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> "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality Europeans often have this opinion but I don't think it's an accurate reading of the issue. The issu

> "you have to be hard or else you won't survive"-mentality Europeans often have this opinion but I don't think it's an accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. In the past, you could pay for college by working summers at the local restaurant. Today the average debt is $30K and you still won't get a decent job. The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship.

atoav 5y ago
> The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Good point. I did not intend to argue otherwise. To go into trade is not an irrational reaction on an individual level — quite the opposite in fact. What I did argue however, was that making it hard for people to get a higher education is not a good thing for a society. Not good in the short term, because educated societes will make more informed decisions, and at the same time not a sustainable strategy for any western society that wants to play any role in the next century. Having an educated society should be in the national interest just like having public roads or drinkable water is. > accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. That was the American dream. This is a nice model to keep big numbers of people playing the lottery and bear a ton of stress, because they have the hope that one day they might win and then everything will pay off. But even of you are one of the few lucky ones that wins you still live in a society where 90% are struggling and crushed. There may be people that enjoy being on top while everybody else suffers, but I personally would prefer being middle class in a society where nobody is poor over being a billionaire in a society where everybody is crushed. Maybe this is empathy, but maybe it is also just egoistic: I like to walk through my city and not see suffering, I like to walk through my country without having to fear being robbed, shot or angrily screamed at. I simply prefer living in a healthy, happy society where people help each other over living in one where everybody has to kick down to stay on top. Not that that any nation achieved that goal, but there are certainly observable differences in tone between the industrial nations.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  You have still missed my point. The American dream was an effective, real thing for a long period of time. Most Americans today are descendants of poor immigrants that worked hard and gave their children a better quality of life. This wasn’t “a lottery” and your characterization of it as such is both historically misinformed and just ideological in nature. As I said, the issue is that this hard work no longer results in progress. The system has become broken. This is easily observable via a bevy of statistical measures like inequality and college costs.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I think you missed his point - the world has changed, its more complex, you cant keep applying strategy of 1900's and expect it to work.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      …but we aren’t still applying the strategy of 1900s. That’s the entire point of my posts.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        Yeah the cireent system is broken no matter what you are after
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    You are not getting his point. You are taking about what was. He is talking about what aught to be.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  I'm an American and agree completely. My concern is that this '90% struggling' is considered by too many to be a default, the desired state of things. This pops up over and over again in so many ways. I think it leads to people drawing their distinctions, around who is superior and who is inferior, and then it leads to those people making an unnecessary logical jump and deciding that those inferior people need to be HURT or REMOVED… and we've seen all this before. And they go from there to decide that anyone arguing, wishes to crown those inferior people as the kings, and hurt the superior ones, because that's the only way they can perceive anything anymore… and they just get hostile and paranoid we've seen all that before too. I don't know how to convince them that seeking a civilized environment for all the people (without it being conditional on performance) produces the best societal result, through the widest possible range for SOME person of whatever description to excel. It seems like there are a lot of people for whom, they're more than happy to throw away overall system performance because they're mad that anything lower-performing can even exist. They are PC builders so mad that RAM can't run as fast as L2 cache that they're all CPU and refuse to have any RAM installed. It's stark madness from my point of view.
alistairSH 5y ago
To clarify a bit... 42% of students graduate (undergraduate studies) without any debt. And 78% of graduates have less than $30k in debt. The numbers aren't great, but the majority of students finish with either zero debt or a very manageable amount of debt. There is a small fraction of students taking massive loans that skew the overall picture. And bachelor degree holders continue to earn, on average, $1 million more than high school graduates over their career. All that said, I agree college should be affordable without loans. Summer jobs, co-ops/internships, etc. https://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/college-costs-tuition-and-financial-aid/publicuvalues/student-debt.html https://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/college-costs-...
- gamechangr 5y ago
  That is restricting the conversation to those who finished. Many young 20's somethings don't complete college, but end up with debt as well. If the question is whether is a difficult for society to maintain college as a necessity for success, they should be included in the review.
dagw 5y ago
Today the average debt is $30K That sounds...reasonable. I can't speak for the rest of Europe but a $30k student loan would be perfectly normal after a 4-5 year of study in Sweden. Back of the envelope, $30k for 4 years is $625 a month and that is not much for just food and rent.
golemotron 5y ago
> The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Call it toxic or not, there's a male drive toward autonomy. Joining corporations that are run by HR just isn't as attractive.

atoav 5y ago

> The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Good point. I did not intend to argue otherwise. To go into trade is not an irrational reaction on an individual level — quite the opposite in fact. What I did argue however, was that making it hard for people to get a higher education is not a good thing for a society. Not good in the short term, because educated societes will make more informed decisions, and at the same time not a sustainable strategy for any western society that wants to play any role in the next century. Having an educated society should be in the national interest just like having public roads or drinkable water is. > accurate reading of the issue. The issue is not that Americans work too hard, it's that this hard work is no longer actually amounting to anything. That was the American dream. This is a nice model to keep big numbers of people playing the lottery and bear a ton of stress, because they have the hope that one day they might win and then everything will pay off. But even of you are one of the few lucky ones that wins you still live in a society where 90% are struggling and crushed. There may be people that enjoy being on top while everybody else suffers, but I personally would prefer being middle class in a society where nobody is poor over being a billionaire in a society where everybody is crushed. Maybe this is empathy, but maybe it is also just egoistic: I like to walk through my city and not see suffering, I like to walk through my country without having to fear being robbed, shot or angrily screamed at. I simply prefer living in a healthy, happy society where people help each other over living in one where everybody has to kick down to stay on top. Not that that any nation achieved that goal, but there are certainly observable differences in tone between the industrial nations.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
You have still missed my point. The American dream was an effective, real thing for a long period of time. Most Americans today are descendants of poor immigrants that worked hard and gave their children a better quality of life. This wasn’t “a lottery” and your characterization of it as such is both historically misinformed and just ideological in nature. As I said, the issue is that this hard work no longer results in progress. The system has become broken. This is easily observable via a bevy of statistical measures like inequality and college costs.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I think you missed his point - the world has changed, its more complex, you cant keep applying strategy of 1900's and expect it to work.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    …but we aren’t still applying the strategy of 1900s. That’s the entire point of my posts.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Yeah the cireent system is broken no matter what you are after
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  You are not getting his point. You are taking about what was. He is talking about what aught to be.
Applejinx 5y ago
I'm an American and agree completely. My concern is that this '90% struggling' is considered by too many to be a default, the desired state of things. This pops up over and over again in so many ways. I think it leads to people drawing their distinctions, around who is superior and who is inferior, and then it leads to those people making an unnecessary logical jump and deciding that those inferior people need to be HURT or REMOVED… and we've seen all this before. And they go from there to decide that anyone arguing, wishes to crown those inferior people as the kings, and hurt the superior ones, because that's the only way they can perceive anything anymore… and they just get hostile and paranoid we've seen all that before too. I don't know how to convince them that seeking a civilized environment for all the people (without it being conditional on performance) produces the best societal result, through the widest possible range for SOME person of whatever description to excel. It seems like there are a lot of people for whom, they're more than happy to throw away overall system performance because they're mad that anything lower-performing can even exist. They are PC builders so mad that RAM can't run as fast as L2 cache that they're all CPU and refuse to have any RAM installed. It's stark madness from my point of view.

alistairSH 5y ago

To clarify a bit... 42% of students graduate (undergraduate studies) without any debt. And 78% of graduates have less than $30k in debt. The numbers aren't great, but the majority of students finish with either zero debt or a very manageable amount of debt. There is a small fraction of students taking massive loans that skew the overall picture. And bachelor degree holders continue to earn, on average, $1 million more than high school graduates over their career. All that said, I agree college should be affordable without loans. Summer jobs, co-ops/internships, etc. https://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/college-costs-tuition-and-financial-aid/publicuvalues/student-debt.html https://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/college-costs-...

gamechangr 5y ago
That is restricting the conversation to those who finished. Many young 20's somethings don't complete college, but end up with debt as well. If the question is whether is a difficult for society to maintain college as a necessity for success, they should be included in the review.

dagw 5y ago

Today the average debt is $30K That sounds...reasonable. I can't speak for the rest of Europe but a $30k student loan would be perfectly normal after a 4-5 year of study in Sweden. Back of the envelope, $30k for 4 years is $625 a month and that is not much for just food and rent.

golemotron 5y ago

> The article (and others) just show that American men are starting to put their efforts into places that do reward them; namely, the trades and entrepreneurship. Call it toxic or not, there's a male drive toward autonomy. Joining corporations that are run by HR just isn't as attractive.