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> the average person is using The "average person" is told from birth to consume as many things and experiences as possible as it if was the only thing that co

> the average person is using The "average person" is told from birth to consume as many things and experiences as possible as it if was the only thing that could give their life a meaning. The entire system is based on growth and consumption, I have a hard time blaming "the average person"

john01dav 1y ago
I acknowledge that such telling exists, but there is still responsibility for people choosing to listen to it. Skepticism is vital. Beyond being skeptical of what you see, it is wild to me that we don't have approximately everyone blocking all ads, cable news, most social feeds, and other such transparently manipulative shit. Advertisement especially is literally industrialized and research-based psychological manipulation to make people do things that make no sense (see what Alfred Sloan did to GM, for an early example) — it's toxic and should be absolutely avoided.
- mathgeek 1y ago
  You can’t block all of it all of the time, and children (some of the most vulnerable) especially can’t.
  - razakel 1y ago
    And that's why government regulation was invented.
    - datameta 1y ago
      You mean corporations regulating the government? Oh wait...
  - tnel77 1y ago
    True, and this is why you shouldn’t just hand your kid an iPad and peace out. I’m all for technology and video games for my kids, but I’m vigilant to keep my kids’ eyes away from ads. As a result, my kids aren’t foaming at the mouth for the latest and greatest toys and games which was my experience as a child.
    - wobfan 1y ago
      Thing is, keeping children out of Instagram, Facebook, or whatever new social media is hyping currently will probably make them kind of weirdos in their bubble, e.g. in school. At least this would be my fear (don't have children). And good luck trying to use any of these ad-infested privacy-invading platforms while trying to avoid ads.
      - geerlingguy 1y ago
        It doesn't have to make them weird, especially if you're in a school district where there are no-phone policies. Otherwise it can be difficult, for sure.
      - allenrb 1y ago
        Learning how to stand on your own in school is good practice for doing the same thing in life. By which I’m absolutely not saying “don’t have friends” but rather, you don’t have to be like everyone else. My kids won’t be on social media until they’re not kids anymore. If none of us take a stand, nothing ever changes.
        nradov 1y ago
        Your kids will create hidden social media accounts that you don't know about. That's what I would have done in their situation.
        olyjohn 1y ago
        Their exposure will still be much less than someone who gives them free reign and lets them sit in the livingroom staring at a phone. They won't be staring at the phone distracted while they're hanging out with the family.
        kadushka 1y ago
        Hiding things from parents is a far bigger problem than staring at a phone in a living room.
  - xattt 1y ago
    > children … especially can’t Worry about your own kids, teach them the right values, and use others’ imperfect knowledge to the advantage of your family.
    - suddenlybananas 1y ago
      Yeah who cares about society?
      - koakuma-chan 1y ago
        How do you propose to at least get society off TikTok or Instagram? You will only face backlash if you try to utter in that direction.
        op00to 1y ago
        I’ve never had anyone say anything other than “yes, that seems like a good idea, I wish I could do that” when i tell them I do not have a TikTok, instagram, twitter, facebook, etc account.
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        I guess they all need those accounts for their student visas.
      - Frogeman 1y ago
        Like virtue signalling techies are actually able to do anything about it. Fix your own house - as the previous poster said - and then worry about outside your family unit.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    I’m not sure my kids have ever seen an ad except for little computer games, and they have laptops and iPads (but no network TV or cable). They are far less exposed to consumerism than when we were kids. My teenage daughter dresses like a hobo.
    - neutronicus 1y ago
      If they've seen Paw Patrol they've been exposed to ads. I don't mean "commercials" I mean that the entertainment itself is the ad - generating excitement for branded merchandise, but also normalizing the idea of kids accomplishing things and learning life lessons in 20-minute increments with the aid of a tremendous amount of stuff that they just have. Maybe they haven't but the idea extends to most kids' entertainment.
  - devmor 1y ago
    Or you end up with the opposite end of the problem. I grew up in destitute poverty and was told all my childhood that credit was an evil trap - I should absolutely never use it. Well, spring forward to me starting a pretty good career as a software developer and wanting to get my first reliable car. I had no credit history and ended up with a 19% APR. That really, really sucked. It's been 10 years since then and I still get dinged for not having "enough" credit history despite having a couple car loans and several credit cards that I rotate bills on. The whole system feels like it's designed to punish anyone who doesn't fit into the role of a perfect consumer.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      You didn't get fucked with 19% apr because you had no credit history. You got fucked with 19% APR because either the parameters of the loan were really bad or there were some other circumstances. Income less existing obligations vs payment size account for the lion's share of interest rate on an auto loan or just about any other consumer loan. Credit history is massively over-sold as being impactful by the kind of idiots who live payment to payment.
      - lokar 1y ago
        I agree. My first use of credit was a car loan when I graduated. I had the offer letter to show income (I had not started yet) and some up front sign on / relocation money for the down payment. It was fine, I paid it off quickly.
      - devmor 1y ago
        No, I got 19% APR because I had no credit history. I know this because there is a big detailed letter full of reasons for your offered rate that you receive when you take out a loan. The fact that you don’t know this suggests you probably don’t know a lot about how loans work.
        Frogeman 1y ago
        I got a car loan at a 8% rate right out of undergrad… you got hosed, maybe you were in a hyperinflationary environment though. I bet they sent you a letter telling you it was your lack of credit history. You didn’t find one of the many credit providers and have them fight to give you the best rate? Credit is an extremely elementary thing to grok in a day or so
- throwaway984393 1y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- beowulfey 1y ago
  People aren't going to learn to be skeptical or think critically because we've been literally removing that from the curriculum in schools. How can someone be skeptical of something if they don't even know how to be skeptical? Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking, and I don't think it's really being helpful in the same way.
  - skeeter2020 1y ago
    >> Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking For my generation this was always refered to as a "healthy skepticism", but lately I've noticed many don't necessarily see this as a good trait - an example: any sort of measured, full-picture response to the impact of AI on software development.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      As usual, it's a spectrum. The pettiest example is one of Reddit, where you see some random cat video, and the comments all go "this is fake" or "this is posted by a bot" or "how could you do that, you're torturing the cat!". 1. They may all be true, but yiy gotta pick your battles at this point. If you think all of reddit is bots, what use is there complaining in every post 2. Healthy skepticism is supported by observation and findings. The internet as of late has grown lazy on that overall and people just throw out accusations without explanation. That definitely comes more off as paranoia at best, or bad faith at worst.
  - RankingMember 1y ago
    I see this as directly correlated with the gradual denigration of liberal arts education, a core tenet of which is critical thinking.
    - nradov 1y ago
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  There are MILLIONs of human years of effort, by experts at manipulating people, put into making people feel this way. Saying bro, why can't your willpower overcome MILLIONS of years of experts trying to manipulate you is a pretty weak argument. It's basically the same as saying 'why can't you take on the top UFC fighters?' at this point. There is a battle to squeeze everything possible out of the sheep on one side, on the other side is us sheep that just want to chill, enjoy life a little. The sheep are f'd.
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    GP isn't saying "why can't you take on top UFC fighters?" They're saying "why would you try to take on top UFC fighters?" It's exactly that one-sided battle that makes it so avoiding the engagement is necessary. A lot of effort is no doubt spent developing psychological weapons to use against me. Fortunately there are very few channels for any of them to use to reach me.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  > but there is still responsibility for people choosing to listen to it yes, sure, this is easy to say, but hundreds of billions of dollars and uncountable person-hours go into this manipulation machine, and many peoples' lives and livelihoods depend on maintaining it. it's a lot to ask of every individual to be solely responsible for the negative impacts of advertising when we all have lives we want to live. i'm not saying personal responsibility doesn't play a part, but we shouldn't atomize - we should be organized and wield regulation more effectively against the profit motive.
jstanley 1y ago
I don't think blame was being apportioned.
mihaaly 1y ago
Believing what is told, trut all what is told, is something to be blamed about (here I am assuming we are talking about adults). Not like blame was allocated here, just since the topic was mentioned.
- lm28469 1y ago
  You're probably doing things every day without ever questioning them, things that other people would find extremely weird and/or brainwashed behaviours. Some of my friends became corporate drones when they moved to a country where most people are corporate drones, they don't see the problem even though they changed their entire personality to fit in, yet they are educated, cultured and smart If it was that easy the average Joe wouldn't be in such a bad mental and physical shape... the forces at play are much stronger than individual will, especially when said will is being worked against from the beginning.
paxys 1y ago
Average *American
- SecretDreams 1y ago
  Probably average "any country where it's common to own a car for less than 10 years" tbh.
  - graemep 1y ago
    and those that do not meet that criteria are going the same way.
- mantas 1y ago
  Nah. More like everywhere besides North Korea.
rayiner 1y ago
There is no “system.” It’s all just people making choices. My wife puts straws in the dishwasher to reuse them. She grew up in America the same as everyone else.
- lm28469 1y ago
  > It’s all just people making choices. Yeah sure... and some people get together and make choices that impact other people ability to make choices, it really isn't rocket science. If you think Zuckerbeg spending hundreds of millions a year to get the top XXX behavioural scientists to work on how to milk your attention span has the same impact as "my wife puts the straw in the washing machine to reuse them" I have bad news for you idk how you call lobbies spending literal billions every year to make you think "cars are freedom", "debt is wealth", &c.
- LinXitoW 1y ago
  There's no system the same way there's no Facebook, just some databases and servers. Or there's no Java language, it's all just UTF-8 characters. Or there's no government, there's just people voting for other people. Or there's no society, it's all just fancy apes existing and making decisions. It's quite frankly ludicrous to be a software engineer and pretend systems don't arise from "individual" "independent" elements.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > Or there's no Java language, it's all just UTF-8 characters. Some programming languages explicitly require UTF-8 in the language specification. Java is not one of them.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      As of Java 18, it is: https://openjdk.org/jeps/400 https://openjdk.org/jeps/400
      - 9rx 1y ago
        That's not what your link says: The Java language allows source code to express Unicode characters in a UTF-16 encoding, and this is unaffected by the choice of UTF-8 for the default charset. Perhaps you pasted the wrong one by mistake? Not that such a change to the language for future code, even if only hypothetical, would bear any difference to this discussion anyway as legacy Java code encoded in other charsets is still Java code.
fHr 1y ago
Consumer brainrot is real and declining education is not helping this cause either
ljm 1y ago
Wages for the average person (working class) typically remain stagnant while cost of living increases, particularly through inflation. I imagine minimum wage would be 25-30 bucks an hour if it did track inflation and that would only serve to keep your purchasing power constant. Credit, in this sense, is also used to solve a cash flow problem. It’s a bad sign when that credit (or Klarna Pay-in-3 style setups) is applied to basic day to day expenses like buying groceries or other necessities. Basically the market’s answer to increasing poverty: you’re not getting paid more, so how about we give you a payment plan to spread things out?
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Wages for the average person (working class) typically remain stagnant while cost of living increases, particularly through inflation. If wages were stagnant, nominally, you'd be making like 25¢ per hour. Wages are stagnant[1] only in real terms (i.e. adjusted for inflation). Cost of living and inflation are very different concepts, but since you indicate that inflation is responsible for most of the cost of living increases, wages have kept pace anyway, so... [1] Technically not even. Wages are growing faster than inflation, but the margins are small enough that we accept calling it stagnant as a close enough approximation.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  That's not true. Wages have generally outpaced inflation as long as we've measured inflation properly. Up until the early 1970s this was very palpable, since the early 1970s the delta has been much lower, wage increases have been very slightly above inflation. Why does it feel different? 1: the amount of stuff we buy has increased a lot. Anybody who owns what would be considered solidly middle class in the early 1970s will feel quite poor today. 2: financial security is way down. In the early seventies a middle class family of 6 would own a 1200 square foot house, a single car, a single TV and a single radio would be the sum total of the entertainment electronics they owned, they'd have less than a dozen outfits apiece, they'd eat out about once a month, a vacation to a neighboring state would feel like a splurge, et cetera. But they were relatively content. 1: they were much better off than their parents and grandparents, who experienced the depression & WW2. 2: they were "keeping up with the Joneses". 3: they had a feeling of financial security due to job security and the fact that serious health events were unlikely to financially devastating.
conradev 1y ago
I find meaning in understanding ever so slightly more about the world we live in, and so I love consuming as many things and experiences as possible to have a rich understanding of myself and to some extent, humanity as a whole. I don't like the word "consume" though. Am I consuming a surfboard or am I surfing? am I consuming a song, or am I listening to it? singing along to it? This perspective feels tired. The entire system (evolution) is based on growth and consumption. Blame agriculture! Too much free time to consume now – we are full-time entropy farmers.
- AntonPhibes 1y ago
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WalterBright 1y ago
> I have a hard time blaming "the average person" People still have agency and so are responsible for their decisions.
darth_avocado 1y ago
> The "average person" is told from birth to consume as many things and experiences as possible as it if was the only thing that could give their life a meaning. The “average person” doesn’t make enough money to pay rent or afford groceries. You’re blaming the poor based on your idea of what an “average person” looks like, which is a representation of middle and upper middle class. The average person doesn’t have the luxury to consume as many things and experiences as possible.
- joshuahedlund 1y ago
  Doesn't "average" = "middle class" by definition? US median individual income in 2022 was $48k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... > The “average person” doesn’t make enough money to pay rent or afford groceries <1% of the US population is homeless, and ~10% receive food stamps. The average person makes enough money to pay rent and buy groceries.
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    Just because people aren’t homeless and don’t qualify for food stamps doesn’t mean they can afford things. You need to make less than $33k for a family of 3 to even qualify for food stamps and then get disqualified if your total assets are above $4.5K. If you’re an adult without children, your food stamps eligibility is capped at 3 months every 3 years. A lot of people who need food stamps, do not qualify for them. Credit card debt is $1.2T, out of which 10% is delinquent for more than 90 days. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/broad-continuing-rise-delinquent-us-credit-card-debt-revisited https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/broad-con... Student loan debt is at $1.7T. People are going into debt to buy groceries. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/20/americans-are-going-into-debt-to-buy-groceries-research-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/20/americans-are-going-into... The average American life is way worse than what people generally make it out to be.
- JamesBarney 1y ago
  The median household income is 80k which is plenty to afford groceries and rent. How did you come to believe that half the people in the richest country in the world can't afford to eat or have a roof over their head?
dietr1ch 1y ago
It goes beyond that when there's installment payments for burritos being paid. It's not just being brainwashed into consuming too much beyond what they should and more like a systemic problem that pushes people into not being able to easily afford daily food, yet still needing that to get enough time to work and commute.

john01dav 1y ago

I acknowledge that such telling exists, but there is still responsibility for people choosing to listen to it. Skepticism is vital. Beyond being skeptical of what you see, it is wild to me that we don't have approximately everyone blocking all ads, cable news, most social feeds, and other such transparently manipulative shit. Advertisement especially is literally industrialized and research-based psychological manipulation to make people do things that make no sense (see what Alfred Sloan did to GM, for an early example) — it's toxic and should be absolutely avoided.

mathgeek 1y ago
You can’t block all of it all of the time, and children (some of the most vulnerable) especially can’t.
- razakel 1y ago
  And that's why government regulation was invented.
  - datameta 1y ago
    You mean corporations regulating the government? Oh wait...
- tnel77 1y ago
  True, and this is why you shouldn’t just hand your kid an iPad and peace out. I’m all for technology and video games for my kids, but I’m vigilant to keep my kids’ eyes away from ads. As a result, my kids aren’t foaming at the mouth for the latest and greatest toys and games which was my experience as a child.
  - wobfan 1y ago
    Thing is, keeping children out of Instagram, Facebook, or whatever new social media is hyping currently will probably make them kind of weirdos in their bubble, e.g. in school. At least this would be my fear (don't have children). And good luck trying to use any of these ad-infested privacy-invading platforms while trying to avoid ads.
    - geerlingguy 1y ago
      It doesn't have to make them weird, especially if you're in a school district where there are no-phone policies. Otherwise it can be difficult, for sure.
    - allenrb 1y ago
      Learning how to stand on your own in school is good practice for doing the same thing in life. By which I’m absolutely not saying “don’t have friends” but rather, you don’t have to be like everyone else. My kids won’t be on social media until they’re not kids anymore. If none of us take a stand, nothing ever changes.
      - nradov 1y ago
        Your kids will create hidden social media accounts that you don't know about. That's what I would have done in their situation.
        olyjohn 1y ago
        Their exposure will still be much less than someone who gives them free reign and lets them sit in the livingroom staring at a phone. They won't be staring at the phone distracted while they're hanging out with the family.
        kadushka 1y ago
        Hiding things from parents is a far bigger problem than staring at a phone in a living room.
- xattt 1y ago
  > children … especially can’t Worry about your own kids, teach them the right values, and use others’ imperfect knowledge to the advantage of your family.
  - suddenlybananas 1y ago
    Yeah who cares about society?
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      How do you propose to at least get society off TikTok or Instagram? You will only face backlash if you try to utter in that direction.
      - op00to 1y ago
        I’ve never had anyone say anything other than “yes, that seems like a good idea, I wish I could do that” when i tell them I do not have a TikTok, instagram, twitter, facebook, etc account.
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        I guess they all need those accounts for their student visas.
    - Frogeman 1y ago
      Like virtue signalling techies are actually able to do anything about it. Fix your own house - as the previous poster said - and then worry about outside your family unit.
- rayiner 1y ago
  I’m not sure my kids have ever seen an ad except for little computer games, and they have laptops and iPads (but no network TV or cable). They are far less exposed to consumerism than when we were kids. My teenage daughter dresses like a hobo.
  - neutronicus 1y ago
    If they've seen Paw Patrol they've been exposed to ads. I don't mean "commercials" I mean that the entertainment itself is the ad - generating excitement for branded merchandise, but also normalizing the idea of kids accomplishing things and learning life lessons in 20-minute increments with the aid of a tremendous amount of stuff that they just have. Maybe they haven't but the idea extends to most kids' entertainment.
- devmor 1y ago
  Or you end up with the opposite end of the problem. I grew up in destitute poverty and was told all my childhood that credit was an evil trap - I should absolutely never use it. Well, spring forward to me starting a pretty good career as a software developer and wanting to get my first reliable car. I had no credit history and ended up with a 19% APR. That really, really sucked. It's been 10 years since then and I still get dinged for not having "enough" credit history despite having a couple car loans and several credit cards that I rotate bills on. The whole system feels like it's designed to punish anyone who doesn't fit into the role of a perfect consumer.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    You didn't get fucked with 19% apr because you had no credit history. You got fucked with 19% APR because either the parameters of the loan were really bad or there were some other circumstances. Income less existing obligations vs payment size account for the lion's share of interest rate on an auto loan or just about any other consumer loan. Credit history is massively over-sold as being impactful by the kind of idiots who live payment to payment.
    - lokar 1y ago
      I agree. My first use of credit was a car loan when I graduated. I had the offer letter to show income (I had not started yet) and some up front sign on / relocation money for the down payment. It was fine, I paid it off quickly.
    - devmor 1y ago
      No, I got 19% APR because I had no credit history. I know this because there is a big detailed letter full of reasons for your offered rate that you receive when you take out a loan. The fact that you don’t know this suggests you probably don’t know a lot about how loans work.
      - Frogeman 1y ago
        I got a car loan at a 8% rate right out of undergrad… you got hosed, maybe you were in a hyperinflationary environment though. I bet they sent you a letter telling you it was your lack of credit history. You didn’t find one of the many credit providers and have them fight to give you the best rate? Credit is an extremely elementary thing to grok in a day or so
throwaway984393 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
beowulfey 1y ago
People aren't going to learn to be skeptical or think critically because we've been literally removing that from the curriculum in schools. How can someone be skeptical of something if they don't even know how to be skeptical? Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking, and I don't think it's really being helpful in the same way.
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  >> Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking For my generation this was always refered to as a "healthy skepticism", but lately I've noticed many don't necessarily see this as a good trait - an example: any sort of measured, full-picture response to the impact of AI on software development.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    As usual, it's a spectrum. The pettiest example is one of Reddit, where you see some random cat video, and the comments all go "this is fake" or "this is posted by a bot" or "how could you do that, you're torturing the cat!". 1. They may all be true, but yiy gotta pick your battles at this point. If you think all of reddit is bots, what use is there complaining in every post 2. Healthy skepticism is supported by observation and findings. The internet as of late has grown lazy on that overall and people just throw out accusations without explanation. That definitely comes more off as paranoia at best, or bad faith at worst.
- RankingMember 1y ago
  I see this as directly correlated with the gradual denigration of liberal arts education, a core tenet of which is critical thinking.
  - nradov 1y ago
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
There are MILLIONs of human years of effort, by experts at manipulating people, put into making people feel this way. Saying bro, why can't your willpower overcome MILLIONS of years of experts trying to manipulate you is a pretty weak argument. It's basically the same as saying 'why can't you take on the top UFC fighters?' at this point. There is a battle to squeeze everything possible out of the sheep on one side, on the other side is us sheep that just want to chill, enjoy life a little. The sheep are f'd.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  GP isn't saying "why can't you take on top UFC fighters?" They're saying "why would you try to take on top UFC fighters?" It's exactly that one-sided battle that makes it so avoiding the engagement is necessary. A lot of effort is no doubt spent developing psychological weapons to use against me. Fortunately there are very few channels for any of them to use to reach me.
GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
> but there is still responsibility for people choosing to listen to it yes, sure, this is easy to say, but hundreds of billions of dollars and uncountable person-hours go into this manipulation machine, and many peoples' lives and livelihoods depend on maintaining it. it's a lot to ask of every individual to be solely responsible for the negative impacts of advertising when we all have lives we want to live. i'm not saying personal responsibility doesn't play a part, but we shouldn't atomize - we should be organized and wield regulation more effectively against the profit motive.

jstanley 1y ago

I don't think blame was being apportioned.

mihaaly 1y ago

Believing what is told, trut all what is told, is something to be blamed about (here I am assuming we are talking about adults). Not like blame was allocated here, just since the topic was mentioned.

lm28469 1y ago
You're probably doing things every day without ever questioning them, things that other people would find extremely weird and/or brainwashed behaviours. Some of my friends became corporate drones when they moved to a country where most people are corporate drones, they don't see the problem even though they changed their entire personality to fit in, yet they are educated, cultured and smart If it was that easy the average Joe wouldn't be in such a bad mental and physical shape... the forces at play are much stronger than individual will, especially when said will is being worked against from the beginning.

paxys 1y ago

Average *American

SecretDreams 1y ago
Probably average "any country where it's common to own a car for less than 10 years" tbh.
- graemep 1y ago
  and those that do not meet that criteria are going the same way.
mantas 1y ago
Nah. More like everywhere besides North Korea.

rayiner 1y ago

There is no “system.” It’s all just people making choices. My wife puts straws in the dishwasher to reuse them. She grew up in America the same as everyone else.

lm28469 1y ago
> It’s all just people making choices. Yeah sure... and some people get together and make choices that impact other people ability to make choices, it really isn't rocket science. If you think Zuckerbeg spending hundreds of millions a year to get the top XXX behavioural scientists to work on how to milk your attention span has the same impact as "my wife puts the straw in the washing machine to reuse them" I have bad news for you idk how you call lobbies spending literal billions every year to make you think "cars are freedom", "debt is wealth", &c.
LinXitoW 1y ago
There's no system the same way there's no Facebook, just some databases and servers. Or there's no Java language, it's all just UTF-8 characters. Or there's no government, there's just people voting for other people. Or there's no society, it's all just fancy apes existing and making decisions. It's quite frankly ludicrous to be a software engineer and pretend systems don't arise from "individual" "independent" elements.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Or there's no Java language, it's all just UTF-8 characters. Some programming languages explicitly require UTF-8 in the language specification. Java is not one of them.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    As of Java 18, it is: https://openjdk.org/jeps/400 https://openjdk.org/jeps/400
    - 9rx 1y ago
      That's not what your link says: The Java language allows source code to express Unicode characters in a UTF-16 encoding, and this is unaffected by the choice of UTF-8 for the default charset. Perhaps you pasted the wrong one by mistake? Not that such a change to the language for future code, even if only hypothetical, would bear any difference to this discussion anyway as legacy Java code encoded in other charsets is still Java code.

fHr 1y ago

Consumer brainrot is real and declining education is not helping this cause either

ljm 1y ago

Wages for the average person (working class) typically remain stagnant while cost of living increases, particularly through inflation. I imagine minimum wage would be 25-30 bucks an hour if it did track inflation and that would only serve to keep your purchasing power constant. Credit, in this sense, is also used to solve a cash flow problem. It’s a bad sign when that credit (or Klarna Pay-in-3 style setups) is applied to basic day to day expenses like buying groceries or other necessities. Basically the market’s answer to increasing poverty: you’re not getting paid more, so how about we give you a payment plan to spread things out?

9rx 1y ago
> Wages for the average person (working class) typically remain stagnant while cost of living increases, particularly through inflation. If wages were stagnant, nominally, you'd be making like 25¢ per hour. Wages are stagnant[1] only in real terms (i.e. adjusted for inflation). Cost of living and inflation are very different concepts, but since you indicate that inflation is responsible for most of the cost of living increases, wages have kept pace anyway, so... [1] Technically not even. Wages are growing faster than inflation, but the margins are small enough that we accept calling it stagnant as a close enough approximation.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
That's not true. Wages have generally outpaced inflation as long as we've measured inflation properly. Up until the early 1970s this was very palpable, since the early 1970s the delta has been much lower, wage increases have been very slightly above inflation. Why does it feel different? 1: the amount of stuff we buy has increased a lot. Anybody who owns what would be considered solidly middle class in the early 1970s will feel quite poor today. 2: financial security is way down. In the early seventies a middle class family of 6 would own a 1200 square foot house, a single car, a single TV and a single radio would be the sum total of the entertainment electronics they owned, they'd have less than a dozen outfits apiece, they'd eat out about once a month, a vacation to a neighboring state would feel like a splurge, et cetera. But they were relatively content. 1: they were much better off than their parents and grandparents, who experienced the depression & WW2. 2: they were "keeping up with the Joneses". 3: they had a feeling of financial security due to job security and the fact that serious health events were unlikely to financially devastating.

conradev 1y ago

I find meaning in understanding ever so slightly more about the world we live in, and so I love consuming as many things and experiences as possible to have a rich understanding of myself and to some extent, humanity as a whole. I don't like the word "consume" though. Am I consuming a surfboard or am I surfing? am I consuming a song, or am I listening to it? singing along to it? This perspective feels tired. The entire system (evolution) is based on growth and consumption. Blame agriculture! Too much free time to consume now – we are full-time entropy farmers.

AntonPhibes 1y ago
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WalterBright 1y ago

> I have a hard time blaming "the average person" People still have agency and so are responsible for their decisions.

darth_avocado 1y ago

> The "average person" is told from birth to consume as many things and experiences as possible as it if was the only thing that could give their life a meaning. The “average person” doesn’t make enough money to pay rent or afford groceries. You’re blaming the poor based on your idea of what an “average person” looks like, which is a representation of middle and upper middle class. The average person doesn’t have the luxury to consume as many things and experiences as possible.

joshuahedlund 1y ago
Doesn't "average" = "middle class" by definition? US median individual income in 2022 was $48k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... > The “average person” doesn’t make enough money to pay rent or afford groceries <1% of the US population is homeless, and ~10% receive food stamps. The average person makes enough money to pay rent and buy groceries.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  Just because people aren’t homeless and don’t qualify for food stamps doesn’t mean they can afford things. You need to make less than $33k for a family of 3 to even qualify for food stamps and then get disqualified if your total assets are above $4.5K. If you’re an adult without children, your food stamps eligibility is capped at 3 months every 3 years. A lot of people who need food stamps, do not qualify for them. Credit card debt is $1.2T, out of which 10% is delinquent for more than 90 days. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/broad-continuing-rise-delinquent-us-credit-card-debt-revisited https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/broad-con... Student loan debt is at $1.7T. People are going into debt to buy groceries. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/20/americans-are-going-into-debt-to-buy-groceries-research-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/20/americans-are-going-into... The average American life is way worse than what people generally make it out to be.
JamesBarney 1y ago
The median household income is 80k which is plenty to afford groceries and rent. How did you come to believe that half the people in the richest country in the world can't afford to eat or have a roof over their head?

dietr1ch 1y ago

It goes beyond that when there's installment payments for burritos being paid. It's not just being brainwashed into consuming too much beyond what they should and more like a systemic problem that pushes people into not being able to easily afford daily food, yet still needing that to get enough time to work and commute.