Hacker News Reader

> Can you really look at the Blackrock disaster [4] (Wall Street slumlordism) and tell me the system doesn't harm people?

Yeah, someone could do that for any system. "A horrible thing happened somewhere" or even "this part of the market is totally screwed up" are facts about every plausible alternative. So though they may be facts about the current system, they don't tell us how to improve the situation.

You can make an argument that the problem is systemic, but having one example of a problem doesn't do anything except score rhetorical points in a game where evidence and argument don't really matter.

Curious: what effect do you think culture has? The economic plays a big role, but there’s a tendency nowadays to call the root problem for everything economic and act like cultural effects are just “holidays and religion” or other marginal effects.

The culture has changed dramatically since the 50s when these trends started. For the men, their role has gone from default “protector, provider, head of the home, in charge, theist, conservative, married young” to “equal bread winner, often oppressive, too often toxic, without innate greater purpose or role, etc”.

Obviously these are broad generalizations, but we would probably agree that men get a worse wrap now than then (even if that came at the expense of others). Does that large cultural shift have a large effect? Are men lacking purpose now and how much of the current problem men face is because of that cultural shift? The economic is important, but the cultural factors are huge too

> The economic plays a big role, but there’s a tendency nowadays to call the root problem for everything economic

As with everything on the internet (it sadly seems), there is a necessity for nuanced position. Perhaps, economic and cultural factors are playing a self-reinforcing and thus compounding effect on our society?

There are also the non-cultural and non-economic factors such as declining testosterone levels. This could have profound emergent economic and cultural implications that we have not even begun to calculate.

> Most people want to contribute, but the economic system [...] makes them dependent.

The people being discussed here are people without jobs who have a place to live rent free. There is not an economic system holding them back from being able to find a way to contribute because their expenses are very close to $0. For all practical purposes, they have the equivalent of universal basic income. If they would like to write poetry instead of playing video games they could. If they would prefer to paint or write code, they could.

Perhaps I am. Surely if good paying work was easier to find and homes were approachable more as a commodity then I'm sure this would sort itself out.

I've spoken about what REITs do for years on HN. I've worked for them a couple of times as well, so I've seen what goes on first hand.

Nobody is holding you back from writing a book, painting a picture, or contributing to Open Source.

> the economic system [. . .] makes them dependent

The emotion of dependency seems less likely to be developed by an economic system than of culture. One might claim that it is difficult to separate one from the other. Taking a cultural or an economic point of view I can see how a hierarchical culture would see participation as zero-sum but not an economic system. An economic system by itself, capitalist pig, pinko commie, feudal manorialism, whatever, is enhanced by participation and a sense of interdependency.

> Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property regime and monopolistic parasitism of the knowledge commons [1], neoliberal philanthrocapitalism [2] and the completely disgusting and neocolonial division of labour under global capitalism [3].

This line of thinking in my opinion is the problem. Before I start, I will admit I have survivorship bias.

The points you mentioned are problems, but in my opinion that's not an excuse. One of your points you mentioned that it's now harder than ever to buy a home because Blackrock is scooping all of them up. While I agree that it certainly makes getting a home harder. I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.

All the problems you mentioned are roadblocks, not showstoppers. I think these days it's easier to just make the excuse that there are all these things standing in our way thus making it impossible for us to do the things our parents did.

> I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.

You may be right, but people come in a normal distribution, with most being just average. To "do whatever it takes" implies a person on the extreme right of the distribution, and most people aren't there. So while it may be possible to buy a home, if it takes extreme effort to do it, most people won't.

Whereas, when I grew up in the 60's, my dad worked as a bag boy at Kroger, then a meatcutter. We had a small 3br house, 2 kids, a car, a motorcycle, a boat, insurance on all this stuff, and mom worked out of the house doing babysitting and ironing. They were still in their early 20's and got married right out of high school. We eventually had 2 cars while still in this house, around '65. Nothing even remotely like this would be possible today.

See: 1971 Cost of Living [1].

    New House:                     $25,200.00
    Average Income:                $10,622.00 per year
    New Car:                       $3,560.00
    Average Rent:                  $150.00 per month
    Tuition to Harvard University: $2,600.00 per year
    Movie Ticket:                  $1.50 each
    Gasoline:                      40¢ per gallon
    United States Postage Stamp:   8¢ each

Whether due to currency debasement, globalization, or overpopulation, the disparity in cost of living between the two eras is staggering.

[1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

Similar (?) items based on near top results of google searches today:

The greatest takeaway for me is that everyone is FAR worse off today and in my generation.

US nationally (today 2021) about 85K is equivalent to the cited 25K 1971 numbers. :: ~10X cost of living (edited, I unconsciously compared to the wrong number.)

Seattle is far more distorted, with housing beyond out of control (I don't know what kind of house was being looked at for the 1971 numbers, but it really doesn't matter, there's almost nothing even remotely near the national price within the region). ::

Seattle's rent is completely out of control; beyond any rational measure. No wonder neither I nor my generation can make any savings; it's all being consumed by rent seeking land owners.

  Income   10600 %Income71
  House    25200   237.736
  Car       3600    33.962
  RentYear  1800    16.981
  UniYear   2600    24.528
  Gas5000mi  100     0.943
  Mail500invite 40   0.377
  -
  USA 2021        Equiv71
  House   269000   113151
  Car      30500    89806
  RentYear 14400    84800
  UniYear  26100   106408
  Gas5000mi  483.33 51233
  Mail500invite 290 76850
  -
  Seattle 2021    Equiv71
  House   750000   315476
  Car      30500    89806
  RentYear 36000   212000
  UniYear  31200   127200
  Gas5000mi 533.33  56533
  Mail500invite 290 76850