Hacker News Reader

Comment by walkhour | Hacker News Reader

> Economics, racism, religion

Are you aware that a whole swath of society blames the current problems on over regulation of the economy, obsession over race and lack of religion.

Both sides are not able to convince the other, which means we actually don't know how to solve this and the proposed solutions go in opposite directions, that is, every side claims the solutions of the other are actually detrimental. How do you know you're right?

> US has been and continues to be a brutal regime, and everyone on this site pretends it isn't because that's the false narrative you want to believe.

In comparison to what other regimes? Are the fifty million immigrants in USA and the hundreds of millions that want to come to come to USA also pretending?

View on HN

I know I'm right because if these were the cure to society, religion would be growing, not shrinking, regulation would be decreasing, not increasing, and racial tensions would be decreasing, not increasing. How else do you explain the trends? Revolutions don't happen because things are working. They happen because things ARE NOT working. If America was mecca, we wouldn't be in this situation where thousands of teens are suicidal.

Why does it have to be in comparison? I don't have to say, well at least I'm better than that guy and pretend thats good enough. There could be serious flaws with myself that I should acknowledge could be way better than turning and pointing a finger at others.

And talking to those immigrants, the impression I have always gathered is that they don't believe the US is better, but that they have no alternatives where they come from. Lots of people immigrate to whatever country they can get to. If you sum up all immigration to Europe, you suddenly see that the US isn't quite the leader you think it is.

> If you some up all immigration to Europe, you suddenly see that the US isn't quite the leader you think it is.

Geography puts a lot of constraints in who can travel where.

A lot of people came in western Europe from Afghanistan or central Africa by walking [0]. You need two months, so it's not an insurmountable task. Most dangers come from predatory people.

Walking to US could be done from central or south America. A similar feat would be going from Bogota to San Diego. Yet it means much less people are in situation to walk to US than to Western Europe.

[0] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Kabul,+Afghanistan/Calais+Eu...

So is this an argument in favor of letting immigrants migrate to America, or simply a flex that most people want to immigrate to America?

> I know I'm right because if these were the cure to society, religion would be growing, not shrinking, regulation would be decreasing, not increasing

Your argument is hard to understand, but what I read here is, "economic regulation is good because otherwise, economic regulation would be decreasing", and similar with religion and racism, which shows an outstanding lack of knowledge regarding all the societies that have adopted measures negative for them.

> Why does it have to be in comparison?

Agreed, there's no contradiction in saying the USA is brutal and one of the less brutal regimes in the world, to the point that it's the number one destination from immigrants that can actually choose where to live.

So which societies have adopted them and it lead to negatives? I would like an example and also an explanation for why these things aren't solved problems in America then?

> Agreed, there's no contradiction in saying the USA is brutal and one of the less brutal regimes in the world, to the point that it's the number one destination from immigrants that can actually choose where to live.

That also does not mean the USA is working and working well for people, hence the millions of suicidal teens. It's possible that no system is working.

> So which societies have adopted them and it lead to negatives?

I'll leave this as homework, find societies than have ended worse than they were without any external cause, you can group by democratic, aristocratic and dictatorial societies, examples are not scarce.

> I would like an example and also an explanation for why these things aren't solved problems in America then?

Because we don't know how to solve these issues. I'm not sure what you'd like an example of.

> That also does not mean the USA is working and working well for people, hence the millions of suicidal teens. It's possible that no system is working.

Agreed, my point this whole time is that what you call the solution other people call the cause.

> I'll leave this as homework, find societies than have ended worse than they were without any external cause, you can group by democratic, aristocratic and dictatorial societies, examples are not scarce.

I don't know, the Romans were pretty democratic so I've been told and they collapsed due to internal reasons. Lots of empires that weren't so democratic lasted much longer. Is that your point?

> Because we don't know how to solve these issues. I'm not sure what you'd like an example of.

I'd love an actual example, matter of factly.

> Agreed, my point this whole time is that what you call the solution other people call the cause.

Has there ever been a government that is completely atheistic and yet is doing well, thriving in fact? Hmmm...you may not like that answer to that me thinks.

> I don't know, the Romans were pretty democratic so I've been told and they collapsed due to internal reasons. Lots of empires that weren't so democratic lasted much longer. Is that your point?

Do you think Obamacare was beneficial for the USA society? The cut in taxes by Trump? The wars in Irak, in Afghanistan? Did the fed ever get it wrong? Just within the last years there's a huge number of decisions that I'd imagine you'd think maybe had a bad effect on the country, regardless of your political inclinations.

> Has there ever been a government that is completely atheistic and yet is doing well, thriving in fact? Hmmm...you may not like that answer to that me thinks.

Elaborate please. Isn't the government of Norway atheistic, or Switzerland?

China

>I know I'm right because if these were the cure to society, religion would be growing, not shrinking, regulation would be decreasing, not increasing, and racial tensions would be decreasing, not increasing.

..why would that be? As if people know how to anyways act in their own self interest?

I'd say it has more to do with both sides being so certain that the other is wrong. I will say the one thing conservatives have on their side is that it is true suicide rates for teens used to be much lower. So there's a plenty strong argument for religion, maybe. Then again grouping all religions into one makes no sense-- I don't know if any people have evaluated how many Buddhist, Muslim, and jainist teens are suicidal to actually see the comparative difference between them rather than just assuming it's all identical. So I don't think there's enough evidence to say anything useful about that

Why do people these days not know how to act in their self interest compared to the past? This is very telling about your thoughts. Care to elaborate on that position?

And lower teen suicide rates does not mean conservatives have that on their side. Most kids are raised religious in America these days. The whole country constantly talks about god. Maybe actually the conservatives are the main source of modern day suicide because of their CONSTANT presence and influence that people are starting to disagree with.

>Why do people these days not know how to act in their self interest compared to the past?

Who said people knew how to act in their self interest in the past? People just have more options now, whereas in the past it was much more taboo to openly reject religion. There's a lot more freedom to do a lot of things

>The whole country constantly talks about god.

Hard disagree. I don't know what tv shows you're watching but I can't remember the last time a popular piece of media had religion as an important feature. Most shows are pretty secular, as is other media

Have you seen the religious right in the news lately about abortion? Oh but my movie didn't mention god...

So people do not know how to act in their own self interest. Maybe there is a way to help with that...

Yeah some people are talking about god, but that doesn't mean the "whole country constantly talks about god".

Every movie and politician I see always someone has a Christian viewpoint.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com