Inequality driving 'deaths of despair' | Hacker News Reader

Inequality driving 'deaths of despair'

bbc.com

20 pointshhs11 comments

I urge anyone who is using dark patterns in their software or business models to take a step back and think about this: some of the people your projects engage are fighting to keep their head above water. Your decisions, however abstracted they may be from these people, could make or break somebody's will to live.

Concretely, I was so disheartened to hear of Facebook/Cornell's studies a few years back around effecting users moods by controlling the negativity of content. In the communities I come from mental health is not simple and people are dying. Relationships are being stretched. People are out on thin ice just to survive. Those researchers were clearly completely out of touch with the gravity of their decision to experiment on people like that. We need to do better.

But how many people on HN have this level of authority... it's akin to asking the person who flips the burgers to think about American health. People who set research agenda at Facebook likely have PhD's and are involved primarily in research.

> I urge anyone who is using dark patterns in their software or business models to take a step back and think about this ...

It's a complex systems problem, not one of great men losing a grip on ethics. Regardless of their individual conversance with (and willingness to be constrained by) ethical principles, the machine will remould or replace them if they get in the way. It's pretty Darwinian, and takes little account of the evanescent electrochemical flutterings of wealthy brains.

Barely restrained oligarchical capitalism is destroying all ecosystem and societies. We dismantle it, or it destroys us.

> ...it's a complex systems problem...

I very much agree with you.

Look, I don't consider hn readers to be some elite crowd of "great men" (no offense everybody). My point wasn't about "great men solving the problem" of inequity. Rather, this was an opportunity for me to speak to an audience whose privilege might often shield them from the downstream realities of the consequences of their actions, from the stakes. This particular issue is very important to me and hits very, very close to home.

> We dismantle it, or it destroys us.

"We" is who I was addressing (not so much "great men"). I'm aware that people reading this website have a certain kind of agency. The fact that this is a systemic issue means that it's on each of us to critically awaken to the world in ways that stretch us outside of our comfort zones, and to discover our agency in dismantling systems of oppression. It doesn't absolve people of privilege from doing the hard work, nor does it absolve oppressed people of theirs.

OK, well said. If I jumped the gun a little, it's due to my acute (& perhaps too raw) sense of how a narrow focus on individual responsibility frequently serves to protect the very systems that are being subject to criticism. I can see now that you intended something more nuanced.

The summary line of the article:

> Widening inequalities in pay, health and opportunities in the UK are undermining trust in democracy, says an Institute for Fiscal Studies report.

It's addressed again, later in the article:

> Sir Angus said "people getting rich is a good thing" but not if it meant "enriching the few at the expense of the many".

In the U.S., we talk of the American Dream, but the more modest versions of it weren't really a dream, but more of a promise, or an agreement: You could get by, and even modestly prosper, by being a person of good will with a dose of diligence and hard work; life could be fair. I think that got lost in the inevitable exaggeration of that dream for dramatic effect, things along the lines of forming the next Google in your garage or of winning the lottery or getting promoted into the C-Suite for your ingenuity or "moxie" or whatever. Granted, this hasn't been a credible belief for all sectors of society (It helped to have had white skin.), but it enjoyed some prevalence. To the extent that it was believed, it animated people's actions. They could bear up under a dreary job to send their kids to college, or to save up for retirement, or both. Devastations like cancer or some other personal disaster could be regarded as exceptions, enough so to hold the Dream together.

It just isn't like that anymore. Predatory insurance companies seem bolder in their greed. Hospitals seem complicit. The easy money available from being the only manufacturer of (honestly pretty shitty) cars went away, and labor prices deflated out from under the working classes. Houses, formerly built to last a lifetime, are built to sell, and then fall apart. The whole thing has turned to ashes.

Honestly, the honest, modest version of the American Dream is gone. Hard work is rewarded with insecurity and layoffs. The ACA even seems tenuous under Republican rule, and that only for the slight majority that think the ACA to be progress over private victimization. All that seems left is the prospect of walking over one's peers to a better life. We may malign CEOs as having said, "Fuck you, I've got mine," but we feel left with, "I'm sorry, I have to get mine."

The point of this ramble is not to diminish the contribution of naked inequality of the scale we're seeing. (I think, practically speaking, that's the cause.) Rather, the point of this ramble is that it's something like the modest American Dream that has to be tenable in order for a stable working class, and therefore democracy, to limp along much longer. Where there is no vision, the people perish.

> Houses, formerly built to last a lifetime, are built to sell, and then fall apart

I suspect people think that older homes are better built because the only older homes around today are the best built ones. The rest fell down and were replaced. I.e. survivorship bias.

I have been reading the works of the great social reformer Henry George. A socialist literate in political economy, he advocated a land value tax, which does not distort economic incentives as land cannot be produced.

I see many angry youths, even very intelligent angry youths entranced by neo-Marxism, which seems to consider any concrete policy proposal as “logocentric”.

I stumbled across a Marxist YouTube channel, PhilosophyTube, whose solution to the housing crisis was to outlaw the housing market and distribute the houses to democratic committees. Things like incentives for production, supply and demand, the many pathologies of democracy, the sense people have that they ought to be able to express their choice as individuals, public choice theory, and the fact that no given unit of housing is fungible were presumably too logocentric to address.

I have seen the Marxist movie before and where it leads is not pretty.

I would urge people who think egalitarianism is important to read George. The space of political economy is much larger than either left or right would have you believe.

There are forms of wealth distribution that do not decrease economic efficiency, such as said land value tax. Harberger taxes are another such policy.

I must second George. His whole idea of taxing things humans do not produce instead of labor, etc. is remarkably rational.

Both Marxism and fascism have made a comeback in a big way. Neither offer any solutions that will lead anywhere other than dystopia.

As silly as it sounds? Marx wrote very little about government.

The most promising moves towards collective autonomy in the 21st Century are about abolishing politics as we know it, and engaging directly. From Chiapas Mexico, the EZLN is expanding. Rojava is convalescing into a functioning federation of semi-autonomous collectives coordinating defense against ISIL. And any economist who bothers to actually examine the subject sees that worker co-ops make unimaginable things possible.

Worker Ownership of the means of production - thats the game. Having Government as a MiddleMan didnt work out well - there's plenty of other options on the deep Left. It did produce shorter work weeks than we have in the US today, but freedom overall suffered.

But compared to what we have now? Freedom is a lie when you cant afford it under Capitalism. Even the freedom to achieve gainful employment is just another pipe dream to too many. You're gonna wanna let us in before we burn it down just to survive. It isnt up to me - Im not the one with power here. And that's another off topic discussion - the conflation of power with Freedom...

You think your Market System works so well? If you think Marxism is some kind of disease, rehabilitate us Lefties with paychecks capable of raising Families and paying down debt. Train me, and I'll earn it. Remember that poverty sets trainees back weeks at a time - the deeper the poverty, the worse it gets. But if you want the most loyal employees ever, you'll invest that time anyway.

That's the only way you can stop the wave thats coming. The American Dream was a Deal - and Ive put blood, sweat, tears, even smiles while missing funerals into holding up my end of the bargain. Meanwhile, I've never worked anywhere in the US that wasnt the proverbial Russian Nail Factory, and still been repeatedly homeless with a full time job.

You know nothing of how we live. Quit pretending you do to our faces, and then pretending we're all useless, lazy junkies when you're among your "friends".

The UK is a very odd place. There is an entrepreneurial spirit but that is held almost entirely by people who will never become entrepreneurs.

The reason there is stagnation isn't "the rich". It is the vast swathes of middle-class people who are determined to get something for nothing. An investment without risk. A job without effort. Respect from others without ability. The list continues forever.

What is bizarre, but totally typical of the British media, is to blame "other people" for something that is obviously systemic (the BBC is, ironically, a great example of British feebleness).

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