6 ms·

Regardless of our views on capitalism, unjustness, or any of those related matters, I have to read this and feel sad for the lost talent, potential, and product

by atonse 4y ago

Regardless of our views on capitalism, unjustness, or any of those related matters, I have to read this and feel sad for the lost talent, potential, and productivity especially now that we badly need every ounce of hard work we can get for some of the bigger problems we face, climate change, global uncertainty, and such things. Now more than ever, we as humans need to find a way engage and unite. But instead we are seeing more apathy, what feels like more division, and less interest in tackling truly difficult problems. Again, not trying to pin it on why (unchecked capitalism, etc), just trying to say that the state of affairs does not seem encouraging.

edmcnulty101 4y ago
The best minds in the world go into Wall Street or working for silicon valley selling ads. And those are the lucky ones. The rest get paid meagerly while inflation and rent gobbles up any earnings they have so they work numerous jobs to scrape by. Most of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. I love your idealism but I think most people would be happy to see everything collapse at this point.
- tomuli38 4y ago
  Or actual taxation of the wealthy, universal health care, and housing policy change.
  - bojangleslover 4y ago
    The top 10% of taxpayers pay 70% of the tax. That we do not tax the wealthy is simply false. Whether we should tax them more is a separate issue.
    - tomuli38 4y ago
      "They we're technically taxed" is just pedantry. What is the effective tax rate compared to the 1950s-1970s when the economy actually worked for the middle class?
- jshzglr 4y ago
  I disagree. From my experience our best minds tend to work on the most important problems. And in America most people living paycheck to paycheck are doing so by choice, so that’s really more of a cultural problem as opposed to economic.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    You could disagree but “people are living paycheck to paycheck by choice” makes everything else you say sound as wrong as your disagreement.
  - edmcnulty101 4y ago
    > living paycheck to paycheck by choice Hmmmmmmm > From my experience the best minds tend to work on important problems My experience is that you're incorrect.
- dzikimarian 4y ago
  That's borderline negative view. I never sold an ad in my life, yet I have pretty good life, very very far from the need for a second job. I assume most of people here are in similar spot. What I see is tons of people living the same template: pick secure, well paid job, no matter how meaningless. Even when they take a risk to spin some startup, very often goal is to sell off and retire, with little interest in what they actually do. Then these people get depressed and complain how life is bleak, capitalism cruel and everything should collapse.
  - edmcnulty101 4y ago
    What percentage of the population do you think lives like you do? Personal experiences is anecdotal. There's hard stat's that say that a majority of this country does not live like you do.
    - dzikimarian 4y ago
      I never said that, there aren't people with bigger issues than mine. Sure there are. I argue that you don't have to go to silicon Valley or wall street to have decent life, which was stated by OP. Btw I'm not from USA and reading HN recently, I'm kinda happy about it, because it seems only options on your side are: starving, prisoner of job, sell-off with guilt trips/existential crisis, demoralized billionaire. Is there anyone left in the US, who simply enjoys life as it is? I obviously dramatize here a bit, but literally a few comments earlier someone wrote to me, that, he/she didn't consent to be alive. Really dystopian thread.
      - edmcnulty101 4y ago
        The world is a borderline negative place. I just read an article about journalists being beheaded in some country. I notice financially privileged people tend to advocate for a 'dont worry be happy' 'everythings going to be alright' mode of living life because theyre shielded from the brutality of the world by their money or their families money. It's the same reason financially privileged people never admit that they had help from their family and always claim that they made their money themselves. Because they're completely unaware of what it really takes to make it in life without any help from anyone and I suspect feel a little guilty how easy their life has been compared to others and want to connect with, and associate with people who actually made it on their own. If you have ever been poor or financially struggling, you would realize 'don't worry be happy' is not a functional way of living life if you don't have family money....at least in America. The real advice is to fight tooth and nail to try to get oneself and family to financial safety.
psi75 4y ago
This sort of dysfunction isn't new to history. China and Japan nearly industrialized several times in the second millennium, but such movements were quashed by the elites. Industrialization requires the ubiquity of fuels, machines, and at least low explosives; the last thing samurai who'd trained 20 years to be formidable with katanas wanted was to live in a world where a peasant with a hand cannon could be dangerous. The upper class knew it would better ensure its own survival by preventing progress, so they did. Unfortunately, it seems to be an extreme historical anomaly for elites to put the welfare of their people over the zero-sum needs of their own class. One recent such anomaly was in the middle of the 20th century--The U.S. and USSR both invested heavily in building large middle classes (it being historically rare for such to exist at all) because they wanted research supremacy, which you can't get if you squander 95% of the natural intellectual talent, during the Cold War. Also, the existence of other systems put both sides on better behavior: capitalism couldn't be as scummy as it is today, and state-run socialism had to improve material circumstances and scale back the authoritarian tendencies it had developed during WW2... because, otherwise, neither system would have survived. But now that the Cold War is over, we're stuck in this global authoritarian capitalism that retains the worst aspects of both systems. The division we're seeing is, of course, artificial. The elites deliberately pit people against each other (and trot out old divisive garbage: zero-sum nationalism, weird-ass conspiracy theories to distract from the more boring and often technically legal conspiracies occurring in plain sight, and of course antisemitism) because otherwise, the natural lay of the land would have 95+ percent of the people guillotining their dusty asses. That being said, I can't think of an easy way to end it. We do, as humans, need to (using your words) engage and unite; the problem is that what we need to unite to do--that is, overthrow the current global corporate elite using any means and mechanisms that shall work--is extremely socially unacceptable because those in charge have made it so. Thus, we're just expected to accept a declining standard of living and a nearly complete halt on technical progress at a time when we need it the most.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  i've been a bit enamored with revolution since i was young. History shows revolution almost always ends in civil war and destroyed infrastructure. You can't just create a power vacuum with nothing to fill it. Even if you do manage revolution on a unified front, it always seems to splinter within a generation unless something radically new from some outside source forces you to alter or die. The best revolutions start with an abdication and reform, reform, reform. The only way i see that happeniing in the US is if everyone started voting third party and stopped being a two party system. That would create some competiton among the ruling elite.
imtringued 4y ago
I blame it on unchecked risk free liquidity which some people seem to confuse with "wealth". Just look around you, the interests of the savers override those who are still working for their own wealth. Housing and money are supposed to be appreciating investments instead of shelter for people and a medium of exchange for workers. As people get wealthier, they want their wealth to be in forms that are harmful to the rest of society that isn't as wealthy.

by atonse 4y ago

edmcnulty101 4y ago

The best minds in the world go into Wall Street or working for silicon valley selling ads. And those are the lucky ones. The rest get paid meagerly while inflation and rent gobbles up any earnings they have so they work numerous jobs to scrape by. Most of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. I love your idealism but I think most people would be happy to see everything collapse at this point.

tomuli38 4y ago
Or actual taxation of the wealthy, universal health care, and housing policy change.
- bojangleslover 4y ago
  The top 10% of taxpayers pay 70% of the tax. That we do not tax the wealthy is simply false. Whether we should tax them more is a separate issue.
  - tomuli38 4y ago
    "They we're technically taxed" is just pedantry. What is the effective tax rate compared to the 1950s-1970s when the economy actually worked for the middle class?
jshzglr 4y ago
I disagree. From my experience our best minds tend to work on the most important problems. And in America most people living paycheck to paycheck are doing so by choice, so that’s really more of a cultural problem as opposed to economic.
- aaomidi 4y ago
  You could disagree but “people are living paycheck to paycheck by choice” makes everything else you say sound as wrong as your disagreement.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  > living paycheck to paycheck by choice Hmmmmmmm > From my experience the best minds tend to work on important problems My experience is that you're incorrect.
dzikimarian 4y ago
That's borderline negative view. I never sold an ad in my life, yet I have pretty good life, very very far from the need for a second job. I assume most of people here are in similar spot. What I see is tons of people living the same template: pick secure, well paid job, no matter how meaningless. Even when they take a risk to spin some startup, very often goal is to sell off and retire, with little interest in what they actually do. Then these people get depressed and complain how life is bleak, capitalism cruel and everything should collapse.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  What percentage of the population do you think lives like you do? Personal experiences is anecdotal. There's hard stat's that say that a majority of this country does not live like you do.
  - dzikimarian 4y ago
    I never said that, there aren't people with bigger issues than mine. Sure there are. I argue that you don't have to go to silicon Valley or wall street to have decent life, which was stated by OP. Btw I'm not from USA and reading HN recently, I'm kinda happy about it, because it seems only options on your side are: starving, prisoner of job, sell-off with guilt trips/existential crisis, demoralized billionaire. Is there anyone left in the US, who simply enjoys life as it is? I obviously dramatize here a bit, but literally a few comments earlier someone wrote to me, that, he/she didn't consent to be alive. Really dystopian thread.
    - edmcnulty101 4y ago
      The world is a borderline negative place. I just read an article about journalists being beheaded in some country. I notice financially privileged people tend to advocate for a 'dont worry be happy' 'everythings going to be alright' mode of living life because theyre shielded from the brutality of the world by their money or their families money. It's the same reason financially privileged people never admit that they had help from their family and always claim that they made their money themselves. Because they're completely unaware of what it really takes to make it in life without any help from anyone and I suspect feel a little guilty how easy their life has been compared to others and want to connect with, and associate with people who actually made it on their own. If you have ever been poor or financially struggling, you would realize 'don't worry be happy' is not a functional way of living life if you don't have family money....at least in America. The real advice is to fight tooth and nail to try to get oneself and family to financial safety.

psi75 4y ago

This sort of dysfunction isn't new to history. China and Japan nearly industrialized several times in the second millennium, but such movements were quashed by the elites. Industrialization requires the ubiquity of fuels, machines, and at least low explosives; the last thing samurai who'd trained 20 years to be formidable with katanas wanted was to live in a world where a peasant with a hand cannon could be dangerous. The upper class knew it would better ensure its own survival by preventing progress, so they did. Unfortunately, it seems to be an extreme historical anomaly for elites to put the welfare of their people over the zero-sum needs of their own class. One recent such anomaly was in the middle of the 20th century--The U.S. and USSR both invested heavily in building large middle classes (it being historically rare for such to exist at all) because they wanted research supremacy, which you can't get if you squander 95% of the natural intellectual talent, during the Cold War. Also, the existence of other systems put both sides on better behavior: capitalism couldn't be as scummy as it is today, and state-run socialism had to improve material circumstances and scale back the authoritarian tendencies it had developed during WW2... because, otherwise, neither system would have survived. But now that the Cold War is over, we're stuck in this global authoritarian capitalism that retains the worst aspects of both systems. The division we're seeing is, of course, artificial. The elites deliberately pit people against each other (and trot out old divisive garbage: zero-sum nationalism, weird-ass conspiracy theories to distract from the more boring and often technically legal conspiracies occurring in plain sight, and of course antisemitism) because otherwise, the natural lay of the land would have 95+ percent of the people guillotining their dusty asses. That being said, I can't think of an easy way to end it. We do, as humans, need to (using your words) engage and unite; the problem is that what we need to unite to do--that is, overthrow the current global corporate elite using any means and mechanisms that shall work--is extremely socially unacceptable because those in charge have made it so. Thus, we're just expected to accept a declining standard of living and a nearly complete halt on technical progress at a time when we need it the most.

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
i've been a bit enamored with revolution since i was young. History shows revolution almost always ends in civil war and destroyed infrastructure. You can't just create a power vacuum with nothing to fill it. Even if you do manage revolution on a unified front, it always seems to splinter within a generation unless something radically new from some outside source forces you to alter or die. The best revolutions start with an abdication and reform, reform, reform. The only way i see that happeniing in the US is if everyone started voting third party and stopped being a two party system. That would create some competiton among the ruling elite.

imtringued 4y ago

I blame it on unchecked risk free liquidity which some people seem to confuse with "wealth". Just look around you, the interests of the savers override those who are still working for their own wealth. Housing and money are supposed to be appreciating investments instead of shelter for people and a medium of exchange for workers. As people get wealthier, they want their wealth to be in forms that are harmful to the rest of society that isn't as wealthy.