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I don't understand. It's not about what is or isn't "Walmart's fault", it is about Walmart structuring their employment in such a way as to funnel labor costs onto taxpayers.

> So we just go around downvoting comments we don't agree with?

Is this that surprising at all? Discussions about this have been on reddit for years. This is the internet. No one owes anyone a civil argument or even a response, and a lot of bad faith actors are out there.

> Paranoid? Really?

Yes. I would categorize a comment that claims a lack of response by someone who downvoted you is assumed to be paid by Russians as paranoid.

EDIT: I'm not quite sure how seriously to take this exchange considering you both deleted the comment I was referring to in addition to responding on a comment I made on a post over a week ago on a completely unrelated topic.

Is it not possible that this person just disagreed with your logic, conclusion, or both, and did not want to comment? I find this to be a quite cynical and paranoid take on being downvoted in this case.

I am not quite sure why the author narrows in on millennials in this piece, this is something happening among varying age groups.

It also appears from my experience on this forum that the prevailing opinion here is that this story is not a myth at all, but I understand there is variance here.

The issue with cost of living is an obvious one that is made in comments here, but that still does nothing to address the individuals/families who _still_ struggle in areas that are much cheaper to live. Yes, the insular view of one who has not lived outside SF is troublesome, but it's dishonest to argue as if there is still not real existing poverty in places with a lower cost of living.

While there are many different ways the socioeconomic status of ones family and upbringing can assist in their own success, there are a myriad of ways in which this is also influenced by systemic features to our society, as well as the historical context of that. Think of racially discriminatory housing policies that have helped lead to wealth gaps in the present.

While rags to riches makes a good story, we also don't talk about failures in business as much as we do the successful enterprises. Referring to individual actions in tandem with family assistance, coming to terms with the subject of meritocracy in our society and individual success, I'd propose we're looking at it the wrong way. The part to evaluate is not how much these things have to do with success, but rather how much can they come back from failure? This paints a rather different picture, as those with more financial security are in a much better position to take risks, make poor decisions, while not being pulled into poverty.

Finally, I'd like to point out that there is a growing skepticism of the liberal world order, the mainstream consensus, status quo, whatever you want to call it. More people are realizing now the varying degrees of ways the system is rigged against common working people. With it comes skepticism of the legitimacy of meritocracy in our current social order. This isn't just coming out of a vacuum.

the hero we need but don't deserve

Do you have more information on this? My understanding was that you couldn't use the same credentials, instead registering a phone number for this.

Why does criticizing capitalism not fly for you, assuming that is Hickel's position?

I've posted this article before, in response to a similar comment. This system isn't exactly what you might think. I greatly encourage further discussion or criticism having to do with this piece and this system in general:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social...

It's different yes, but let's not pretend like this is a conversation around an "open-society" vs a "closed" one. They are not the same, but there is overlap. For example, the employment of academics in the US being in jeopardy if they choose to criticize Israel.

Why's that?

This part could go with some rephrasing. Otherwise, first thing to come to mind is Twitter. Connecting directly to journalists and representatives, current events as they unfold in real-time, seem invaluable to me. Despite being in the era of the tweeting POTUS, and one where trust in the media is at a low, this still appears to be a net positive capability.

I sympathize much with your stance on Facebook. However, I'm curious, what keeps Google from being an adversary in your perspective?

I agree much with your premise here. The capabilities that social media have provided are extremely valuable.

That said, I disagree with your conclusion. The issues that have come from Facebook and others are due to centralization, commodification of user data, the proliferation of echo chambers and advertising. Universal accessibility isn't the culprit, although that has generated issues on it's own as well.

It's interesting you mention World Wars in reference to alternative systems. "Merchants of Death", in the case of the US and capitalism, instantly comes to mind.

Otherwise, there are many contemporary examples of concentration of capital. Whether it is distributive isn't the question, but more the trends of distribution.

It's also quite interesting you mention central banks here, considering the substantial evidence of bulge bracket banks acting as an antithesis to your statement about risk (i.e "too big to fail").

It doesn't appear to be what this person is saying. Rather, that we can't deflect from flaws in ideology having to do with the system in place, and the issues that stem from that.

Having said that, I find it to be rather unproductive and pessimistic to assert corruption is endemic to humanity and has nothing to do with ideology. Instead I would argue that the nature of the corruption has everything to do with the ideological foundations of said system.

That system is a bit more complex than one would perceive.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social...

To clarify, I do agree with this as well. My word choice was just to keep within the context of the thread here, although it might have been a good idea to explicitly state this also.

This is an extremely important point.

Everyone deals with these kinds of intrapersonal conflicts and issues on a different breadth and scale, one way or another. It's this coupled with economic distress or anxiety, in addition to a massive income and wealth inequality, that produces the kind of conditions and struggle that people and families go through, like those described in this short article.

Sure, there are varying degrees of this issue. You have costs of living which vary depending on location, wages and salaries which vary by location as well as the occupation itself.

Despite this, it's still a grave mistake to simply pass many of this off as "they should get a better-paying job" or "they are living beyond their means" as some of the comments on the WaPo article itself suggests.

For the former, anyone who uses such an argument has in some form or fashion accepted the belief that some jobs should not pay a livable wage. It does not make any sense that anyone working a wage job full-time is still financially in poverty. This has nothing to do with the individual, but instead has everything to do with economic policy. That is not to say that, for example, fast food workers should not make as much as teachers. OK, then pay the teachers more. The bottom line is that no one who works a full-time job should be in poverty.

For the latter argument, this is mostly part of an ongoing cultural trend of laying all responsibility on the individual, regardless of systemic variables. The idea that in such an unequal society, where people exist who literally make more in a single day than others in an entire lifetime, we should instead scrutinize the people struggling economically, is just plain disingenuous.

The economy is broken and getting worse. More and more people are realizing it.

I think you're missing the point here. It should not be a constant opt-out routine. If anything it should be opt-in only.

The US already acts as a nanny state for it's rich corporations.

It's incredibly disappointing the amount of ignorance and political whataboutism being thrown around here in this comment section.

Although the author failed to mention, the comments here pointed out the distinction between software from a little guy innovator and a huge corporation. That content was glossed over in the article, but it seems to be a very important part of the conversation about free/paid software.

Not only that, but there's an underlying assumption here that some person or company has to receive a wage or profit for a software to be maintained or repaired, which is simply not true.

This is an excellent point. Although, I think as far as (most) journalism goes, it's less about "facts" in general than it is defending an authority/legitimacy that was previously accepted (generally) but is now being put into question.

It seems the author is pointing out how the tendencies that lead people to consider something as "fact" haven't changed despite the mechanism of communication improving in capability/efficiency.

the article itself mentions a solution which isn't terrible, it's just the issue is a matter of trust

Exactly. In fact, this is a tremendous advantage that RSS has. The assertion that it needs some "sort of commerce layer" is not an issue of the technology, but a question of the industry of advertising and the structure of the economy. The problem of keywords as the author mentions is a cultural one, based on the way our society exchanges and prioritizes the information we receive.