7 ms·

> Considering that in aggregate, seen globally, the world in the 21st century is in a better shape than ever before, This is the worldview that enabled the Bre

> Considering that in aggregate, seen globally, the world in the 21st century is in a better shape than ever before, This is the worldview that enabled the Brexit to happen and fueled the rise of many populist politicians in the world. Most people don't care about the aggregate. And globalization does hurt parts of the economy as it benefits other parts of the economy. The parts of the economy that it hurts are the ones that aren't doing so well, and it benefits the already rich. That being said, how is any part of this article going to appeal to somebody's who's out-of-work because their job went abroad? Tell them to celebrate because their tshirt is 10% cheaper?

rootusrootus 10y ago
It seems like the upside of the '10% cheaper t-shirt' extends far beyond that. Our modern definition of poor is considerably more civilized than it was less than a hundred years ago. The harsh answer to this question is that there is no reason to sugarcoat the truth and try to appeal to someone who is out-of-work because their job got automated out of existence (and let's be honest, that's a lot more likely to be what happened than outsourcing to some third world country). It doesn't help them to lie about 'bringing jobs back' or some such nonsense. Tell them their job is gone, it isn't coming back, and they should take advantage of training opportunities to move into a field where employment is available. Uncomfortable, yes, but anyone who promised (or is promising now) that life would be easy or fair is lying.
- burntrelish1273 10y ago
  Compared to 50 years ago, Americans (middle- and lower-classes) are working longer hours and making less and less. http://www.lambertonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Graph.png http://www.lambertonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Graph... (chart also seen in Robert Reich's "Inequality for All") http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/middle-class-charts_n_6507506.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/middle-class-charts... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/middle-class-cant-get-ahead/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/middle-class-cant-g...
imartin2k 10y ago
"This is the worldview that enabled the Brexit to happen and fueled the rise of many populist politicians in the world." Isn't that very simplifying? This is not about a 10 % cheaper t-shirt. To state that the world in fact has gotten much better is not a "worldview". It is a fact (as long as you accept the idea of healthier, longer and safer lives as "better"). And it extends far beyond the "usual suspect" data from developing countries that indeed people in the rich countries affected by these changes don't care about too much. 50 years ago, people even in the Western countries were living under much worse conditions, they were exposed to much more health and safety risks, watched black & white tv (if they even had a tv), they ate worse, they smoked and drank like there was no tomorrow and so on. There is enough data on the improvements (whether the tv is an improvement is of course a philosophical debate, which I guess we shouldn't have here right now). But people forget. Like they forget that their ex-partner who cheated on them or beat them was an asshole. And that needs to be said and repeated over and over again. Just as a reminder for people who start to romanticize a past which, in 90 % of the aspects, was not better for most people. Even if it feels that way today. Nevertheless, obviously there is a substantial, systemic problem. Which is what I describe in the beginning of the post. What, in my opinion, drove the populism is not the acknowledgement of overall improvements until today, but the "let's carry on" mentality of the well-off. In my post I tried to make clear that this is not what I am in favor of. I acknowledge the problem, and I want a change. But not a change backwards. I do not see a conflict in stating that things have been improving until very recently, as long as one acknowledges that the path that led us to prosperity until recently might not continue to do so.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > To state that the world in fact has gotten much better is not a "worldview". Not when you're viewing at it from a psychological perspective. For several decades after WWII, you had a reasonable expectation that you would make a decent living, and that you'd be reasonably employed. These days, everything is in flux, and life expectancies in the United States actually decreased in 2015 (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/50466760...). > I acknowledge the problem, and I want a change. But not a change backwards. That's the sort of mind set I'm talking about. Increasingly, the opponents of globalism have been attacked as backwards thinking, short sighted, uneducated, and even racist. Fortunately or unfortunately, we live in a democracy, where demonizing members of the electorate doesn't help your cause.
PopsiclePete 10y ago
Remind me, did anyone shed any tears when the horse-and-buggy industry went away? Or manual cotton picking? Why are "blue collars" people today special snowflakes who demand to be paid $50k/yr to push a button? And why are they, by and large, the same people that tell others to pull themselves up their bootstraps? I thought this was America, where we frown on "socialism". Yet it seems nobody has a more socialist mind-set than the average American worker lately. Funny, that.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > where we frown on "socialism" You're confusing socialism with economic protectionism. > Why are "blue collars" people today special snowflakes who demand to be paid $50k/yr to push a button? Hyperbole much? In their eyes, they are blaming a glut of cheap foreign labour, both offshore and onshore, for driving down wages and geographically relocating jobs from where they live. And it's funny that we're increasingly seeing this sort of attitude in tech, where we demand to be paid in the six figures for "pushing buttons".
  - PopsiclePete 10y ago
    When you make a robot that can push the same buttons I'm pushing, you should definitely replace me. In fact, I'm working on automating as much of my work as possible, on a daily basis. I don't like repetitive, easy-to-mess-up stuff. And once we have AI that can write other AI's, then yes, we'd be obsolete too. I don't see an "attitude" problem anywhere - we are doing exactly what we've been doing since we were cavemen.
saint_fiasco 10y ago
> The parts of the economy that it hurts are the ones that aren't doing so well, and it benefits the already rich. I don't like to participate in weird economic oppression Olympics, but the recent Brexit-style populism is a First-World problem. Third World countries are trying to get into industrial economies too and that's why there is more competition now. They want good standards of living too.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > They want good standards of living too. That's the problem in a nutshell. In the very short run, economic well-being is a zero sum game. Eventually, globalization might lead to more jobs in the grand scheme of things. People don't care about "eventually" or "the rest of the world". They have bills to worry about, and they don't care what the Third World countries want. (Pet peeve. Third World technically means countries not aligned with either the US or Russia during the cold war.)

rootusrootus 10y ago

It seems like the upside of the '10% cheaper t-shirt' extends far beyond that. Our modern definition of poor is considerably more civilized than it was less than a hundred years ago. The harsh answer to this question is that there is no reason to sugarcoat the truth and try to appeal to someone who is out-of-work because their job got automated out of existence (and let's be honest, that's a lot more likely to be what happened than outsourcing to some third world country). It doesn't help them to lie about 'bringing jobs back' or some such nonsense. Tell them their job is gone, it isn't coming back, and they should take advantage of training opportunities to move into a field where employment is available. Uncomfortable, yes, but anyone who promised (or is promising now) that life would be easy or fair is lying.

burntrelish1273 10y ago
Compared to 50 years ago, Americans (middle- and lower-classes) are working longer hours and making less and less. http://www.lambertonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Graph.png http://www.lambertonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Graph... (chart also seen in Robert Reich's "Inequality for All") http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/middle-class-charts_n_6507506.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/middle-class-charts... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/middle-class-cant-get-ahead/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/middle-class-cant-g...

imartin2k 10y ago

"This is the worldview that enabled the Brexit to happen and fueled the rise of many populist politicians in the world." Isn't that very simplifying? This is not about a 10 % cheaper t-shirt. To state that the world in fact has gotten much better is not a "worldview". It is a fact (as long as you accept the idea of healthier, longer and safer lives as "better"). And it extends far beyond the "usual suspect" data from developing countries that indeed people in the rich countries affected by these changes don't care about too much. 50 years ago, people even in the Western countries were living under much worse conditions, they were exposed to much more health and safety risks, watched black & white tv (if they even had a tv), they ate worse, they smoked and drank like there was no tomorrow and so on. There is enough data on the improvements (whether the tv is an improvement is of course a philosophical debate, which I guess we shouldn't have here right now). But people forget. Like they forget that their ex-partner who cheated on them or beat them was an asshole. And that needs to be said and repeated over and over again. Just as a reminder for people who start to romanticize a past which, in 90 % of the aspects, was not better for most people. Even if it feels that way today. Nevertheless, obviously there is a substantial, systemic problem. Which is what I describe in the beginning of the post. What, in my opinion, drove the populism is not the acknowledgement of overall improvements until today, but the "let's carry on" mentality of the well-off. In my post I tried to make clear that this is not what I am in favor of. I acknowledge the problem, and I want a change. But not a change backwards. I do not see a conflict in stating that things have been improving until very recently, as long as one acknowledges that the path that led us to prosperity until recently might not continue to do so.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> To state that the world in fact has gotten much better is not a "worldview". Not when you're viewing at it from a psychological perspective. For several decades after WWII, you had a reasonable expectation that you would make a decent living, and that you'd be reasonably employed. These days, everything is in flux, and life expectancies in the United States actually decreased in 2015 (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/50466760...). > I acknowledge the problem, and I want a change. But not a change backwards. That's the sort of mind set I'm talking about. Increasingly, the opponents of globalism have been attacked as backwards thinking, short sighted, uneducated, and even racist. Fortunately or unfortunately, we live in a democracy, where demonizing members of the electorate doesn't help your cause.

PopsiclePete 10y ago

Remind me, did anyone shed any tears when the horse-and-buggy industry went away? Or manual cotton picking? Why are "blue collars" people today special snowflakes who demand to be paid $50k/yr to push a button? And why are they, by and large, the same people that tell others to pull themselves up their bootstraps? I thought this was America, where we frown on "socialism". Yet it seems nobody has a more socialist mind-set than the average American worker lately. Funny, that.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> where we frown on "socialism" You're confusing socialism with economic protectionism. > Why are "blue collars" people today special snowflakes who demand to be paid $50k/yr to push a button? Hyperbole much? In their eyes, they are blaming a glut of cheap foreign labour, both offshore and onshore, for driving down wages and geographically relocating jobs from where they live. And it's funny that we're increasingly seeing this sort of attitude in tech, where we demand to be paid in the six figures for "pushing buttons".
- PopsiclePete 10y ago
  When you make a robot that can push the same buttons I'm pushing, you should definitely replace me. In fact, I'm working on automating as much of my work as possible, on a daily basis. I don't like repetitive, easy-to-mess-up stuff. And once we have AI that can write other AI's, then yes, we'd be obsolete too. I don't see an "attitude" problem anywhere - we are doing exactly what we've been doing since we were cavemen.

saint_fiasco 10y ago

> The parts of the economy that it hurts are the ones that aren't doing so well, and it benefits the already rich. I don't like to participate in weird economic oppression Olympics, but the recent Brexit-style populism is a First-World problem. Third World countries are trying to get into industrial economies too and that's why there is more competition now. They want good standards of living too.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> They want good standards of living too. That's the problem in a nutshell. In the very short run, economic well-being is a zero sum game. Eventually, globalization might lead to more jobs in the grand scheme of things. People don't care about "eventually" or "the rest of the world". They have bills to worry about, and they don't care what the Third World countries want. (Pet peeve. Third World technically means countries not aligned with either the US or Russia during the cold war.)