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This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that ev
by erikpukinskis 8y ago
This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations.
This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Software As A Service, Family Mental Health As A Service, Guiltlessness As A Service, etc) as they catch on globally. Sometimes naturally because we discover some actual value. More often just by finding a practice which is addicting and then just dumping product until a population is addicted.
Great recipe for success, much wealth has been stockpiled.
It’s possible we sold out some cultural knowledge in the process, but the U.S. is a young country so most of our culture was pretty raw in the 19th century.
The bulk of our old growth culture we just slaughtered on arrival.
- halbritt 8y agoToo real.
- narrator 8y agoThe reason that everything is so not integrated is because of the American culture of containment. You have very very different kinds of people living in close physical proximity who often want nothing to do with each other. Think East Palo Alto and Palo Alto for example, especially in the 90s when East Palo Alto had the highest murder rate per capita in the U.S. Nowadays, physical proximity means less and less. Relationships are even becoming less integrated. Yes you can interact with other people, but only as coworkers and paid professionals. Don't cross any weird lines. Even asking someone to engage in friend activities is getting more rare as most people prefer online friends, since they have more in common with them. The throughly modern American asks "Why would you need to be in physical proximity to someone anyway unless it was necessary for work? That's so creepy!". Lately, Tinder and friends have really stripped the last actual need for non-work physical proximity with any indivuals who have not been pre-screened via the algorithm.
- extradego 8y ago>throughly modern American You baby-boomers need to speak for yourselves only and keep me out of it. (Assuming you mean "modern" as in contemporary. If you mean the more canonical "modern", sorry for the react.)
- vanattab 8y agoAre baby-boomers some how too old to be allowed to consider themselves as part of our contemporary society?
- extradego 8y agoI wish. You people are a disgrace.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago“Exxxxcellent... another sucker has bought into the generational warfare meme we’ve been selling. Divide and conquer!” - the media
- dragonwriter 8y ago“Excellent—another sucker had bought into blaming the distribution mechanism rather than the group directing it for the message we pay for it to transmit!” — the capitalist class
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- dang 8y agoWe've banned this account for violating the rules and spirit of this site. Generational warfare isn't an ok thing here. Same for ideological battle. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- christiangenco 8y agoThis is the first time I've heard the phrase "Guiltlessness As A Service" - from a google search I think it may be your own term? Regardless, I like it. I think you're using it to describe businesses that do things like sell carbon credits or do humanitarian work?
- radiantswirl 8y agoCompanies with an "eco" or "humanitarian" angle are rly just selling newfangled Catholic indulgences.
- jeremyjh 8y agoExcept they might also actually be helping some people, or improving the environment, even if its very inefficient.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoBut they also are a cop out to not solve the real problem. If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit, you don’t solve the college debt and education accessibility problem, but it makes people who did it feel better.
- cardiffspaceman 8y ago> If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit Or pay someone to plant a tree when you fly to offset the carbon.
- ghettoimp 8y agoIs it not... something? One could always not give tuition money to a few poor kids. That fails to solve anything too. I really dislike the knee-jerk, blanket dismissal of people who are trying to do small but good things. "If nothing we do matters then the only thing that matters is what we do." - Joss Whedon
- J-dawg 8y agoThis is a fascinating idea which seems worth expanding into a longer piece of writing. Could you give some specific examples of what you mean by “community labor” and what they’ve been replaced with? Also, what do you mean by “Guiltlessness as a service”?
- olefoo 8y agoFair-trade, ethically sourced, carbon-neutral consumer product. Guaranteed by a public-benefit corporation. Bonus: Now on the blockchain!
- extradego 8y agoRight on the money. Before WW2, America was a culture desert. Europeans fleeing the war are the only reason NYC became an international culture hub. Hip-hop is undoubtedly the most progressive Western art form. (Side note: hip-hop's genius appropriations of commercial symbolisms and it's will to collective empowerment directly underwrite and provide the language of the public engagement of today's millenials. It's influence is as deep as an ocean.) But while hip-hop is the only non-native wholly American cultural movement, it's American origins are a far cry from enlightment; more bound in shame. To say America created hip-hop would be an offense. Saying America stole it would be more accurate.
- rainbowmverse 8y agoAppropriation and disproportionate credit for white people is a real and serious problem, but it's not the whole story. Most of the actual musicians who were inspired by black music fully acknowledged their inspirations and were often annoyed at how no one seemed to care about the people they looked up to. The actual artists out on the stage doing the music know exactly what comes from where. Culture spreads like that: someone likes a piece and adds it to their own, fusing two cultures. It's how we have American Chinese food that looks nothing like Chinese Chinese food. (the xenophobic policies that led to it is another matter) You have a very narrow and stereotyped view of American culture. The whole of it is not a few white-majority cities in the north and one over-funded region in the west.
- extradego 8y agoI have an opinionated view of American culture, and I'm daily surrounded by other musicians, artists. These are the topics we discuss. I am opinionated as a result. In my previous comment, please note when I say "hip-hop", I am not referring to music, but culture. Nonetheless... I grew up in the south. My father was literally a clogger. I'm no stranger to folk. But, I am extremely skeptical of a lot of it's history. The mid-century folk-revival era did a real number on our conception of what's really there culture-wise. Behind the curtain, I am honestly afraid it's mostly puritanism, shame, and self-conflict. It's interesting but I think calling it a cultural movement is mostly romanticism. In terms of music, we could delve into details for days, and break down the whole history of hip-hop and jazz, and I do encourage that. There's a lot of good music there. But, I'm afraid it serves essentially the same end in terms of culture; a terribly familiar story. Hip-hop exhibits the whole of the cultural dynamic fairly explicitly, and is internationally renowned. Folk is mostly replicated in parody. EDIT: Another thing to add... I think most people would be surprised how many contemporary folk musicians (young ones) would actually agree with me. They eventually are challenged with contending with things like: Did folk come from slaves? Or the working class? Or the fraught relations between the two? And is it reconcilable? Where did country music come from?
- guelo 8y agoWow I love this comment. Especially because I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
- stcredzero 8y agoIt’s possible we sold out some cultural knowledge in the process We've lost most of our knowledge about how to create civic spaces of value. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ The bulk of our old growth culture we just slaughtered on arrival. A lot of it was transformed.
- yuhong 8y agoThe entire current debt-based economy is fundamentally designed to extract as much money as possible from "consumers".
- blitmap 8y agoI had not considered that planning cities like this was meant to be community-hostile, but I can easily see how this is meant to breed a dependence on corporate solutions. This has the taste of conspiracy, but I do believe you're right. There's a lot of money to be made this way.
- wozniacki 8y agoI had not considered that planning cities like this was meant to be community-hostile, but I can easily see how this is meant to breed a dependence on corporate solutions. Could you elaborate on this? I guess the angle I don't see answered is why would you need 'corporate solutions' say home surveillance solutions, private security solutions and other security & theft deterrence apparatus and solutions if you didn't have any hostile communities to be begin with? Was this ever studied in the American or non-North American context? Are European cities and towns seeing a new found need for these things now, that were practically unheard of a few decades ago?
- rdiddly 8y agoTheft and other crimes seem to increase the more you remove or disrupt community. In other words, it's not about hostile communities, but the absence of community. In the absence of community, the default is hostility. Or, community is the establishment of non-hostility. Almost by definition. Community is people with common interests in a common location doing favors for each other and looking out for each other. When you have that, crime decreases. There's also a generic version of the word "community" that people throw around, that can mean almost anything: a town (which isn't automatically a community)... gamers ("the gaming community")... "the Native American lesbian sportfishing enthusiast community"... and so on. I don't mean that. Anyway, something "community-hostile" would therefore be anything that creates separation and alienation. Among other types of separation, there's separation in the spatial realm, such as through sheer distance (things are far apart), or through side effects of physical barriers that are part of the infrastructure, e.g. walls built to block traffic noise, or streets themselves, especially when wide and dangerous; or through other physical barriers that are more subtle such as the windows of your own car, through which you can see, yet you could easily drive right past your friend coming the other way without knowing it, whereas that would never happen if you were both walking or on a bike or scooter. Well, you say, I can just text my friend on my phone. Exactly, and now you're dependent on the phone maker, the carrier, Apple/Google, etc. for that communication to take place.
- Fnoord 8y ago"Car As A Service" is essentially rented cars: taxis, and Uber & friends. Problem in USA is bicycles and cargo bikes are not widespread. Hence the roads aren't build for bicyclists and people don't expect them while bicyclists wear helmets (in The Netherlands the latter is rare but roads are build with bicyclists taken into account).