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> I don't believe we ended up here due to some grand conspiracy, > but I do think that the top 1% have gotten so skilled at trapping wealth and therefore oppor

> I don't believe we ended up here due to some grand conspiracy, > but I do think that the top 1% have gotten so skilled at trapping wealth and therefore opportunity that it's really screwing over everyone else. I've got news people: the top 1% is not forcing you to watch Netflix, consume social media, or strap a VR headset on. We live in a generation absolutely devoid of personal responsibility. And it's why ideas that would easily be dismissed as Marxist (which masquerade as "post-modern") 30+ years ago are on the rise today. Oh, you're just oppressed. Economic growth is over, we have to redistribute things now. It's not you're fault that you're addicted. Here, take this medication every day. Where's the hard work in today's generation? Where's the personal responsibility? Where's the discipline? Where's the can-do attitude? And let's get straight-to-the-point on the article in question. Nobody cares about men whining. It's just reality. Call it politically incorrect, whatever. If you're a man and don't work to get what you think you deserve, you won't get it. Instead, there's just gonna be more single women and more jobs available for those that do choose to compete.

nunez 10y ago
I completely agree with this. My immediate family and I came from having next to nothing. We busted ass and have money now. We aren't rich, but we're enjoying life in ways we couldn't growing up. If we, instead, believed the rhetoric that life is screwed unless you came out of a "lucky vagina," we would still be broke, in Brooklyn, trying to make ends meet, and I would be another socially-inept dude that spends way too much time on games and "computers." It's not just us either. I graduated with a bunch of people who came from similar situations and are now doing great. Life is what you make of it.
- coliveira 10y ago
  It is too easy for people who have "made it" to say this. I have kind of made it too, so I could have the same attitude. The problem however is that anecdotes don't proof a point. You have to look at numbers. Numbers say that the majority of Americans are losing purchasing power year after year, and there are fewer middle class jobs. Somehow, the 1% have more privileges each passing day, they pay close to nothing in taxes and corporations can dodge taxes any way they want. As a result, there is less money to invest in people, and the same pattern is repeating itself in most countries around the world (globalization, remember).
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    Where do you think rich people put their wealth? A savings account?
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      Caymans and investments. Most of those geared for quick and high returns, not sustainability, improving society or long term job creation.
      - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
        I would argue that public securities and the stock market is exactly what provides sustainability and long term job creation.
        coliveira 10y ago
        Wrong. The stock market doesn't care about job creation. They care about wealth creation, which is mostly concentrated in the hands of a few. In fact, wall street loves when firms lay off workers. If every firm out there laid off 50% or their workers the price of stocks would greatly increase, because then more money would go directly to the hands of shareholders.
    - nunez 10y ago
      Some do
  - greenhatman 10y ago
    Who are they going to invest the money they have in though? People who play computer games and watch Netflix all day? Probably not hey. If you want any chance you're going to have to do something. At least try something.
    - coliveira 10y ago
      Enough with this. People who have money are not investing in productive things. They are mostly investing in hedge funds to play the market for the short term as a lottery, or in merger/acquisitions, which kills more jobs than creates. They also put money in assets like real estate that have their prices inflated because of the big rise in money looking for safe investments. When investors do something productive, it is just high technology that kills more jobs than it creates. In other words, the idea that wealthy people create jobs is a myth that is patently wrong in our times.
- Aeolun 10y ago
  Confirmation bias? Just because it worked for you, doesn't mean there aren't a thousand people who tried and failed at exactly the same thing. Your chances are definitely higher than zero if you try, but unfortunately it's no guarantee that you'll succeed.
  - greenhatman 10y ago
    There is no guarantee for anything. That is not a reason not to try. There is literally nothing better to do with your life than try. So just try.
    - otisfunkmeyer 10y ago
      this comment is what a lifetime of philosophical thought, traveling, psychedelics, meditation, and experimentation has led me to as well. "there is literally nothing better to do with your life than try. so just try."
      - meheleventyone 10y ago
        The issue though is that a lot of the people mentioned in the original article don't think trying is worthwhile. So advice to "just try" is always going to fall short. As advice it also ignores the structural issues that make trying easier and harder for various people. One way of encouraging people to try is to break down the real barriers that exists and make it harder for them than others.
    - mfukar 10y ago
      This is the same kind of "advice" depressed people get. "Have you tried getting better"? "You just need to be happy". "Try my coping mechanism". "See a standup comedian". "Just try". I hope I don't have to go through all the reasons this is fundamentally disconnected from the problem described in the article now.
      - nunez 10y ago
        What's your alternative?
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Same. Neither parents went to college. I went to college completely on the government's dime because my EFC was $0. The only thing I had to do to get free grants was to show my parents didn't have money. Their poverty became an enormous benefit for me when applying to college and receiving financial aid. It's an incredible and amazing country we live in.
- pdimitar 10y ago
  You are mostly correct. But IMO you miss something very important -- "busting ass" has zero correlation to "we have money now". I busted my ass as a obedient worker bee for 15 years and now (at 37 years old) all I have are 4 debts and a bit of tech. No own apartment/house, no savings, no security of any kind. If I lose my job tomorrow, I am as good as homeless. Oh, and I have health problems for which I can't pay (having teeth with holes in them isn't fixed by home remedies, before you try that). I am glad it worked for you. You have to understand what you say is a confirmation bias however. Will I ever stop trying? No. I am changing approach drastically as I am typing this, changing the way I work and communicate with people, focusing more on what the business needs are instead of negotiating for meager salaries that barely cover my huge monthly expenses and food. I'll succeed eventually, simply because people who don't give up + change their way of doing things are inevitably bound to succeed. But again, don't try to push the message of "work hard and it will work out". No it won't, otherwise now my mother would have had respectable pension and wouldn't rely on me for shelter and food.
Endy 10y ago
Marxism should never be "easily dismissed". It should be respected and fought for. The problem is that we're afraid to go out and actually fight the Permanent Revolution; because we've been cowed by those who currently hold the power.
- zxcvvcxz 10y ago
  You're right, we've never had Real Marxism (TM), we just have to try a little harder next time. > Capitalism (according to Marxist theory) can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. Do they mean that same capitalism that brings >1,000,000 Chinese people out poverty every month? Did Mao not try hard enough? Newsflash, folks: we've had a few workers' revolutions. They're not all they're cracked up to be. Try talking to someone who lived through one of them.
  - coliveira 10y ago
    Revolutions have failed in many ways, but they have an upside: putting pressure on the elite to do something in order to maintain what they have (and to keep their heads glued to the body). Why do you think we have working rights around the world nowadays? Because a bunch of crazy people decided to fight against the prevailing status in the beginning of XX century, and even run a revolution if necessary. Nowadays people are too afraid of doing anything, this is the perfect scenario for the downward social spiral that we're seeing in the XXI century.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Do they mean that same capitalism that brings >1,000,000 Chinese people out poverty every month? No, they mean the dominant economic system of the developed West in the mid-19th through early-20th century (since replaced in the developed west by the modern mixed economy which is an unstable form with a danger of reverting back to capitalism because it retains central features of capitalism.) What China has is a transitional form that is somewhere on the map between totalitarian centralization through a kind of neofeudalism (that relates to classical feudalism in the same what that Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist totalitarianism relates to monarchic absolutism) to something like capitalism. Which is certainly progress, just as Marx recognized that the transition from.feudalism to the kind of capitalism he and other contemporary socialist critiqued was progress. But that it is progress from something worse earlier doesn't make it the ideal end state. > Did Mao not try hard enough? Mao tried quite hard at completely the wrong thing. Leninism and it's descendants abandoned key tenants of Marxism to create something that either (in the overly generous view) they thought could work in very different conditions than Marx addressed or (in the more cynical view) as served as convenient propaganda for authoritarian populism in the societies in which they operated.
llukas 10y ago
This may be new to your information bubble but have you ever read about working poor phenomenon? Your comment is perfect example of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- robattila128 10y ago
  fundamental attribution error is a fancy way to tell someone they are self projecting, so why didn't you just say that? also you might have had disadvantages in life so you may be seeing as everyone else being disadvantaged to, the very thing you identified hes thinking with. The reality is people are taking advantage of the generosity we have in our society and people who grow up comfortably will never know how to see someone below their standard of living as a leech but instead as oppressed. Redistributing wealth more and more creates less opportunity for the free market to lift people out of poverty.
  - fdupoo 10y ago
    >Redistributing wealth more and more creates less opportunity for the free market to lift people out of poverty. What? No it doesnt? How do you even Is this satire?
    - robattila128 10y ago
      I should have used the word socialism instead of redistribution to make it more clear on my stance, but I didn't want to get political. You are right though, butchering the middle and upper class with taxes then passing it around does help people out of poverty -- At the cost of making our future generations poorer, happens every time through out history. I am heavily against government welfare. For markets to survive it need competition, not cooperation through government bureaucracy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e50fQLyebI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e50fQLyebI
erikpukinskis 10y ago
> Where's the hard work in today's generation? Where's the personal responsibility? Where's the discipline? Where's the can-do attitude? Look out your window it's everywhere.

nunez 10y ago

I completely agree with this. My immediate family and I came from having next to nothing. We busted ass and have money now. We aren't rich, but we're enjoying life in ways we couldn't growing up. If we, instead, believed the rhetoric that life is screwed unless you came out of a "lucky vagina," we would still be broke, in Brooklyn, trying to make ends meet, and I would be another socially-inept dude that spends way too much time on games and "computers." It's not just us either. I graduated with a bunch of people who came from similar situations and are now doing great. Life is what you make of it.

coliveira 10y ago
It is too easy for people who have "made it" to say this. I have kind of made it too, so I could have the same attitude. The problem however is that anecdotes don't proof a point. You have to look at numbers. Numbers say that the majority of Americans are losing purchasing power year after year, and there are fewer middle class jobs. Somehow, the 1% have more privileges each passing day, they pay close to nothing in taxes and corporations can dodge taxes any way they want. As a result, there is less money to invest in people, and the same pattern is repeating itself in most countries around the world (globalization, remember).
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Where do you think rich people put their wealth? A savings account?
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Caymans and investments. Most of those geared for quick and high returns, not sustainability, improving society or long term job creation.
    - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      I would argue that public securities and the stock market is exactly what provides sustainability and long term job creation.
      - coliveira 10y ago
        Wrong. The stock market doesn't care about job creation. They care about wealth creation, which is mostly concentrated in the hands of a few. In fact, wall street loves when firms lay off workers. If every firm out there laid off 50% or their workers the price of stocks would greatly increase, because then more money would go directly to the hands of shareholders.
  - nunez 10y ago
    Some do
- greenhatman 10y ago
  Who are they going to invest the money they have in though? People who play computer games and watch Netflix all day? Probably not hey. If you want any chance you're going to have to do something. At least try something.
  - coliveira 10y ago
    Enough with this. People who have money are not investing in productive things. They are mostly investing in hedge funds to play the market for the short term as a lottery, or in merger/acquisitions, which kills more jobs than creates. They also put money in assets like real estate that have their prices inflated because of the big rise in money looking for safe investments. When investors do something productive, it is just high technology that kills more jobs than it creates. In other words, the idea that wealthy people create jobs is a myth that is patently wrong in our times.
Aeolun 10y ago
Confirmation bias? Just because it worked for you, doesn't mean there aren't a thousand people who tried and failed at exactly the same thing. Your chances are definitely higher than zero if you try, but unfortunately it's no guarantee that you'll succeed.
- greenhatman 10y ago
  There is no guarantee for anything. That is not a reason not to try. There is literally nothing better to do with your life than try. So just try.
  - otisfunkmeyer 10y ago
    this comment is what a lifetime of philosophical thought, traveling, psychedelics, meditation, and experimentation has led me to as well. "there is literally nothing better to do with your life than try. so just try."
    - meheleventyone 10y ago
      The issue though is that a lot of the people mentioned in the original article don't think trying is worthwhile. So advice to "just try" is always going to fall short. As advice it also ignores the structural issues that make trying easier and harder for various people. One way of encouraging people to try is to break down the real barriers that exists and make it harder for them than others.
  - mfukar 10y ago
    This is the same kind of "advice" depressed people get. "Have you tried getting better"? "You just need to be happy". "Try my coping mechanism". "See a standup comedian". "Just try". I hope I don't have to go through all the reasons this is fundamentally disconnected from the problem described in the article now.
    - nunez 10y ago
      What's your alternative?
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Same. Neither parents went to college. I went to college completely on the government's dime because my EFC was $0. The only thing I had to do to get free grants was to show my parents didn't have money. Their poverty became an enormous benefit for me when applying to college and receiving financial aid. It's an incredible and amazing country we live in.
pdimitar 10y ago
You are mostly correct. But IMO you miss something very important -- "busting ass" has zero correlation to "we have money now". I busted my ass as a obedient worker bee for 15 years and now (at 37 years old) all I have are 4 debts and a bit of tech. No own apartment/house, no savings, no security of any kind. If I lose my job tomorrow, I am as good as homeless. Oh, and I have health problems for which I can't pay (having teeth with holes in them isn't fixed by home remedies, before you try that). I am glad it worked for you. You have to understand what you say is a confirmation bias however. Will I ever stop trying? No. I am changing approach drastically as I am typing this, changing the way I work and communicate with people, focusing more on what the business needs are instead of negotiating for meager salaries that barely cover my huge monthly expenses and food. I'll succeed eventually, simply because people who don't give up + change their way of doing things are inevitably bound to succeed. But again, don't try to push the message of "work hard and it will work out". No it won't, otherwise now my mother would have had respectable pension and wouldn't rely on me for shelter and food.

Endy 10y ago

Marxism should never be "easily dismissed". It should be respected and fought for. The problem is that we're afraid to go out and actually fight the Permanent Revolution; because we've been cowed by those who currently hold the power.

zxcvvcxz 10y ago
You're right, we've never had Real Marxism (TM), we just have to try a little harder next time. > Capitalism (according to Marxist theory) can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. Do they mean that same capitalism that brings >1,000,000 Chinese people out poverty every month? Did Mao not try hard enough? Newsflash, folks: we've had a few workers' revolutions. They're not all they're cracked up to be. Try talking to someone who lived through one of them.
- coliveira 10y ago
  Revolutions have failed in many ways, but they have an upside: putting pressure on the elite to do something in order to maintain what they have (and to keep their heads glued to the body). Why do you think we have working rights around the world nowadays? Because a bunch of crazy people decided to fight against the prevailing status in the beginning of XX century, and even run a revolution if necessary. Nowadays people are too afraid of doing anything, this is the perfect scenario for the downward social spiral that we're seeing in the XXI century.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Do they mean that same capitalism that brings >1,000,000 Chinese people out poverty every month? No, they mean the dominant economic system of the developed West in the mid-19th through early-20th century (since replaced in the developed west by the modern mixed economy which is an unstable form with a danger of reverting back to capitalism because it retains central features of capitalism.) What China has is a transitional form that is somewhere on the map between totalitarian centralization through a kind of neofeudalism (that relates to classical feudalism in the same what that Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist totalitarianism relates to monarchic absolutism) to something like capitalism. Which is certainly progress, just as Marx recognized that the transition from.feudalism to the kind of capitalism he and other contemporary socialist critiqued was progress. But that it is progress from something worse earlier doesn't make it the ideal end state. > Did Mao not try hard enough? Mao tried quite hard at completely the wrong thing. Leninism and it's descendants abandoned key tenants of Marxism to create something that either (in the overly generous view) they thought could work in very different conditions than Marx addressed or (in the more cynical view) as served as convenient propaganda for authoritarian populism in the societies in which they operated.

llukas 10y ago

This may be new to your information bubble but have you ever read about working poor phenomenon? Your comment is perfect example of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
robattila128 10y ago
fundamental attribution error is a fancy way to tell someone they are self projecting, so why didn't you just say that? also you might have had disadvantages in life so you may be seeing as everyone else being disadvantaged to, the very thing you identified hes thinking with. The reality is people are taking advantage of the generosity we have in our society and people who grow up comfortably will never know how to see someone below their standard of living as a leech but instead as oppressed. Redistributing wealth more and more creates less opportunity for the free market to lift people out of poverty.
- fdupoo 10y ago
  >Redistributing wealth more and more creates less opportunity for the free market to lift people out of poverty. What? No it doesnt? How do you even Is this satire?
  - robattila128 10y ago
    I should have used the word socialism instead of redistribution to make it more clear on my stance, but I didn't want to get political. You are right though, butchering the middle and upper class with taxes then passing it around does help people out of poverty -- At the cost of making our future generations poorer, happens every time through out history. I am heavily against government welfare. For markets to survive it need competition, not cooperation through government bureaucracy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e50fQLyebI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e50fQLyebI

erikpukinskis 10y ago

> Where's the hard work in today's generation? Where's the personal responsibility? Where's the discipline? Where's the can-do attitude? Look out your window it's everywhere.