4 ms·

In the context of the original article, and the current world, it appears that far fewer are willing to bring personal risk than in the past. My guess - and it

In the context of the original article, and the current world, it appears that far fewer are willing to bring personal risk than in the past. My guess - and it is a guess - is rather than signing an online petition, forwarding a meme, or attending a demo, in the past direct action, civil disobedience, underground networks and activism was more often used. I suspect that in today's world many of those would be viewed as terrorism or at the very least imprisonable.

cromulent 8y ago
Really interesting discussion. I would add a guess that living a long life has become so normalized and expected that risk taking behaviour has become more eschewed.
hopler 8y ago
Acitvists have always been attacked as "terrorists". Look at the brutal repression of the Civil Rights movement, where imprison was one of msnycworries when faced with a murderous police force and general public.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> in today's world many of those would be viewed as terrorism I’m involved in local politics. The problem is a low give-a-shit factor. Older Americans will reliably show up to vote, stop to sign petitions (real ones, not online ones), donate to candidates and show up for town halls and protests. Young, well-educated, technically-savvy urbanites are a predictably anodyne bunch. (To be fair, I’m those things.) The risk isn’t higher. The cost just is. When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, it’s a tougher sell.
- ctrl-j 8y ago
  > When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, it’s a tougher sell. Brunch and instagram aren't the problem. Working two jobs to barely afford rent is.
- Retric 8y ago
  American politics is generally focused on meaningless issues for most people. For an older example, the keystone pipeline was going to have zero impact on 99.999% of Americans yet it somehow became a “Major” issue. That crap sucks up the attention so much that when issues that have real impact show up they get lost in the noise.
  - war1025 8y ago
    A thing I got a real kick out of with the Bakken (thought it was Keystone, but looked it up and it wasn't) pipeline, is that it was a big news event, and several people I knew were all worked up about it. The pipeline literally went within 5 miles of our city though, and no one cared about those portions. They cared about the parts that were hot in the news. There are still a couple semi trailers parked in fields with big "Stop Eminent Domain Abuse" signs painted on them though. So I guess at least the farmers whose land it cut through cared locally.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  I used to go to the planning board meetings for my neighborhood. They were at 4:00 on weekdays - I wonder why I was the only one under 60 there? Even then it was only because I was trying to bootstrap a startup and setting my own hours. Also, "When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, " - good points, but remember also that those old people largely could have one person working (and actually getting of at 5 with no bullshit emails/slack/other crap to follow them home) and the other doing childcare/household work/civic things, instead of 2 people working 8-6:00, rushing to childcare, and getting home tired as dogs.
  - war1025 8y ago
    I take a bit of an issue with the tech crowd claiming that a single income family is infeasible. Single parents get by all the time. People in tech make well above the median income in most cases. It's absolutely possible to live a nice middle class life on a single tech income. It's just not possible to keep up with the spending of a dual income family. All about priorities.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > People in tech make well above the median income in most cases. But have to live/work at places where the costs of living are enormous.
      - war1025 8y ago
        They don't have to do anything. There are tech jobs everywhere. Maybe you can't work for one of the big corps and make ridiculous money, but you can still make great money for hardly any effort anywhere the regional economy isn't crap.
      - abright 8y ago
        As war1025 noted, this is not true. People in tech are the most likely to have access to remote work that pays very well. I bring in the only income while my wife stays home with our two boys (6 and 3). I live in Pittsburgh, PA and worked remotely for a startup based out of SF until they ran out of money late last year and picked up a job in downtown Pittsburgh pretty quickly after that. I wouldn't say we're swimming in money but we are comfortable and don't have to check our balance for most purchases.

cromulent 8y ago

Really interesting discussion. I would add a guess that living a long life has become so normalized and expected that risk taking behaviour has become more eschewed.

hopler 8y ago

Acitvists have always been attacked as "terrorists". Look at the brutal repression of the Civil Rights movement, where imprison was one of msnycworries when faced with a murderous police force and general public.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> in today's world many of those would be viewed as terrorism I’m involved in local politics. The problem is a low give-a-shit factor. Older Americans will reliably show up to vote, stop to sign petitions (real ones, not online ones), donate to candidates and show up for town halls and protests. Young, well-educated, technically-savvy urbanites are a predictably anodyne bunch. (To be fair, I’m those things.) The risk isn’t higher. The cost just is. When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, it’s a tougher sell.

ctrl-j 8y ago
> When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, it’s a tougher sell. Brunch and instagram aren't the problem. Working two jobs to barely afford rent is.
Retric 8y ago
American politics is generally focused on meaningless issues for most people. For an older example, the keystone pipeline was going to have zero impact on 99.999% of Americans yet it somehow became a “Major” issue. That crap sucks up the attention so much that when issues that have real impact show up they get lost in the noise.
- war1025 8y ago
  A thing I got a real kick out of with the Bakken (thought it was Keystone, but looked it up and it wasn't) pipeline, is that it was a big news event, and several people I knew were all worked up about it. The pipeline literally went within 5 miles of our city though, and no one cared about those portions. They cared about the parts that were hot in the news. There are still a couple semi trailers parked in fields with big "Stop Eminent Domain Abuse" signs painted on them though. So I guess at least the farmers whose land it cut through cared locally.
CalRobert 8y ago
I used to go to the planning board meetings for my neighborhood. They were at 4:00 on weekdays - I wonder why I was the only one under 60 there? Even then it was only because I was trying to bootstrap a startup and setting my own hours. Also, "When activism competes with brunch, Instagram time, and the necessity of a high-paying job to settle student loans, " - good points, but remember also that those old people largely could have one person working (and actually getting of at 5 with no bullshit emails/slack/other crap to follow them home) and the other doing childcare/household work/civic things, instead of 2 people working 8-6:00, rushing to childcare, and getting home tired as dogs.
- war1025 8y ago
  I take a bit of an issue with the tech crowd claiming that a single income family is infeasible. Single parents get by all the time. People in tech make well above the median income in most cases. It's absolutely possible to live a nice middle class life on a single tech income. It's just not possible to keep up with the spending of a dual income family. All about priorities.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > People in tech make well above the median income in most cases. But have to live/work at places where the costs of living are enormous.
    - war1025 8y ago
      They don't have to do anything. There are tech jobs everywhere. Maybe you can't work for one of the big corps and make ridiculous money, but you can still make great money for hardly any effort anywhere the regional economy isn't crap.
    - abright 8y ago
      As war1025 noted, this is not true. People in tech are the most likely to have access to remote work that pays very well. I bring in the only income while my wife stays home with our two boys (6 and 3). I live in Pittsburgh, PA and worked remotely for a startup based out of SF until they ran out of money late last year and picked up a job in downtown Pittsburgh pretty quickly after that. I wouldn't say we're swimming in money but we are comfortable and don't have to check our balance for most purchases.