Comment by finite_depth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by finite_depth | Hacker News Reader

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I'm well into my 30s, in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. I'm alive today because of their benefits, and I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to pull the ladder up after me.

People's objection to social safety nets mostly isn't their desire to keep their money. It's a perception that the people who need those safety nets are lazy bums who don't deserve help. That's a particularly common perception among hard-working professionals, whose logic is "I worked hard to get where I am, so if others worked hard, they wouldn't need help". What they miss in that analysis, of course, is that their hard work combines with talent, luck, privilege, and health, things that many people who suffer lack. As a relative newcomer to the economic elite, I find it pretty distressing to hear how wealthy people talk about the poor when I myself was homeless less than five years ago.

You're an exception. Plenty of people are just fine with pulling up the ladder after them. Second generation immigrants don't like immigration, people that benefited from free tuition want to make schools paid and so on. It's really insane if you stop to think about it long enough: our whole society is based on the fact that we have each other, and yet, we can't spare a dime for our fellows because we're on a short leash ourselves and 'keeping up' is a big part of our satisfaction. All of this is programmed against you and anybody that wants to change the system is ostracized. And that's all before you get into the really big problems, this is just personal stuff.

I am an exception, yes. But I think the reason I'm an exception - the fact that I've experienced, very directly, very personally, and very nearly fatally - the insane hell that is American poverty - is important.

People aren't opposed to helping people who need it. They just don't understand that people need it.

Yeah, the sad fact is that people who received the fewest benefits and outside help are people more likely to reject a social safety network. What's sad is that these are the people who are most likely to benefit from this progressive change.

It's suggested that they fear that a (small) fraction of people are lazy and parasitical and will manipulate and abuse these systems. In some ways, I'm more cynical, and believe the cause is more deeply rooted: Since these people were hazed at some point in their lives (even if they're middle class, e.g. they took a job they hated beacuse gave them decent health insurance), they believe everyone should be hazed.

It's the old chestnut: "Do this shitty pointless thing, it builds character. (subtext: I was forced to do this shitty pointless thing, so why shouldn't you younger folks be too)."

This sort of "suffering is a virtue" thinking is, unfortunately, VERY deeply rooted in American (and more broadly, Anglo-Protestant) culture. It's good old fashioned Calvinism wrapped in capitalism.

> in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them.

Well, thats not surprising but at same time not default for most people. Universities have been leaning left since at least 60's and 70's . If all the people who attended university remained influenced by those ideas over the years. Most of the people with higher income and influential positions in society would be overwhelmingly left but that has not happened. It just shows a lot of people become conservative after leaving colleges.

Education is incredibly strongly correlated with not voting republican.

Although at this point that might be more class/intelligence signalling than any principled belief in social welfare. You don't have to support the poor to realize that it's a bad idea to support a mad death cult full of people who are toxic to your career.

White college graduates are almost evenly split between the parties..

And what does the white highschool dropout split look like?

Obama lost the white non-college educated vote by 26 points to Romney, by the way.

> Obama lost the white non-college educated vote by 26 points to Romney, by the way.

I’m sorry what??

It was the complete opposite. Obama won the “high-school dropout” vote overwhelmingly. Had narrow majority amongst those who graduated and actually lost college graduate vote to Romney by 4%…

Romney also won every income bracket above 50k

Less educated people started voting for the Republicans in 2016 but not quite to the extent they voted for Obama.

In 2016 the split between college educated voters was 49-45 and the majority of white college graduates voted for Trump.

Some college educated white voters shifted to the Democrats in 2020 so the gap was a bit wider so I wouldn’t say “incredibly” unless you think 3% is incredible..

It’s a different matter for postgraduates though (62-37% in 2020)

> If all the people who attended university remained influenced by those ideas over the years. Most of the people with higher income and influential positions in society would be overwhelmingly left but that has not happened

Uh what? higher educational attainment correlates with voting Democratic https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/23/education...

Universities are also not the leftist indoctrination camps that right-wingers have deluded themselves into believing they are. There are lots of conservatives on campus, especially the faculty.

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