22 ms·

Stay Gold, America

194 points by joanwestenberg 2y ago

gnabgib 2y ago
Blog post title: Stay Gold, America URL should be (current one only works until a new post): https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Mistletoe 2y ago
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding but is he saying the 8 million is half his net worth or is there a lot more coming? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371627 Is this post wildly off on his net worth calculation? Either way, I applaud him for his donations! I hadn’t heard about the Warren Buffett complete 180 degree change on where his money is going after he dies and that’s really disappointing to read.
- joanwestenberg 2y ago
  $8m first, plus half his net worth within the next five years
- trilbyglens 2y ago
  Shocking that billionaires aren't to be trusted :)
  - chrisco255 2y ago
    They're not any less trustworthy than the general public. Usually you should be skeptical of people professing to be altruistic, however.
    - throwbillions 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - throwpoaster 2y ago
        This is simply false. Business is a social resource allocation game. If you break the rules you will be punished.
eunos 2y ago
On the cost increases graph, As always, things that got cheaper are things that American import from other countries while things that got more expensive are things that you cant import and solely depends on American workforce, more or less. So I found it very funny that right now there are more and louder voices on reducing trade deficits and bringing manufacturing backs. Well, are most folks ready to have the blacklines also becomes red? I have a huge doubt on that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwpoaster 2y ago
  Prices increase when there's low investment in capacity and should decrease when there's more.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  People need something to do, and you can complexify the already recursively self-referencial bullshit loops of finance, marketing and tech only so fast. Not to mention, the good jobs, like selling the ability to sell to sellers selling sellers the sales of things to sell (for whatever $things, it doesn't even matter at this point) - those are unavailable to most Americans anyway.
  - oefrha 2y ago
    According to the unemployment is at historical low crowd, people apparently have more than enough to do. Never mind the puzzling reports from people actually looking for employment.
- ETH_start 2y ago
  The things that got cheaper are primarily things on which the government imposes the fewest restrictions and provides the fewest subsidies. Incidentally, that includes most physically tradeable goods that are also easier to import. Let's look in more detail at the medical field for instance: There was a 3,200 percent increase in the number of healthcare administrators between 1975 and 2010, compared to a 150% increase in physicians, due to an increasing number of regulations: https://www.athenahealth.com/resources/blog/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-healthcare-administrator https://www.athenahealth.com/resources/blog/expert-forum-ris... >Supporters say the growing number of administrators is needed to keep pace with the drastic changes in healthcare delivery during that timeframe, particularly change driven by technology and by ever-more-complex regulations. (To cite just a few industry-disrupting regulations, consider the Prospective Payment System of 1983 [1]; the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 [2]; and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act of 2009.) [3] In contrast, the fields of medicine in the US less affected by this surge in government intervention; cosmetic and laser eye surgery, have seen prices increase at below the rate of inflation. [4] [1] https://www.cms.gov/medicare/payment/prospective-payment-systems https://www.cms.gov/medicare/payment/prospective-payment-sys... [2] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg... [3] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/hitech-act-enforcement-interim-final-rule/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/h... [4] https://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/why-cant-the-market-for-medical-care-work-like-cosmetic-surgery/ https://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/why-cant-the-market-for...
coldtea 2y ago
>We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility is lower in the US than in many European countries, especially the Nordic countries.[9][10] Despite this, many Americans are likely to believe they have a better chance of social mobility than Europeans do.[11] The US ranked 27th in the 2020 Global Social Mobility Index.[12]" The only related thing remained appears to be individual scheming and grinding to make it big, by whatever means necessary, and hope you get lucky. Not some notion that the current environment is conductive to that, or that "hard work" alone will get it, and for most young people forget about the "house with the white picket fence" too. And the charity work mentioned, good as it might be, is more like a drop in the bucket, that won't change much either way.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  what are you quoting? I dont see that in the article.
- Hilift 2y ago
  There has always been poor people in the US. There seems to be more shame and stigma attached now though, along with denial. I think that is one of the reasons the iPhone is more popular in the US. It helps people feel like they aren't poor.
  - defrost 2y ago
    > There has always been poor people in {X} has been a classic dismissal throughout history - it was the excuse in Dickensian England also. What has more leverage and potential for positive change is an analytic approach looking at multiple countries, quintile various income|asset bands, look at food and housing security in these bands, look at the movement from band to band and quantify what it is to be poor and how many are poor - look to the factors that cause or are tightly bound to being poor.
docdeek 2y ago
>> Whatever the reasons, 42% of adults living in America had no say in the 2024 election. The vote failed to represent everyone. The 2024 election had a turnout of about 59% of the voting age population. Since 1972, only one presidential election had higher turnout than that (it was 2020). If the 2024 vote didn’t represent everyone, then most every election for the last half century has been even worse at representing people. Figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
- throwpoaster 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    No information statement.
- noduerme 2y ago
  Having lived in a country with compulsory voting (Argentina), I find the notion charming but I can scarcely say it leads to more intelligent outcomes.
  - alkonaut 2y ago
    Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
    - geraldwhen 2y ago
      [dead]
      - 2y ago
saagarjha 2y ago
> I've always felt Stack Overflow and Discourse are projects for the public good that happen to be corporations. I mean, we're watching what happens to them due to them being corporations in real time. I find it difficult to interpret that statement in the way the post intends for it to be read.
- msoad 2y ago
  Hating Stack Overflow is fashionable but it really helped me solve me many problems that would've been much more effort otherwise. I agree that it's a victim of its own success.
Bengalilol 2y ago
I am not american so please pardon my insufficient sensibility. I see that the author has a clear view on a solution built with dollars in order to maintain democracy and America, but am I missing something more obvious?
jongjong 2y ago
>> We must act now to keep the dream alive. Our family made eight $1 million donations to nonprofit groups working to support those most currently in need This kind of thing triggers me. Not because of the humble-bragging but because this is precisely the attitude which makes everything worse. Systemic problems cannot be fixed by bailing out a select few... It's making things worse for everyone else, adding cost pressure for those who aren't getting any money or special help.
- jbaber 2y ago
  What is his alternative?
  - jongjong 2y ago
    Advocating and lobbying for system change such as abolishing reserve banking and other such monetary manipulations. It's dystopian that some people have millions of dollars of passive income; easy money falling on their lap each year, mostly coming straight out of a money printer, then they give back a fraction of that to a fraction of the people who were victimized by that same system. The system systematically steals a little bit of money from maybe a few million victims via inflation, taxes and loss of opportunities, the system then essentially gives some of that money to 1 person (e.g. gov contracts, cheap loans, etc... which props up their stocks, without them even being aware), then the person donates a portion of that money to maybe 10 to 100 hand-picked victims. Net result; it just serves to concentrate wealth from a majority of victims to a minority of victims and makes things even harder for the majority of people who aren't recipient of any donations or investments. It creates a system where nobody can succeed without receiving help. Either the government helps you with their money printer, or some rich person (who is themselves helped by the government or banking system) helps you. It becomes increasingly difficult to succeed without help when everyone else is getting help. Imagine playing a game of monopoly when half of the players are getting 10x the money than the other half every time they pass go. What happens to the people who are receiving less money? They're essentially guaranteed to lose the game. A miserable experience because it FEELS hopeless and it literally IS hopeless... Yet they're being gaslit that everyone else is on the same playing field. It's not, just look at how the system is designed, new money is being created constantly, clearly it's not being distributed evenly. The system would be much better if rich people just retired and spent their time and unlimited printed money on their yachts and mansions instead of distorting the markets and monopolizing opportunities by funding all sorts of startups which only steal opportunities from more worthy competitors (who don't have priority access to a money printer).
hugodan 2y ago
Looks like trickle down economics is actually trickling up. Who would have guessed?
stevage 2y ago
"may lose sight of the American Dream"? Dude. It's well and truly ever. Sorry for your loss.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  Most data doesn't support that the dream is over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attainment-of-high-school-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attai... There are some downside like wealth inequality but the dream is about individual attainment not comparisons with the Joneses.
  - txextos 2y ago
    You should try reading de Tocqueville. It is literally the same country as it was in 1835. A man builds a home to grow old in and sells it before the roof is on is the American Dream.
  - stevage 2y ago
    Interesting stats, though stats like these are much narrower than what "the American dream" is meant to encompass. Home ownership accompanied by crippling debt is not freedom. And arguably very high rates of university degrees are a symptom of just how difficult it is to make a living without.
ForHackernews 2y ago
That chart of prices is a great example of "cost disease" [0] - as some industries (software, finance, etc) become dramatically more productive from economies of scale, other industries that don't scale (healthcare, education) will become more expensive. Q: Why should anyone be a nurse when they could be a frontend developer instead and make way more money? A: You're going to have to pay your nurses a hell of a lot more. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
alecco 2y ago
As a foreigner, I think this is too naive. The Western elites are in cahoots, that's why they meet all the time. They negotiate things and then they make a DUAL narrative to be pushed by ad-controlled media and social networks so they can divide and rule. And, sadly, we are getting dumber and easier to manipulate. Grassroot movements with legitimate concerns are infiltrated and destroyed. Elite made "grassroot" movements are allowed to do things while it fits the dual narratives. There is active suppression of talking about safety, housing, jobs, food quality, economic prosperity (of the people not corporations or state!). This is replaced with endless arguments about race, abortion, guns, immigration, religion, scare tactics, and war. The recent H1-B drama was telling. The elites tripped and exposed their lies. There was a collective "wait a minute" that united antisemites and Jews, right wingers and Bernie Sanders, cats and dogs. And the system got scared like with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Stay safe. It looks like it's going to get rough either way.
- machiaweliczny 2y ago
  I wish more people were aware of this
- ydnaclementine 2y ago
  "Don't replace the culture war with the class war"
gandalfgeek 2y ago
Most charities on that list are on sharp sides of deeply polarizing culture war issues and it is not at all clear that their causes align with the “American Dream”. If the last election was any indication then more than half the country explicitly rejected many of them.
- gadders 2y ago
  Yeah, this is more like a democrat wish list, donating to help polices that the electorate didn't want.
  - palmfacehn 2y ago
    The author engages in classism, yet he is a multimillionaire funding things the voters rejected.
  - micromacrofoot 2y ago
    abortion rights did amazingly well even in states that supported trump... the other issues are: * child hunger * veteran support * censorship * financial literacy so I guess the unpopular ones in your eyes are... * civil rights * lgbtq rights * immigration hard to give a blanket "democrat wishlist" when more than half are generally favorable across party lines
    - gadders 2y ago
      Going through the list: * child hunger - Global rather than US-focussed. * veteran support - OK * censorship - Ish. The campus free speech stuff looks OK, but there is the usual culture war "book banning" by preventing sexually explicit material been shown to young children. * financial literacy - OK * civil rights - a lot of it looks like the Soros-funded lenient DA stuff * lgbtq rights - I think the main flashpoint is the "t" in that acronym * immigration - obviously contentious, even within right wing circles
      - micromacrofoot 2y ago
gadders 2y ago
I don't know how you can want to improve democracy, and be in favour of universal mail-in voting, the most open to abuse form of voting there is.
- thrance 2y ago
  That's a big lie promoted by the republicans who don't like mail-in voting because democrats use it more [1]. There is still absolutely no evidence that any fraud ever happened with that system. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/13/politics/trump-mail-in-voting/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/13/politics/trump-mail-in-vo...
  - arkh 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - valar_m 2y ago
      This is an extremely poor analogy, and it doesn't change the objective fact that mail-in voting is provably, measurably secure.
      - arkh 2y ago
        In France, vote by mail was used between 1946 and 1975. It was stopped due to too much fraud (even if less than 2% of the population used it). Just the fact requiring a valid ID is a contentious idea in the US is baffling when seen from here. I think more people in the US should check how elections are done in other countries (and not just 3rd world ones).
        gadders 2y ago
        The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust looked into it in the UK as well in the early 2000's and from their Exec Summary: - There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007. - Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud. - The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion https://www.jrrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Purity-of-Elections-in-the-UK-Executive-Summary-2008.pdf https://www.jrrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Purity-of...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thrance 2y ago
> Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%. Welcome to oligarchy, America. Private citizen Musk now owns the government, being the largest donor of the republican party. The democrats are bought too and now only show a principled opposition. What remains of public services will get privatized on bullsh*t excuses (through DOGE, for example) so that Musk and his friends can put their hands on the latest markets.
otikik 2y ago
As a Starcraft 2 aficionado, I read the title with a different tone than probably intended. (Context: SC2 is a competitive game where players are distributed in "leagues" according to their skill in the game. "Gold" is one of the lower leagues. "Stay gold" is a mean thing you would say to someone who is wrong and shows unwillingness grow by learning from their mistakes).
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%. > First Generation Investors – Introduces high school students in low-income areas to the fundamentals of investing, providing them real money to invest, encouraging long-term wealth accumulation and financial literacy among underserved youth. I don't know how to process these two together. Giving $1m to a charity teaching people to invest while lamenting that the top 1% own 32% of the wealth. The concentration of wealth is a result of the insane inflation created by the spending and endless money printing of the state, not because people are savvy investors bent on seizing all the poor people's wealth. It's not investors / the top 1% who created the $36 trillion in government debt (except for the corrupt politicians like Nancy Pelosi who are part of the 1%).
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
gorbachev 2y ago
Link should go to https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/
palmfacehn 2y ago
Laments price inflation, without mention of the inflation of the money supply. Laments the increasing cost of education, without mentioning guaranteed student loans. Laments the cost of healthcare, without mentioning the increasing regulatory burden on the healthcare system or the gov. enabled cartels. Laments inequality, without addressing the central bank driving the over-financialization of markets via easy money. Maybe there is a case that can be made where more central planning can fix these issues, but it is unserious to leave it unaddressed. Why don't more people vote or engage with state institutions? Perhaps it is because we regard these systems to be immoral and politics to be a fruitless endeavor. The US was founded by individualists who claimed they wanted to limit government's role in our lives. Today the US government accounts for 27% of the US's GDP. Those who aspire to cut this spending are labeled as "un-american" by the author. Even after the author's journey of upward mobility, he engages in classism. We rightly condemn those who condemn those who use pejoratives for racial classes, ethnic classes or genders, but somehow it is socially acceptable to blame social issues on "The Rich". Even on this site, I regularly see articles which use, "World's Richest Man" as a pejorative. I listen. I get it. I understand people are unsatisfied. Those who do not seem to understand the latest electoral outcome seem to be asking, "Why can we not double down with even more gov. central planning?" https://www.aha.org/guidesreports/2017-11-03-regulatory-overload-report https://www.aha.org/guidesreports/2017-11-03-regulatory-over... https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... https://www.google.com/search?q=cantillon+effect https://www.google.com/search?q=cantillon+effect
rubzah 2y ago
Reading Jeff's story, perhaps he should put some of the money towards fighting alcohol (mis)use in society. So many families destroyed like Jeff's, not to mention being a major component of expenses in the health sector. Not to downplay the other contributions which are fucking awesome.
huijzer 2y ago
Especially with the current high polarization, I am becoming more and more appreciative of historians. They are not perfect, but do find useful parallels from time to time. My favorite recent talk was by Niall Ferguson [1]. And sure, it's probably a good idea to take him with a grain of salt since he is incentivized to push the idea that all universities are bad and only his university is good (he is co-founder of an university), BUT with that in mind I still thinks he makes great points. One of his points in the talk is that the left nowadays appears to be more busy with feelings than economic inequality. He also compares the current environment to Nazi Germany. Now a lot of commenters on YouTube think this is inappropriate. Nazi's were bad. End of discussion. If you think that too, I would like to defend Niall a bit here. You can disagree with Nazi's and still listen to Nazi's. How else can you learn from their mistakes? How else can we figure out what went wrong and avoid it happening again? [1]: https://youtu.be/aazlO39MPMg https://youtu.be/aazlO39MPMg
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pentagrama 2y ago
From the outside, it sounds like the American Dream is one of the things that led them to where they are.
- throwpoaster 2y ago
  The greatest, most powerful, most successful country in the history of humanity.
theRealArgherna 2y ago
So a guy who can donate $1 million to 8 causes each is trying to make me feel good about donating to the same causes?
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  I will if you do! look at that, your contribution just doubled!
anarticle 2y ago
Love Joel, and all his work. I feel sad reading this because it is filled with the millennial optimism that DID improve the world in the early 10s in the wake of the financial crisis. We are in a different time, I think. The core issues are that voting, donating, and protesting, do not "work" in effecting meaningful change for the average American on a timescale that is useful. No amount of donating, voting, or protesting, or xyz will change this political vibe until there are real consequences for bad actors. Without this, this creates the dichotomy of "winners" and "suckers". When you are a sucker enough times, you don't want to play anymore. Noblesse obligee is for suckers. Voting is for suckers. Policy making? Suckers. Donating is for suckers. Working is for suckers. When faced with extractionists, there is no building. My savings is a megacorp's uncaptured/unallocated value. That is my only defense against the dark arts of our system, and it is at risk every day I am alive. For my peers, they feel advancing their life goals (school, house, kids) has a non-zero possibility of blowing them up. This persistent insecurity is the result of decades of the American System. We can all look back at the last decades and see what outcomes look like for the average. You see it and feel it at all levels, from local politics, to national politics. You see it in tech, lord of the flies style corporatism is in vogue. It is expressed in people chasing promos, doing small scale company politics against their rivals, and doing absolutely unethical things while getting away with it. I have seen people who I thought were good people suddenly say and do ethically radioactive things to get ahead in their career. The trick is never getting caught, and always getting ahead. If you raise your voice, everything you have worked for is at risk, if you're lucky, you're fired, if you're not, you're exiled from the industry. I have optimism for America on the long term, but currently we have too many exploiters, a system that reacts too slowly / not effectively to those inputs, and seemingly no recourse due to the legal system not cleaning up. Note, normal is the guy at your coffee shop making you coffee, the person stocking shelves at your grocery, and the guy who fixes your car, not the "I sold my startup for 1B and I can't figure out my own life." guy. As for me, early on my small surplus was blasted by one hospital bill due to flu (20k), and getting millstoned by college debt while working in academia. I recovered by going full megacorper, much to the chagrin of my old lab. No PhD meant always a pet and never a peer. May the odds be ever in your favor.
disambiguation 2y ago
Giving away all that money is nice, but if you have the means, the aptitude, and the optimism, why not get into politics? Voting is only half of democracy, the other half is having good people to vote for.
anarticle 2y ago
Why is this flagged?
singlepaynews 2y ago
My worldview was challenged by linked Wikipedia page re: The American Dream, specifically this quote: “ a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life.[2] … different meanings over time. Originally, the emphasis was on democracy, liberty and equality, but more recently has been on achieving material wealth and upward mobility.[4]” It seems like the article—and many of popular complaints (including mine)—are primarily grappling with the lack of upward mobility. Versus the older meaning, “democracy, liberty and equality”, which IMO would be a much more severe loss. An argument could be made that loss of material equality threatens access to democracy and liberty, but imo the article—and charity recommendations-are focused on bandaids, where the [Citizens United](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) decision is the known mechanism by which inequality threatens democracy and liberty. When/if I think of a corporation as a legitimate group of citizens, (much less dissonance when I think of a labor union this way), I wonder if the democracy and liberty are better protected by allowing inequality to be weaponized against the government. The “fact” that weaponizing inequality against the government is the effect of Citizen’s United remains unchanged?
coryfklein 2y ago
> We are a democracy, but 144 million Americans – 42% of the adults who live here – do not vote and have no say in what happens. Why do we worry so much about voter turnout? A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population; aren't we getting a pretty accurate measurement of the actual vote with that high of voter turnout? Now if voter turnout is skewed, then that's a problem worth talking about. But with how much time and effort it takes to vote, it seems like such a waste of time with how we do it today. We could get the same results with much less effort if we made it work like jury duty; at each election we select 10% of the population at random and it's their job to actually do the research and go to the work of voting (research candidates, wait 3 hours at the ballot box, etc), and the remaining 90% of us get to go watch a movie or something that day.
- JeremyNT 2y ago
  > A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population Voters are not randomly sampled so this is impossible to state due to selection bias. If a plurality of potential voters are saying "none of the above" when asked to vote, that itself is a noteworthy signal.
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  it's likely if you took a random sample of the 2024 vote by total eligible population you'd end up with "none" as the president
- clayhacks 2y ago
  Have you heard of sortition? Its taking your last idea even further, and having that random selection just actually become the legislative body. Would hopefully lead to less polarisation as parties would have less opportunities to fundraise and divide. Most people don’t fall neatly into the two party buckets anyway
npvrite 2y ago
Right..... because the way to fix this country is by having all of us pay to fix the problems the rich/government create??? How about the rich/government following the rules and not allowing a former president that violated the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause run for election? Taking millions as bribes/gifts from foreign governments? Are you kidding me. And I'm stumped as to why more people haven't heard the new Epst.. tapes where he reveals his 15 year friendship with this "president". https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffre... Are you serious? This is the leader of a free country? Ohhhhhhh because this country is so darn proud of free speech. I wonder if the whistleblowers that revealed all of the NSA spying programs feel that way. The come up to this election had nothing but propaganda spread on "X". Literally no possible way to block the content created by the shi* poster Elon. Only after everyone started to move to blusky did his posts magically stop showing up daily in timelines. Braindead country. I truly wish I was born in South Korea where the citizens hold corrupt politicians accountable.

Blog post title: Stay Gold, America URL should be (current one only works until a new post): https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Mistletoe 2y ago

Sorry if I’m misunderstanding but is he saying the 8 million is half his net worth or is there a lot more coming? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371627 Is this post wildly off on his net worth calculation? Either way, I applaud him for his donations! I hadn’t heard about the Warren Buffett complete 180 degree change on where his money is going after he dies and that’s really disappointing to read.

joanwestenberg 2y ago
$8m first, plus half his net worth within the next five years
trilbyglens 2y ago
Shocking that billionaires aren't to be trusted :)
- chrisco255 2y ago
  They're not any less trustworthy than the general public. Usually you should be skeptical of people professing to be altruistic, however.
  - throwbillions 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - throwpoaster 2y ago
      This is simply false. Business is a social resource allocation game. If you break the rules you will be punished.

eunos 2y ago

On the cost increases graph, As always, things that got cheaper are things that American import from other countries while things that got more expensive are things that you cant import and solely depends on American workforce, more or less. So I found it very funny that right now there are more and louder voices on reducing trade deficits and bringing manufacturing backs. Well, are most folks ready to have the blacklines also becomes red? I have a huge doubt on that.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwpoaster 2y ago
Prices increase when there's low investment in capacity and should decrease when there's more.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
People need something to do, and you can complexify the already recursively self-referencial bullshit loops of finance, marketing and tech only so fast. Not to mention, the good jobs, like selling the ability to sell to sellers selling sellers the sales of things to sell (for whatever $things, it doesn't even matter at this point) - those are unavailable to most Americans anyway.
- oefrha 2y ago
  According to the unemployment is at historical low crowd, people apparently have more than enough to do. Never mind the puzzling reports from people actually looking for employment.
ETH_start 2y ago
The things that got cheaper are primarily things on which the government imposes the fewest restrictions and provides the fewest subsidies. Incidentally, that includes most physically tradeable goods that are also easier to import. Let's look in more detail at the medical field for instance: There was a 3,200 percent increase in the number of healthcare administrators between 1975 and 2010, compared to a 150% increase in physicians, due to an increasing number of regulations: https://www.athenahealth.com/resources/blog/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-healthcare-administrator https://www.athenahealth.com/resources/blog/expert-forum-ris... >Supporters say the growing number of administrators is needed to keep pace with the drastic changes in healthcare delivery during that timeframe, particularly change driven by technology and by ever-more-complex regulations. (To cite just a few industry-disrupting regulations, consider the Prospective Payment System of 1983 [1]; the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 [2]; and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act of 2009.) [3] In contrast, the fields of medicine in the US less affected by this surge in government intervention; cosmetic and laser eye surgery, have seen prices increase at below the rate of inflation. [4] [1] https://www.cms.gov/medicare/payment/prospective-payment-systems https://www.cms.gov/medicare/payment/prospective-payment-sys... [2] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg... [3] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/hitech-act-enforcement-interim-final-rule/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/h... [4] https://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/why-cant-the-market-for-medical-care-work-like-cosmetic-surgery/ https://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/why-cant-the-market-for...

coldtea 2y ago

>We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream The understatement of the year. From all I read, hasn't it been dead and burried for decades? (Of course not for some founder who hit the jackpot like Jeff). "Evidence indicates that in recent decades social mobility in the United States has declined, and income inequality has risen.[7][8] Social mobility is lower in the US than in many European countries, especially the Nordic countries.[9][10] Despite this, many Americans are likely to believe they have a better chance of social mobility than Europeans do.[11] The US ranked 27th in the 2020 Global Social Mobility Index.[12]" The only related thing remained appears to be individual scheming and grinding to make it big, by whatever means necessary, and hope you get lucky. Not some notion that the current environment is conductive to that, or that "hard work" alone will get it, and for most young people forget about the "house with the white picket fence" too. And the charity work mentioned, good as it might be, is more like a drop in the bucket, that won't change much either way.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
what are you quoting? I dont see that in the article.
Hilift 2y ago
There has always been poor people in the US. There seems to be more shame and stigma attached now though, along with denial. I think that is one of the reasons the iPhone is more popular in the US. It helps people feel like they aren't poor.
- defrost 2y ago
  > There has always been poor people in {X} has been a classic dismissal throughout history - it was the excuse in Dickensian England also. What has more leverage and potential for positive change is an analytic approach looking at multiple countries, quintile various income|asset bands, look at food and housing security in these bands, look at the movement from band to band and quantify what it is to be poor and how many are poor - look to the factors that cause or are tightly bound to being poor.

docdeek 2y ago

>> Whatever the reasons, 42% of adults living in America had no say in the 2024 election. The vote failed to represent everyone. The 2024 election had a turnout of about 59% of the voting age population. Since 1972, only one presidential election had higher turnout than that (it was 2020). If the 2024 vote didn’t represent everyone, then most every election for the last half century has been even worse at representing people. Figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...

throwpoaster 2y ago
[flagged]
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  No information statement.
noduerme 2y ago
Having lived in a country with compulsory voting (Argentina), I find the notion charming but I can scarcely say it leads to more intelligent outcomes.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  Compulsory voting removes an important signal where participation indicates the legitimacy. Which is why very few democracies have compulsory voting. Having 70-80-90% participation with non-compulsory voting should be the goal of any self respecting democracy and politicians who reject measures to increase voter turnout should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
  - geraldwhen 2y ago
    [dead]
    - 2y ago

saagarjha 2y ago

> I've always felt Stack Overflow and Discourse are projects for the public good that happen to be corporations. I mean, we're watching what happens to them due to them being corporations in real time. I find it difficult to interpret that statement in the way the post intends for it to be read.

msoad 2y ago
Hating Stack Overflow is fashionable but it really helped me solve me many problems that would've been much more effort otherwise. I agree that it's a victim of its own success.

Bengalilol 2y ago

I am not american so please pardon my insufficient sensibility. I see that the author has a clear view on a solution built with dollars in order to maintain democracy and America, but am I missing something more obvious?

jongjong 2y ago

>> We must act now to keep the dream alive. Our family made eight $1 million donations to nonprofit groups working to support those most currently in need This kind of thing triggers me. Not because of the humble-bragging but because this is precisely the attitude which makes everything worse. Systemic problems cannot be fixed by bailing out a select few... It's making things worse for everyone else, adding cost pressure for those who aren't getting any money or special help.

jbaber 2y ago
What is his alternative?
- jongjong 2y ago
  Advocating and lobbying for system change such as abolishing reserve banking and other such monetary manipulations. It's dystopian that some people have millions of dollars of passive income; easy money falling on their lap each year, mostly coming straight out of a money printer, then they give back a fraction of that to a fraction of the people who were victimized by that same system. The system systematically steals a little bit of money from maybe a few million victims via inflation, taxes and loss of opportunities, the system then essentially gives some of that money to 1 person (e.g. gov contracts, cheap loans, etc... which props up their stocks, without them even being aware), then the person donates a portion of that money to maybe 10 to 100 hand-picked victims. Net result; it just serves to concentrate wealth from a majority of victims to a minority of victims and makes things even harder for the majority of people who aren't recipient of any donations or investments. It creates a system where nobody can succeed without receiving help. Either the government helps you with their money printer, or some rich person (who is themselves helped by the government or banking system) helps you. It becomes increasingly difficult to succeed without help when everyone else is getting help. Imagine playing a game of monopoly when half of the players are getting 10x the money than the other half every time they pass go. What happens to the people who are receiving less money? They're essentially guaranteed to lose the game. A miserable experience because it FEELS hopeless and it literally IS hopeless... Yet they're being gaslit that everyone else is on the same playing field. It's not, just look at how the system is designed, new money is being created constantly, clearly it's not being distributed evenly. The system would be much better if rich people just retired and spent their time and unlimited printed money on their yachts and mansions instead of distorting the markets and monopolizing opportunities by funding all sorts of startups which only steal opportunities from more worthy competitors (who don't have priority access to a money printer).

hugodan 2y ago

Looks like trickle down economics is actually trickling up. Who would have guessed?

stevage 2y ago

"may lose sight of the American Dream"? Dude. It's well and truly ever. Sorry for your loss.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago
Most data doesn't support that the dream is over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attainment-of-high-school-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184266/educational-attai... There are some downside like wealth inequality but the dream is about individual attainment not comparisons with the Joneses.
- txextos 2y ago
  You should try reading de Tocqueville. It is literally the same country as it was in 1835. A man builds a home to grow old in and sells it before the roof is on is the American Dream.
- stevage 2y ago
  Interesting stats, though stats like these are much narrower than what "the American dream" is meant to encompass. Home ownership accompanied by crippling debt is not freedom. And arguably very high rates of university degrees are a symptom of just how difficult it is to make a living without.

ForHackernews 2y ago

That chart of prices is a great example of "cost disease" [0] - as some industries (software, finance, etc) become dramatically more productive from economies of scale, other industries that don't scale (healthcare, education) will become more expensive. Q: Why should anyone be a nurse when they could be a frontend developer instead and make way more money? A: You're going to have to pay your nurses a hell of a lot more. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

alecco 2y ago

As a foreigner, I think this is too naive. The Western elites are in cahoots, that's why they meet all the time. They negotiate things and then they make a DUAL narrative to be pushed by ad-controlled media and social networks so they can divide and rule. And, sadly, we are getting dumber and easier to manipulate. Grassroot movements with legitimate concerns are infiltrated and destroyed. Elite made "grassroot" movements are allowed to do things while it fits the dual narratives. There is active suppression of talking about safety, housing, jobs, food quality, economic prosperity (of the people not corporations or state!). This is replaced with endless arguments about race, abortion, guns, immigration, religion, scare tactics, and war. The recent H1-B drama was telling. The elites tripped and exposed their lies. There was a collective "wait a minute" that united antisemites and Jews, right wingers and Bernie Sanders, cats and dogs. And the system got scared like with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Stay safe. It looks like it's going to get rough either way.

machiaweliczny 2y ago
I wish more people were aware of this
ydnaclementine 2y ago
"Don't replace the culture war with the class war"

gandalfgeek 2y ago

Most charities on that list are on sharp sides of deeply polarizing culture war issues and it is not at all clear that their causes align with the “American Dream”. If the last election was any indication then more than half the country explicitly rejected many of them.

gadders 2y ago
Yeah, this is more like a democrat wish list, donating to help polices that the electorate didn't want.
- palmfacehn 2y ago
  The author engages in classism, yet he is a multimillionaire funding things the voters rejected.
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  abortion rights did amazingly well even in states that supported trump... the other issues are: * child hunger * veteran support * censorship * financial literacy so I guess the unpopular ones in your eyes are... * civil rights * lgbtq rights * immigration hard to give a blanket "democrat wishlist" when more than half are generally favorable across party lines
  - gadders 2y ago
    Going through the list: * child hunger - Global rather than US-focussed. * veteran support - OK * censorship - Ish. The campus free speech stuff looks OK, but there is the usual culture war "book banning" by preventing sexually explicit material been shown to young children. * financial literacy - OK * civil rights - a lot of it looks like the Soros-funded lenient DA stuff * lgbtq rights - I think the main flashpoint is the "t" in that acronym * immigration - obviously contentious, even within right wing circles
    - micromacrofoot 2y ago

gadders 2y ago

I don't know how you can want to improve democracy, and be in favour of universal mail-in voting, the most open to abuse form of voting there is.

thrance 2y ago
That's a big lie promoted by the republicans who don't like mail-in voting because democrats use it more [1]. There is still absolutely no evidence that any fraud ever happened with that system. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/13/politics/trump-mail-in-voting/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/13/politics/trump-mail-in-vo...
- arkh 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - valar_m 2y ago
    This is an extremely poor analogy, and it doesn't change the objective fact that mail-in voting is provably, measurably secure.
    - arkh 2y ago
      In France, vote by mail was used between 1946 and 1975. It was stopped due to too much fraud (even if less than 2% of the population used it). Just the fact requiring a valid ID is a contentious idea in the US is baffling when seen from here. I think more people in the US should check how elections are done in other countries (and not just 3rd world ones).
      - gadders 2y ago
        The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust looked into it in the UK as well in the early 2000's and from their Exec Summary: - There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007. - Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud. - The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion https://www.jrrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Purity-of-Elections-in-the-UK-Executive-Summary-2008.pdf https://www.jrrt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Purity-of...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

thrance 2y ago

> Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%. Welcome to oligarchy, America. Private citizen Musk now owns the government, being the largest donor of the republican party. The democrats are bought too and now only show a principled opposition. What remains of public services will get privatized on bullsh*t excuses (through DOGE, for example) so that Musk and his friends can put their hands on the latest markets.

otikik 2y ago

As a Starcraft 2 aficionado, I read the title with a different tone than probably intended. (Context: SC2 is a competitive game where players are distributed in "leagues" according to their skill in the game. "Gold" is one of the lower leagues. "Stay gold" is a mean thing you would say to someone who is wrong and shows unwillingness grow by learning from their mistakes).

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%. > First Generation Investors – Introduces high school students in low-income areas to the fundamentals of investing, providing them real money to invest, encouraging long-term wealth accumulation and financial literacy among underserved youth. I don't know how to process these two together. Giving $1m to a charity teaching people to invest while lamenting that the top 1% own 32% of the wealth. The concentration of wealth is a result of the insane inflation created by the spending and endless money printing of the state, not because people are savvy investors bent on seizing all the poor people's wealth. It's not investors / the top 1% who created the $36 trillion in government debt (except for the corrupt politicians like Nancy Pelosi who are part of the 1%).

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

gorbachev 2y ago

Link should go to https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/

palmfacehn 2y ago

Laments price inflation, without mention of the inflation of the money supply. Laments the increasing cost of education, without mentioning guaranteed student loans. Laments the cost of healthcare, without mentioning the increasing regulatory burden on the healthcare system or the gov. enabled cartels. Laments inequality, without addressing the central bank driving the over-financialization of markets via easy money. Maybe there is a case that can be made where more central planning can fix these issues, but it is unserious to leave it unaddressed. Why don't more people vote or engage with state institutions? Perhaps it is because we regard these systems to be immoral and politics to be a fruitless endeavor. The US was founded by individualists who claimed they wanted to limit government's role in our lives. Today the US government accounts for 27% of the US's GDP. Those who aspire to cut this spending are labeled as "un-american" by the author. Even after the author's journey of upward mobility, he engages in classism. We rightly condemn those who condemn those who use pejoratives for racial classes, ethnic classes or genders, but somehow it is socially acceptable to blame social issues on "The Rich". Even on this site, I regularly see articles which use, "World's Richest Man" as a pejorative. I listen. I get it. I understand people are unsatisfied. Those who do not seem to understand the latest electoral outcome seem to be asking, "Why can we not double down with even more gov. central planning?" https://www.aha.org/guidesreports/2017-11-03-regulatory-overload-report https://www.aha.org/guidesreports/2017-11-03-regulatory-over... https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... https://www.google.com/search?q=cantillon+effect https://www.google.com/search?q=cantillon+effect

rubzah 2y ago

Reading Jeff's story, perhaps he should put some of the money towards fighting alcohol (mis)use in society. So many families destroyed like Jeff's, not to mention being a major component of expenses in the health sector. Not to downplay the other contributions which are fucking awesome.

huijzer 2y ago

Especially with the current high polarization, I am becoming more and more appreciative of historians. They are not perfect, but do find useful parallels from time to time. My favorite recent talk was by Niall Ferguson [1]. And sure, it's probably a good idea to take him with a grain of salt since he is incentivized to push the idea that all universities are bad and only his university is good (he is co-founder of an university), BUT with that in mind I still thinks he makes great points. One of his points in the talk is that the left nowadays appears to be more busy with feelings than economic inequality. He also compares the current environment to Nazi Germany. Now a lot of commenters on YouTube think this is inappropriate. Nazi's were bad. End of discussion. If you think that too, I would like to defend Niall a bit here. You can disagree with Nazi's and still listen to Nazi's. How else can you learn from their mistakes? How else can we figure out what went wrong and avoid it happening again? [1]: https://youtu.be/aazlO39MPMg https://youtu.be/aazlO39MPMg

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pentagrama 2y ago

From the outside, it sounds like the American Dream is one of the things that led them to where they are.

throwpoaster 2y ago
The greatest, most powerful, most successful country in the history of humanity.

theRealArgherna 2y ago

So a guy who can donate $1 million to 8 causes each is trying to make me feel good about donating to the same causes?

micromacrofoot 2y ago
I will if you do! look at that, your contribution just doubled!

anarticle 2y ago

Love Joel, and all his work. I feel sad reading this because it is filled with the millennial optimism that DID improve the world in the early 10s in the wake of the financial crisis. We are in a different time, I think. The core issues are that voting, donating, and protesting, do not "work" in effecting meaningful change for the average American on a timescale that is useful. No amount of donating, voting, or protesting, or xyz will change this political vibe until there are real consequences for bad actors. Without this, this creates the dichotomy of "winners" and "suckers". When you are a sucker enough times, you don't want to play anymore. Noblesse obligee is for suckers. Voting is for suckers. Policy making? Suckers. Donating is for suckers. Working is for suckers. When faced with extractionists, there is no building. My savings is a megacorp's uncaptured/unallocated value. That is my only defense against the dark arts of our system, and it is at risk every day I am alive. For my peers, they feel advancing their life goals (school, house, kids) has a non-zero possibility of blowing them up. This persistent insecurity is the result of decades of the American System. We can all look back at the last decades and see what outcomes look like for the average. You see it and feel it at all levels, from local politics, to national politics. You see it in tech, lord of the flies style corporatism is in vogue. It is expressed in people chasing promos, doing small scale company politics against their rivals, and doing absolutely unethical things while getting away with it. I have seen people who I thought were good people suddenly say and do ethically radioactive things to get ahead in their career. The trick is never getting caught, and always getting ahead. If you raise your voice, everything you have worked for is at risk, if you're lucky, you're fired, if you're not, you're exiled from the industry. I have optimism for America on the long term, but currently we have too many exploiters, a system that reacts too slowly / not effectively to those inputs, and seemingly no recourse due to the legal system not cleaning up. Note, normal is the guy at your coffee shop making you coffee, the person stocking shelves at your grocery, and the guy who fixes your car, not the "I sold my startup for 1B and I can't figure out my own life." guy. As for me, early on my small surplus was blasted by one hospital bill due to flu (20k), and getting millstoned by college debt while working in academia. I recovered by going full megacorper, much to the chagrin of my old lab. No PhD meant always a pet and never a peer. May the odds be ever in your favor.

disambiguation 2y ago

Giving away all that money is nice, but if you have the means, the aptitude, and the optimism, why not get into politics? Voting is only half of democracy, the other half is having good people to vote for.

anarticle 2y ago

Why is this flagged?

singlepaynews 2y ago

My worldview was challenged by linked Wikipedia page re: The American Dream, specifically this quote: “ a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life.[2] … different meanings over time. Originally, the emphasis was on democracy, liberty and equality, but more recently has been on achieving material wealth and upward mobility.[4]” It seems like the article—and many of popular complaints (including mine)—are primarily grappling with the lack of upward mobility. Versus the older meaning, “democracy, liberty and equality”, which IMO would be a much more severe loss. An argument could be made that loss of material equality threatens access to democracy and liberty, but imo the article—and charity recommendations-are focused on bandaids, where the [Citizens United](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) decision is the known mechanism by which inequality threatens democracy and liberty. When/if I think of a corporation as a legitimate group of citizens, (much less dissonance when I think of a labor union this way), I wonder if the democracy and liberty are better protected by allowing inequality to be weaponized against the government. The “fact” that weaponizing inequality against the government is the effect of Citizen’s United remains unchanged?

coryfklein 2y ago

> We are a democracy, but 144 million Americans – 42% of the adults who live here – do not vote and have no say in what happens. Why do we worry so much about voter turnout? A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population; aren't we getting a pretty accurate measurement of the actual vote with that high of voter turnout? Now if voter turnout is skewed, then that's a problem worth talking about. But with how much time and effort it takes to vote, it seems like such a waste of time with how we do it today. We could get the same results with much less effort if we made it work like jury duty; at each election we select 10% of the population at random and it's their job to actually do the research and go to the work of voting (research candidates, wait 3 hours at the ballot box, etc), and the remaining 90% of us get to go watch a movie or something that day.

JeremyNT 2y ago
> A 58% voter turnout is a statistically significant sampling of the population Voters are not randomly sampled so this is impossible to state due to selection bias. If a plurality of potential voters are saying "none of the above" when asked to vote, that itself is a noteworthy signal.
micromacrofoot 2y ago
it's likely if you took a random sample of the 2024 vote by total eligible population you'd end up with "none" as the president
clayhacks 2y ago
Have you heard of sortition? Its taking your last idea even further, and having that random selection just actually become the legislative body. Would hopefully lead to less polarisation as parties would have less opportunities to fundraise and divide. Most people don’t fall neatly into the two party buckets anyway

npvrite 2y ago

Right..... because the way to fix this country is by having all of us pay to fix the problems the rich/government create??? How about the rich/government following the rules and not allowing a former president that violated the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause run for election? Taking millions as bribes/gifts from foreign governments? Are you kidding me. And I'm stumped as to why more people haven't heard the new Epst.. tapes where he reveals his 15 year friendship with this "president". https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffre... Are you serious? This is the leader of a free country? Ohhhhhhh because this country is so darn proud of free speech. I wonder if the whistleblowers that revealed all of the NSA spying programs feel that way. The come up to this election had nothing but propaganda spread on "X". Literally no possible way to block the content created by the shi* poster Elon. Only after everyone started to move to blusky did his posts magically stop showing up daily in timelines. Braindead country. I truly wish I was born in South Korea where the citizens hold corrupt politicians accountable.