. Look at the average income of the average person (not family) in us since feminism rise in the 60s. You will see wages are declining. 6. Look for white men in their 35s wage and full employment in us, compare it to counties that had major votes toward Trump. 7. Divorce laws became very strong, including allowing divorce for no reason at all. Most divorces, in the entire world, are initiated by women, here in Brazil women initiate 73% of divorces, most of them with no justification. 8. Look into divorce statistics, amount of divorces. 9. Why a sane man now would marry? you go, marry, and get no rights, only obligations and the risk of a divorce fucking up your life. 10. Divorce is a major cause os suicide among men. Look into us statistics for death rate of white men middle aged over time. Again compare with Trump voter map. 11. Women now don't need men, they are more educated, more employed, die much less on workplace, die less by suicide, die less by violence. sadly women also love to point all that to their boyfriends too. 12. So, you want a career, the fad now is science, computers and engineering, you plan in working until you are "stable" enough to take care of potential kids in a potential divorce. why do you need me then? and who want kids of a "old" woman where the pregnancy is riskier and kids have more "birth defects"? 13. Still women want to fuck, drink, play and get wasted much as men. Awesome, no need to get married to get sex anymore! 14. Women is now pregnant of a random stranger. She said it is "her body", also, pension laws are very unfair... let "her body" then abort or not and care for the kid. 15. Look for how many fatherless kids there are in western world. 16. Look for what percentage of people in prison are fatherless (from both single, and divorced mothers with full custody). 17. So, I am stupid, decided to get educated even if it is pointless because the generation that then were adults told me to do so. Now I have thousands of debt, never got a salaried legal job, don't have a house, pay rent through the nose, don't have a car either. 18. Oh, ecenomy crisis hit! House prices fall but are still unaffordable and I still have too much debt and no credit. rent is still rising despite housing price falling. My landlord owns the entire building and more half of the other buildings in the block and in a couple more city blocks. he kicks me out anyway when my startuo fails. 19. Adult, near my 30s, in debt, still never found my first salaried job. Didn't found yet a girl that wants to be mom or that doesn't mind a bearded dude that live with his mom. 20. Decide to explain how life is going bad, people tell me I have white privilege becauset I am half-white. Being partially white is seemly enough to "owe my soul" to black people, according to a USP student. 21. Being partially white also means my house is fair game for blacks to invade and steal 8 times. 22. Can't complain, I am "privileged". 23. Complain anyway, now I am privileged due to being male/straight/young 24. Decide to discuss politics, get kicked out/banned/driven off before I voice my opinion just because I have white looking skin (nevermind the black person nose on the middle of my face) or for being male. 25. Get embraced by /pol/, trumpists, bolsonarists, men rights, etc... 26. Organizations there full of bigoted batshit crazy racists and gymnophones (people that fear women, usually guys that were mocked for being raped, scammed or had their lives destroyed by women). But they are the only ones willing to discuss my problems. 27. All I wanted was job, wife, kids and normal life. There are no jobs, women don't want to marry and when they do they divorce, and take your kids with them. And doesn't matter where I go, people hate me because I am white straight male. Except when I go near neo Nazi/pol/trumpists/bolsonarists, they like me, even if I am half black. They are actually tolerant...
sbmassey 10y ago
Honestly I think we are just finally seeing the effect of the fall of mass media - there is no real replacement for the traditional establishment newspapers with enough gravitas to give anyone confidence in our institutions - even the media currently considered quality is mostly whining, hysteria and buzzfeed adverts.
sievebrain 10y ago
"Lefties" isn't really an insult any more than "neoliberals" is. It's just a description of a political position. What you're doing here though, is classical left-ism: taking an innocuous statement and claiming it's terribly offensive in order to distract from his/her point.
- dang 10y ago
  "Lefties" is name calling. If one didn't mean it that way one would at a minimum say "leftists" or "the left"—assuming a native English speaker, which may not have been the case above. Your comment turned this into an ideological swipe in its own right. Please don't do that here. If we're to have civil, substantive discourse across political differences, people need to respect each others' views. That may be too much to hope for, but we can at least eschew derision. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030641 and marked it off-topic.
- ionised 10y ago
  'Lefty' is just dismissing someone's viewpoint as invalid because it differes from your own. It's a way to argue without actually saying anything of value. 'Neoliberal' on the other hand is a term with quite well-defined definitions.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I've seen that Brexit tweet about the Yougov poll on distrust before. The context it misses, is that this poll was taken in the middle of the campaign, when people already knew that these groups disagreed with them. There's no consistent way to say "I trust economists/Obama in regard to Brexit, but I also know that economists/Obama think that Brexit is a bad idea, and I think Brexit is a good idea." The easiest thing to give way in that narrow situation is trust but does that generalize? I have my own opinions about what's driving Trump and Brexit, but I'm wary of people forcing their preconceived notions onto this issue. For example, Nate Silver's 538 pointed out early on that Trump supporters are relatively rich. In the Brexit campaign, working-class Labour supporters who may be in the process of switching to UKIP are focussed on, yet the vast majority of Conservative voters, generally thought of as the party of the rich and selfish, and that has ruled the UK for most of the last 3 decades voted Brexit, and yet no-one wants to talk about that for some reason.

194 points by randomname2 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mrmffh 10y ago

I'd argue this is a positive trend. Hopefully it leads to more innovation in governance.

SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
And has it been positive in practice so far?
LoSboccacc 10y ago
I see it as the perfect storm, trust collapse is causing apathy, not desire to reform. when they say government is migrating toward a gerontocracy is not just because politician are from the older classes, but also because younger participate less in the democratic debate, whether in the first line or by voting. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Uk_general_election_2005_by_age.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Uk_general_el... https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/25/1348584518824/Voter-registration-by-age-008.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=86ceb3e78c1dbe61afe66b08d8756f0f https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pict...
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  We didn't have apathy in the recent UK referendum, voter turnout was very high.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Voter turnout among the young was half compared to voter turnout by the elderly, I think, so that would reinforce parent's point. Here's a FT article with a graph* of voter turnout by age - https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473496f https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473... - it seems like, besides one particular anomaly, voter turnout among young people has been steadily declining and Brexit was a continuation of that trend. * the graph in question - https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ft.com%2Fftdata%2Ffiles%2F2016%2F07%2FScreen-Shot-2016-07-01-at-02.39.41.png?source=next&fit=scale-down&width=600 https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2F...
  - rinze 10y ago
    If I understand correctly, there was a significant gap between the turnout rate for the young people and the turnout rate for the elderly. https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473496f https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473...
    - JBReefer 10y ago
      So? Are young people inherently more valuable or more correct?
      - LoSboccacc 10y ago
        no, but are underrepresented because the mistrust trend seems to hit them harder and in a bad way. also, while I'd argue older people have more world experience, they are also disconnected from society advancements (which is a struggle as old as dirt) and I'd say a healthy society needs not just voting to act as an average between the groups but a dialogue where input from both sides are taken for advancement. to be honest I'm in the apathy group myself, not because I mistrust politician but because I mistrust a system that promotes a dichotomy between winners and losers on interest groups instead of leveraging both sides needs and wants synergically
      - ionised 10y ago
        No, but they have a lot more riding on the future of their country than pensioners do.
collyw 10y ago
All I see is more draconian measures put in place to keep the status quo (i.e. keeping the rich rich). Nothing positive in that.
mtreis86 10y ago
I agree. I find groups of people scary. Not in the anxiety manner. I mean that I don't know of a single instance of a person doing massive damage to anyone or any thing, when compared to damage by groups or by people with group backing. All the worst atrocities of the past few centuries were carried out by groups of people. The US constitution is supposed to protect individuals from groups, but that seems to have been (mostly) subverted in the name of preserving our institutions (banking).
- marklgr 10y ago
  But humans mostly want to be part of some group, and that's the problem with the current trend of ultra-individualism: people will be much easier to influence by dangerous groups that fill their need for belonging. If there were a stronger sense of community in the first place, instead of the strong emphasis on the autonomous, self-sufficient and competing individual, one could wonder if radical religious or ultranationist groups would be as significant.
  - mtreis86 10y ago
    I agree with the hierarchy generally followed by emergency management systems - protect yourself first and your family, then your neighborhood, then if they are all safe help the wider community.
m-i-l 10y ago
Like there was plenty of "political innovation", especially in Europe, after the Great Depression in the 1930s? I'd argue that didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time its different.
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
  You can hope, but does Trump and brexit look different? And if so, does it look better?
  - m-i-l 10y ago
    I think that was the point of the original article - the mistrust of "authority" following the financial crisis is leading to irrational behaviour such as blind faith in charismatic leaders (who are typically reactionary rather than progressive). Based on historical precedents (e.g. the swing to political extremes following the Great Depression) I don't think this is "positive trend" for a brighter better future, but I hope I'm wrong.
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    Yes, very. Brexit was a decision about a policy, Trump is a decision about a man. The key personalities of Brexit are now all gone. What remains is the policy.
    - m-i-l 10y ago
      Brexit should have been a decision about policy, but appears not to have been - that is one of the points of the article. The EU appears to have been too complex a subject for many voters to fully understand, and there was allegedly widespread distrust of the "experts", leading to large numbers basing their decision on emotional responses instead, such as "I don't trust the experts so I'm going to do the opposite of what they recommend" and "I like this bloke who talks about listening to the 'little people' and 'taking back control'". I know there are some people who voted Leave for well-thought-out reasons, and that I can respect, because it is rational. But most analysis suggests the majority who voted Leave did not do so for rational reasons. In which case it is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And it is not as though this was a local or a general election - this has made England and Wales look very bad on the world stage, and is something we're all going to have to live with for a very long time.

dschiptsov 10y ago

Why should people trust any government in the first place? Governments nowadays came to replace institutions of organized religions as the way to gain a high social status and security, and hence became as bloated, inefficient and corrupted as old, unreformed churches of the past. No sane people would 'trust' such social formations which sole purpose is self preservation and parasitic growth.

lostlogin 10y ago
I think you need to look at "Churches of the past" a little harder. Churches had their time and while we haven't managed to get rid of them yet, we are a lot better of with a separation between them and the state.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tremon 10y ago
  But we replaced it with the Church Of Capitalism, which has its own sets of dogma. Maybe we need a separation of finance and state?
- dschiptsov 10y ago
  The idea of "service to common men" goes back to antiquity. Mahayana Buddhists modeled their bodhisattvas after Brahmana priests in order to justify why peasants must pay taxes to monasteries, or why a monastery owns all the land. Catholic Church is famous for its middleman's role between men and god, where one could buy release from one's own sins. Actually, all organised religions degrade to this or that form of bargain with help of authorized servants of the common folk. Governments just have reused this thousands years old meme that they are necessary public servants, that without them whole world would collapse the very next day they stopped performing their rituals. We are not even speaking here about primitive authoritarian governments which have nothing but self-preservation and continuous increase of power and wealth in their agenda.
- rmsaksida 10y ago

keithpeter 10y ago

>> Edelman said that people tend to trust businesses more than governments, in part because “business gets stuff done” while government is seen as “incapable.” People trust technology companies in particular because “they deliver value.” << UK Brexit vote: most (not all) business leaders were advising a remain vote. Apart from the 'immigration' trigger, the 'take back control' trigger does come up in my conversations with those who voted leave. The Labour party spokesbeing on the radio this morning was developing a vaguely anti-globalist line about spreading the fruits of recovery more evenly and defending social spending. We shall see.

jacquesm 10y ago
The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. The race to the bottom started with Ireland, suggestions are to cut the tax to 15% in the rest of the UK, with some voices pushing for 10% or even 5% corporate tax. Of course this has nothing to do with using the opportunity created by the brexit power vacuum to reward some special interests.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  > The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. < The same taxes that the larger corporates avoid in the first place? This seems a flawed plan.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It's just some nice pork for the friends of those that made this decision, other than that I don't think it has even a remote chance of working. Businesses favor stability over almost everything else and the way the UK has been going in the last couple of weeks the degree of uncertainty is so large that they'd have to set the rate at a negative percentage to attract new business. Nobody in their right mind is looking to move their currently successful business to the UK unless it is a business that can be moved out at a moments notice.

retrogradeorbit 10y ago

In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalist. Capitalism operates quite well in a fair and open market with a strong rule of law. But Neoliberalism is not this. Neoliberalism is destroying public institutions and utilities through financial plunder and then selling the organisation whole-sale and off market at bargain basement prices to the corrupt politician's corrupt mate in the private sector who then goes and cuts services, jacks prices, and gouges the captive public with their new found monopoly, then back channels the money through the lobbyists to the political party that enabled it, and calls it progress... and then the people cheer that the institution is 'profitable' again) [Edit: sorry. this rant is a little off topic...]

tajen 10y ago
Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fascists. A hard-core split was bound to happen as long as liberals/socialists didn't want to hear about immigration quantity. And it may happen again in France, as long as lefties don't discuss about problems we have.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > lefties Ah, one of those comments. Most of the EU countries where immigration is currently an issue have had 'right wing' parties leading them for a very long time. Immigration is just the easiest populist button to press to get a large number of people to vote against their own interests. One of the problems underlying all this is not immigration per-se, but the rapid and unbounded expansion of the EU to include countries with a huge range of incomes and costs-of-life. Add to that the ability and willingness of people to leave behind their old lives and/or families in order to go abroad to make some money and you have an instantaneous problem. But the powers that be have it right: in the longer term the only way the EU can work is by giving everybody the right to relocate to wherever they want. That way at some point it all levels out again. Try to imagine a USA where someone from Texas would not be able to move to LA or NYC or the other way around. Border controls against movement on every state-border. If you find that hard to imagine try to come up with a really good argument why it should be any different within the EU. Finally, there are people that wish to migrate to the EU from regions outside of it. The EU made a strategic mistake here, which is that they have been partially (together with the US) responsible for the destabilization of the region just outside of it. That this could lead to a huge influx of refugees was a risk they took knowingly, and that I feel it is only responsible to deal with. It would be nice if the countries that are not walking distance from those regions or that are protected by a body of water that is not easily navigable would take their responsibilities in this as well.

danieltillett 10y ago

This just the masses realising that they have been decapitated. In all western countries the intelligent are identified at a young age and brought into the ruling class via education. There is no one left to speak for the interests of the bottom 90% nor formulate a plan to change the status quo. Faced with this it is not surprising that the masses get restless and thrash out at any symbol of authority no matter the consequences to themselves.

pilsetnieks 10y ago
So you're saying that the masses are dumb, and the ruling elites are smart?
- DavidHm 10y ago
  I think that is what he is saying. Though he is saying that the ruling elites are ruling because they are smart, and not that the ruling elites are smart because they are ruling.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Exactly. If you left the ruling elite to breed amoungst themselves you would end up with something like the Russian nobility - idiotic and doomed.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    It's a circular definition though - it's not falsifiable, because if they are in power they must be smart, defining smart as "ability to get into power", if they can't get power evidently they are not smart enough... Not very useful, except if you enjoy making "winning" arguments that you can't lose.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Yes. They know they have been conned, but they don't know how to fight the elites. They are strong, but leaderless and so are left with only the Sampson option.
- 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

If with 'around the world' they intend to mean 'The USA and the UK' then I'm all in agreement. But the rest of the world is not that much different from 12 months ago. The article sugggests strongly that these other countries had a completely different view of their governments in the recent past but I see very little evidence of that. But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) there definitely is a populist shift in progress. The French, the Italians, the Russians and even the Dutch have had a substantial trust issue with their governments as long as I've been alive, I don't know enough about the local politics of a lot of the other countries listed there but I suspect that given the fact that none of the ones that I am familiar with would warrant the label 'collapse' that it is not as alarmist as the title would have you believe. What is happening is that there is a slow but steady push towards more nationalist representation in the various parliaments and this is a source for concern. And this is all not to say that a Trump presidency and an exit of the UK from the EU can't/won't do plenty of damage, but with some luck they will cause some real political reform in those two countries. It's either that or a very good chance of serious economic upheaval.

Noseshine 10y ago
> But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) > there definitely is a populist shift in progress. In Germany too, at least partially: The right-wing and very new "AfD", a relative newcomer, now has almost 1/10th of the votes (depending when you take the poll, results fluctuate).
- venomsnake 10y ago
  Out of EU immigration (intra -EU too, but it is a bit subdued) is of great concern to great many people. Since the AfD is the only German party willing to listen about said concerns - you can safely assume they will become more popular.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    That's not even true. Not a single German party has been pro out-EU immigration. Not a single one. In fact, the current government even made it harder for asylum seekers to stay, or bring their family, and expects to deport the majority of them in less than 3 years. Please read the official parliamentary protocols, and not the very wrong spin the media put on it.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> A “person like me” is now viewed as twice as credible as a government leader I wonder what this statistic looks like over time in China and India.

arca_vorago 10y ago

Ok, First of all, I feel like "around the world" is stretching it a bit much for the purposes of the article. Secondly, I don't think you can explain the core reasons for this without talking about a specific country, because despite the similarities of even, say, the US and the U.K., the underlying causalities are much different. Thirdly, it is ominous when the author talks about the media consuming educated group, because the main thing being ignored in that front is the fact that operation mockingbird never went away and (the US at least) has turned propaganda into an invasive art. People are dangerous when they are easily propagandized, but especially moreso when they don't even realize it. Of course that's why in politics the 50-80 year olds are the primary target. Because they vote and they consume the bullshit off $TVStation with little incredulity. This is also why the Internet is under increasing threat from the supranational oligarchy, because the anarchistic freedom of thought it encourages is dangerous to them. I could tell you about where this trend is going, but that would involve conspiracy theory and nasty confrontation of facts that most people don't want to do to be honest. As for why "the people" are trusting "the government" less, I think while much of it is the natural reaction to a government with corruption run amok, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the increased distrust for government is a deliberate play by the supranational oligarchy vying to undermine the only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck, and that's government. The other main factor is the lack of the rule of law. I think the lack of it has always been there, with varying degrees by subject of course, but now people find out about the true extent of the corruption and lack of rule of law via the Internet and I think it's breeding revolutionary attitudes. When everyone sees stuff like bankers do obviously illegal, immoral, and amoral stuff, then get paid for it, and then get no legal repercussions, the rest of us are slowly gonna start saying "fuck it", and abandoning faith in institutions.

marknutter 10y ago
Who bailed out the bankers? Oh, that's right – the institution you describe as the "only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck". I'm not surprised your prediction involves a conspiracy theory.
- arca_vorago 10y ago

anoplus 10y ago

To get trust you need transparency. And by transparency I don't access to information but to information in the form of knowledge. We to to upgrade government to the digital age to do so.

edraferi 10y ago

The book It's Even Worse Than It Looks is a great resource for understanding this phenomenon in the United States. The authors are longtime congressional staffers who are horrified at the institution's decline. They argue that the US Congress really isn't working well, degrading the performance of the entire US government, and the primary cause of this dysfunction is a deliberate campaign by the Republican party, starting with Newt Gingrich in the mid 1990s. I remember learning about the Contract With America is school, but I had no idea it was so insidious. The GOP intentionally broke congress to get people angry about crappy government, under the theory that they, as the party of small government, they would make relative gains. This has now baked for 20 years, and has been pretty effective. This is why you see Republicans stonewalling things they should logically support, like nominees they explicitly praise as qualified, Obamacare's extensive market mechanics, etc. It's also why Congress can't pass laws even when thr majority of the population supports them, and real crises like the Debt Ceiling debacle. Institutions are critically important. We have to fix this before we can fix anything else.

paradite 10y ago

I understand the point that the author is trying to make, but "around the world" seems to be an overstatement. More like around the America and Europe. In countries like Russia or China, trust of government is the very basis of governance. The country would collapse rather fast if a sizeable portion of people stop trusting the government.

tim333 10y ago

Most people don't know what's going on in government and judge things by how life is around them. Unfortunately that's been bad in many places due mostly to deflation of a type not much seem since the 1930s IMHO. This then gets blamed on the politicians, immigrants and the like as most people couldn't even tell you what "insufficient aggregate demand" means.

marknutter 10y ago
Y'know, it also gets blamed on the rich and corporations which is just as populist.

2suave 10y ago

Seeing how the general populous deemed George Bush a "trustworthy" president I'm really starting to worry about the judgement of the common man.

yAnonymous 10y ago

I don't think there was ever much trust in (western) governments. People only put up with the politicians' crap, because they were well off. Bread and circuses is now over in many places, at least compared to the recent past, and people are facing the reality of the political fuckups of he last few decades.

sievebrain 10y ago
But the graph in the article shows otherwise.

known 10y ago

Before elections, Govt is promoting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud And after elections, Govt is colluding with http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindia

known 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida

neximo64 10y ago

I think the assessments given by many people are a bit silly. You can't be a bigot or a facist in voting for Brexit. It's absolutely ridiculous people overlook the basic issues at play such as Ireland having to charge for water or basically allowing an entire group to set up laws and have very little say in the process (Its an EU wide law and there's basically no say about it). I think years from now once the enchantment of free movement is over people will realise the beast (Thte EU) that it is.

digi_owl 10y ago

Sorry, i need to brain dump something. A: the free travel of workers within EU was basically there since the early coal and steel agreement. B: said workers still needed to present passports etc when crossing borders. C: the Schengen agreement removes the passport requirement (UK is not a signatory to it though). D: EU expands eastwards, leading to an influx of workers that can underbid locals. E: refugee crisis ends up being the straw that breaks the camels back.

peterclary 10y ago
Regarding "D: EU expands eastwards", my understanding is that this was largely driven by the then British Conservative Government as a ploy to prevent further integration between EU countries. "Wider, not deeper" was the theory. So the free movement of Eastern Europeans into the UK was due in large part to the Tories.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  It was done under New Labour, and it was Blair/Brown who chose not to activate transitional controls. So not the Conservatives. However I'm sure they'd have done the same thing if they had been in power at the time. Resentment about EU immigration followed the entry of eastern European states into the EU (with the UK being one of the only countries to allow their populations in from the start).

speeder 10y ago

I read all comments on HN so far here. No mention to the huge shift in South America. Also I am from Brazil. First, what I mean by huge shift: During cold war, us backed, violently (for example by threatening to bomb rio de janeiro with and aircraft carrier if the then elected president resisted the coup, and later with cia "disappearing" dissidents, and actually bombing other countries) a couple of brutal dictatorships. When cold war ended and people wanted change, left wing parties, some that were guerrilla during the cold war and also had lots of blood on their hands (and they fought for communist victory, not for freedom as people like to believe) decided to use the opportunity to take power themselves and join the establishment. The left created an organization named foro de São Paulo, and steadily won elections (not necessarily fairly...) and managed to take over almost every single country in South America. Then, they implemented policies that remember us democratic party policies, not truly left or communist, but a big state, with socialist and neoliberal policies, lots of crony capitalism, with money flowing freely between big corporations and politicians. Now they are all falling, but we are not sure who will take their place, Argentina had Maurício Macri victory, Brazil is seeing a rising popularity of Jair Bolsonaro (kinda like a brazilian Trump, except he explicitly defended the cold war dictatorship, militarism and torture), other countries are also unstable or trying to open without losing power (Cuba for example... that is one of the foro de São Paulo founding members) I wrote all this to say that those dismissing the headline because it is only about us and uk are wrong. ------------- Now about the subject. I am someone that grew up with a leftward education, but shifted to a reactionary/regressive right wing view in my adulthood. I will write some points as for why, and I am sure a couple of them will fit for most Trump/brexit/Bolsonaro/golden dawn/that rising Japanese nationalist party voters. Where I started: my dream as a kid was have a completely normal life, wife, kids, "salaryman" job. My political position was that "capitalists" (what now I know are cronism) were hurting people, and that everyone having equal rights and opportunity is great. 1. Women didn't get the right to work, they already had that right, during industrial revolution they were the main workforce... 2. Women instead lost the right to be mothers, they were obliged to work, obliged to compete with men, wanting to be mother, have low status but easier job, or not wanting to earn like men and work like men became a bad thing, enemy of "the cause". 3. Workforce suddenly doubled. And when corporations noticed. 4. In a world with rising automation, sudden workforce doubling is bad idea. 5. Look at the average income of the average person (not family) in us since feminism rise in the 60s. You will see wages are declining. 6. Look for white men in their 35s wage and full employment in us, compare it to counties that had major votes toward Trump. 7. Divorce laws became very strong, including allowing divorce for no reason at all. Most divorces, in the entire world, are initiated by women, here in Brazil women initiate 73% of divorces, most of them with no justification. 8. Look into divorce statistics, amount of divorces. 9. Why a sane man now would marry? you go, marry, and get no rights, only obligations and the risk of a divorce fucking up your life. 10. Divorce is a major cause os suicide among men. Look into us statistics for death rate of white men middle aged over time. Again compare with Trump voter map. 11. Women now don't need men, they are more educated, more employed, die much less on workplace, die less by suicide, die less by violence. sadly women also love to point all that to their boyfriends too. 12. So, you want a career, the fad now is science, computers and engineering, you plan in working until you are "stable" enough to take care of potential kids in a potential divorce. why do you need me then? and who want kids of a "old" woman where the pregnancy is riskier and kids have more "birth defects"? 13. Still women want to fuck, drink, play and get wasted much as men. Awesome, no need to get married to get sex anymore! 14. Women is now pregnant of a random stranger. She said it is "her body", also, pension laws are very unfair... let "her body" then abort or not and care for the kid. 15. Look for how many fatherless kids there are in western world. 16. Look for what percentage of people in prison are fatherless (from both single, and divorced mothers with full custody). 17. So, I am stupid, decided to get educated even if it is pointless because the generation that then were adults told me to do so. Now I have thousands of debt, never got a salaried legal job, don't have a house, pay rent through the nose, don't have a car either. 18. Oh, ecenomy crisis hit! House prices fall but are still unaffordable and I still have too much debt and no credit. rent is still rising despite housing price falling. My landlord owns the entire building and more half of the other buildings in the block and in a couple more city blocks. he kicks me out anyway when my startuo fails. 19. Adult, near my 30s, in debt, still never found my first salaried job. Didn't found yet a girl that wants to be mom or that doesn't mind a bearded dude that live with his mom. 20. Decide to explain how life is going bad, people tell me I have white privilege becauset I am half-white. Being partially white is seemly enough to "owe my soul" to black people, according to a USP student. 21. Being partially white also means my house is fair game for blacks to invade and steal 8 times. 22. Can't complain, I am "privileged". 23. Complain anyway, now I am privileged due to being male/straight/young 24. Decide to discuss politics, get kicked out/banned/driven off before I voice my opinion just because I have white looking skin (nevermind the black person nose on the middle of my face) or for being male. 25. Get embraced by /pol/, trumpists, bolsonarists, men rights, etc... 26. Organizations there full of bigoted batshit crazy racists and gymnophones (people that fear women, usually guys that were mocked for being raped, scammed or had their lives destroyed by women). But they are the only ones willing to discuss my problems. 27. All I wanted was job, wife, kids and normal life. There are no jobs, women don't want to marry and when they do they divorce, and take your kids with them. And doesn't matter where I go, people hate me because I am white straight male. Except when I go near neo Nazi/pol/trumpists/bolsonarists, they like me, even if I am half black. They are actually tolerant...

sbmassey 10y ago

Honestly I think we are just finally seeing the effect of the fall of mass media - there is no real replacement for the traditional establishment newspapers with enough gravitas to give anyone confidence in our institutions - even the media currently considered quality is mostly whining, hysteria and buzzfeed adverts.

sievebrain 10y ago

"Lefties" isn't really an insult any more than "neoliberals" is. It's just a description of a political position. What you're doing here though, is classical left-ism: taking an innocuous statement and claiming it's terribly offensive in order to distract from his/her point.

dang 10y ago
"Lefties" is name calling. If one didn't mean it that way one would at a minimum say "leftists" or "the left"—assuming a native English speaker, which may not have been the case above. Your comment turned this into an ideological swipe in its own right. Please don't do that here. If we're to have civil, substantive discourse across political differences, people need to respect each others' views. That may be too much to hope for, but we can at least eschew derision. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030641 and marked it off-topic.
ionised 10y ago
'Lefty' is just dismissing someone's viewpoint as invalid because it differes from your own. It's a way to argue without actually saying anything of value. 'Neoliberal' on the other hand is a term with quite well-defined definitions.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

I've seen that Brexit tweet about the Yougov poll on distrust before. The context it misses, is that this poll was taken in the middle of the campaign, when people already knew that these groups disagreed with them. There's no consistent way to say "I trust economists/Obama in regard to Brexit, but I also know that economists/Obama think that Brexit is a bad idea, and I think Brexit is a good idea." The easiest thing to give way in that narrow situation is trust but does that generalize? I have my own opinions about what's driving Trump and Brexit, but I'm wary of people forcing their preconceived notions onto this issue. For example, Nate Silver's 538 pointed out early on that Trump supporters are relatively rich. In the Brexit campaign, working-class Labour supporters who may be in the process of switching to UKIP are focussed on, yet the vast majority of Conservative voters, generally thought of as the party of the rich and selfish, and that has ruled the UK for most of the last 3 decades voted Brexit, and yet no-one wants to talk about that for some reason.