4 ms·

What happened to America. Maybe 70's or 40's were it's peak. Every activity has become a betting. Investments, sports, relationships, home-buying. Addictions a

by zkmon 1y ago

What happened to America. Maybe 70's or 40's were it's peak. Every activity has become a betting. Investments, sports, relationships, home-buying. Addictions are a symptom of having an excessive amount of free time, floating money and lack of fear of reprisal from family and society and lack of basic wisdom. Excessive prosperity breaks social rythm. It removes dependencies and relations across individuals. It's like a tree turned into chips, with freedom for every chip. As individuals, you won (materialistic luxury etc), but as a family, community or country, you fail.

carefulfungi 1y ago
The 70's were an economic horror show, Richard Nixon, and a legitimate fear of nuclear war; the 40's were a global war. Weird take.
- zkmon 1y ago
  Well, that kept you folks together atleast, and kept you focused on things that were not betting.
Dumblydorr 1y ago
Excessive prosperity is one phrase for it. Another is kleptocracy, politics have been co-opted by money and those who have it now control 99% of US society. Those who have no prosperity are often the ones gambling, not the rich. When SS checks come in, our local casino fills with chain smoking seniors pulling levers on the slot with all their retirement security. It’s a sad addiction.
clejack 1y ago
So to avoid the suffering of gambling we need to simply suffer and toil so much in day to day existence that we don't have the capacity to engage with anything else?
intended 1y ago
Eh? Theres too many moving parts in your very short paragraph, to actual engage with without any substantial engagement being minced into woodchips, I fear. Theres many things that have happened since the 40s, just to name ONE thing that has resulted in this - we have much better psychological technology than we did ever before. Skinnerian conditioning, reward schedules, their results - we never had that. MS Excel alone would mean we better ways for the statistically inclined to zero in on more attractive addictions, just through better data analysis. Just consider how common place and obvious A/B testing is. How do you think humanity will fare on average, against industrial strength siren songs?
- zkmon 1y ago
  In the din of industrial strength siren songs, you may have not noticed the rot that is accumulating in the society. MS Excel exists only because you have some data that you think you should care about and you can't fit in your mind. As an individual, you shouldn't need that much data to handle. The accumulated social rot is not compensated by Excel sheets or any gadget toys, you call as tech.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
MangoToupe 1y ago
> Addictions are a symptom of having an excessive amount of free time, floating money and lack of fear of reprisal from family and society and lack of basic wisdom. Sure, or any of the other million reasons people get addicted, like despair, or other healthier activities being too expensive. Super weird take.
- zkmon 1y ago
  Explain why there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
    What are you talking about, alcoholism is a classic rampant poverty addiction?
    - hollerith 1y ago
      The assertion is that >there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's. Are you sure the assertion is wrong? How do you know? "I grew up in a rural setting in the third world," would be a great answer.
    - zkmon 1y ago
      From what I saw, there was no "alcohol" as you know it. Most peasant families consumed something called toddy that came from palm trees and date palms. It's a family drink and it's nowhere close to what you call as addiction.
      - MangoToupe 1y ago
        Palm wine addicts have existed since pre history. Or banana beer, or other forms of wine, etc. But distilleries existed virtually everywhere by the 70s. But even putting that aside, gluttons, drunkards, and gamblers are certainly ancient and well attested, certainly in the western (abrahamic/hellenic) tradition. Perhaps there are some societies without this but it not poverty or want or lack of abundance that provides relief.
chung8123 1y ago
I think part of the issue is how connected we all are. At one point you could be a company that did interesting things in a small market and everything was fine because it was hard for competitors to expand globally. Now you cannot stay in business if you are not expanding to large volumes and squeezing the supply chain. Think of companies like United Rentals that bought every small rental company.
TrackerFF 1y ago
Notice that whenever anything happens in the US, especially on the negative side, the first question that pops up is usually "How will this affect the stock market?".
- daseiner1 1y ago
  And "the economy" is so frequently conflated with the stock market.
drsalt 1y ago
don't forget college major... plastics

by zkmon 1y ago

carefulfungi 1y ago

The 70's were an economic horror show, Richard Nixon, and a legitimate fear of nuclear war; the 40's were a global war. Weird take.

zkmon 1y ago
Well, that kept you folks together atleast, and kept you focused on things that were not betting.

Dumblydorr 1y ago

Excessive prosperity is one phrase for it. Another is kleptocracy, politics have been co-opted by money and those who have it now control 99% of US society. Those who have no prosperity are often the ones gambling, not the rich. When SS checks come in, our local casino fills with chain smoking seniors pulling levers on the slot with all their retirement security. It’s a sad addiction.

clejack 1y ago

So to avoid the suffering of gambling we need to simply suffer and toil so much in day to day existence that we don't have the capacity to engage with anything else?

intended 1y ago

Eh? Theres too many moving parts in your very short paragraph, to actual engage with without any substantial engagement being minced into woodchips, I fear. Theres many things that have happened since the 40s, just to name ONE thing that has resulted in this - we have much better psychological technology than we did ever before. Skinnerian conditioning, reward schedules, their results - we never had that. MS Excel alone would mean we better ways for the statistically inclined to zero in on more attractive addictions, just through better data analysis. Just consider how common place and obvious A/B testing is. How do you think humanity will fare on average, against industrial strength siren songs?

zkmon 1y ago
In the din of industrial strength siren songs, you may have not noticed the rot that is accumulating in the society. MS Excel exists only because you have some data that you think you should care about and you can't fit in your mind. As an individual, you shouldn't need that much data to handle. The accumulated social rot is not compensated by Excel sheets or any gadget toys, you call as tech.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

MangoToupe 1y ago

> Addictions are a symptom of having an excessive amount of free time, floating money and lack of fear of reprisal from family and society and lack of basic wisdom. Sure, or any of the other million reasons people get addicted, like despair, or other healthier activities being too expensive. Super weird take.

zkmon 1y ago
Explain why there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.
- SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
  What are you talking about, alcoholism is a classic rampant poverty addiction?
  - hollerith 1y ago
    The assertion is that >there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's. Are you sure the assertion is wrong? How do you know? "I grew up in a rural setting in the third world," would be a great answer.
  - zkmon 1y ago
    From what I saw, there was no "alcohol" as you know it. Most peasant families consumed something called toddy that came from palm trees and date palms. It's a family drink and it's nowhere close to what you call as addiction.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Palm wine addicts have existed since pre history. Or banana beer, or other forms of wine, etc. But distilleries existed virtually everywhere by the 70s. But even putting that aside, gluttons, drunkards, and gamblers are certainly ancient and well attested, certainly in the western (abrahamic/hellenic) tradition. Perhaps there are some societies without this but it not poverty or want or lack of abundance that provides relief.

chung8123 1y ago

I think part of the issue is how connected we all are. At one point you could be a company that did interesting things in a small market and everything was fine because it was hard for competitors to expand globally. Now you cannot stay in business if you are not expanding to large volumes and squeezing the supply chain. Think of companies like United Rentals that bought every small rental company.

TrackerFF 1y ago

Notice that whenever anything happens in the US, especially on the negative side, the first question that pops up is usually "How will this affect the stock market?".

daseiner1 1y ago
And "the economy" is so frequently conflated with the stock market.

drsalt 1y ago

don't forget college major... plastics