4 ms·

I always wonder why people argue about things like pronouns and immigration when a bigger issue seems to be the wealth gap. Many countries are democratic and s

I always wonder why people argue about things like pronouns and immigration when a bigger issue seems to be the wealth gap. Many countries are democratic and social media makes things viral, so even with bribes and centralized media, I think if people worked together they could elect people who would redistribute the wealth. But a decent number of people seem to be against wealth distribution, and most won't vote for a politician who makes it his entire platform (Bernie Sanders) over someone whose less genuine. More importantly I wish people would vote for someone who has an engineering mindset and prioritizes how to get common things done (like increase everyone's standards of living by increase efficiency) instead of what kinds of things to get done. Because even though said person can just hire these people, based on how inefficient the government is, I believe the people in charge don't have the capability for even that.

mettamage 3y ago
The problem is that a politician needs to be good enough at being a politician. An example of what you said is Cornelis Lely. Being a civil engineer, he designed the Afsluitdijk in The Netherlands, fixing a lot of water issues we had. He was also an amazing politician [1]. Shower thought: I'd argue we need a "politics school" for engineers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely
j0rdans 3y ago
If I were to put on my conspiratorial hat, this is exactly what those in positions of power want us to be arguing about. These narratives and the constant fuelling of the outrage fire are constantly pushed by the media and "influencers". I'm not saying that they are somehow complicit in a conspiracy, but more-so looking to make money from the elevated engagement derived from outrage. As long as we keep fighting amongst each other about various ideological issues, we're never going to make progress on the things posing an existential threat.
- alexilliamson 3y ago
  With the exception of abortion - which I think is the hardest ideological gap to bridge - I agree that the media and government keep the focus on trivial culture war issues to create the illusion of having multiple options in the voting booth. Sure you can pick a side on book banning, mask wearing, etc. But if you care about class and the distribution of wealth, you only have one option. Republicans and Democrats are the same party when it comes to class, wealth, and power. Both parties demonstrably work for the ruling class. But I don't think you need a conspiracy hat to see that.
genman 3y ago
There are multiple factors. People are easily distracted. They can be also fooled by claiming that something is cause of something else (that it actually is not). There are also foreign adversaries that take advantage of asymmetry that Western freedom of speech offers for them.
dventimi 3y ago
Perhaps some of the people doing the arguing are on the winning end of the wealth gap, and it just hits a little too close to home.
NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
Especially at a time when everyone is caterwauling about "inflation" (and rightfully so) but very few are talking about the REAL cause: monopoly/oligopoly and straight-up price-gouging. We have what, four meat processors in the USA, and after whining about a "labor shortage" they reported 90% profit increases. NINETY PERCENT. Meanwhile, the Fed fecklessly raises interest rates over and over, refusing to acknowledge that it didn't work because the conventional economics-textbook wisdom that money supply dictates inflation wasn't the biggest factor here. Not to get into a wider political debate, but the Biden administration's (and the Democrats') failure to call out the fleecing of America by monopolies represents their limp or nonexistent messaging overall. And when it costs them the White House, it will cost us all a lot more than expensive meat.
- roughly 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of the Fed, but they've basically got one tool at their disposal - interest rates - and a mandate to, roughly, keep the wheels on the economy*. I think that since at least 2008 that's been the wrong tool for the job, but all the other tools are held by Congress, which basically refused to do anything useful for the economy out of principle. It's absolutely the case that lowering interest rates wasn't the best policy for the last decade+, and it's also the case that the Fed was the only entity actually trying to do anything, so interest rates is what we got. * The Fed's got a mandate for price stability and employment, but broadly speaking the social expectation is that they're keeping the economy afloat, and I expect that's how they view themselves as well. I'm not arguing they're doing a good job or that that's what they should do, but I think that's the broadly-held view of their role.
  - NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
    Absolutely. Not blaming the Fed at all, because you're exactly right: Nobody else was doing anything except waving their hands and feigning helplessness.
- Aunche 3y ago
  > Meanwhile, the Fed fecklessly raises interest rates over and over, refusing to acknowledge that it didn't work The interest rate hikes did work. The inflation rate has dropped by over 5% from it's peak [1]. Real wages rebounded right after the Fed started raising interest rates [2]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
rapind 3y ago
> I always wonder why people argue about things like pronouns and immigration when a bigger issue seems to be the wealth gap. Immigration is very much an economic issue and discussing it is absolutely reasonable and shouldn't be automatically painted as racism or a social issue (even if it is a social issue to some very loud people!). Guess who absolutely loves cheap labour?! > someone who has an engineering mindset and prioritizes how to get common things done Iran had a president who studied engineering and that wasn't awesome depending on your point of view. It's also really hard to get things done in the states regardless of your mindset in politics today.
RicoElectrico 3y ago
I've read a conspiracy theory that powers-that-be were really scared of Occupy Wall Street and so this coincided with culture wars taking off (more or less).
cracrecry 3y ago
Redistributing wealth is also called "stealing". Most wealth has to be continuously created before being stolen and current societies collapse when people stop creating wealth(as they are stolen blind) or just leave. Look at what happened in Venezuela. The country had great engineers extracting oil. Then Chavez happened and started "redistributing wealth" and putting its generals into stealing as much as they could putting his (incompetent) families and friends on all companies like PDVSA, controlling the gold mines and everything else. They extracted as much wealth as they could for their selves in the shortest amount of time. All the great engineers and doctors and technical people leaved the country. PDVSA output remained stable for a while, while the infrastructure laid by the engineers lasted until it started collapsing by lack of maintenance. I went to Venezuela two months ago. It is accident after accident. Oil spill after oil spill by obsolete infrastructure and lead by incompetent people. Now a small country like Guyana extracts as much oil as Venezuela. >based on how inefficient the government is, If you believe US or any western country's Government is inefficient, you have to see socialist countries to really see orders of magnitude more inefficiency. In Russia, China, Venezuela or lots of other countries in the world have at least 50-60% corruption rates. You pay X millions to develop radar defense systems and most than half of the money goes to corruption. Sometimes it is the Government(China) itself that forces you to accept bribes so it has a weapon against you in case you become too powerful for the people in power.

mettamage 3y ago

The problem is that a politician needs to be good enough at being a politician. An example of what you said is Cornelis Lely. Being a civil engineer, he designed the Afsluitdijk in The Netherlands, fixing a lot of water issues we had. He was also an amazing politician [1]. Shower thought: I'd argue we need a "politics school" for engineers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely

j0rdans 3y ago

If I were to put on my conspiratorial hat, this is exactly what those in positions of power want us to be arguing about. These narratives and the constant fuelling of the outrage fire are constantly pushed by the media and "influencers". I'm not saying that they are somehow complicit in a conspiracy, but more-so looking to make money from the elevated engagement derived from outrage. As long as we keep fighting amongst each other about various ideological issues, we're never going to make progress on the things posing an existential threat.

alexilliamson 3y ago
With the exception of abortion - which I think is the hardest ideological gap to bridge - I agree that the media and government keep the focus on trivial culture war issues to create the illusion of having multiple options in the voting booth. Sure you can pick a side on book banning, mask wearing, etc. But if you care about class and the distribution of wealth, you only have one option. Republicans and Democrats are the same party when it comes to class, wealth, and power. Both parties demonstrably work for the ruling class. But I don't think you need a conspiracy hat to see that.

genman 3y ago

There are multiple factors. People are easily distracted. They can be also fooled by claiming that something is cause of something else (that it actually is not). There are also foreign adversaries that take advantage of asymmetry that Western freedom of speech offers for them.

dventimi 3y ago

Perhaps some of the people doing the arguing are on the winning end of the wealth gap, and it just hits a little too close to home.

NoPedantsThanks 3y ago

Especially at a time when everyone is caterwauling about "inflation" (and rightfully so) but very few are talking about the REAL cause: monopoly/oligopoly and straight-up price-gouging. We have what, four meat processors in the USA, and after whining about a "labor shortage" they reported 90% profit increases. NINETY PERCENT. Meanwhile, the Fed fecklessly raises interest rates over and over, refusing to acknowledge that it didn't work because the conventional economics-textbook wisdom that money supply dictates inflation wasn't the biggest factor here. Not to get into a wider political debate, but the Biden administration's (and the Democrats') failure to call out the fleecing of America by monopolies represents their limp or nonexistent messaging overall. And when it costs them the White House, it will cost us all a lot more than expensive meat.

roughly 3y ago
I'm not a fan of the Fed, but they've basically got one tool at their disposal - interest rates - and a mandate to, roughly, keep the wheels on the economy*. I think that since at least 2008 that's been the wrong tool for the job, but all the other tools are held by Congress, which basically refused to do anything useful for the economy out of principle. It's absolutely the case that lowering interest rates wasn't the best policy for the last decade+, and it's also the case that the Fed was the only entity actually trying to do anything, so interest rates is what we got. * The Fed's got a mandate for price stability and employment, but broadly speaking the social expectation is that they're keeping the economy afloat, and I expect that's how they view themselves as well. I'm not arguing they're doing a good job or that that's what they should do, but I think that's the broadly-held view of their role.
- NoPedantsThanks 3y ago
  Absolutely. Not blaming the Fed at all, because you're exactly right: Nobody else was doing anything except waving their hands and feigning helplessness.
Aunche 3y ago
> Meanwhile, the Fed fecklessly raises interest rates over and over, refusing to acknowledge that it didn't work The interest rate hikes did work. The inflation rate has dropped by over 5% from it's peak [1]. Real wages rebounded right after the Fed started raising interest rates [2]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

rapind 3y ago

> I always wonder why people argue about things like pronouns and immigration when a bigger issue seems to be the wealth gap. Immigration is very much an economic issue and discussing it is absolutely reasonable and shouldn't be automatically painted as racism or a social issue (even if it is a social issue to some very loud people!). Guess who absolutely loves cheap labour?! > someone who has an engineering mindset and prioritizes how to get common things done Iran had a president who studied engineering and that wasn't awesome depending on your point of view. It's also really hard to get things done in the states regardless of your mindset in politics today.

RicoElectrico 3y ago

I've read a conspiracy theory that powers-that-be were really scared of Occupy Wall Street and so this coincided with culture wars taking off (more or less).

cracrecry 3y ago

Redistributing wealth is also called "stealing". Most wealth has to be continuously created before being stolen and current societies collapse when people stop creating wealth(as they are stolen blind) or just leave. Look at what happened in Venezuela. The country had great engineers extracting oil. Then Chavez happened and started "redistributing wealth" and putting its generals into stealing as much as they could putting his (incompetent) families and friends on all companies like PDVSA, controlling the gold mines and everything else. They extracted as much wealth as they could for their selves in the shortest amount of time. All the great engineers and doctors and technical people leaved the country. PDVSA output remained stable for a while, while the infrastructure laid by the engineers lasted until it started collapsing by lack of maintenance. I went to Venezuela two months ago. It is accident after accident. Oil spill after oil spill by obsolete infrastructure and lead by incompetent people. Now a small country like Guyana extracts as much oil as Venezuela. >based on how inefficient the government is, If you believe US or any western country's Government is inefficient, you have to see socialist countries to really see orders of magnitude more inefficiency. In Russia, China, Venezuela or lots of other countries in the world have at least 50-60% corruption rates. You pay X millions to develop radar defense systems and most than half of the money goes to corruption. Sometimes it is the Government(China) itself that forces you to accept bribes so it has a weapon against you in case you become too powerful for the people in power.