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Comment by throwaw1yyy | Hacker News Reader

No matter how morally right one side might feel, it won’t stop competition.

The USA and Detroit had unions and the industry and city became gutted. Tariff and import laws to stay afloat only go so far. There will be times industry will be gutted because there’s something better.

Hollywood seems poised to lose itself - whether AI, moral grandstanding, or strange rules with skin color quotas. The writers strike is going poorly, the general American populace has no sympathy for them, and the big money maker of super hero movies is losing steam.

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> the general American populace has no sympathy for them

71% of Americans support unions, the highest level of support in history. Support among under 30s is ~88%.

https://newrepublic.com/post/175274/gallup-poll-two-thirds-a... ("Poll: Majority of Americans Support Unions and Support Strikes")

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... ("Most Americans support strikes by Hollywood writers and actors")

That 71% figure comes from AFL-CIO which is a federation of labor unions. As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY. Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.

That’s fair with regards to specifics, just pointing out the comment being wildly out of touch I replied to. Par for the course unfortunately.

Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.

> Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.

If this logic held, we in democratic countries would only have left-wing governments. Actually, people like unions less as they age for various reasons.

>so support should skew upwards over time.

That does not necessarily follow. You can’t assume the younger cohort won’t change their opinion over time.

> As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY.

Which just brings it to where it was in 2021, which is the highest it's been since 1965?

> Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.

Is "following WW2" January of 1957 where it was 75% or August of 1957 where it was 65%. I'm thinking there's some margin of error in those 50s numbers.

History suggests there are two paths; human social norms evolve or an angry mob chanting catechism only they care about starts a war.

The bits about Detroit and Hollywood are easily explained by generational churn of less media savvy, science minded people. Next generations are far more in tune with how the sausage is made; it’s people making biased political decisions. They know there is no divine mandate to preserve old norms.

The minutiae of history is hardly relevant as we have a completely different understanding of what’s possible due to technological advances. Trying to compare agrarian/early industrial culture and modern culture in the early years of tissue and limb regeneration therapy is false equivalence.

All human institutions that have survived are like a Ship of Theseus; everything has been replaced a few times. We just chant a few old sales pitches.

And if Hollywood destroys itself like Detroit did, that won't be because of unions but because the bosses got lazy and pumped out inferior products.

What will be the Hollywood equivalent to the Fort LTD? Another Marvel movie? Another Fast&Furious?

> The USA and Detroit had unions and the industry and city became gutted.

This narrative might be false, see the interview here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzz3VI32KBA

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