grasshopperpurp

Nevada already had a very high suicide rate.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/...

>But there is a theme that threads through and ties together all the strands: many of the most talented, driven Americans used what makes America great–the First Amendment, due process, financial and legal ingenuity, free markets and free trade, meritocracy, even democracy itself–to chase the American Dream. And they won it, for themselves. Then, in a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the forces that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy.

It depends on what you mean by "our economic model."

http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve...

>he wealthy only account for a small percentage of the overall population. It is very easy to change the law if and only if people care enough to do so. But they don't. Because that involves work like protesting, writing to representatives, organizing community events, and maybe recalling mayors of congressional reps with votes of no confidence. They'd rather pretend to be outraged on Twitter, so that they don't have to actually do anything and instead watch Dance Moms or binge watch Netflix.

I like the idea, but that's not how it works. We don't even have mandatory time off for voting, and not all states have mail-in ballots. People in the US work way too much for the average person to set aside time to understand complex issues. For those with an interest, sure, they'll set aside the time. But, the blue-collar worker from the Rust Belt can be easily tricked into thinking freeloaders, immigrants, and colored people are the reason they're poor, and that's a very basic, obvious issue. Combine that with the attack on the educational system (some Southern states have/are trying to remove Slavery from the Civil War portions of textbooks), and you have America - an ignorant, confused, disinterested public. The time spent on mindless activities (imo) indicates a level of tiredness. It's sad, and people should do better, but when we know they won't under these conditions, it's time to look at the conditions.

>I’ll let the researchers speak for themselves: “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

>Main Street alone does not matter. Nor do interest groups that purport to support the general welfare. The data show that politicians cater to rich people and groups organized to advance their own narrow interests. Worse still, those interest groups tend to lobby for positions that are “negatively related to the preferences of average citizens.”

>Again, I quote: “In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.”

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/charles-wheelan/2014/04...

>The problem isn't just the wealthy - it's all of us in our refusal to demand the law be enforced, as-written, without exceptions given based on wealth or size of the company/organization. Why was Wells Fargo, for example, allowed to just pay a fine for millions of fake accounts that were created which ripped people off? Those are clear cut felonies.

I agree, but how many politicians do you think Wells Fargo owns? The average person doesn't matter to those politicians. The money and perks do. Also, again, people don't have the time/energy to hold these people accountable. Manipulation by the media also contributes to this - outrage fatigue, etc..

>And that's just one outrageous scam upon the people that comes to mind.

There are too many to keep track of. I appreciate the well-thought response. I think you're basically right in theory, but, in practice, I think you're expecting too much of the average person.

>There should be absolutely nothing wrong with people deciding that they do not wish to handover any more of their wealth. If your opinion is that the "system" is the culprit and these people are being squashed by bad laws, policies, etc., the proper recourse is not to legally rob others to help those people - the solution is to fix the bad laws and policies that may benefit the rich unfairly.

How do we fix bad laws when the wealthy are paying good money for those bad laws?

>Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir...

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/without-the-right-p...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-...

1. Never said old people are soft. 2. Never said old people are more selfish than young people. 3. I hope this is a simple misreading on your part, rather than a deliberate attempt to twist my words. 4. Your portrait of young people and their situation is just a Fox News hot take.

If you're not a selfish person, and you get old, assuming you still have your mental health, you'll use the wisdom you accrued to benefit the world; if you are a selfish person, you lack wisdom, and you'll use the knowledge and tricks you acquired to leech the most from the world before you mercifully die.

>Changing age limits is just a bandage on a bigger wound, which is that US society struggles to produce quality leadership. But that's what dominating the world for a generation will do, it makes you soft.

I agree with this, but I'd replace soft with relentlessly selfish. Instead of realizing the need to work together to make something better, they're in it for personal gain.

>How Norwegians and Americans See Inequality Differently

>“In Norway, people very much disapprove of inequalities that are due to bad luck,” Bertil Tungodden, a professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, and one of the paper’s authors, told me. “People in the U.S. are more willing to accept inequality, even if it reflects pure good luck for some and pure bad luck for others.”

Less of a problem because inequality is lower, and fewer people feel the need to join gangs for protection/to get by. Of course, it's also more homogeneous.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/inequal...

Scriptures are, of course, open to interpretation, but I think 322 and 323 indicate that the passage is about taming/taking control of your mind/perception and subsequent actions.

>328. If for company you find a wise and prudent friend who leads a good life, you should, overcoming all impediments, keep his company joyously and mindfully.

329. If for company you cannot find a wise and prudent friend who leads a good life, then, like a king who leaves behind a conquered kingdom, or like a lone elephant in the elephant forest, you should go your way alone.

330. Better it is to live alone; there is no fellowship with a fool. Live alone and do no evil; be carefree like and elephant in the elephant forest.

https://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/dp23.htm

This is something we already should have known, but I'm guessing that I'll still see people on HN beating the supply-and-demand drum like this was never posted.

And the entire approach is backwards and leads to recidivism, rather than rehabilitation.

Appreciate you breaking that down, and I agree that the sensationalist language is not helpful (preaching to the choir, etc.), but I think discredits goes too far. I can say something completely true in the most obnoxious way possible, and it can turn off a lot of people, but it doesn't alter the truth.

I believe that he's harping on CEOs of ride-hailing companies, because they're the obvious example that everyone is familiar with. His overall statement, as I read it, is closer to:

>humans in general with unchecked power can become dictatorial maniacs.

And, I think that's the salient point. Others have hit on it, but if a society is too Capitalistic or too Socialistic, the power-hungry people (who always have and, presumably, always will exist) will take advantage of the imbalance, and the people (general population) will suffer as a result. On a large scale, it shouldn't matter how evil/greedy any CEO or politician is, because their power should be limited. The problem, of course, is finding the right balance.

Well, which parts do you disagree with? Or, do you just disagree with the sensationalist language?

You have positive, neutral, and negative. This doesn't fall under positive or neutral.

Reminds me of a quote from a previous thread:

>Those of us who came from a business background remember our business ethics in university well. The running joke, from start to finish, is a thank you for compiling together the things we should walk carefully and carry a big stick while doing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16368722

>It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work.

Has nothing to do with the OP's comment, and it attempts to shift the conversation to justification.

>For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live.

Again, why are you doing this?

>It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricity, technology and a sea of information at our fingertips. These things all exist and keep functioning because people work.

Who is arguing against work in general? The article and the OP are discussing working conditions. Work doesn't have to be torture. America has a very unhealthy relationship with the idea of work and what it means. No pain no gain, right?

>And yet some think that "society has gone wrong", as if the past was paradise.

In the last 40-50 years, American society has taken some significant steps backwards, and the workers have felt it. If you're comparing conditions to hundreds or thousands of years ago, why? What is your goal?

>Work has been a human universal through history. There is surely an argument to be made about the fact that now we are so productive that we might not need to work as much as we had to.

At the same time I think we should be grateful that we live in the best life conditions ever seen by humanity.

You finally brushed against the point in your penultimate paragraph.

Specifically, what do you find unethical about it?

>Poor white children struggle in parts of the Southeast and Appalachia. But they still fare better there than poor black children do in most of America. In effect, the worst places for whites produce outcomes that are about as good as the best places for blacks. These new maps also suggest that part of the reason the Southeast looks bad for all children, in the middle map, is that the region is home to many black children who fare particularly poorly there.

Surprised this has no comments.

That seems like a feature, not a problem.

>The idea that corporations aren't people leads to evil.

This seems to, at best, reside outside of practical application.

>The main target of the corporations-are-not-people crowd is the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling striking down limits on independent corporate spending in elections. After that case, groups sprang up to fight corporate personhood. Others rebranded themselves by newly taking aim at it. But they do not limit themselves to attacking the Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence. Most groups make a broader attack on corporations being able to assert any First Amendment speech rights at all; and some have called for disabusing all corporations or businesses of any constitutional right.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/if-corp...

Would you say it's helpful to understand the way that certain people work/think, though? I haven't yet read it, and I've seen this criticism before.

Kind of an a-la-carte approach to civic responsibilities? I can envision ways in which it'd work, and people would feel better about it (in general) than they do taxes. It seems like something like this would work best at a local level, which would obviously apply to the particular example we're discussing. In theory, I'd be on board with it, as long as federal programs/taxes remained. If you found a way to implement it on a larger scale, I'd be surprised/impressed.

As maym86 said, I'd be happy to contribute to the pool of resources that would allow something like this to be sustainable. Would you not?

>The city pays for it. The shelter runs it.

"It is a win-win," said Presbyterian Night Shelter CEO Toby Owen. "We want a clean neighborhood that speaks hope, that speaks dignity to our homeless guests. And it also provides income for these individuals so they can move out and be successful without living in a homeless shelter."

Last year, Clean Slate put 40 homeless people to work, Owen said. Approximately 3,856 tons of trash was collected by Clean Slate workers. And they don't just clean up trash on the street -- they also work as janitors for businesses.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Fort-Worth-Pays-Homeless-P...

Out of 1,332 words, 92 (7%) were spent on issues particular to women, and some of those 92 words were spent praising the egalitarian nature of her marriage/how much her husband helps. I think you're projecting a lot.

Fort Worth and Albuquerque give them jobs to clean up streets. In Fort Worth, they pay $10 per hour and provide housing. This would be similar - and a good idea, I think.

You live in a country where you can actively promote Hitler's ideology on FB, with your company in your profile, without any repercussions? Which country is this?

It's a low bar, but I certainly don't harass or troll people. If that's amazing to you, seek help.

How is this post not in violation of this guideline?

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

And, no one should have any issue reporting those people to their employers. If you act like scum, particularly with your employer in your profile, society should punish you.

I said, at best.