4 ms·

It seems like this came to a head around the time of the occupy wall street protests (is it 10 years ago now?). The public consciousness became aware of the way

It seems like this came to a head around the time of the occupy wall street protests (is it 10 years ago now?). The public consciousness became aware of the way our political/financial systems were in a kind of symbiotic conspiracy to vacuum up productivity gains, there was huge pressure to do something about it despite the media's constant stream of 'nothing to see here'..... and then nothing happened. The popular culture of the west instead decended into this en masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. Seems like there was a huge opportunity that was foiled or just missed and this is possibly going to be the result of it.

jryan49 8y ago
The more we fight each other the less we are fighting "them".
- wheremind 8y ago
  Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see someone that has actually looked into it and tried to compile a bit of data.
  - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
    This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
    - wheremind 8y ago
      I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.
      - jryan49 8y ago
        I went to a few of the protests to watch, not really take part. It seemed to me that they had a crazy flat purely democratic structure (or unstructure :P). So much in fact that they couldn't decide on what to focus on or how to move forward. A lot of them also seemed to not understand how our financial system works.
        wheremind 8y ago
        Yeah, I agree about the street protests themselves were pretty dysfunctional, that wasn't really what I was talking about. The protests were really only the tip of the iceberg at the time. There seemed to be a much wider focus on the gaming of systems and regulatory capture (mostly) by a financial industry that pretty much seemed to be just a state protected tool for money farmers.
- mythrwy 8y ago
  The tricky part is there is no "them" to fight. "Them" is just another "Us". And "we" are responsible for the way things are (albeit to lesser degree perhaps) the same as bank presidents and congressional representatives and CEOs of large corporations. My feeling is we can't lay the problems of the modern world at the feet of individuals. There isn't a shadowy cabal intent on keep the little people down. It's just people and groups struggling for power and resources with varying degrees of a success. That's not to say there aren't collusions and conspiracies and bad doings by people with power, there most certainly are, but the fact these succeed are problems of a system. Because people are people are people and the new boss is same as the old boss and 4 legs good 2 legs better and all that jazz. What is needed are some systemic updates. And these will happen inevitably I think.
  - mythrwy 8y ago
    Just to expand a bit on the above, look at currently top rated poster with 100K in student loans. I think it's somewhat axiomatic this out of balance and most people would consider it "wrong" and "abusive". So who is to blame? The bankers? Well, ya, partially. The government who let it get like this and didn't make funding education a priority? Yep, as well. School administrators who keep adding on layer after layer of useless non-productive bureaucracy driving up costs to astronomical levels? Yep, them too. How about companies that insist someone sit in classes like literature for at least a couple of years before they can push buttons on a machine? Yep. How about people who try to fake their way into jobs they can't do necessitating the previous? well, yep, them too. How about a guy who wants to "get on with the university" so he can have good benefits and a pension after 20 or 30 years? he's partially to blame as well. Point is, we can't just blame bankers and politicians and corporations and call it a day. Our activity, almost to the person is responsible for the horrible outcomes. We all are trying to get a little piece of the pie and the sum total in this system is producing undesirable side effects. Housing is another prime example. It's ridiculous. Way out of wack. Unless you bought a house 30 years ago then what a great way to save for retirement and housing appreciating is fantastic! I really think we need to back up and address some fundamentals. Housing, healthcare and education being big ones. These aren't a place for speculation and self serving bureaucracy. They are necessities of life and an advancing society. So we need to change some things about how these are run. But that means some people will no longer be able to victimize others and will lose out. But it's not all just bankers and CEOs. It's a lot of little sucker fish attached to the ecosystem as well. So it's not as easy as just getting out the guillotine which is all too common of a reaction.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  The typical HN reader is firmly entrenched in the establishment or wishes they were. What does a developer making $200k stand to gain by demanding economic justice?
  - miketery 8y ago
    the intelligentsia was the first to go during the red revolution.
  - astura 8y ago
    A populous that won't come after them with pitchforks.
dominotw 8y ago
I think ppl like buffet, gates contributed massively towards viewing rich as more tolerant, magnanimous and kind. They also aligned themselves on the right side of 'masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality'. If you are rich the best thing you can do to avoid pitchforks is to get on liberal side and seen by people and media and 'fighting their war'.
api 8y ago
I have a friend who's a bit conspiracy minded. He thinks the powers that be responded to Occupy by simultaneously pushing far-left and far-right identity politics to split everyone into tiny warring factions. I'm skeptical but regardless of whether it was intentional or just happened that does in fact seem to be what happened. The culture war must die. Then after it's dead it must be burned, ground into fine powder, mixed with concrete, and dropped into a deep region of the ocean near a subduction zone. Unfortunately that means everyone and I mean everyone who is culture-warring must give up and walk away. That means no more social justice warrior-ing and no more Pepe memes and alt-right tiki torch bullshit either. That means ignoring Jordan Peterson and Sam Seder. That means screw religion and atheism. That means screw the left and the right. That means... well... it kind of means everyone simultaneously loses whatever culture war they're fighting... or simultaneously wins... but you have to not care so much you don't even care about that. I don't know. Maybe it can happen. Try this. Every time you're tempted to get mad about the "alt-right" or alternately "cultural Marxism" just stare at this graph and ask "who benefits from me worrying about this crap?" https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-imlQvrT-aFM/Ve9yY1CAV9I/AAAAAAAAMb4/LEHK7_yNMUw/s1600/EPI_productivity_compensation.png https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-imlQvrT-aFM/Ve9yY1CAV9I/AAAAAAAAM... I will say this. As long as we are split over issues like race, gender, religion, and cultural totems the longer that graph will diverge.
- s2g 8y ago
  Except one side is literally nazis. You're advocating for not opposing actual neo-nazis.
  - api 8y ago
    It's complicated. I think we have a few layers of feedback loops here. While the alt-right is scarier and more viscerally dangerous there is a bit of a "negativity laser" phenomenon going on here. The far left and far right are each others' bogey men and thus are driving each other off the deep end. I'm not saying they'll stop if we hug them but I'm saying that directly attacking them might give them more energy. The real danger is that their dangerous nuttery will drive liberals into nutty territory themselves as a counter-reaction (and vice versa... that's how a laser works). Meanwhile we are neglecting the economic issues and those are IMHO the real cause. This kind of xenophobic hate stuff always comes up when people feel economic hardship. Scarcity triggers atavistic tribal "band together and raid the neighboring tribe" behavior patterns. Our brain stems don't know what century this is. The Nazis came to power during a deep economic crisis, remember? The irony is that neglecting the economic underpinnings of this to focus on the social issues is creating precisely the environment that led to the rise of fascism the last time around. Edit: I'm also not advocating accepting fringe racists, just not expending too much energy fighting them directly (which feeds them) and instead re-focusing that energy on asking "what happened in 1973 and how can we fix it?" What's kind of interesting about that graph I posted is that there is a ground zero. Whatever went wrong went wrong in 1973 plus or minus a year or two. If we can fix that I really think the Nazis will go back in their holes. People only listen to that kind of craziness when they feel desperate and they feel like the system has failed them.
pm90 8y ago
> masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. I don't think its a flame war as much as a reckoning. Its like saying the Civil Rights movement was a flame war; that is how deep changes happen in a society and culture. Specifically w.r.t the #MeToo movement, I think women demanding more compensation and better workplace environment ends up benefiting everyone (even if the movement's primary concern is with other things). If there is one thing this horrible Presidency has accomplished, it is more political participation among Americans; a recognition of the importance of politics and of voting. That perhaps is the greatest opportunity in this generation.
- api 8y ago
  The problem is that these issues are so emotional they completely sideline any discussion of economic well being or economic issues in general. As long as they dominate attention other issues just don't come up.
  - pm90 8y ago
    "issues" like disproportionate incarceration for minorities, sexual harassment for women, you mean? They may not be directly economic at first but building a society that is more just and equal is certainly the easiest path to increasing prosperity and well being.
    - api 8y ago
      I wish we could address both at once but recent history seems to suggest that we can't. I think the problem is with how these issues interact with other issues when projected down onto the demographics of the voting population. The problem is that these issue cross-cut each other in almost exactly an X pattern. The majority of the working class is socially conservative, traditional, and religious, so any culture war issue tends to be a fault line that neatly divides the voting bloc that would otherwise care about economic equality. I would like us to have racial and gender equality but unfortunately it might mean we get to all be equal and poor.
- jtr1 8y ago
Karrot_Kream 8y ago
I think very few people realized the regulatory hazard of wealth. It's looking to me increasingly that capitalism as it is today is unsustainable because the wealthy in the market bribe regulators (for multiple, subtle definitions of bribe such as privately funded campaigns) to keep them in their dominant position.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
>The popular culture of the west instead decended into this en masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. That was the whole impetus behind the adoption of "identity politics" by a corrupt Democratic party establishment who had completely sold out their traditional base of working people to Wall Street. Their continued push to make society's problems all about "identity" instead of economic inequality (You can still hear the cries of "race not class!") was a strategy deliberately employed by the scions of the Democratic party firmly entrenched in the ruling class. Have no doubt that they are out in the Hamptons right now, rubbing shoulders with billionares and oligarchs crying about racism and 54 genders while countless millions of Americans are mired in poverty, and hundreds of millions more are one medical emergency or minor crisis away from homelessness. Those at the DNC and the Center for American Progress and a dozen other neo-liberal think tanks collecting millions a year to maintain the economic status-quo have everything to gain and nothing to lose by continuing to polarize people based on "identity" in an effort to distract them from the profound structucal problems in our economy and our society. Unless and until people wake up and eject these grifters from the halls of power the Democratic party is destined to look very much like the Republican party, just peddling a different brand of bigoted idiocy to keep poor people from supporting their economic interests.
- wheremind 8y ago
  Do you know a source that collects together evidence for this and presents it in a way that's relatively easy to read through?
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    I think this is applicable. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-dem...
thomascgalvin 8y ago
> there was huge pressure to do something about it despite the media's constant stream of 'nothing to see here'..... and then nothing happened. That seems to be the case with pretty much every major issue we're facing right now. The student loan bubble, the Republican tax cut and repeal of Wall Street regulations, global warming, education, the decimation of the nation's worldwide standing, the obesity crisis ... Collectively, we have no attention span. We get scared about something, then think to ourselves "well, somebody has always solved the big problems in the past. I'm sure somebody will solve this one, too," and go back to voting for someone on The Voice instead of someone in the Senate.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> there was a huge opportunity that was foiled or just missed 2016 voter turnout amongst millennials was 49% versus 61% for the population [1]. It's not surprising that old-guard industries are being subsidized and Social Security and Medicare expanded while education subsidies and entry-level public sector job openings fall. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-...
viraptor 8y ago
> and then nothing happened Newsroom series had a nice description for that. There was a disorganised mass of people with a very vague idea of who they wanted to change and why. With no clear goals, no actual representative from the other side that is held responsible for progress, etc. nothing could really happen. (Unless it turned into actual uprising)

jryan49 8y ago

The more we fight each other the less we are fighting "them".

wheremind 8y ago
Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see someone that has actually looked into it and tried to compile a bit of data.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
  - wheremind 8y ago
    I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.
    - jryan49 8y ago
      I went to a few of the protests to watch, not really take part. It seemed to me that they had a crazy flat purely democratic structure (or unstructure :P). So much in fact that they couldn't decide on what to focus on or how to move forward. A lot of them also seemed to not understand how our financial system works.
      - wheremind 8y ago
        Yeah, I agree about the street protests themselves were pretty dysfunctional, that wasn't really what I was talking about. The protests were really only the tip of the iceberg at the time. There seemed to be a much wider focus on the gaming of systems and regulatory capture (mostly) by a financial industry that pretty much seemed to be just a state protected tool for money farmers.
mythrwy 8y ago
The tricky part is there is no "them" to fight. "Them" is just another "Us". And "we" are responsible for the way things are (albeit to lesser degree perhaps) the same as bank presidents and congressional representatives and CEOs of large corporations. My feeling is we can't lay the problems of the modern world at the feet of individuals. There isn't a shadowy cabal intent on keep the little people down. It's just people and groups struggling for power and resources with varying degrees of a success. That's not to say there aren't collusions and conspiracies and bad doings by people with power, there most certainly are, but the fact these succeed are problems of a system. Because people are people are people and the new boss is same as the old boss and 4 legs good 2 legs better and all that jazz. What is needed are some systemic updates. And these will happen inevitably I think.
- mythrwy 8y ago
  Just to expand a bit on the above, look at currently top rated poster with 100K in student loans. I think it's somewhat axiomatic this out of balance and most people would consider it "wrong" and "abusive". So who is to blame? The bankers? Well, ya, partially. The government who let it get like this and didn't make funding education a priority? Yep, as well. School administrators who keep adding on layer after layer of useless non-productive bureaucracy driving up costs to astronomical levels? Yep, them too. How about companies that insist someone sit in classes like literature for at least a couple of years before they can push buttons on a machine? Yep. How about people who try to fake their way into jobs they can't do necessitating the previous? well, yep, them too. How about a guy who wants to "get on with the university" so he can have good benefits and a pension after 20 or 30 years? he's partially to blame as well. Point is, we can't just blame bankers and politicians and corporations and call it a day. Our activity, almost to the person is responsible for the horrible outcomes. We all are trying to get a little piece of the pie and the sum total in this system is producing undesirable side effects. Housing is another prime example. It's ridiculous. Way out of wack. Unless you bought a house 30 years ago then what a great way to save for retirement and housing appreciating is fantastic! I really think we need to back up and address some fundamentals. Housing, healthcare and education being big ones. These aren't a place for speculation and self serving bureaucracy. They are necessities of life and an advancing society. So we need to change some things about how these are run. But that means some people will no longer be able to victimize others and will lose out. But it's not all just bankers and CEOs. It's a lot of little sucker fish attached to the ecosystem as well. So it's not as easy as just getting out the guillotine which is all too common of a reaction.
claydavisss 8y ago
The typical HN reader is firmly entrenched in the establishment or wishes they were. What does a developer making $200k stand to gain by demanding economic justice?
- miketery 8y ago
  the intelligentsia was the first to go during the red revolution.
- astura 8y ago
  A populous that won't come after them with pitchforks.

dominotw 8y ago

I think ppl like buffet, gates contributed massively towards viewing rich as more tolerant, magnanimous and kind. They also aligned themselves on the right side of 'masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality'. If you are rich the best thing you can do to avoid pitchforks is to get on liberal side and seen by people and media and 'fighting their war'.

api 8y ago

I have a friend who's a bit conspiracy minded. He thinks the powers that be responded to Occupy by simultaneously pushing far-left and far-right identity politics to split everyone into tiny warring factions. I'm skeptical but regardless of whether it was intentional or just happened that does in fact seem to be what happened. The culture war must die. Then after it's dead it must be burned, ground into fine powder, mixed with concrete, and dropped into a deep region of the ocean near a subduction zone. Unfortunately that means everyone and I mean everyone who is culture-warring must give up and walk away. That means no more social justice warrior-ing and no more Pepe memes and alt-right tiki torch bullshit either. That means ignoring Jordan Peterson and Sam Seder. That means screw religion and atheism. That means screw the left and the right. That means... well... it kind of means everyone simultaneously loses whatever culture war they're fighting... or simultaneously wins... but you have to not care so much you don't even care about that. I don't know. Maybe it can happen. Try this. Every time you're tempted to get mad about the "alt-right" or alternately "cultural Marxism" just stare at this graph and ask "who benefits from me worrying about this crap?" https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-imlQvrT-aFM/Ve9yY1CAV9I/AAAAAAAAMb4/LEHK7_yNMUw/s1600/EPI_productivity_compensation.png https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-imlQvrT-aFM/Ve9yY1CAV9I/AAAAAAAAM... I will say this. As long as we are split over issues like race, gender, religion, and cultural totems the longer that graph will diverge.

s2g 8y ago
Except one side is literally nazis. You're advocating for not opposing actual neo-nazis.
- api 8y ago
  It's complicated. I think we have a few layers of feedback loops here. While the alt-right is scarier and more viscerally dangerous there is a bit of a "negativity laser" phenomenon going on here. The far left and far right are each others' bogey men and thus are driving each other off the deep end. I'm not saying they'll stop if we hug them but I'm saying that directly attacking them might give them more energy. The real danger is that their dangerous nuttery will drive liberals into nutty territory themselves as a counter-reaction (and vice versa... that's how a laser works). Meanwhile we are neglecting the economic issues and those are IMHO the real cause. This kind of xenophobic hate stuff always comes up when people feel economic hardship. Scarcity triggers atavistic tribal "band together and raid the neighboring tribe" behavior patterns. Our brain stems don't know what century this is. The Nazis came to power during a deep economic crisis, remember? The irony is that neglecting the economic underpinnings of this to focus on the social issues is creating precisely the environment that led to the rise of fascism the last time around. Edit: I'm also not advocating accepting fringe racists, just not expending too much energy fighting them directly (which feeds them) and instead re-focusing that energy on asking "what happened in 1973 and how can we fix it?" What's kind of interesting about that graph I posted is that there is a ground zero. Whatever went wrong went wrong in 1973 plus or minus a year or two. If we can fix that I really think the Nazis will go back in their holes. People only listen to that kind of craziness when they feel desperate and they feel like the system has failed them.

pm90 8y ago

> masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. I don't think its a flame war as much as a reckoning. Its like saying the Civil Rights movement was a flame war; that is how deep changes happen in a society and culture. Specifically w.r.t the #MeToo movement, I think women demanding more compensation and better workplace environment ends up benefiting everyone (even if the movement's primary concern is with other things). If there is one thing this horrible Presidency has accomplished, it is more political participation among Americans; a recognition of the importance of politics and of voting. That perhaps is the greatest opportunity in this generation.

api 8y ago
The problem is that these issues are so emotional they completely sideline any discussion of economic well being or economic issues in general. As long as they dominate attention other issues just don't come up.
- pm90 8y ago
  "issues" like disproportionate incarceration for minorities, sexual harassment for women, you mean? They may not be directly economic at first but building a society that is more just and equal is certainly the easiest path to increasing prosperity and well being.
  - api 8y ago
    I wish we could address both at once but recent history seems to suggest that we can't. I think the problem is with how these issues interact with other issues when projected down onto the demographics of the voting population. The problem is that these issue cross-cut each other in almost exactly an X pattern. The majority of the working class is socially conservative, traditional, and religious, so any culture war issue tends to be a fault line that neatly divides the voting bloc that would otherwise care about economic equality. I would like us to have racial and gender equality but unfortunately it might mean we get to all be equal and poor.
jtr1 8y ago

Karrot_Kream 8y ago

I think very few people realized the regulatory hazard of wealth. It's looking to me increasingly that capitalism as it is today is unsustainable because the wealthy in the market bribe regulators (for multiple, subtle definitions of bribe such as privately funded campaigns) to keep them in their dominant position.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago

>The popular culture of the west instead decended into this en masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. That was the whole impetus behind the adoption of "identity politics" by a corrupt Democratic party establishment who had completely sold out their traditional base of working people to Wall Street. Their continued push to make society's problems all about "identity" instead of economic inequality (You can still hear the cries of "race not class!") was a strategy deliberately employed by the scions of the Democratic party firmly entrenched in the ruling class. Have no doubt that they are out in the Hamptons right now, rubbing shoulders with billionares and oligarchs crying about racism and 54 genders while countless millions of Americans are mired in poverty, and hundreds of millions more are one medical emergency or minor crisis away from homelessness. Those at the DNC and the Center for American Progress and a dozen other neo-liberal think tanks collecting millions a year to maintain the economic status-quo have everything to gain and nothing to lose by continuing to polarize people based on "identity" in an effort to distract them from the profound structucal problems in our economy and our society. Unless and until people wake up and eject these grifters from the halls of power the Democratic party is destined to look very much like the Republican party, just peddling a different brand of bigoted idiocy to keep poor people from supporting their economic interests.

wheremind 8y ago
Do you know a source that collects together evidence for this and presents it in a way that's relatively easy to read through?
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  I think this is applicable. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-dem...

thomascgalvin 8y ago

> there was huge pressure to do something about it despite the media's constant stream of 'nothing to see here'..... and then nothing happened. That seems to be the case with pretty much every major issue we're facing right now. The student loan bubble, the Republican tax cut and repeal of Wall Street regulations, global warming, education, the decimation of the nation's worldwide standing, the obesity crisis ... Collectively, we have no attention span. We get scared about something, then think to ourselves "well, somebody has always solved the big problems in the past. I'm sure somebody will solve this one, too," and go back to voting for someone on The Voice instead of someone in the Senate.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> there was a huge opportunity that was foiled or just missed 2016 voter turnout amongst millennials was 49% versus 61% for the population [1]. It's not surprising that old-guard industries are being subsidized and Social Security and Medicare expanded while education subsidies and entry-level public sector job openings fall. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-...

viraptor 8y ago

> and then nothing happened Newsroom series had a nice description for that. There was a disorganised mass of people with a very vague idea of who they wanted to change and why. With no clear goals, no actual representative from the other side that is held responsible for progress, etc. nothing could really happen. (Unless it turned into actual uprising)