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Its fairly typical during the early stages of societal collapse to blame the first victims. Obviously the cultural-wide problem of declining standards of livin
by VLM 8y ago
Its fairly typical during the early stages of societal collapse to blame the first victims. Obviously the cultural-wide problem of declining standards of living must be solely the fault of the first victims or their families not trying hard enough. The whole point of the situation is "have a live" was quite achievable to everyone just a generation or two ago. As the decline continues, societal expectations will eventually change to match and the problem and bullying of the victims will disappear naturally, so in a sense its not really a problem.
The victims are likely to get blamed for economic problems such as demand destruction. If an economy for 100M people requires 100M "great jobs" spenders but only has 95M "great jobs" available, those 5M kicked out of society are going to have trouble keeping the consumer economy running. Resulting in economic contraction to a 95M person-sized economy for a 100M nation only having maybe 90M "good jobs" rinse and repeat until collapse.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago> Its fairly typical during the early stages of societal collapse to blame the first victims. Interesting statement. What previous societal collapses can you cite to back up that claim?
- VLM 8y agoSeriously? You first. Find me a counterexample in history, of the decline of a civilization, which resulted in BETTER treatment of minorities, outgroups, or weak sub populations. I hate to Godwin the discussion but as a trivial example I don't think the Jews got gassed in Germany because the economy was too strong and Weimar was too politically stable. Generally you don't want to be part of a small outgroup during a societal collapse, the masses will demand somebody gotta be burned at the stake and its not going to be the popular group.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoi don’t think he was doubting you, he was asking for evidence of your seemingly insightful claim. Your points don’t seem to be aligned though. Minorities suffering is not the same as blaming the first coincidental victims of economic downturn.
- VLM 8y agoCool, I get what you're saying, and that is a valid point that there will be cultural variation in the level of "somebody must pay for this" for bad situations. The Great Depression in West Virginia seemed rather wholesome and pleasant as portrayed by "The Waltons", so rivers of guillotine blood in the French Revolution are not a guaranteed outcome. The whole point of this problem being that kids won't have jobs, friends, spouses, houses, and kids, means a happy "The Waltons" outcome is unrealistic to expect, however. If the whole point of the problem, is the opiate of the masses has been taken from some of them, its gonna be a bad one.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI think it's more that during a downturn the powerful find ways to make some victims blame other victims but not the powerful who are doing quite well. Just look at the latest political developments. Workers think that immigrants are the source of their declining job prospects instead of questioning why the upper x percent take an increasing share of economic output for themselves and even give themselves tax cuts.
- tossaccount123 8y agoIt reminds me of Calhoun's rat experiments where rat society essentially broke down as population density increased. There were types of rats called "The Beautiful Ones" that are very similar to hikikomori and NEETs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rats-turned-their-private-paradise-into-a-terrifyin-1687584457 https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rats-turned-their-private-paradi...