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> where you need to break rules and move fast Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one a

> where you need to break rules and move fast Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one another. People somehow gets "cancelled" now, because some 20s-something wanted to "move fast" without thinking of the consequences. Maybe it's time we try "slow and steady" and see if the world actually ends up more equal and diverse, instead of the opposite, which is the direction we're heading now. And for the record, if unions hadn't existed, you'd still be slaving away 6 days a week (minimum), 10 hours a day, your children would be working instead of going to school and everything labor related would certainly have been worse. Worth considering since you seem to hold the opinion that "all unions are bad" just because the US is shitty at creating and maintaining unions.

PoignardAzur 6y ago
> Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one another. Best answer. (don't think unions would have changed anything on that point though)
skynet-9000 6y ago
> if unions hadn't existed, you'd still be slaving away 6 days a week (minimum), 10 hours a day, your children would be working instead of going to school and everything labor related would certainly have been worse. This is not historically accurate. For example, Henry Ford actually increased wages (without worrying about unions, and he had literal enforcers to bully people.) He claimed to be doing it for altruistic reasons, and so that workers in his plants could afford a Ford, but the real reason was because he had to, because people could choose to work elsewhere, even if they had to move. Also, he attracted people from other cities and states to move to Dearborn. This is the real antidote to union-busting and union-towns. Any job that basically needs a person can always be paid minimally, but multiple employers have to compete for that person; perhaps an alternative job is far away, but mobile people will always be worth more because their market is larger. It was a bit different 150 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, because of information asymmetry and the cost of relocation. So why form a union? Just get a better job from an employer that literally values you more. It's not like these companies don't exist.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  > Just get a better job from an employer that literally values you more. For most people your statement sounds like a joke. You can't "Just get a better job". Most people are stuck in their jobs, that's why they have to put up with the bullshit from managers and customers. Entire shitty industries wouldn't exist if people weren't blackmailable into working bad jobs. Please please, get out of your circumstances and try to imagine how others have to live before making generalized statements like that.
- capableweb 6y ago
  "This is not historically accurate." and then uses one story about Henry Ford as evidence, really? Read up a bit on unions and their impact on the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union), and come back with more stories about how a business owner raised his employees salaries so therefore unions are not useful where salaries are not being raised...
xwolfi 6y ago
For the kill each other, it's really a deep deep issue in education. Nothing to do with anything else really. You have to educate kids into a sort of national unity thinking. I come from France, and we're not perfect, far from it. But I was raised, not so long ago, to tolerate very diverging opinions. I enjoy debating calmly with communists, nationalists, muslims or europeanists. As long as we agree France comes first, our little divergences second, I stay polite and agree to disagree. After all, they may be right, and I wrong, so I just discuss to gain perspective. What I see in US debates is that everything seems so existential. Hearing someone disagree is so painful and deeply disturbing, on both sides (there seems to be only 2, another problem), that people I see debate seem to forget that end of the day, they and their descendants will have to live together forever. Better embrace the fact it's done and final, and start finding little ways to be nice about it.
- remram 6y ago
  A lot of this stems from the two-party system, which stems from the first-past-the-post voting system. While in France and elsewhere there is a lot of change in the political landscape (Macron's current party didn't exist 5 years ago), in the US parties are very deeply entrenched. This causes an "us vs them" situation, where people don't change sides ever, look at the other side with more than skepticism, and every issue quickly becomes partisan as half the population disagrees with the change merely because the other party brought it up.
cheezymoogle 6y ago
While I'm sympathetic to the argument that the rise of social media has contributed to the absolute degeneration of public discourse, blaming social media as the cause rather than the means strikes me as particularly hollow when measured by previous historical periods of civil unrest. Whatever the actual causes--nascent technological catalysis, changing property relations or elite culture, or whatever the God's-eye picture of its real etiology--this phenomena is recurring throughout human history. Sometimes mobs (viz. mass-movements, factions, parties) form and mobs, like houses, cannot stand divided. Competing mobs become one mob or destroy each other. Consider this letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge in 1797: "The passions are too high at present to be cooled in our day. You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and separate the business of the senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hat. This may do for young men, with whom passion is enjoiment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds."^1 Or Jefferson's retrospective of the 1800 election: "we suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be the passive subjects of public discussions. and these discussions, whether relating to men, measures, or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason, and of wrath, were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions. one was upbraided with recieving the Antifederalists, the other the old tories & refugees into their bosom. of this acrimony the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony in the debates of Congress, of state legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and newspaper essays. and to these without question may be added, the private correspondence of individuals; and the less guarded in these, because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect due to that; but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. in this way, and in answers to addresses, you & I could indulge ourselves. we have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of it’s feelings."^2 This is not unique to America or even to modernity. A broad reading of history shows that any human society, given enough time, will encounter periods when the stars align and there's a general degradation of civility, sometimes erupting in bloodshed, sometimes being remembered as a generally unpleasant time not to be spoken about. The problems with American culture in particular being reduced to increasingly hostile and superficial tribal allegiances have antecedents dating back decades, well before AOL was even a thing.^4 The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985 enabled one-sided echo chambers to emerge via all extant communications media (notable in particular is the emergence of conservative talk radio like Rush Limbaugh).^5 "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."^6 --- 1 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0357 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0... 2 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6076 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6076 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts 4 http://txti.es/technorealism http://txti.es/technorealism 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

PoignardAzur 6y ago

> Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one another. Best answer. (don't think unions would have changed anything on that point though)

skynet-9000 6y ago

> if unions hadn't existed, you'd still be slaving away 6 days a week (minimum), 10 hours a day, your children would be working instead of going to school and everything labor related would certainly have been worse. This is not historically accurate. For example, Henry Ford actually increased wages (without worrying about unions, and he had literal enforcers to bully people.) He claimed to be doing it for altruistic reasons, and so that workers in his plants could afford a Ford, but the real reason was because he had to, because people could choose to work elsewhere, even if they had to move. Also, he attracted people from other cities and states to move to Dearborn. This is the real antidote to union-busting and union-towns. Any job that basically needs a person can always be paid minimally, but multiple employers have to compete for that person; perhaps an alternative job is far away, but mobile people will always be worth more because their market is larger. It was a bit different 150 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, because of information asymmetry and the cost of relocation. So why form a union? Just get a better job from an employer that literally values you more. It's not like these companies don't exist.

pietrovismara 6y ago
> Just get a better job from an employer that literally values you more. For most people your statement sounds like a joke. You can't "Just get a better job". Most people are stuck in their jobs, that's why they have to put up with the bullshit from managers and customers. Entire shitty industries wouldn't exist if people weren't blackmailable into working bad jobs. Please please, get out of your circumstances and try to imagine how others have to live before making generalized statements like that.
capableweb 6y ago
"This is not historically accurate." and then uses one story about Henry Ford as evidence, really? Read up a bit on unions and their impact on the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union), and come back with more stories about how a business owner raised his employees salaries so therefore unions are not useful where salaries are not being raised...

xwolfi 6y ago

For the kill each other, it's really a deep deep issue in education. Nothing to do with anything else really. You have to educate kids into a sort of national unity thinking. I come from France, and we're not perfect, far from it. But I was raised, not so long ago, to tolerate very diverging opinions. I enjoy debating calmly with communists, nationalists, muslims or europeanists. As long as we agree France comes first, our little divergences second, I stay polite and agree to disagree. After all, they may be right, and I wrong, so I just discuss to gain perspective. What I see in US debates is that everything seems so existential. Hearing someone disagree is so painful and deeply disturbing, on both sides (there seems to be only 2, another problem), that people I see debate seem to forget that end of the day, they and their descendants will have to live together forever. Better embrace the fact it's done and final, and start finding little ways to be nice about it.

remram 6y ago
A lot of this stems from the two-party system, which stems from the first-past-the-post voting system. While in France and elsewhere there is a lot of change in the political landscape (Macron's current party didn't exist 5 years ago), in the US parties are very deeply entrenched. This causes an "us vs them" situation, where people don't change sides ever, look at the other side with more than skepticism, and every issue quickly becomes partisan as half the population disagrees with the change merely because the other party brought it up.

cheezymoogle 6y ago

While I'm sympathetic to the argument that the rise of social media has contributed to the absolute degeneration of public discourse, blaming social media as the cause rather than the means strikes me as particularly hollow when measured by previous historical periods of civil unrest. Whatever the actual causes--nascent technological catalysis, changing property relations or elite culture, or whatever the God's-eye picture of its real etiology--this phenomena is recurring throughout human history. Sometimes mobs (viz. mass-movements, factions, parties) form and mobs, like houses, cannot stand divided. Competing mobs become one mob or destroy each other. Consider this letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge in 1797: "The passions are too high at present to be cooled in our day. You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and separate the business of the senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hat. This may do for young men, with whom passion is enjoiment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds."^1 Or Jefferson's retrospective of the 1800 election: "we suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be the passive subjects of public discussions. and these discussions, whether relating to men, measures, or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason, and of wrath, were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions. one was upbraided with recieving the Antifederalists, the other the old tories & refugees into their bosom. of this acrimony the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony in the debates of Congress, of state legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and newspaper essays. and to these without question may be added, the private correspondence of individuals; and the less guarded in these, because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect due to that; but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. in this way, and in answers to addresses, you & I could indulge ourselves. we have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of it’s feelings."^2 This is not unique to America or even to modernity. A broad reading of history shows that any human society, given enough time, will encounter periods when the stars align and there's a general degradation of civility, sometimes erupting in bloodshed, sometimes being remembered as a generally unpleasant time not to be spoken about. The problems with American culture in particular being reduced to increasingly hostile and superficial tribal allegiances have antecedents dating back decades, well before AOL was even a thing.^4 The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985 enabled one-sided echo chambers to emerge via all extant communications media (notable in particular is the emergence of conservative talk radio like Rush Limbaugh).^5 "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."^6 --- 1 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0357 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0... 2 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6076 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6076 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts 4 http://txti.es/technorealism http://txti.es/technorealism 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms