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I think you've made some cogent points here. The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potenti

I think you've made some cogent points here. The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. It was thought to be part of the business cycle. If automation takes way more jobs than it creates, possibly a lot more jobs, then nothing will jump start economy into jobs creating machine even if with higher economic growth. So there's no gaming the business cycle to kick job growth into gear, though. Without UI or perhaps a better program that works on the same program, you're NOT keeping the dire wolf from showing up at your window to collect his due. The '30s came close to that condition. So angry tea partiers were not starving, the protesters on the left aren't starving. This Trumpian wave of populism isn't the worst case. The worst case is a Stalin, a Hitler or some of the sort of malevolence we don't have the imagination to understand due to its depravity. Imagine the difference between well-fed activist headed to the pub after a protest vs. millions of displaced with no hope and nothing to lose. I I look at what I've written and I can tell I'm losing some coherence due to fatigue as the night wears on so hope it still came through what I was trying to say here. Sadly, because I don't stop by HN enough I might have to sign off soon but maybe I'll stay only for while surfing to see what emerges as I've personally found this discussion great. And other than maybe some minor flair ups of which I'm guilty of as much or more than average, I feel this HN community is pretty damn solid. Nobody actively tried to make look stupid or applied ad hominem attacks, it's an earnestness here that I admire Earnest gets worthwhile work done so keep it up.

Clubber 10y ago
>The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. Yes and no, I mean knowing the outcome certainly makes it seem that way. We certainly didn't have the economic knowledge we do today. 10 years of working at the problem had modest results and then a second recession occurred. The war spending was really what got us out of it. We supplied, at a nice profit, war material to England and France for two years before we got involved. Back then, they (Hoover admin) believed the economy would take care of itself and did nothing (sound familiar?) Finally, Hoover (who was considered a brilliant businessman at the time) decided to enact a protectionist import tariff on Canada which was met with a retaliatory tariff on our goods and that was akin to throwing gas on the fire. A funny anecdote: Congress didn't do much about the dust bowl in Texas/Oklahoma until a 10,000 foot dust cloud was blown all the way from Texas/Oklahoma region, across half the continent, settling in Washington DC. http://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 http://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 >Imagine the difference between well-fed activist headed to the pub after a protest vs. millions of displaced with no hope and nothing to lose. Yes, I envision this as well, and on a massive scale. With the current militarization of the police in even the smallest towns, I fear, based on history, the local and state government would crack down hard on the protesting, a la Chicago riots in 1968 or the union busting in the early 1900s. Based on how authoritarian and stubborn the US government has become, it won't be long before they get involved and throw what remaining constitutional protections we have out the window. This could go on for years. Propagandists will continue to pit poor against poor along racial lines as they have been since after Bacon's rebellion and as they do today. Violence will begat violence and it might come closer to a 1930s Soviet landscape than we care to imagine as our government will see the protesters as "threats to democracy," and the "anarchists" moniker of the 1900s will come back and need to "be dealt with harshly." It will look foreign where you have the wealth class, the political / enforcement class, and everyone else. Only the last class will be the vast majority of the population, and as you said, starving. Not only starving, but oppressed, harassed and imprisoned. I don't trust our current government culture to handle this gracefully or intelligently. The biggest difference between now and the 1930s is that in the 1930s, the population trusted the government to act in their (citizen's) best interests, to their best ability. I don't think we're anywhere near that today. As an aside, the Civil War had the benefit of a country versus a country; blue uniforms vs. grey uniforms. With this, if it comes to that, it would devolve into gurilla uprisings, not unlike the Arab Spring with the outcome of either side winning looking pretty ugly. I saw a photo that hit me like a brick. During the protests in Oakland, I believe, a young protester was wearing an Arab head scarf fashioned into mask like you would see in an ISIS video (Shemagh). I hope that wasn't a foreshadow of things to come. >Nobody actively tried to make look stupid or applied ad hominem attacks, it's an earnestness here that I admire Earnest gets worthwhile work done so keep it up. Yes, I really enjoy a good, thoughtful, intellectual discussion on the internet. This was the best discussion I've had in a while. I prefer discussing via typing rather than speaking, because I have time to research my own assertions as well as other's. HN is truly a pearl in a sea of mud.
- marmot777 10y ago
  It is a Pearl. I'm going to come back to this thread to read your comment and others I've missed later on as apparently there's more to life than HN. Is this community kept civil exclusively by users up and down voting posts or are there moderators, too? Regardless, if you value civility you get civility. I feel gratitude toward those who have built the culture here. Thank you.
  - grzm 10y ago
    There are two moderators, 'dang and 'sctb, who—while they don't see everything—are quite publicly active on HN.
- marmot777 10y ago
  I came back and read this. It sounds to me like your a pessimist. I can't say I blame you. I'm a natural optimist who's optimism has been strained to the limit. Do you see some paths that lead to reasonably good outcomes and stability? Also, what puzzles me about for example those preaching hatred and stirring people up, is what it is that they want? Are they nihilists who just want to see everything in flames even if they burn too? Do they think they're somehow immune? Are they so blinded by ideology they actually think things will go the way their ideology says it will if only x, y, and z? How could any human being, other than a sociopath or someone completely blinded by their ideology, possibly subscribe to authoritarianism of any kind? We now have access to all the information we need to find out the outcomes. Do they not at least attempt to grok Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot, Mao, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, et al? If it's ideology-induced blindness then there's hope. If it's malevolent nihilism as then there will be no redemption. To ideologues who want to dismantle the state, are you not familiar with the outcomes when states fail? Or do you think that we can't fail as bad or worse than other failed states such as Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen? Do you think you are immune from violent death, disease, famine? If the United States fails, we may well eat it more thoroughly in the end as there's no aid from governments or non-governmental organizations to even attempt to buffer us from failure. We will, whether it's through concerted effort or no effort at all, take everyone down with us who thought their geopolitical position or other interest would benefit from hobbling us. Do you think that all ideologies are wrong or just all ideologies are wrong except yours? Do you think you or anybody else really has the truth? How did you get your ideology and from whom? Why do you need it? I feel hope when I talk to people who are free from the grip of ideology, who don't let others manipulate their thoughts and emotions. It's not the only thing that needs to happen but the more people who are free from the bullshit the better.

Clubber 10y ago

>The '30s here were not deeply structural or were they? That is, during the Depression, there was always the potential to climb back closer to full employment. Yes and no, I mean knowing the outcome certainly makes it seem that way. We certainly didn't have the economic knowledge we do today. 10 years of working at the problem had modest results and then a second recession occurred. The war spending was really what got us out of it. We supplied, at a nice profit, war material to England and France for two years before we got involved. Back then, they (Hoover admin) believed the economy would take care of itself and did nothing (sound familiar?) Finally, Hoover (who was considered a brilliant businessman at the time) decided to enact a protectionist import tariff on Canada which was met with a retaliatory tariff on our goods and that was akin to throwing gas on the fire. A funny anecdote: Congress didn't do much about the dust bowl in Texas/Oklahoma until a 10,000 foot dust cloud was blown all the way from Texas/Oklahoma region, across half the continent, settling in Washington DC. http://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 http://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 >Imagine the difference between well-fed activist headed to the pub after a protest vs. millions of displaced with no hope and nothing to lose. Yes, I envision this as well, and on a massive scale. With the current militarization of the police in even the smallest towns, I fear, based on history, the local and state government would crack down hard on the protesting, a la Chicago riots in 1968 or the union busting in the early 1900s. Based on how authoritarian and stubborn the US government has become, it won't be long before they get involved and throw what remaining constitutional protections we have out the window. This could go on for years. Propagandists will continue to pit poor against poor along racial lines as they have been since after Bacon's rebellion and as they do today. Violence will begat violence and it might come closer to a 1930s Soviet landscape than we care to imagine as our government will see the protesters as "threats to democracy," and the "anarchists" moniker of the 1900s will come back and need to "be dealt with harshly." It will look foreign where you have the wealth class, the political / enforcement class, and everyone else. Only the last class will be the vast majority of the population, and as you said, starving. Not only starving, but oppressed, harassed and imprisoned. I don't trust our current government culture to handle this gracefully or intelligently. The biggest difference between now and the 1930s is that in the 1930s, the population trusted the government to act in their (citizen's) best interests, to their best ability. I don't think we're anywhere near that today. As an aside, the Civil War had the benefit of a country versus a country; blue uniforms vs. grey uniforms. With this, if it comes to that, it would devolve into gurilla uprisings, not unlike the Arab Spring with the outcome of either side winning looking pretty ugly. I saw a photo that hit me like a brick. During the protests in Oakland, I believe, a young protester was wearing an Arab head scarf fashioned into mask like you would see in an ISIS video (Shemagh). I hope that wasn't a foreshadow of things to come. >Nobody actively tried to make look stupid or applied ad hominem attacks, it's an earnestness here that I admire Earnest gets worthwhile work done so keep it up. Yes, I really enjoy a good, thoughtful, intellectual discussion on the internet. This was the best discussion I've had in a while. I prefer discussing via typing rather than speaking, because I have time to research my own assertions as well as other's. HN is truly a pearl in a sea of mud.

marmot777 10y ago
It is a Pearl. I'm going to come back to this thread to read your comment and others I've missed later on as apparently there's more to life than HN. Is this community kept civil exclusively by users up and down voting posts or are there moderators, too? Regardless, if you value civility you get civility. I feel gratitude toward those who have built the culture here. Thank you.
- grzm 10y ago
  There are two moderators, 'dang and 'sctb, who—while they don't see everything—are quite publicly active on HN.
marmot777 10y ago
I came back and read this. It sounds to me like your a pessimist. I can't say I blame you. I'm a natural optimist who's optimism has been strained to the limit. Do you see some paths that lead to reasonably good outcomes and stability? Also, what puzzles me about for example those preaching hatred and stirring people up, is what it is that they want? Are they nihilists who just want to see everything in flames even if they burn too? Do they think they're somehow immune? Are they so blinded by ideology they actually think things will go the way their ideology says it will if only x, y, and z? How could any human being, other than a sociopath or someone completely blinded by their ideology, possibly subscribe to authoritarianism of any kind? We now have access to all the information we need to find out the outcomes. Do they not at least attempt to grok Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot, Mao, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, et al? If it's ideology-induced blindness then there's hope. If it's malevolent nihilism as then there will be no redemption. To ideologues who want to dismantle the state, are you not familiar with the outcomes when states fail? Or do you think that we can't fail as bad or worse than other failed states such as Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen? Do you think you are immune from violent death, disease, famine? If the United States fails, we may well eat it more thoroughly in the end as there's no aid from governments or non-governmental organizations to even attempt to buffer us from failure. We will, whether it's through concerted effort or no effort at all, take everyone down with us who thought their geopolitical position or other interest would benefit from hobbling us. Do you think that all ideologies are wrong or just all ideologies are wrong except yours? Do you think you or anybody else really has the truth? How did you get your ideology and from whom? Why do you need it? I feel hope when I talk to people who are free from the grip of ideology, who don't let others manipulate their thoughts and emotions. It's not the only thing that needs to happen but the more people who are free from the bullshit the better.