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Hope is everything. The ability to sell yourself a story about future success determines a huge portion of the human personality. If you stand in San Antonio,

Hope is everything. The ability to sell yourself a story about future success determines a huge portion of the human personality. If you stand in San Antonio, Texas, surrounded by shuttered shopping malls and half-built-and-now-abandoned projects, it's incredibly hard not to be cynical about the future. Sit in the cafeteria of Stripe HQ and it's incredibly hard not to be optimistic. No mystery why the political beliefs of both places match the on-the-ground reality. The greatest threat to a stable society isn't economic collapse - it's the collapse that follows: the collapse of a belief that things can get better. The exact second you don't think things can get better, the entire game changes, and there is no reason to do anything other than help tear down the system that left you so hopeless in the first place. It's not that we pay so little that people can't make ends meet. It's that life costs so much, and can be so good, that people can't make dreams meet.

solarmist 4y ago
This is very true. I like the idea of the ripple effects that come from someone's environment.
bobkazamakis 4y ago
correct. Mass shootings, overdoses, no hope for a future for many able bodied man who can't get into college or the trades. Without any hope for a future of your own, it's a lot easier to see the injustice of folks who got theirs.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  What kind of situation leads to able bodied men not being able to get into the trades?
verdenti 4y ago
influx 4y ago
Seems weird that you specifically mention Stripe, when they just laid off 1,000 people. I agree with your meta point though.
jeffbee 4y ago
> If you stand in San Antonio, Texas, surrounded by shuttered shopping malls and half-built-and-now-abandoned projects The specifics of this claim are peculiar. San Antonio has one of the hottest (read: high-priced) housing markets on Earth, due to chronic underbuilding. If there are unfinished housing construction projects in that city, it's likely they are waiting for supplies, not abandoned due to economics.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
everforward 4y ago
I would posit that the causality is reversed. Abandoned parts of town are caused by a lot of people failing to improve their lives, and that past experience destroys their hope. Likewise, economic collapse is caused by the collapse of belief that things can get better, which destroys the shared beliefs underpinning the economy. Economies can be repaired as long as people believe the economy is worth repairing. I would venture a guess that the optimism of engineers eating in Stripe's cafeteria is different than the optimism of the cafeteria workers. The former likely have a string of positive past experiences to fuel their hope to even get where they are (promotions, raises, etc). The latter probably hope to do something else, but have failed and/or given up on trying due to failure. > It's not that we pay so little that people can't make ends meet. It's that life costs so much, and can be so good, that people can't make dreams meet. I think they're expectations more than dreams. Their parents owned a house, so they expected to but can't. Their parents went on vacation once a year, but they can't. After a certain number of failed expectations, they just assume the rest of their expectations are void, so why bother? Meanwhile they watch the more successful people's expectations grow; those people don't just want a raise to offset inflation, they want their income to grow. They want to vacation internationally instead of domestically. The loss of a dream certainly sucks, but the loss of something that was "promised" to you as a child hurts so much more. If you give up on all of those promises, you no longer have to feel the hurt of being denied them.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >They want to vacation internationally instead of domestically. For Americans, vacationing internationally is cheaper than domestic travel, as long as you do it cheaply. To vacation in America, hotel rooms cost an absolute fortune now, eating out costs a fortune (plus the 25% tips now expected), and you need a rental car to go just about anywhere, and those cost a fortune now too (and if you get it from Hertz, you might get arrested). Instead, you can buy airfare to Europe: eating out is much cheaper, hotel rooms can be had for far, far less money in most places (just don't go to the American-style hotels), and you don't need a car since you can just take public transit for cheap. Plus there's far more interesting stuff to do in cities in Europe; in America, it's all the same boring chain stores everywhere and there's no culture outside of places like NYC (which are horribly expensive to vacation in, even by American standards). The only way to vacation cheaply in America is basically to go camping in a national forest for 2 weeks, though this still doesn't get around the need for a rental car unless you can get a ride somehow.
polishdude20 4y ago
And the dreams keep getting bigger as people spend more time on social media watching people have a better life than them. It used to be taboo to flaunt your wealth. Now it's all people do. Of course everyone who watches that is going to feel like shit.
- andromeduck 4y ago
  Don't think it's a change in preferences as much as visibility when your peers or near peers do decide to splurge.
the_doctah 4y ago
>No mystery why the political beliefs of both places match the on-the-ground reality San Francisco is a good example? Statement doesn't even really make sense in the first place.
sdwr 4y ago
Yupppp this is it.

solarmist 4y ago

This is very true. I like the idea of the ripple effects that come from someone's environment.

bobkazamakis 4y ago

correct. Mass shootings, overdoses, no hope for a future for many able bodied man who can't get into college or the trades. Without any hope for a future of your own, it's a lot easier to see the injustice of folks who got theirs.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
What kind of situation leads to able bodied men not being able to get into the trades?

verdenti 4y ago

influx 4y ago

Seems weird that you specifically mention Stripe, when they just laid off 1,000 people. I agree with your meta point though.

jeffbee 4y ago

> If you stand in San Antonio, Texas, surrounded by shuttered shopping malls and half-built-and-now-abandoned projects The specifics of this claim are peculiar. San Antonio has one of the hottest (read: high-priced) housing markets on Earth, due to chronic underbuilding. If there are unfinished housing construction projects in that city, it's likely they are waiting for supplies, not abandoned due to economics.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

everforward 4y ago

I would posit that the causality is reversed. Abandoned parts of town are caused by a lot of people failing to improve their lives, and that past experience destroys their hope. Likewise, economic collapse is caused by the collapse of belief that things can get better, which destroys the shared beliefs underpinning the economy. Economies can be repaired as long as people believe the economy is worth repairing. I would venture a guess that the optimism of engineers eating in Stripe's cafeteria is different than the optimism of the cafeteria workers. The former likely have a string of positive past experiences to fuel their hope to even get where they are (promotions, raises, etc). The latter probably hope to do something else, but have failed and/or given up on trying due to failure. > It's not that we pay so little that people can't make ends meet. It's that life costs so much, and can be so good, that people can't make dreams meet. I think they're expectations more than dreams. Their parents owned a house, so they expected to but can't. Their parents went on vacation once a year, but they can't. After a certain number of failed expectations, they just assume the rest of their expectations are void, so why bother? Meanwhile they watch the more successful people's expectations grow; those people don't just want a raise to offset inflation, they want their income to grow. They want to vacation internationally instead of domestically. The loss of a dream certainly sucks, but the loss of something that was "promised" to you as a child hurts so much more. If you give up on all of those promises, you no longer have to feel the hurt of being denied them.

midoridensha 4y ago
>They want to vacation internationally instead of domestically. For Americans, vacationing internationally is cheaper than domestic travel, as long as you do it cheaply. To vacation in America, hotel rooms cost an absolute fortune now, eating out costs a fortune (plus the 25% tips now expected), and you need a rental car to go just about anywhere, and those cost a fortune now too (and if you get it from Hertz, you might get arrested). Instead, you can buy airfare to Europe: eating out is much cheaper, hotel rooms can be had for far, far less money in most places (just don't go to the American-style hotels), and you don't need a car since you can just take public transit for cheap. Plus there's far more interesting stuff to do in cities in Europe; in America, it's all the same boring chain stores everywhere and there's no culture outside of places like NYC (which are horribly expensive to vacation in, even by American standards). The only way to vacation cheaply in America is basically to go camping in a national forest for 2 weeks, though this still doesn't get around the need for a rental car unless you can get a ride somehow.

polishdude20 4y ago

And the dreams keep getting bigger as people spend more time on social media watching people have a better life than them. It used to be taboo to flaunt your wealth. Now it's all people do. Of course everyone who watches that is going to feel like shit.

andromeduck 4y ago
Don't think it's a change in preferences as much as visibility when your peers or near peers do decide to splurge.

the_doctah 4y ago

>No mystery why the political beliefs of both places match the on-the-ground reality San Francisco is a good example? Statement doesn't even really make sense in the first place.

sdwr 4y ago

Yupppp this is it.