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I think a big part of the despair is the obvious difference between what children are taught is the american dream vs what the american reality is. We are told

by mbfg 5y ago

I think a big part of the despair is the obvious difference between what children are taught is the american dream vs what the american reality is. We are told america is the best place on earth with all the doors open to you to be rich. That all other forms of government are flawed and we have excellence here everywhere you look. And then you look at reality and see something else. Sure there are pockets of excellence and the dream still lives in fits and starts, but for the general person, they are likely shut out from any real hope of this grand vision. You add in COVID and the lockdowns, and economic turmoil, and then people start realizing that the whole race is kind of pointless. I can be poor busting my butt at a crappy job i hate, or i can be poor moving in with family and being 'unproductive' (for some definition of societal unproductivity). Women, on the other hand, haven't been given the same advertising on the American dream that men have, which obviously is a terrible thing, but in this one sense probably helped them survive and prosper even when life sucks in a modern world. I'm supposing the sell-job of an equivalence of the 'american' dream in other countries is not nearly so commercial, and blaring. And so kids are likely not so shocked at the difference between expectations and reality. Throw in that many other countries are flat out better in many social structural ways, and i think that explains why, it's especially troubling in America.

javajosh 5y ago
>Women, on the other hand, haven't been given the same advertising on the American dream that men have There is a documentary, "Born Rich" [0]. It's interviews with the children of very rich people, done by one of their peers. I noticed that in the film there is stark difference between the girls and the boys: the girls were all well adjusted, enjoying their wealth, happy, satisfied, seemingly well-aware of their good fortune; but for ALL the boys wealth meant having a full-blown existential crisis. This is oblique support for your claim: the classic American dream for women results in being taken care of by a wealthy man in a nice house, maybe with kids, where even house duties become negligible if he's really rich. But men and boys are supposed to work, first at learning then finding something you like then getting good at it. Your work defines you in a very profound way - a profundity that is reflected in our last names. If you're a rich boy, it's like you've been denied an identity. (I recall one of the young men who, to save his sanity, disavowed his inheritance to take a job as an oil field worker. And he seemed the best adjusted of the boys.). 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Rich_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Rich_(2003_film)
- vmception 5y ago
  Well thats depressing, I saw a similar documentary that didnt really have anything stark across gender lines, but did show how some private high school students in NYC had trouble reconciling their circumstance with the public housing across the street. The most apt similarity being how one boy took his life after pushing the school administration to lower admission costs for needy.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  It's a uniquely American thing. I studied abroad for a semester in England, and in one of the classes I took there the (Australian) professor asked us what socioeconomic class we thought we belonged to. It was a good university, but most of the British kids answered "working class." When he asked "Why?" they answered, "Because our parents work." That always stuck with me. In England, the aristocracy is alive and well. They don't have to work, and they don't pretend to. They do live comfortably, but they're highly educated and reasonably well adjusted. They don't have to partake in the charade that they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, and they generally don't blow their family's fortune over a debauched decade in Vegas like their American counterparts either.
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    They also haven’t invented or built anything meaningful in several hundred years…
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nicbou 5y ago
      The Royal Society would disagree
      - barbecue_sauce 5y ago
        I think the Royal Society could probably be considered biased.
brunellus 5y ago
I’ve tried to articulate this a few times but you’ve bested all of my attempts.
throwaway46jt7 5y ago
> We are told america is the best place on earth with all the doors open to you to be rich. That all other forms of government are flawed and we have excellence here everywhere you look. What other countries are great compared to America? With all its flaws America is the only country where you can dream of building spaceships, create multi billion dollar tech companies in less than a decade. Any ideology that forces individual to be less ambitious for the prosperity of the group only gives more power to the enforcer's of the ideology. As an insider you may not realize how powerful America's culture of individual freedom has impact on other countries.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  > the only country where you can dream of building spaceships, create multi billion dollar tech companies in less than a decade And all you need is hard work, persistence, and a couple tens of millions burning a hole in your back pocket... and a legion of people, like you, who don't have that kind of capital to do the heavy lifting.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    What percent of top tech companies were funded by multiple millions in personal or family money? We're on YC's website, which invests $500k in startups ($125k until just recently). I thought most startups were venture funded.
    - bradlys 5y ago
      Many startups get a lot of family and friends funding. On top of this - a lot of startups are having someone do unpaid work before they get funded. This usually means someone had support to pay rent, food, insurance, etc. Varies a lot but all the people I know who are relatively young and doing startups come from pretty wealthy families.
- pcmoney 5y ago

by mbfg 5y ago

javajosh 5y ago

>Women, on the other hand, haven't been given the same advertising on the American dream that men have There is a documentary, "Born Rich" [0]. It's interviews with the children of very rich people, done by one of their peers. I noticed that in the film there is stark difference between the girls and the boys: the girls were all well adjusted, enjoying their wealth, happy, satisfied, seemingly well-aware of their good fortune; but for ALL the boys wealth meant having a full-blown existential crisis. This is oblique support for your claim: the classic American dream for women results in being taken care of by a wealthy man in a nice house, maybe with kids, where even house duties become negligible if he's really rich. But men and boys are supposed to work, first at learning then finding something you like then getting good at it. Your work defines you in a very profound way - a profundity that is reflected in our last names. If you're a rich boy, it's like you've been denied an identity. (I recall one of the young men who, to save his sanity, disavowed his inheritance to take a job as an oil field worker. And he seemed the best adjusted of the boys.). 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Rich_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Rich_(2003_film)

vmception 5y ago
Well thats depressing, I saw a similar documentary that didnt really have anything stark across gender lines, but did show how some private high school students in NYC had trouble reconciling their circumstance with the public housing across the street. The most apt similarity being how one boy took his life after pushing the school administration to lower admission costs for needy.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
It's a uniquely American thing. I studied abroad for a semester in England, and in one of the classes I took there the (Australian) professor asked us what socioeconomic class we thought we belonged to. It was a good university, but most of the British kids answered "working class." When he asked "Why?" they answered, "Because our parents work." That always stuck with me. In England, the aristocracy is alive and well. They don't have to work, and they don't pretend to. They do live comfortably, but they're highly educated and reasonably well adjusted. They don't have to partake in the charade that they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, and they generally don't blow their family's fortune over a debauched decade in Vegas like their American counterparts either.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  They also haven’t invented or built anything meaningful in several hundred years…
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicbou 5y ago
    The Royal Society would disagree
    - barbecue_sauce 5y ago
      I think the Royal Society could probably be considered biased.

brunellus 5y ago

I’ve tried to articulate this a few times but you’ve bested all of my attempts.

throwaway46jt7 5y ago

> We are told america is the best place on earth with all the doors open to you to be rich. That all other forms of government are flawed and we have excellence here everywhere you look. What other countries are great compared to America? With all its flaws America is the only country where you can dream of building spaceships, create multi billion dollar tech companies in less than a decade. Any ideology that forces individual to be less ambitious for the prosperity of the group only gives more power to the enforcer's of the ideology. As an insider you may not realize how powerful America's culture of individual freedom has impact on other countries.

bodge5000 5y ago
> the only country where you can dream of building spaceships, create multi billion dollar tech companies in less than a decade And all you need is hard work, persistence, and a couple tens of millions burning a hole in your back pocket... and a legion of people, like you, who don't have that kind of capital to do the heavy lifting.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  What percent of top tech companies were funded by multiple millions in personal or family money? We're on YC's website, which invests $500k in startups ($125k until just recently). I thought most startups were venture funded.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Many startups get a lot of family and friends funding. On top of this - a lot of startups are having someone do unpaid work before they get funded. This usually means someone had support to pay rent, food, insurance, etc. Varies a lot but all the people I know who are relatively young and doing startups come from pretty wealthy families.
pcmoney 5y ago