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Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

123 points by enraged_camel 10y ago

LeoSolaris 10y ago
The way that title is worded makes me think that the author thinks that "Young White America" believes they should despair more!
throwaway2048 10y ago
these problems get 100 fold worse with increasing automation, and probly needing a triple PHD to actually get a job, maybe. The fantasy that millions of jobs are going to fall out of the sky is exactly that. We need to think of real solutions, and soon.
ryandrake 10y ago
> The fates of the less-educated and those who graduate from universities diverge in dire ways. Middle-aged white Americans without four-year degrees are at increasing risk of dying, a well-documented trend driven not only by drug use but also by alcoholism, suicide, and slowing progress against heart disease and cancer. While that's pretty damn horrible, the fate of people with newly-minted bachelor's degrees isn't much to write home about either, unless you happened to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible. Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects, the looming threat of automation and robotics, underemployment--and if they get a professional job--a workplace full of only entry-level opportunities, with senior and management opportunities sucked up by boomers who refuse to, or can't, retire. Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction, but there's plenty of anxiety and lack of opportunity to go around.
- posguy 10y ago
  Its the power of capital over labor, whereby capital is extremely stratified in the hands of very few people, and they have shifted political power so as to avoid investment in the laborers (aka everyone below themselves) and ensure they do not become a threat. Additionally, they will usually influence monetary policy to ensure their status is never challenged, which is why rapidly rising housing prices aren't a major political issue at the state and federal level, despite our tax code & loan incentives encouraging ballooning housing prices. Also, this is a decent piece: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...
  - thesagan 10y ago
    Within capitalism itself, some economists also argue that wealth concentration tends to suppress investment opportunities, because there aren't as many "moneyed eyes" on economic events worthy of capital and management; investment gets tunnel vision. I don't have any links on-hand but there's plenty of material out there (from reputable sources, and not-so-reputable ones) with a quick Google search. https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS734US734&oq=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&aqs=chrome..69i57.12408j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppres...
    - posguy 10y ago
      Seems like basic economic theory, the more capital you have flowing through the economy at a lower level, the more opportunities there are. Whereas these 8 people are siloing their wealth in investments, that same money divided up among people of low income would be spent upwards of 3x, and given to the middle class iirc it was something around a 2x factor. Both are much better for our economy than having that wealth sit siloed as an investment.
    - pm90 10y ago
      That makes a lot of sense actually, and has historically been the trend that most societies took. Once you accumulate wealth and power, you do everything to keep it. Democracy and diffusion of political power have been very recent phenomena, in the larger scheme of things.
    - breatheoften 10y ago
      It seems like capitalism really needs something like a wealth tax -- ideally with the rate tied to the change in concentration of wealth over the whole society, so during periods of time when capital is concentrating, the wealth tax goes up vs epochs when it does not... Interestingly, I was reading about the idea of a wealth tax and came across this depressing nugget ...: > In 1999, Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one off 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more. Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt.[18] A net wealth tax may also be designed to be revenue neutral as where it is used to broaden the tax base, stabilize the economy and reduce individual income and other taxes[citation needed].
- jlarocco 10y ago
  > a workplace full of only entry-level opportunities I agree with the rest of your post, except this part. Entry level jobs are what people should be getting straight out of college. Senior positions and management jobs go to the people with the experience to do them, and that's almost certainly not a person with a year of experience and a new bachelor's degree. I kind of wonder if these weird expectations aren't part of the problem. If the definition of success is to graduate college and move straight to senior management, things might not work out so well...
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Why would you need to go to college to do an entry-level job? Conversely, who wants to spend 4 years (and probably $$$) getting a college degree in order to then work a job that bores them to tears? Perhaps you meant 'entry-level' within some more specific context but nowadays employers seem to think people need a bachelor's degree to answer the phone.
    - true_religion 10y ago
      Charitably, you would expect a HN user to use entry level with respect to programming or engineering. Entry level is always within the context of a specific field. You can't say be a master electrician then switch to plumbing and expect the same pay. Your experience is null, and your have to start as entry-level in the new field.
    - jlarocco 10y ago
      > Why would you need to go to college to do an entry-level job? "Entry level" positions are by definition for people just entering a field, and have nothing to do with whether the position requires a degree. Entry level retail doesn't need a college degree, for example. In a lot of fields, though, getting a degree is the bare minimum qualification, so simply having one doesn't give you a leg up. Why hire a person just out of school for a senior level position when there are more experienced people (also with degrees) applying for it? Feel free to apply, but experience will win out every time. > Conversely, who wants to spend 4 years (and probably $$$) getting a college degree in order to then work a job that bores them to tears? That's not really what work is about. Every job is boring and sucks sometimes, that's why it's called "work" and not "leisure" or "playing" or "fun". Unfortunately, a degree isn't a magic certificate to avoid boring work.
- ModernMech 10y ago
  > unless you happened to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible. Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects Very much this. I came out of a good school with only $30k in debt and a degree in a tech field. My wife came out of an okay state school with $60k in debt (much of that private loans with high interest rates) and a masters in art history and really no job prospects. I'm supporting both of us now on a salary which sounded like a lot to me at first, but we live in the Bay Area. After my $2500 per month rent on a 1 bedroom (low for Bay area standards), and $1600 per month for student loans, we're not left with much each month. I certainly never thought I'd be living paycheck to paycheck on my current salary. We're postponing kids and a house for now, while my parents had both at my age. We don't go out much, we don't buy much. We're comfortable, but not really flourishing. And now I'm starting to see the words "Ballistic Nuclear Missile" and "Napa Valley" in the same sentence. My wife said to me last night she's scared of the future, and for the first time in my life, I'm starting to get a little worried too. As long as I can remember the future was the brightest, most desirable place for me to be. Now? I'm not so sure...
  - magic_beans 10y ago
    Many of my friends from high school went on to do undergrad, and then master's degrees in Art History. One of them is working as an intern at the Met now. The other three are living on their trust funds. I don't understand why any sensible person would get an MA in the humanities. It's all well and good if you are doing for your own intellectual curiosity, but it's not so great if you expect a living wage on that degree. :(
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      In Greek and Roman days, the "liberal arts" are, historically, the arts that are appropriate for free people, as opposed to the trades, which were for slaves. That is, the liberal arts were for people who didn't have to work, or to earn a living from what they learned. Fast forward to today. The liberal arts (humanities) are fine if you have a trust fund. If you're going to have to work for your living? Not so much.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction... Yet.
- Stryder 10y ago
  In a functional society with strong leadership, people are allowed to come up short, and not suffer as a result of coming up short. The US used to be like this, and people thrived as a result. We've been heading in the opposite direction.
deleted 10y ago
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irrational 10y ago
I worry about this for my oldest son. He has dyspraxia and apraxia. In practice that means he has difficulty with memory (at 15 he still doesn't know his multiplication tables) and putting things in order (such as speaking - you have to put phonemes, words, sentences together in order to speak). But, he doesn't look like he has a disability and he doesn't speak much so people don't readily realize he doesn't talk like other people. There are people who know him for years without realizing there is anything "wrong" with him. Unfortunately there is no way he will be able to go to college. He is basically flunking middle school despite putting forth his best effort because he simply can't remember anything and can't put things in order to respond to questions or write things down. However they will basically pass him since they have documentation that he has a disability. He will get a high school diploma because if you have a documented disability and attend public school they will basically just give you a diploma if you at least show up. College, obviously, doesn't work the same way. I'm not really sure what will become of him. I'm not sure he could hack a trade. He could do manual labor, but that doesn't really pay well enough to live on your own, at least where we live. I'm afraid he will end up with the problems outlined in this article.
- cryptarch 10y ago
  Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Programming is extremely memory intensive.
    - kevindqc 10y ago
      and the order of things is pretty important
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Apprenticeships happen a fair amount with electricians and plumbers here still. And that's work that can't be readily outsourced (though it can be undercut with cheaper labor). The need to have work up to code ("need", some people don't care) does keep the rates higher than, say, carpentry work.
esteves_ 10y ago
Also, the institutionalized racism against Whites doesn't help.
pjmorris 10y ago
I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be accurate.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Won't get as many clicks that way.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Setting aside white, young is relevant as the numbers are showing a marked increase in some behaviors versus ~15-20 years ago among the same age group in particular. It's one thing (still bad) to see alcoholism and drug abuse amongst the middle aged following the termination of a career or something, it's quite another to see it increase amongst the youth before they even have a chance to start (or because they find they have no chance to start).
  - rexicus 10y ago
    I wonder if they're mistaking economic factors causing more drug deaths for the new and lethal Fentanyl-laced heroin on the streets.
- vajrabum 10y ago
  The part that applies specially to young and white is the elevated mortality. Life expectancies for that group are declining which isn't true for African-Americans and Hispanics or Asians.
- cpayne624 10y ago
  I think they specify 'White' based on this passage: "While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. “For whites, their reference group is previous generations of whites,” said Shannon Monnat, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies the opioid epidemic in rural America. “When they look back on their parents and grandparents, it feels like their generation is doing worse.”"
temp246810 10y ago
The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.
- ChrisLTD 10y ago
  Why is it a load of crap on so many levels? To take one example, the media and politicians have put a huge spotlight on the plight of coal and manufacturing job losses, while only recently did we learn that in fact we're losing even more retail jobs. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-silent-crisis-of-retail-employment/523428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-sil... Want to guess at the racial and gender makeup of those manufacturing jobs vs. retail?
  - fav_collector 10y ago
    You're sort of proving his point. Manufacturing and coal towns are isolated. Manufacturing and coal are sometimes literally the only fields with jobs available in those towns. Retail is generally located in places with many opportunities
    - nonaime 10y ago
      But you've missed his point about the racial gender make up of those who are employed in those types of jobs. Especially in places with "many opportunities".
  - jnicholasp 10y ago
    I'm not making an argument here, since I don't know the answer to my question, but is it possible that a higher proportion of coal and manufacturing jobs were traditionally living wage, support-a-family type jobs, as compared to retail jobs? And if so, wouldn't it be reasonable to focus attention on the losses in the two categories somewhat differently?
ams6110 10y ago
“America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon,” said Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist. Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. It seems very typical for those with education to look down upon the less-educated. The truth is, US high schools miserably fail the non-college-bound student. I know people without college degrees who make six-figure incomes in the trades or as entrepreneurs. They did not get there with any help from high school guidance counselors or administrators (all college-educated), who basically write you off if you are not college-bound or come from an impoverished background. The message from traditional education for anyone not going to college is "you have no future" rather than helping to explore the limitless expanse of possibilities that are open to anyone who has the motivation and encouragement to pursue them.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. ^^^^^^^ Surprised to see this on HN. Anyways, it's not just a point of view, it's backed by data. Only having a high school diploma is objectively worse (with regards to both financial and physical well-being amongst other metrics). It's not looking down on the less-educated, it's pointing out that the circumstances are bad for them. My English and history PhD friends are in worse positions too (at least financially) despite being a hell of a lot better educated than me.
- vajrabum 10y ago
  You're talking about possibility. The economist is talking about what's actually happening. Two different things. You have a point they're not unrelated. You can indeed help individuals by pointing them in the right direction, but that's unlikely to scale given limited opportunities. Most people are not suited to be entrepreneurs, in this culture at least, and there are a limited number of trade jobs.
- rfc 10y ago
  This. 1,000x. Some of the most successful folks I know went into trade, became "masters of their domains", and then bridge their skills with business to create their own businesses. As an example: A friend from back home got into boring right out of high school. 20 years later, he runs one of the most successful directional boring companies in the region and is a multi-multi millionaire. He was told in high school that if he didn't go to college that he would fail. I don't find this to be a unique story from my perspective but I do have some bias.
stinkytaco 10y ago
We've been on a collision course with this since we left subsistence agriculture and started living in larger groups. Automation's rate has accelerated since the industrial revolution, but it's been happening for thousands of years, which is why I think more people don't see it as a problem. Society's increased consumerism and rising standards of living has allowed people to move into producing things other than food and eventually into service, but it's foolish to think this can continue indefinitely; automation will put more and more people out of work.
- CPLX 10y ago
  That is nonsense. Things got horrible for average workers at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Then they improved markedly due to progressive reforms, and are now rolling back in the face of regressive policies and rising inequality. It's not really that complicated. Progressive policies, regulation, and tax policy have better outcomes. There are just powerful and wealthy forces with vested interests working hard to argue otherwise.
  - stinkytaco 10y ago
    I'm not talking about working conditions. I'm referring to employment. We need less people to do stuff. Thousands of years ago everyone was involved in subsistance. Pretty soon we developed technologies (the wheel, the plow) that meant we needed fewer people to do that. So people were able to move on to doing other things (like making pots or clothing). Pretty soon we automated those things as well (potters wheel, the loom, etc.) and people needed to start making other things. Over time not making anything at all, but doing service work became more common. But automation means we don't need service work as much either. We're running out of places to move people who's jobs were automated out of existence. I don't deny that life is much better for all this technology, but we need to acknowledge the other problem.
    - CPLX 10y ago
      > We need less people to do stuff. A thousand years ago there were 400 million people on earth. Today there are 764 million jobs in China alone. So, on a literal basis at least, that's not turning out to be true so far. Your supposition is that this time it's different than all the other times people have claimed that automation and technology will make everyone idle. But maybe it's not different this time. Maybe technological advancement proceeds relentlessly and has for awhile, and today only looks special because we're in it. Maybe the mechanisms by which economies achieve full employment don't work in the way you're describing.
wonderwonder 10y ago
A four year degree is no longer an advantage but rather a base which allows you to have even a hope of competing. Not having a degree is of course a disadvantage. As automation and outsourcing continues, the issue will only worsen. On top of that we are constantly bombarded with images of the life we should be living via advertising and television. Not meeting these media driven standards leads to further depression and despair. Doctors prescribe opioids because drug companies encourage them too, leading to an easy addiction and escape for the depressed. We need to start treating people like they matter and help them understand that there can be joy and happiness in even the simplest of lives.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Joy and happiness are nice things to have. Making rent every month is nicer.
  - mtberatwork 10y ago
    Indeed: "When asked whether it was more important to them to have financial stability or to move up the income ladder, 92 percent of Americans choose security, an increase of 7 percentage points since 2011." [1] [1] http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2015/02/americans-financial-security-perceptions-and-reality http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-brie...
  - wonderwonder 10y ago
    Of course rent is important. But we don't need a 3/2 when a 2/1 will meet all of our needs. I feel like we are driven to buy things beyond our needs and our inability to afford those things is one of the drivers of despair.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      It's not nothing. But it's nothing next to the fear of ending up homeless.
- gdulli 10y ago
ageofwant 10y ago
Many of the Beautiful Machines science fiction from the 60's promised now exist, but not for you or me. We never stopped to think who these things would actually belong to and who would benefit. The 'liberation' of business that replaced the controls put in place before has brought us to a place where corporate feudalist rules supreme. Those that defend capitalism and democracy frequently confuse the one with the other. Hating on 'communism' while being oblivious to the fact that the capitalism they so feverently defend has died 20 years ago. Mark Blyth has a lot to say on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0
- cartoonfoxes 10y ago
  Good stuff - Mark Blyth's lectures are consistently excellent.
gambiting 10y ago
"America is not a great place for people [....]" It seems to be true in general, unless you have a boatload of money, but then I would argue you would be ok pretty much anywhere. HN has been bombarded with such grim news of the US that I honestly feel bad for Americans(maybe I shouldn't, I don't know), but at least on paper, the world's greatest country doesn't look that great to live in anymore(UK is looking worse and worse by the minute, so maybe it's a general trend).
- rdiddly 10y ago
  "America is not a great place [....]"
- striking 10y ago
  It's easy to pass judgement on a place you don't live in.
- Wohlf 10y ago
  You think this because you've bought in to media hyperbole. America and the UK are fine places to live, they may have some problems but they are fine. Our homeless are often better off than the lower classes of many countries and millions of people risk life, limb, and fortune to come here.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    You think this because you've bought in to media hyperbole I love it when people make evidence-free assumptions about other people they know nothing about. That's what makes this society great.
- creaghpatr 10y ago
  Globalization naturally results in regression to the mean for countries like the US and UK, both in economy and culture. Still a long way to go. Without borders or a culture, what's the point of a country other than being a sort of municipal corporation? And what if the stakeholders are outside shareholders looking to extract value?
dkhenry 10y ago
The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic status. This is the flip side of a media that has espoused the ideals of identity politics, they can't even see past someone's racial grouping to identify a problem facing all Americans ( and most likely other nations too in our globalized economy ). Bloomberg should be ashamed of their journalistic quality and integrity
- jhpriestley 10y ago
  The trend of higher suicide and overdose deaths is specific to white Americans actually.
- allemagne 10y ago
  They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though >While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. Do you specifically disagree with this?
  - dkhenry 10y ago
    Yes! to say this is a racial social context issue is so far off the mark as to make this blatantly racist. Compare mortality directly with economic markers, obviously a group of people who historically have been less economically disadvantaged are going to regress to the mean faster then a group that has been living with it for generations.
  - joatmon-snoo 10y ago
    This comment misses the point - that by focusing specifically on white America, there's the subtle implication that now that white America is facing issues that minorities have faced for generations, this is a problem that we should care about.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I think that life has always been like this for many blacks. Whites - even working-class whites - used to be more immune to this kind of despair. What's different is that the lack of economic opportunity is starting to destroy whites as well. (Yes, it always was there to some degree, but the intensity is new.) Now, we as a society should have cared when it was happening to blacks. But it is a significant change that it is increasing dramatically among working-class whites.
cmahler7 10y ago
We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up against the elite. The anger that got trump elected is just the beginning if things don't change Unfortunately, basic human nature probably won't allow this change to happen without violence.
- andrewmcwatters 10y ago
  lol, yeah like large corporations and investors (which includes many of us here) want to give away free cash or inflate wages without cause the answers to these problems are rarely simple
  - cmahler7 10y ago
    paying a fair tax rate would be a start Do you really think Google should be paying 3% tax?
    - poikniok 10y ago
      No I think they should be paying 0% tax. Double taxation is fundamentally unfair.
- simonsarris 10y ago
  Minor point but the French Revolution was the bourgeoisie (middle class, lawyers, landowners, tradesmen, local officials, "tax payers" of the increasingly onerous taxes at the time) rising up against the nobility & clergy, not quite the plebes.
  - cadlin 10y ago
    Minor point on your minor point, the French Revolution may have begun that way with the calling of the Estate General, but actions by the "passive citizens" (lower classes) spurred the overthrow of the monarchy, Louis's subsequent execution, and universal male suffrage. They didn't direct things from the top, but the mob's opinion was accounted for.
anorphirith 10y ago
it's really getting annoying how US news outlets always separate the ethnicities in USA, let's stop focusing on who's white and who's not. I'm sure a lot of these same problems mentioned in the article affect other ethnicities.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  If socioeconomic outcomes are heavily biased by group membership (which certainly appears to be the case) then it would irresponsible not to report on that fact. Racism is a major factor in US society whether you want to acknowledge that or not.
gerbilly 10y ago
> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there,” said Sue Johnson, who lay next to her son’s corpse for an hour. It made my heart sink to read this sentence. Edit: Highlighted the part that made me sad. You never get over the death of a child.
- _rpd 10y ago
  It's heartbreaking. > “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there” I think though, that this is a near universal aspect of the human condition.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Indeed. I don't know anyone whose life is where they want it to be. Certainly not me.
Touche 10y ago
The article doesn't support its conclusion that drug addiction is caused by people's dim prospects. The man in this article was already an addict before he was old enough to have any perspective on his future potential. I think the deeper problem is that kids are not inspired to gain their own ambitions. So many people walk through life with no ambitions beyond what they plan on doing next weekend. I think a huge issue is the way material is taught in school tends towards hero worship. Scientists, authors, are all looked at as mythical creatures who achieved things that mortal man cannot. It makes us all feel as though the best we can ever achieve is being a cog in a wheel. It took me many years after school to realize that something as simple as starting your own business was actually achievable (by me!) and not something relegated for those who had been born of a higher caste, or of some superior skills.
- framebit 10y ago
  Chris Arnade has a lot of first-hand experience witnessing this modern despair. He writes, "What I saw was huge parts of US, more than reported, was filling with drugs. And where there was drug there was despair." Source: https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-trump-1c6704d659b3 https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-trump-1c6...
  - petra 10y ago
    Shame it goes from despair, straight to hard drugs. What prevents people from going to marijuana in such cases ?
  - Touche 10y ago
    Of course, economic hardship is at the heart of many of society's problems, drugs included. I don't argue with that. What I am skeptical of is the idea that people, once they reach adulthood and see dim prospects, turn to drugs to cope with that depression. The article you linked to pushes the same idea. From my bubbled existence, most of the people who I went to school with who became drug addicts were always part of "the bad kids" cliques; those who always saw life through the prism of partying and never had ambitions to be much of anything. Maybe my perspective is totally wrong, and most drug addicts were B students who just decided not to go to college, but if that's the case I'd love hard data.
zeteo 10y ago
> Johnson started using opioids in high school after breaking his collarbone, first in football and again while wrestling [... T]hings slipped out of control after he graduated and found that his skills — art and cooking, but not academics — meant little in the workforce. > At one point [... he] got a full-time job making wood pallets. [...] “It’s a stupid job. It doesn’t matter if you’re high to work it” It's hard not to think the kid was let down by the system. It should be inconceivable that you can go through K-12 without being told very sternly that a) skills in sports, art and cooking are not very marketable, and will probably only get you "stupid jobs" b) in the current environment, even McD may require a college degree soon, so you'd better bite the bullet on those academic skills. Any adult in a position of responsibility should have known these facts. Yet for 12+ years they've failed to communicate them. The kids are allowed to drift aimlessly, and then it's somehow their fault if they end up in a very bad place at the end.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Skills in sports, arts and cooking are highly marketable and the evidence of this abundant, just switch on your TV. These are also highly competitive injuries in which a great deal of strategy is needed to succeed because the economics are brutal and the media is dedicated to presenting (almost) only the upsides in order to attract an ongoing supply of cheap labor that can be exploited for short-term profit. I resent your suggestion that people engaged in these field are doing 'stupid jobs'. It's insulting to to large numbers of people who work diligently and develop significant skills in those domains whose product you have chosen to declare worthless.
  - zeteo 10y ago
    Yes, and winning the lottery is highly marketable too, isn't it? I didn't say working in sports, arts or cooking was a stupid job. The stupid job is what you get if you can't make any money using the skills you've developed.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Apparently you think that anything other than being at the peak of one's profession is a 'stupid job.' There are large numbers of jobs that depend on people being diligent rather than innovative, and those jobs are certainly easier to automate, but that does not make them stupid jobs. Stop devaluing hard work just because some people choose predictability over risk.
hive_mind 10y ago
I don't understand this focus on "white". Young people everywhere are haunted by crises and despair.
Animats 10y ago
From the article: “America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon." That's it. It just doesn't take that many people to make all the stuff. Erie, PA isn't going to come back. The mantra used to be that people would be employed in "services". But services are more automated, too. Services done at some fixed location are rapidly being automated. Mobile services, too. Some recent developments: * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. [1] * Doordash delivery - robots now deployed in Redwood City. I've seen one in the downtown area. People just ignore them as they roll along the sidewalks. Their active six-wheel suspension can climb a curb. [2] There's an experimental partnership with Mercedes where a self-driving van holds multiple robots and lets them out for deliveries. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360 [2] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delivers-food-to-your-door_tech http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delive...
- exhilaration 10y ago
  > * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. I just wanted to offer a data point here, my buddy worked at the Amazon warehouse in Breinigsville PA a few months back and said he never saw a robot. Reading Hacker News I would have thought that Amazon had their robots widely deployed but that doesn't seem to be the case.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Animats 10y ago
    Amazon has fulfillment center generations. They usually don't automate existing fulfillment centers; they build new ones and close the old ones. Kiva robots went in at Gen-8, in 2014.[1][2] Breinigsville PA was built in 2011, so it's not a Gen-8 center but is too new to replace. [1] http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051 http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051 [2] https://vimeo.com/113374910 https://vimeo.com/113374910
TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
I didn't really get it until I heard a radio piece where a guy being interviewed remembered factory jobs running a stamp press were paying $30-40/hr. Those wage levels aren't coming back.
lispm 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system The German dual education system addresses this. Normal jobs have a formal education system where young people learn practical things in companies and at the same time they learn more theoretical things in special schools. One gets some kind of degree and it also enables them a further path for education and career. You could have gotten education in jobs like plumber, aircraft mechanic, medical assistant - there are more than three hundred apprenticeship occupations. This gives young persons with more practical skills a real education and career path. There is also a positive social status for those who went through this system. The companies also pay them for taking this education. Around 850 Euro per month. https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-system-2129.html https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-system... > In Germany, about 50 percent of all school-leavers undergo vocational training provided by companies which consider the dual system the best way to acquire skilled staff. http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-germanys-low-youth-unemployment http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-german... > The Secret To Germany's Low Youth Unemployment
alistproducer2 10y ago
As a parent, that mother's story is horrific. I couldn't imagine the pain of something like that. Not just because her son died, but there's no way she doesn't somehow blame herself for how he turned out (as I know I would). Moving one, there's is something to be said for the effect of expectations. The data shows that you don't see the same levels of mortality rise in any other population. Simply put, us minorities don't have a false narrative of the American dream instilled in us and therefore don't expect to achieve it. We don't experience suicidal disappointment in ending up in a dead end job because our role models (parents grandparents) are statistically likely to have held those kind of jobs. Personally I hate "white privilege" as a trope, but it does speak to something real: minorities, until very recently, were largely locked out of the American dream (as white people know it). The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households and 10 times the wealth of hispanic households[1]. Numbers don't get like that over night. They are the result of generations of discrimination and institutional systems designed to exclude and screw with people that were not white. The point I'm making is that the average white person today probably doesn't even realize that, relative to other groups, their expectation of what a "nice" life is is basically seen as unattainable for others. Hence, we (POC) don't kill ourselves because we failed to reach the unattainable. As the economy, and society, has diminished the ability for many whites (especially in rural areas) to take vantage of their "privilege" and they're forced to play the same game as the rest of us, they find themselves feeling like failures right out the gate and aren't quite sure why - hence the anxiety and subsequently despair. The answer to this is not that white folks "check their privilege" - although it would help to stop being in denial about it and the effects it has on them and their expectations. The answer is to realize that rugged individualism is just a myth. In no other culture is this myth so central, and now so damaging. Despite what their parents and grandparents, and TV shows and movies have taught them, their relative success is not due to how much tougher they are than other folks and America is not, and has never been a meritocracy. At this point, white America can continue to believe this rubbish at their own peril. Support policies that acknowledge people need other people and we will, evidently, kill ourselves if we go at everything alone as "rugged indivduals" unless the game is rigged in our favor (even if we don't realize it). 1: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealt...
str33t_punk 10y ago
I lived a a suburban, white, middle to upper middle class town in Connecticut until four years ago. There was a massive opioid problem in my high school. There were several overdoses a year. We even had a kid OD in the bathroom. I am still Facebook friends with many of these kids -- none of whom really finished high school. I see them go in and out of rehab on social media all the time. More and more of my friends who did end up going to college are dropping out for various mental health issues. A lot of them are not rebounding. It's all very surprising coming from a middle class suburban town in CT but it is the new normal I guess -- many friends of mine from other suburban / rural areas tell me their towns are facing the same issues.
dbrian82 10y ago
hi,i'm Brian, i had my friend help me hack my ex's email, facebook, whatsapp,and his phone cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was a his phone number. he's email is (hotcyberlord425@gmail.com)..IF u need help tell him Brian referred you to him and he'll help. Am sure his going to help you do it, good luck
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

123 points by enraged_camel 10y ago

The way that title is worded makes me think that the author thinks that "Young White America" believes they should despair more!

throwaway2048 10y ago

these problems get 100 fold worse with increasing automation, and probly needing a triple PHD to actually get a job, maybe. The fantasy that millions of jobs are going to fall out of the sky is exactly that. We need to think of real solutions, and soon.

ryandrake 10y ago

> The fates of the less-educated and those who graduate from universities diverge in dire ways. Middle-aged white Americans without four-year degrees are at increasing risk of dying, a well-documented trend driven not only by drug use but also by alcoholism, suicide, and slowing progress against heart disease and cancer. While that's pretty damn horrible, the fate of people with newly-minted bachelor's degrees isn't much to write home about either, unless you happened to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible. Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects, the looming threat of automation and robotics, underemployment--and if they get a professional job--a workplace full of only entry-level opportunities, with senior and management opportunities sucked up by boomers who refuse to, or can't, retire. Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction, but there's plenty of anxiety and lack of opportunity to go around.

posguy 10y ago
Its the power of capital over labor, whereby capital is extremely stratified in the hands of very few people, and they have shifted political power so as to avoid investment in the laborers (aka everyone below themselves) and ensure they do not become a threat. Additionally, they will usually influence monetary policy to ensure their status is never challenged, which is why rapidly rising housing prices aren't a major political issue at the state and federal level, despite our tax code & loan incentives encouraging ballooning housing prices. Also, this is a decent piece: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...
- thesagan 10y ago
  Within capitalism itself, some economists also argue that wealth concentration tends to suppress investment opportunities, because there aren't as many "moneyed eyes" on economic events worthy of capital and management; investment gets tunnel vision. I don't have any links on-hand but there's plenty of material out there (from reputable sources, and not-so-reputable ones) with a quick Google search. https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS734US734&oq=wealth+concentration+suppress+investment&aqs=chrome..69i57.12408j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppres...
  - posguy 10y ago
    Seems like basic economic theory, the more capital you have flowing through the economy at a lower level, the more opportunities there are. Whereas these 8 people are siloing their wealth in investments, that same money divided up among people of low income would be spent upwards of 3x, and given to the middle class iirc it was something around a 2x factor. Both are much better for our economy than having that wealth sit siloed as an investment.
  - pm90 10y ago
    That makes a lot of sense actually, and has historically been the trend that most societies took. Once you accumulate wealth and power, you do everything to keep it. Democracy and diffusion of political power have been very recent phenomena, in the larger scheme of things.
  - breatheoften 10y ago
    It seems like capitalism really needs something like a wealth tax -- ideally with the rate tied to the change in concentration of wealth over the whole society, so during periods of time when capital is concentrating, the wealth tax goes up vs epochs when it does not... Interestingly, I was reading about the idea of a wealth tax and came across this depressing nugget ...: > In 1999, Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one off 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more. Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt.[18] A net wealth tax may also be designed to be revenue neutral as where it is used to broaden the tax base, stabilize the economy and reduce individual income and other taxes[citation needed].
jlarocco 10y ago
> a workplace full of only entry-level opportunities I agree with the rest of your post, except this part. Entry level jobs are what people should be getting straight out of college. Senior positions and management jobs go to the people with the experience to do them, and that's almost certainly not a person with a year of experience and a new bachelor's degree. I kind of wonder if these weird expectations aren't part of the problem. If the definition of success is to graduate college and move straight to senior management, things might not work out so well...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Why would you need to go to college to do an entry-level job? Conversely, who wants to spend 4 years (and probably $$$) getting a college degree in order to then work a job that bores them to tears? Perhaps you meant 'entry-level' within some more specific context but nowadays employers seem to think people need a bachelor's degree to answer the phone.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    Charitably, you would expect a HN user to use entry level with respect to programming or engineering. Entry level is always within the context of a specific field. You can't say be a master electrician then switch to plumbing and expect the same pay. Your experience is null, and your have to start as entry-level in the new field.
  - jlarocco 10y ago
    > Why would you need to go to college to do an entry-level job? "Entry level" positions are by definition for people just entering a field, and have nothing to do with whether the position requires a degree. Entry level retail doesn't need a college degree, for example. In a lot of fields, though, getting a degree is the bare minimum qualification, so simply having one doesn't give you a leg up. Why hire a person just out of school for a senior level position when there are more experienced people (also with degrees) applying for it? Feel free to apply, but experience will win out every time. > Conversely, who wants to spend 4 years (and probably $$$) getting a college degree in order to then work a job that bores them to tears? That's not really what work is about. Every job is boring and sucks sometimes, that's why it's called "work" and not "leisure" or "playing" or "fun". Unfortunately, a degree isn't a magic certificate to avoid boring work.
ModernMech 10y ago
> unless you happened to major in the few areas of study where gainful employment is possible. Crushing student debt, high cost of living cities, an unreachably inflated housing market, low (but non-zero for now) job prospects Very much this. I came out of a good school with only $30k in debt and a degree in a tech field. My wife came out of an okay state school with $60k in debt (much of that private loans with high interest rates) and a masters in art history and really no job prospects. I'm supporting both of us now on a salary which sounded like a lot to me at first, but we live in the Bay Area. After my $2500 per month rent on a 1 bedroom (low for Bay area standards), and $1600 per month for student loans, we're not left with much each month. I certainly never thought I'd be living paycheck to paycheck on my current salary. We're postponing kids and a house for now, while my parents had both at my age. We don't go out much, we don't buy much. We're comfortable, but not really flourishing. And now I'm starting to see the words "Ballistic Nuclear Missile" and "Napa Valley" in the same sentence. My wife said to me last night she's scared of the future, and for the first time in my life, I'm starting to get a little worried too. As long as I can remember the future was the brightest, most desirable place for me to be. Now? I'm not so sure...
- magic_beans 10y ago
  Many of my friends from high school went on to do undergrad, and then master's degrees in Art History. One of them is working as an intern at the Met now. The other three are living on their trust funds. I don't understand why any sensible person would get an MA in the humanities. It's all well and good if you are doing for your own intellectual curiosity, but it's not so great if you expect a living wage on that degree. :(
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    In Greek and Roman days, the "liberal arts" are, historically, the arts that are appropriate for free people, as opposed to the trades, which were for slaves. That is, the liberal arts were for people who didn't have to work, or to earn a living from what they learned. Fast forward to today. The liberal arts (humanities) are fine if you have a trust fund. If you're going to have to work for your living? Not so much.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> Sure, it's not at the level of dying of a heroin addiction... Yet.
Stryder 10y ago
In a functional society with strong leadership, people are allowed to come up short, and not suffer as a result of coming up short. The US used to be like this, and people thrived as a result. We've been heading in the opposite direction.

deleted 10y ago

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irrational 10y ago

I worry about this for my oldest son. He has dyspraxia and apraxia. In practice that means he has difficulty with memory (at 15 he still doesn't know his multiplication tables) and putting things in order (such as speaking - you have to put phonemes, words, sentences together in order to speak). But, he doesn't look like he has a disability and he doesn't speak much so people don't readily realize he doesn't talk like other people. There are people who know him for years without realizing there is anything "wrong" with him. Unfortunately there is no way he will be able to go to college. He is basically flunking middle school despite putting forth his best effort because he simply can't remember anything and can't put things in order to respond to questions or write things down. However they will basically pass him since they have documentation that he has a disability. He will get a high school diploma because if you have a documented disability and attend public school they will basically just give you a diploma if you at least show up. College, obviously, doesn't work the same way. I'm not really sure what will become of him. I'm not sure he could hack a trade. He could do manual labor, but that doesn't really pay well enough to live on your own, at least where we live. I'm afraid he will end up with the problems outlined in this article.

cryptarch 10y ago
Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.
- vkou 10y ago
  Programming is extremely memory intensive.
  - kevindqc 10y ago
    and the order of things is pretty important
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Apprenticeships happen a fair amount with electricians and plumbers here still. And that's work that can't be readily outsourced (though it can be undercut with cheaper labor). The need to have work up to code ("need", some people don't care) does keep the rates higher than, say, carpentry work.

esteves_ 10y ago

Also, the institutionalized racism against Whites doesn't help.

pjmorris 10y ago

I think you could strike 'Young' and 'White' from the title, and it'd still be accurate.

cmdrfred 10y ago
Won't get as many clicks that way.
Jtsummers 10y ago
Setting aside white, young is relevant as the numbers are showing a marked increase in some behaviors versus ~15-20 years ago among the same age group in particular. It's one thing (still bad) to see alcoholism and drug abuse amongst the middle aged following the termination of a career or something, it's quite another to see it increase amongst the youth before they even have a chance to start (or because they find they have no chance to start).
- rexicus 10y ago
  I wonder if they're mistaking economic factors causing more drug deaths for the new and lethal Fentanyl-laced heroin on the streets.
vajrabum 10y ago
The part that applies specially to young and white is the elevated mortality. Life expectancies for that group are declining which isn't true for African-Americans and Hispanics or Asians.
cpayne624 10y ago
I think they specify 'White' based on this passage: "While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. “For whites, their reference group is previous generations of whites,” said Shannon Monnat, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies the opioid epidemic in rural America. “When they look back on their parents and grandparents, it feels like their generation is doing worse.”"

temp246810 10y ago

The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.

ChrisLTD 10y ago
Why is it a load of crap on so many levels? To take one example, the media and politicians have put a huge spotlight on the plight of coal and manufacturing job losses, while only recently did we learn that in fact we're losing even more retail jobs. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-silent-crisis-of-retail-employment/523428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-sil... Want to guess at the racial and gender makeup of those manufacturing jobs vs. retail?
- fav_collector 10y ago
  You're sort of proving his point. Manufacturing and coal towns are isolated. Manufacturing and coal are sometimes literally the only fields with jobs available in those towns. Retail is generally located in places with many opportunities
  - nonaime 10y ago
    But you've missed his point about the racial gender make up of those who are employed in those types of jobs. Especially in places with "many opportunities".
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  I'm not making an argument here, since I don't know the answer to my question, but is it possible that a higher proportion of coal and manufacturing jobs were traditionally living wage, support-a-family type jobs, as compared to retail jobs? And if so, wouldn't it be reasonable to focus attention on the losses in the two categories somewhat differently?

ams6110 10y ago

“America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon,” said Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist. Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. It seems very typical for those with education to look down upon the less-educated. The truth is, US high schools miserably fail the non-college-bound student. I know people without college degrees who make six-figure incomes in the trades or as entrepreneurs. They did not get there with any help from high school guidance counselors or administrators (all college-educated), who basically write you off if you are not college-bound or come from an impoverished background. The message from traditional education for anyone not going to college is "you have no future" rather than helping to explore the limitless expanse of possibilities that are open to anyone who has the motivation and encouragement to pursue them.

Jtsummers 10y ago
Coming from a Princeton egghead that's not a surprising point of view. ^^^^^^^ Surprised to see this on HN. Anyways, it's not just a point of view, it's backed by data. Only having a high school diploma is objectively worse (with regards to both financial and physical well-being amongst other metrics). It's not looking down on the less-educated, it's pointing out that the circumstances are bad for them. My English and history PhD friends are in worse positions too (at least financially) despite being a hell of a lot better educated than me.
vajrabum 10y ago
You're talking about possibility. The economist is talking about what's actually happening. Two different things. You have a point they're not unrelated. You can indeed help individuals by pointing them in the right direction, but that's unlikely to scale given limited opportunities. Most people are not suited to be entrepreneurs, in this culture at least, and there are a limited number of trade jobs.
rfc 10y ago
This. 1,000x. Some of the most successful folks I know went into trade, became "masters of their domains", and then bridge their skills with business to create their own businesses. As an example: A friend from back home got into boring right out of high school. 20 years later, he runs one of the most successful directional boring companies in the region and is a multi-multi millionaire. He was told in high school that if he didn't go to college that he would fail. I don't find this to be a unique story from my perspective but I do have some bias.

stinkytaco 10y ago

We've been on a collision course with this since we left subsistence agriculture and started living in larger groups. Automation's rate has accelerated since the industrial revolution, but it's been happening for thousands of years, which is why I think more people don't see it as a problem. Society's increased consumerism and rising standards of living has allowed people to move into producing things other than food and eventually into service, but it's foolish to think this can continue indefinitely; automation will put more and more people out of work.

CPLX 10y ago
That is nonsense. Things got horrible for average workers at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Then they improved markedly due to progressive reforms, and are now rolling back in the face of regressive policies and rising inequality. It's not really that complicated. Progressive policies, regulation, and tax policy have better outcomes. There are just powerful and wealthy forces with vested interests working hard to argue otherwise.
- stinkytaco 10y ago
  I'm not talking about working conditions. I'm referring to employment. We need less people to do stuff. Thousands of years ago everyone was involved in subsistance. Pretty soon we developed technologies (the wheel, the plow) that meant we needed fewer people to do that. So people were able to move on to doing other things (like making pots or clothing). Pretty soon we automated those things as well (potters wheel, the loom, etc.) and people needed to start making other things. Over time not making anything at all, but doing service work became more common. But automation means we don't need service work as much either. We're running out of places to move people who's jobs were automated out of existence. I don't deny that life is much better for all this technology, but we need to acknowledge the other problem.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    > We need less people to do stuff. A thousand years ago there were 400 million people on earth. Today there are 764 million jobs in China alone. So, on a literal basis at least, that's not turning out to be true so far. Your supposition is that this time it's different than all the other times people have claimed that automation and technology will make everyone idle. But maybe it's not different this time. Maybe technological advancement proceeds relentlessly and has for awhile, and today only looks special because we're in it. Maybe the mechanisms by which economies achieve full employment don't work in the way you're describing.

wonderwonder 10y ago

A four year degree is no longer an advantage but rather a base which allows you to have even a hope of competing. Not having a degree is of course a disadvantage. As automation and outsourcing continues, the issue will only worsen. On top of that we are constantly bombarded with images of the life we should be living via advertising and television. Not meeting these media driven standards leads to further depression and despair. Doctors prescribe opioids because drug companies encourage them too, leading to an easy addiction and escape for the depressed. We need to start treating people like they matter and help them understand that there can be joy and happiness in even the simplest of lives.

throwanem 10y ago
Joy and happiness are nice things to have. Making rent every month is nicer.
- mtberatwork 10y ago
  Indeed: "When asked whether it was more important to them to have financial stability or to move up the income ladder, 92 percent of Americans choose security, an increase of 7 percentage points since 2011." [1] [1] http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2015/02/americans-financial-security-perceptions-and-reality http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-brie...
- wonderwonder 10y ago
  Of course rent is important. But we don't need a 3/2 when a 2/1 will meet all of our needs. I feel like we are driven to buy things beyond our needs and our inability to afford those things is one of the drivers of despair.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    It's not nothing. But it's nothing next to the fear of ending up homeless.
gdulli 10y ago

ageofwant 10y ago

Many of the Beautiful Machines science fiction from the 60's promised now exist, but not for you or me. We never stopped to think who these things would actually belong to and who would benefit. The 'liberation' of business that replaced the controls put in place before has brought us to a place where corporate feudalist rules supreme. Those that defend capitalism and democracy frequently confuse the one with the other. Hating on 'communism' while being oblivious to the fact that the capitalism they so feverently defend has died 20 years ago. Mark Blyth has a lot to say on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYb6RbuOG0

cartoonfoxes 10y ago
Good stuff - Mark Blyth's lectures are consistently excellent.

gambiting 10y ago

"America is not a great place for people [....]" It seems to be true in general, unless you have a boatload of money, but then I would argue you would be ok pretty much anywhere. HN has been bombarded with such grim news of the US that I honestly feel bad for Americans(maybe I shouldn't, I don't know), but at least on paper, the world's greatest country doesn't look that great to live in anymore(UK is looking worse and worse by the minute, so maybe it's a general trend).

rdiddly 10y ago
"America is not a great place [....]"
striking 10y ago
It's easy to pass judgement on a place you don't live in.
Wohlf 10y ago
You think this because you've bought in to media hyperbole. America and the UK are fine places to live, they may have some problems but they are fine. Our homeless are often better off than the lower classes of many countries and millions of people risk life, limb, and fortune to come here.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  You think this because you've bought in to media hyperbole I love it when people make evidence-free assumptions about other people they know nothing about. That's what makes this society great.
creaghpatr 10y ago
Globalization naturally results in regression to the mean for countries like the US and UK, both in economy and culture. Still a long way to go. Without borders or a culture, what's the point of a country other than being a sort of municipal corporation? And what if the stakeholders are outside shareholders looking to extract value?

dkhenry 10y ago

The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic status. This is the flip side of a media that has espoused the ideals of identity politics, they can't even see past someone's racial grouping to identify a problem facing all Americans ( and most likely other nations too in our globalized economy ). Bloomberg should be ashamed of their journalistic quality and integrity

jhpriestley 10y ago
The trend of higher suicide and overdose deaths is specific to white Americans actually.
allemagne 10y ago
They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though >While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. Do you specifically disagree with this?
- dkhenry 10y ago
  Yes! to say this is a racial social context issue is so far off the mark as to make this blatantly racist. Compare mortality directly with economic markers, obviously a group of people who historically have been less economically disadvantaged are going to regress to the mean faster then a group that has been living with it for generations.
- joatmon-snoo 10y ago
  This comment misses the point - that by focusing specifically on white America, there's the subtle implication that now that white America is facing issues that minorities have faced for generations, this is a problem that we should care about.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
I think that life has always been like this for many blacks. Whites - even working-class whites - used to be more immune to this kind of despair. What's different is that the lack of economic opportunity is starting to destroy whites as well. (Yes, it always was there to some degree, but the intensity is new.) Now, we as a society should have cared when it was happening to blacks. But it is a significant change that it is increasing dramatically among working-class whites.

cmahler7 10y ago

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up against the elite. The anger that got trump elected is just the beginning if things don't change Unfortunately, basic human nature probably won't allow this change to happen without violence.

andrewmcwatters 10y ago
lol, yeah like large corporations and investors (which includes many of us here) want to give away free cash or inflate wages without cause the answers to these problems are rarely simple
- cmahler7 10y ago
  paying a fair tax rate would be a start Do you really think Google should be paying 3% tax?
  - poikniok 10y ago
    No I think they should be paying 0% tax. Double taxation is fundamentally unfair.
simonsarris 10y ago
Minor point but the French Revolution was the bourgeoisie (middle class, lawyers, landowners, tradesmen, local officials, "tax payers" of the increasingly onerous taxes at the time) rising up against the nobility & clergy, not quite the plebes.
- cadlin 10y ago
  Minor point on your minor point, the French Revolution may have begun that way with the calling of the Estate General, but actions by the "passive citizens" (lower classes) spurred the overthrow of the monarchy, Louis's subsequent execution, and universal male suffrage. They didn't direct things from the top, but the mob's opinion was accounted for.

anorphirith 10y ago

it's really getting annoying how US news outlets always separate the ethnicities in USA, let's stop focusing on who's white and who's not. I'm sure a lot of these same problems mentioned in the article affect other ethnicities.

anigbrowl 10y ago
If socioeconomic outcomes are heavily biased by group membership (which certainly appears to be the case) then it would irresponsible not to report on that fact. Racism is a major factor in US society whether you want to acknowledge that or not.

gerbilly 10y ago

> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there,” said Sue Johnson, who lay next to her son’s corpse for an hour. It made my heart sink to read this sentence. Edit: Highlighted the part that made me sad. You never get over the death of a child.

_rpd 10y ago
It's heartbreaking. > “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there” I think though, that this is a near universal aspect of the human condition.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Indeed. I don't know anyone whose life is where they want it to be. Certainly not me.

Touche 10y ago

The article doesn't support its conclusion that drug addiction is caused by people's dim prospects. The man in this article was already an addict before he was old enough to have any perspective on his future potential. I think the deeper problem is that kids are not inspired to gain their own ambitions. So many people walk through life with no ambitions beyond what they plan on doing next weekend. I think a huge issue is the way material is taught in school tends towards hero worship. Scientists, authors, are all looked at as mythical creatures who achieved things that mortal man cannot. It makes us all feel as though the best we can ever achieve is being a cog in a wheel. It took me many years after school to realize that something as simple as starting your own business was actually achievable (by me!) and not something relegated for those who had been born of a higher caste, or of some superior skills.

framebit 10y ago
Chris Arnade has a lot of first-hand experience witnessing this modern despair. He writes, "What I saw was huge parts of US, more than reported, was filling with drugs. And where there was drug there was despair." Source: https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-trump-1c6704d659b3 https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/drugs-despair-and-trump-1c6...
- petra 10y ago
  Shame it goes from despair, straight to hard drugs. What prevents people from going to marijuana in such cases ?
- Touche 10y ago
  Of course, economic hardship is at the heart of many of society's problems, drugs included. I don't argue with that. What I am skeptical of is the idea that people, once they reach adulthood and see dim prospects, turn to drugs to cope with that depression. The article you linked to pushes the same idea. From my bubbled existence, most of the people who I went to school with who became drug addicts were always part of "the bad kids" cliques; those who always saw life through the prism of partying and never had ambitions to be much of anything. Maybe my perspective is totally wrong, and most drug addicts were B students who just decided not to go to college, but if that's the case I'd love hard data.

zeteo 10y ago

> Johnson started using opioids in high school after breaking his collarbone, first in football and again while wrestling [... T]hings slipped out of control after he graduated and found that his skills — art and cooking, but not academics — meant little in the workforce. > At one point [... he] got a full-time job making wood pallets. [...] “It’s a stupid job. It doesn’t matter if you’re high to work it” It's hard not to think the kid was let down by the system. It should be inconceivable that you can go through K-12 without being told very sternly that a) skills in sports, art and cooking are not very marketable, and will probably only get you "stupid jobs" b) in the current environment, even McD may require a college degree soon, so you'd better bite the bullet on those academic skills. Any adult in a position of responsibility should have known these facts. Yet for 12+ years they've failed to communicate them. The kids are allowed to drift aimlessly, and then it's somehow their fault if they end up in a very bad place at the end.

anigbrowl 10y ago
Skills in sports, arts and cooking are highly marketable and the evidence of this abundant, just switch on your TV. These are also highly competitive injuries in which a great deal of strategy is needed to succeed because the economics are brutal and the media is dedicated to presenting (almost) only the upsides in order to attract an ongoing supply of cheap labor that can be exploited for short-term profit. I resent your suggestion that people engaged in these field are doing 'stupid jobs'. It's insulting to to large numbers of people who work diligently and develop significant skills in those domains whose product you have chosen to declare worthless.
- zeteo 10y ago
  Yes, and winning the lottery is highly marketable too, isn't it? I didn't say working in sports, arts or cooking was a stupid job. The stupid job is what you get if you can't make any money using the skills you've developed.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Apparently you think that anything other than being at the peak of one's profession is a 'stupid job.' There are large numbers of jobs that depend on people being diligent rather than innovative, and those jobs are certainly easier to automate, but that does not make them stupid jobs. Stop devaluing hard work just because some people choose predictability over risk.

hive_mind 10y ago

I don't understand this focus on "white". Young people everywhere are haunted by crises and despair.

Animats 10y ago

From the article: “America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon." That's it. It just doesn't take that many people to make all the stuff. Erie, PA isn't going to come back. The mantra used to be that people would be employed in "services". But services are more automated, too. Services done at some fixed location are rapidly being automated. Mobile services, too. Some recent developments: * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. [1] * Doordash delivery - robots now deployed in Redwood City. I've seen one in the downtown area. People just ignore them as they roll along the sidewalks. Their active six-wheel suspension can climb a curb. [2] There's an experimental partnership with Mercedes where a self-driving van holds multiple robots and lets them out for deliveries. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360 [2] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delivers-food-to-your-door_tech http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delive...

exhilaration 10y ago
> * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. I just wanted to offer a data point here, my buddy worked at the Amazon warehouse in Breinigsville PA a few months back and said he never saw a robot. Reading Hacker News I would have thought that Amazon had their robots widely deployed but that doesn't seem to be the case.
- deleted 10y ago
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- Animats 10y ago
  Amazon has fulfillment center generations. They usually don't automate existing fulfillment centers; they build new ones and close the old ones. Kiva robots went in at Gen-8, in 2014.[1][2] Breinigsville PA was built in 2011, so it's not a Gen-8 center but is too new to replace. [1] http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051 http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-03-03-1.php?cid=9051 [2] https://vimeo.com/113374910 https://vimeo.com/113374910

TYPE_FASTER 10y ago

I didn't really get it until I heard a radio piece where a guy being interviewed remembered factory jobs running a stamp press were paying $30-40/hr. Those wage levels aren't coming back.

lispm 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system The German dual education system addresses this. Normal jobs have a formal education system where young people learn practical things in companies and at the same time they learn more theoretical things in special schools. One gets some kind of degree and it also enables them a further path for education and career. You could have gotten education in jobs like plumber, aircraft mechanic, medical assistant - there are more than three hundred apprenticeship occupations. This gives young persons with more practical skills a real education and career path. There is also a positive social status for those who went through this system. The companies also pay them for taking this education. Around 850 Euro per month. https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-system-2129.html https://www.bmbf.de/en/the-german-vocational-training-system... > In Germany, about 50 percent of all school-leavers undergo vocational training provided by companies which consider the dual system the best way to acquire skilled staff. http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-germanys-low-youth-unemployment http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149927290/the-secret-to-german... > The Secret To Germany's Low Youth Unemployment

alistproducer2 10y ago

As a parent, that mother's story is horrific. I couldn't imagine the pain of something like that. Not just because her son died, but there's no way she doesn't somehow blame herself for how he turned out (as I know I would). Moving one, there's is something to be said for the effect of expectations. The data shows that you don't see the same levels of mortality rise in any other population. Simply put, us minorities don't have a false narrative of the American dream instilled in us and therefore don't expect to achieve it. We don't experience suicidal disappointment in ending up in a dead end job because our role models (parents grandparents) are statistically likely to have held those kind of jobs. Personally I hate "white privilege" as a trope, but it does speak to something real: minorities, until very recently, were largely locked out of the American dream (as white people know it). The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households and 10 times the wealth of hispanic households[1]. Numbers don't get like that over night. They are the result of generations of discrimination and institutional systems designed to exclude and screw with people that were not white. The point I'm making is that the average white person today probably doesn't even realize that, relative to other groups, their expectation of what a "nice" life is is basically seen as unattainable for others. Hence, we (POC) don't kill ourselves because we failed to reach the unattainable. As the economy, and society, has diminished the ability for many whites (especially in rural areas) to take vantage of their "privilege" and they're forced to play the same game as the rest of us, they find themselves feeling like failures right out the gate and aren't quite sure why - hence the anxiety and subsequently despair. The answer to this is not that white folks "check their privilege" - although it would help to stop being in denial about it and the effects it has on them and their expectations. The answer is to realize that rugged individualism is just a myth. In no other culture is this myth so central, and now so damaging. Despite what their parents and grandparents, and TV shows and movies have taught them, their relative success is not due to how much tougher they are than other folks and America is not, and has never been a meritocracy. At this point, white America can continue to believe this rubbish at their own peril. Support policies that acknowledge people need other people and we will, evidently, kill ourselves if we go at everything alone as "rugged indivduals" unless the game is rigged in our favor (even if we don't realize it). 1: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealt...

str33t_punk 10y ago

I lived a a suburban, white, middle to upper middle class town in Connecticut until four years ago. There was a massive opioid problem in my high school. There were several overdoses a year. We even had a kid OD in the bathroom. I am still Facebook friends with many of these kids -- none of whom really finished high school. I see them go in and out of rehab on social media all the time. More and more of my friends who did end up going to college are dropping out for various mental health issues. A lot of them are not rebounding. It's all very surprising coming from a middle class suburban town in CT but it is the new normal I guess -- many friends of mine from other suburban / rural areas tell me their towns are facing the same issues.

dbrian82 10y ago

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deleted 10y ago

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