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Americans have more immediate things to worry about. The possibility of war, which is not something individual Americans have control over, doesn't make the lis

Americans have more immediate things to worry about. The possibility of war, which is not something individual Americans have control over, doesn't make the list when prices for everything are going up and people can't find jobs, a place to live, or friends. In any case there's little point to worrying about things you can't affect or change. No amount of worry will prevent a war.

orionblastar 3y ago
Our economy is in a bubble like everything else. In the 1960s a Big Mac meal cost under a dollar, now in California it is $18. We are headed for a Great Depression as AI and innovation eats jobs, and people will have to learn new skills to find a job. There is an article called The Rise of the Rest: https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the-rest https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the... that talked about Russia getting more aggressive, and everyone else growing their economies and competing with the USA and Europe. It is a global economy and a global war. It is from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Rise-Rest/dp/024195875X https://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Rise-Rest/dp/0241...
- BenFranklin100 3y ago
  Innovation — that is technological progress — creates net jobs. AI is no different nor is continued automation.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    Innovation can create jobs, but at the same time it can displace people from their jobs. Innovation in manufacturing created jobs overseas in places with cheaper labor and less regulation, while eliminating jobs in the USA. AI may do the same, whether by actually replacing people with technology or simply outsourcing overseas and calling it AI like Amazon and others have done. While the "labor market" works globally, across borders, employment does not. Just like food -- American produces more food than Americans need, but people in other parts of the world (and even plenty of poor Americans) don't have enough to eat. So while it's generally true that innovation can lead to net job creation globally, it has local effects that can lead to unemployment and displacement.
    - realusername 3y ago
      The US is currently at a chronically low unemployment rate of 3.8% which means full employment. This fear of the global labor market and technological changes creating mass unemployment hasn't materialized until now so I don't see why it would at this point.
      - gregjor 3y ago
        That seems like a naive reading of the employment rate. A lot of Americans have jobs that don't pay a living wage, and don't have benefits. Many people do gig work to make ends meet. A person who used to have a good-paying manufacturing job but now works as a Walmart greeter with no benefits counts as employed, but with some significant qualitative differences because the manufacturing job went to Mexico or China. People with expensive degrees working as baristas count as employed, but they probably don't think of their situation as "full employment" as fake AI companies outsource jobs to India. The global labor market enables labor arbitrage. A person in India or Vietnam gets an offshored job and goes from 0 to 2. A person in Detroit loses their good job and gets hired at Burger King, going from 8 to 4. The savings goes into the pockets of people like Jeff Bezos. My point was to distinguish between global trends and broadly true -- at scale -- claims about innovation and technology improving employment conditions and local effects caused by job displacement. Those happen together. It does little good to laid-off programmers in California to learn that their sacrifice means thousands of Indian programmers now have jobs.
        realusername 3y ago
        That's because people nowadays are working in jobs with pretty poor union support compared to the manufacturing jobs of the past so there's not much competition involved when raising salaries. As for the global trends, nothing points at job displacement until now, everything until now points to the pie getting larger, the opposite of your statement. I doubt you could fit the needs of any country on earth with just its local workforce nowadays anyways, even China itself can't. It's been a dozen technological revolutions and none of that happened already so I don't see why the next one would. Black swan events can always happen of course but I would not bet on it.
- gregjor 3y ago
  I no longer live in the US. A Big Mac costs $4 in Thailand, but I can find better burgers for less. More and more Americans are figuring out how they get scammed and ripped off and leaving.
- teamspirit 3y ago
  This is demonstrably untrue. The current most expensive Big Mac is $8.09 in the US [0]. [0] https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest
  - add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
    That's not the price of a meal. I'm not sure if you get all the way up to $18 after making it a meal and adding tax/tip/etc but it's insane that McDonald's charges anywhere near that much for their bottom tier food.
    - brewdad 3y ago
      I was cleaning my car out yesterday and found a McDs receipt from my son. He spent $17.47 on a quarter pounder meal near Seattle last summer. He did add bacon for 1.99 plus tax, but it is possible to get up around $18 for a single meal. I'm sure the prices are higher today.
    - nozzlegear 3y ago
      I don't think McDonald's accepts tips.
  - jmpman 3y ago
    He said Big Mac Meal. Where I live, outside of California, it’s $10.49 for a medium, and $10.99 for a large according to the McDonalds app.
    - tomjakubowski 3y ago
      A big mac meal is about that price, or lower, at any McDonalds I have been to in southern California. I spot-checked a random location by me: $6.29 for the sandwich, $9.69 (before tax) for a medium meal, $11.19 for a large. That's about double what the menu price was in suburban Chicago ~20 years ago. Extrapolating from the map, I don't know where even a large big mac meal would cost $18 in CA
  - orionblastar 3y ago
- ManuelKiessling 3y ago
  Comparing absolute numbers isn’t helpful, though — the only relevant question to ask is always this: how many hours does the average American have to work to afford X, then and now?
bamboozled 3y ago
In any case there's little point to worrying about things you can't affect or change. No amount of worry will prevent a war. I honestly think this is false. Americans have decided to turn their back on many issues going on outside their borders, especially Ukraine. Russia invading large areas of Europe is definitely how World War 3 will start, Putin is pushing us closer to that place each day the US stalls giving Ukraine more aid. If there was a strong deterrent, Putin would back off, but he and Xi are watching this and getting ideas about conquest. There also seems to be quite a strong alliance and cooperation between N Korea, China, Russia and Iran forming. While we're not helping our friends and allies out, the enemy seems to be growing stronger and getting more organized. Why let this threat continue to grow? I'm really, really shocked about how much the USA is aiding Russia to succeed.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  > I honestly think this is false. Americans have decided to turn their back on many issues going on outside their borders, especially Ukraine. > Why let this threat continue to grow? Why is it self-evident that giving Ukraine weapons decreases the 'threat' and risk of the last world war. I though the deal was that the American and Russian elite invades countries every now and than and the rest of us just complains. Not put our neck on the line? Noone asked me to see my kids die from radiation posioning and starvation when the US invaded Iraq. Somehow there is some phychosis ongoing where people pretend to care for Ukraine's war effort on the 'willing to die' level... Thankfully the alleged Gaza genocide made them calm down a bit though. It was like the jingoists remembered who they cheered for.
  - Supermancho 3y ago
    > Why is it self-evident that giving Ukraine weapons decreases the 'threat' and risk of the [next] world war. FTFY - https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics covers this better than most. Recently, his predictions about the UK look to be trending as he predicted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjmBAhTDRXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjmBAhTDRXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFHWVAXSGYQ&pp=ygURdWsgc3RlZWwgaW5kdXN0cnk%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFHWVAXSGYQ&pp=ygURdWsgc3RlZ... He's well regarded and makes some compelling arguments for the support of Ukraine and the overblown concern over China's future, regarding Taiwan.
pjmlp 3y ago
If global war comes to be, there will be plenty of jobs, and places to call home.
- Grimblewald 3y ago
  This has been my retirement plan. Die in the inevitable large scale conflict, or live to reap the rewards of an empty world.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    Americans have the least to worry about. Just like the last two world wars, the destruction will most likely happen in Europe and Asia. America doesn't fight wars on its own soil. Widespread nuclear war could happen but that doesn't leave any winners, and it seems clear both Russia and China have actual strategic goals rather than a mad desire to destroy everything.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Americans have the least to worry about. Just like the last two world wars, the destruction will most likely happen in Europe and Asia Don't underestimate the destabilising political consequences of losing a major war.
      - gregjor 3y ago
        Do you think those destabilizing political consequences would turn out worse than the political dysfunction America has already without losing a war? Since America almost certainly won't get attacked or invaded on its own soil, the US can't "lose" a war in the same sense Ukraine can, or Germany and Japan did. The US can lose face and influence, but I think we're used to that by now after Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. We "lost" all of those wars in some sense (failed to achieve stated strategic objectives) but didn't experience destabilizing political consequences.
        3y ago

orionblastar 3y ago

Our economy is in a bubble like everything else. In the 1960s a Big Mac meal cost under a dollar, now in California it is $18. We are headed for a Great Depression as AI and innovation eats jobs, and people will have to learn new skills to find a job. There is an article called The Rise of the Rest: https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the-rest https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the... that talked about Russia getting more aggressive, and everyone else growing their economies and competing with the USA and Europe. It is a global economy and a global war. It is from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Rise-Rest/dp/024195875X https://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Rise-Rest/dp/0241...

BenFranklin100 3y ago
Innovation — that is technological progress — creates net jobs. AI is no different nor is continued automation.
- gregjor 3y ago
  Innovation can create jobs, but at the same time it can displace people from their jobs. Innovation in manufacturing created jobs overseas in places with cheaper labor and less regulation, while eliminating jobs in the USA. AI may do the same, whether by actually replacing people with technology or simply outsourcing overseas and calling it AI like Amazon and others have done. While the "labor market" works globally, across borders, employment does not. Just like food -- American produces more food than Americans need, but people in other parts of the world (and even plenty of poor Americans) don't have enough to eat. So while it's generally true that innovation can lead to net job creation globally, it has local effects that can lead to unemployment and displacement.
  - realusername 3y ago
    The US is currently at a chronically low unemployment rate of 3.8% which means full employment. This fear of the global labor market and technological changes creating mass unemployment hasn't materialized until now so I don't see why it would at this point.
    - gregjor 3y ago
      That seems like a naive reading of the employment rate. A lot of Americans have jobs that don't pay a living wage, and don't have benefits. Many people do gig work to make ends meet. A person who used to have a good-paying manufacturing job but now works as a Walmart greeter with no benefits counts as employed, but with some significant qualitative differences because the manufacturing job went to Mexico or China. People with expensive degrees working as baristas count as employed, but they probably don't think of their situation as "full employment" as fake AI companies outsource jobs to India. The global labor market enables labor arbitrage. A person in India or Vietnam gets an offshored job and goes from 0 to 2. A person in Detroit loses their good job and gets hired at Burger King, going from 8 to 4. The savings goes into the pockets of people like Jeff Bezos. My point was to distinguish between global trends and broadly true -- at scale -- claims about innovation and technology improving employment conditions and local effects caused by job displacement. Those happen together. It does little good to laid-off programmers in California to learn that their sacrifice means thousands of Indian programmers now have jobs.
      - realusername 3y ago
        That's because people nowadays are working in jobs with pretty poor union support compared to the manufacturing jobs of the past so there's not much competition involved when raising salaries. As for the global trends, nothing points at job displacement until now, everything until now points to the pie getting larger, the opposite of your statement. I doubt you could fit the needs of any country on earth with just its local workforce nowadays anyways, even China itself can't. It's been a dozen technological revolutions and none of that happened already so I don't see why the next one would. Black swan events can always happen of course but I would not bet on it.
gregjor 3y ago
I no longer live in the US. A Big Mac costs $4 in Thailand, but I can find better burgers for less. More and more Americans are figuring out how they get scammed and ripped off and leaving.
teamspirit 3y ago
This is demonstrably untrue. The current most expensive Big Mac is $8.09 in the US [0]. [0] https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest
- add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
  That's not the price of a meal. I'm not sure if you get all the way up to $18 after making it a meal and adding tax/tip/etc but it's insane that McDonald's charges anywhere near that much for their bottom tier food.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    I was cleaning my car out yesterday and found a McDs receipt from my son. He spent $17.47 on a quarter pounder meal near Seattle last summer. He did add bacon for 1.99 plus tax, but it is possible to get up around $18 for a single meal. I'm sure the prices are higher today.
  - nozzlegear 3y ago
    I don't think McDonald's accepts tips.
- jmpman 3y ago
  He said Big Mac Meal. Where I live, outside of California, it’s $10.49 for a medium, and $10.99 for a large according to the McDonalds app.
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    A big mac meal is about that price, or lower, at any McDonalds I have been to in southern California. I spot-checked a random location by me: $6.29 for the sandwich, $9.69 (before tax) for a medium meal, $11.19 for a large. That's about double what the menu price was in suburban Chicago ~20 years ago. Extrapolating from the map, I don't know where even a large big mac meal would cost $18 in CA
- orionblastar 3y ago
ManuelKiessling 3y ago
Comparing absolute numbers isn’t helpful, though — the only relevant question to ask is always this: how many hours does the average American have to work to afford X, then and now?

bamboozled 3y ago

In any case there's little point to worrying about things you can't affect or change. No amount of worry will prevent a war. I honestly think this is false. Americans have decided to turn their back on many issues going on outside their borders, especially Ukraine. Russia invading large areas of Europe is definitely how World War 3 will start, Putin is pushing us closer to that place each day the US stalls giving Ukraine more aid. If there was a strong deterrent, Putin would back off, but he and Xi are watching this and getting ideas about conquest. There also seems to be quite a strong alliance and cooperation between N Korea, China, Russia and Iran forming. While we're not helping our friends and allies out, the enemy seems to be growing stronger and getting more organized. Why let this threat continue to grow? I'm really, really shocked about how much the USA is aiding Russia to succeed.

rightbyte 3y ago
> I honestly think this is false. Americans have decided to turn their back on many issues going on outside their borders, especially Ukraine. > Why let this threat continue to grow? Why is it self-evident that giving Ukraine weapons decreases the 'threat' and risk of the last world war. I though the deal was that the American and Russian elite invades countries every now and than and the rest of us just complains. Not put our neck on the line? Noone asked me to see my kids die from radiation posioning and starvation when the US invaded Iraq. Somehow there is some phychosis ongoing where people pretend to care for Ukraine's war effort on the 'willing to die' level... Thankfully the alleged Gaza genocide made them calm down a bit though. It was like the jingoists remembered who they cheered for.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > Why is it self-evident that giving Ukraine weapons decreases the 'threat' and risk of the [next] world war. FTFY - https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics covers this better than most. Recently, his predictions about the UK look to be trending as he predicted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjmBAhTDRXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjmBAhTDRXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFHWVAXSGYQ&pp=ygURdWsgc3RlZWwgaW5kdXN0cnk%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFHWVAXSGYQ&pp=ygURdWsgc3RlZ... He's well regarded and makes some compelling arguments for the support of Ukraine and the overblown concern over China's future, regarding Taiwan.

pjmlp 3y ago

If global war comes to be, there will be plenty of jobs, and places to call home.

Grimblewald 3y ago
This has been my retirement plan. Die in the inevitable large scale conflict, or live to reap the rewards of an empty world.
- gregjor 3y ago
  Americans have the least to worry about. Just like the last two world wars, the destruction will most likely happen in Europe and Asia. America doesn't fight wars on its own soil. Widespread nuclear war could happen but that doesn't leave any winners, and it seems clear both Russia and China have actual strategic goals rather than a mad desire to destroy everything.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Americans have the least to worry about. Just like the last two world wars, the destruction will most likely happen in Europe and Asia Don't underestimate the destabilising political consequences of losing a major war.
    - gregjor 3y ago
      Do you think those destabilizing political consequences would turn out worse than the political dysfunction America has already without losing a war? Since America almost certainly won't get attacked or invaded on its own soil, the US can't "lose" a war in the same sense Ukraine can, or Germany and Japan did. The US can lose face and influence, but I think we're used to that by now after Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. We "lost" all of those wars in some sense (failed to achieve stated strategic objectives) but didn't experience destabilizing political consequences.
      - 3y ago