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Trying to tell alienated and miserable people who see the world getting worse for them all the time that they're actually prosperous and should be thankful... Well, what response did you think you're going to get?
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Sep 27, 2018 11:29
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JnnyThndrs posted:I have no goddamn idea how anyone could postulate that things aren’t far worse for the bottom 50% of people compared to 50, 60 years ago in the US. Probably because that’s a stupid loving position to hold by any objective measure. Butter Activities fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 12:06
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Trying to tell alienated and miserable people who see the world getting worse for them all the time that they're actually prosperous and should be thankful... Well, what response did you think you're going to get? "You're actually better off by this statistical measure that has nothing to do with your actual quality of life! Praise me, for I am technically correct!"
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Sep 27, 2018 12:11
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Were health insurance deductibles even a thing prior to the 1980s? And were they like $5,000 +20% of everything beyond the deductible like the only plans affordable for most people now?
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Sep 27, 2018 12:26
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im depressed lol posted:Were health insurance deductibles even a thing prior to the 1980s? And were they like $5,000 +20% of everything beyond the deductible like the only plans affordable for most people now? Much prior to the 80s and health insurance starts being less a thing in general and more of a fancy perk for a fancy job. And before 1975 you didn't get medicare if you were disabled and prior to 1965 there was no medicare or medicaid. And as you go back health insurance is more catastrophic health insurance and didn't cover general medical stuff, just like, one time surprise payments for a surgery or something, so the deductible would be 100% for like, a doctor's visit or a prescription or whatever. Like health insurance is a thing you can legitimately say is having modern issues and is getting really hosed up in the US recently but not by pretending it was good in your parent's day. The answer for the american health care system is to move forward to some universal coverage model we have never done here before, not look back to how great it used to be and try to go back to that.
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Sep 27, 2018 13:40
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I agree with you. But the past page had a few posts that amounted to "Hey, this number is bigger now. Checkmate.  ", so I felt compelled to give a super obvious example of an expense that is incredibly obscured by logic like that.
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Sep 27, 2018 13:54
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im depressed lol posted:I agree with you. Health care is like the perfect example of a thing getting drastically better making problems that need new solutions instead of some stupid "no, go back to how it was". Like if you got childhood leukemia in 1950 the survival rate was near zero, you got it, the doctor said "boy, that's rough" and you died a few months later. By 1970 it was 40% survival and by now it's 80+%. but that obviously costs astronomically more. If your kid got leukemia a tiny coffin was a way cheaper option than a bunch of leukemia medicine and a lifetime of medical complications from it. So it trades a real problem: kids dying for an objectively better but still real problem: kids not dying and costing more money. And the new solution needs to be a new thing to figure out how to pay for this better (the new solution being, some sort of universal health coverage, which we never have had but now need to have) and not just "ugg, go back to how it was, we didn't used to have this problem (because the kids just died easily)"
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Sep 27, 2018 14:27
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Trying to tell alienated and miserable people who see the world getting worse for them all the time that they're actually prosperous and should be thankful... Owlofcreamcheese posted:Health care is like the perfect example of a thing getting drastically better making problems that need new solutions instead of some stupid "no, go back to how it was". Cicero fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 14:42
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Cicero posted:Kind of reminds me of suggestions that smoking can save money -- for the government I guess? -- because people die younger, meaning total lifetime medical bills are lower (and probably also less paid out in social security). Peanut allergy is the best example. There has been a measurable rise in it over time and that is a real issue, but the main thing that moved it from a thing that no one had to think about to a constant problem every school has to deal with is that kids with peanut allergies used to just die and be gone, now they don't generally and need to be accommodated and you can say "I wish it could go back to how it was when we didn't have to have peanut free zones" or whatever but the fact we can worry about that now is because a lower level problem got solved. Like in general solving problems "causes' new problems in that certain needs can not be fulfilled until some other need is filled. The solution is not to revert to before the new problems existed by simply removing the solutions that made them visible.
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Sep 27, 2018 14:57
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Liquid Communism posted:"You're actually better off by this statistical measure that has nothing to do with your actual quality of life! Praise me, for I am technically correct!" The really frustrating thing is that this kind of argument is universally a transparent attempt to reframe the conversation into something that's winnable. Sure, poverty is a hard problem that would probably require some real, fundamental changes to solve, but let's go ahead and just ignore that to talk about how being poor is marginally less lovely now than it was 50 years ago. Let's also conveniently ignore the fact that we're talking about incremental changes over generations so that we can pretend that we aren't actually telling poor people that their lives will never improve and the best they can hope for is some more marginal improvements for their children. It's telling that these fact dumps are almost always made in a vacuum rather than as part of a larger argument, because the only argument these statistics actually support is "shut up and maybe several generations from now being poor will be a little bit more okay."
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Sep 27, 2018 15:28
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Peanut allergy is the best example. There has been a measurable rise in it over time and that is a real issue, but the main thing that moved it from a thing that no one had to think about to a constant problem every school has to deal with is that kids with peanut allergies used to just die and be gone, now they don't generally and need to be accommodated and you can say "I wish it could go back to how it was when we didn't have to have peanut free zones" or whatever but the fact we can worry about that now is because a lower level problem got solved. To be honest if you're so fragile that eating peanuts or eggs will kill you then you're basically living on borrowed time anyway 
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Sep 27, 2018 15:49
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How are u posted:To be honest if you're so fragile that eating peanuts or eggs will kill you then you're basically living on borrowed time anyway Are you joking or do you think the reason you don't have a food allergy is because you are somehow personally tougher than people that do?
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Sep 27, 2018 15:53
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Are you joking or do you think the reason you don't have a food allergy is because you are somehow personally tougher than people that do? How would you read that? I'm just luckier. It must suck hugely to have a deadly allergy like that, hopefully we'll be genetically engineering them out sooner than later.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:00
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How are u posted:To be honest if you're so fragile that eating peanuts or eggs will kill you then you're basically living on borrowed time anyway He said, a model of physical health sweating from effort as he typed out edgy boomer whines.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:00
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How are u posted:How would you read that? I'm just luckier. It must suck hugely to have a deadly allergy like that, hopefully we'll be genetically engineering them out sooner than later. Honestly if you’re so fragile you can’t bench 250 why are you even alive. Honestly if you’re so fragile you can’t eat raw habaneros why are you even alive. Honestly if you’re so fragile you can’t run a 6 minute mile why are you even alive. Don’t be all and act like “hurr I’m just saying it sucks” when you phrased it like a dipshit.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:06
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My one year old kid ate a peanut and we were in the hospital for two days afterwards so gently caress you buddy.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:32
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How are u posted:To be honest if you're so fragile that eating peanuts or eggs will kill you then you're basically living on borrowed time anyway This really does need to be dog-piled and lambasted for the pathetic 'might = right' subtext implicit in opinions like this. "All I'm saying is why do I have to be punished because other people could die? I love peanuts. "It kind of reminds me of this: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-31/essays/an-account-of-my-hut/ He shrugged. “Why worry? Technology will take care of everything. If the Earth goes, we’ll just live in spaceships. We’ll have 3D printers to print our food. We’ll be eating lab meat. One cow will feed us all. We’ll just rearrange atoms to create water or oxygen. Elon Musk.” How are u posted:How would you read that? I'm just luckier. It must suck hugely to have a deadly allergy like that, hopefully we'll be genetically engineering them out sooner than later. Do we really need to read the HENRY offenses aloud any longer? Can we just... like post them online in case anyone is curious? 
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Sep 27, 2018 16:52
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How are u posted:How would you read that? I'm just luckier. It must suck hugely to have a deadly allergy like that, hopefully we'll be genetically engineering them out sooner than later. I have a deadly food allergy and it does indeed suck. The peanut allergy is a complex thing. Apparently part of it is because kids aren't getting exposed to peanuts early. I forget the details but part of the reason it was less common is that it used to be you started eating peanuts earlier in life and your body was like "k, these are food don't freak out." Like was mentioned before though better treatment is part of it. Used to be if you went into anaphylactic shock you just died. Your parents found out you had lethal allergy when it killed you.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:59
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ToxicSlurpee posted:
also maybe because we don't have childhood worms as much anymore. Another case where we solve a problem and are richer for it but then have to deal with other problems once the first one is solved.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:01
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Paradoxish posted:The really frustrating thing is that this kind of argument is universally a transparent attempt to reframe the conversation into something that's winnable. From the beginning everyone talking about how things are better in this thread has admitted that things can still be really bad, but the other side deliberately misinterpreted everything that was said because they prefer cardboard cutout, mustache-twirling opponents to circlejerk against. They're so used to piling onto whatever retarded thing Trump or a Fox News commentator said that they automatically do the same thing here without bothering to rub two brain cells together first. Cicero fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 17:02
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Paradoxish posted:It's telling that these fact dumps are almost always made in a vacuum rather than as part of a larger argument, because the only argument these statistics actually support is "shut up and maybe several generations from now being poor will be a little bit more okay." To bring it back to retail/employment. The same sort of conceptual error occurs there. Let's look at staffing, a manager might be able to cover his staffing needs with a small workforce for a while. But the on call staffing demands or travel imposed to cover when sickness, injuries, etc occurs impose externalities on the employees. Those externalities increase turnover and reduce retention. So minimizing for one metric ,staffing levels, and failing to understand the larger more complicated casual relationships (eg. People eventually quit when treated like poo poo) causes problems for the business. But the manager doesn't care, he / she hit his staffing targets, or all his/her employees hit the working hour target he /she was given.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:09
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Paradoxish posted:The really frustrating thing is that this kind of argument is universally a transparent attempt to reframe the conversation into something that's winnable. Sure, poverty is a hard problem that would probably require some real, fundamental changes to solve, but let's go ahead and just ignore that to talk about how being poor is marginally less lovely now than it was 50 years ago. It's the exact opposite, saying that fixing things requires change is the right one, saying that poverty used to be fixed but these modern silly billies broke it and we just need to make america great again like it used to be is the factually incorrect one.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:15
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As always, the solution is to start killing people.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:19
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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suck my woke dick posted:As always, the solution is to start killing people. murder rate used to be higher too. 
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Sep 27, 2018 17:21
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Cicero posted:No it's not, it's a transparent attempt to keep the conversation grounded in reality. People who think the poor were all better off 50 or 100 or 150 years ago are living in fantasy land. The only reason this conversation spiraled into a big "thing" is that some idiots are so stuck on "capitalism always makes things worse -> therefore if we've had capitalism for the last century then things must have gotten worse in every way" that they reflexively deny basic facts. No, this kind of bullshit is exactly what I'm talking about. You aren't saying anything or adding anything of value to the discussion. If the argument is that the healthcare situation for the poor (or for anyone, for that matter) is bad, then by itself it adds absolutely nothing to say that it might have been even worse 50 or 100 years ago. This doesn't ground the discussion unless your intent is to imply that the current situation is more acceptable than it used to be, which is going to be a major point of contention for anyone who thinks that it was both unacceptable then and now. The problem with idealizing progress as a statistical change over time is that it ignores the fact that there's a certain threshold below which things are just bad, and improvements below that threshold are not necessarily indicative of an approach that's working eve if things are objectively better for some number of people.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:25
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Paradoxish posted:No, this kind of bullshit is exactly what I'm talking about. You aren't saying anything or adding anything of value to the discussion. If the argument is that the healthcare situation for the poor (or for anyone, for that matter) is bad, then by itself it adds absolutely nothing to say that it might have been even worse 50 or 100 years ago. This doesn't ground the discussion unless your intent is to imply that the current situation is more acceptable than it used to be, which is going to be a major point of contention for anyone who thinks that it was both unacceptable then and now. The problem with idealizing progress as a statistical change over time is that it ignores the fact that there's a certain threshold below which things are just bad, and improvements below that threshold are not necessarily indicative of an approach that's working eve if things are objectively better for some number of people. There is no "threshold" where things are bad. It's always relative. In the future if everyone lives to 800 and your poor and live to 145 you are being hugely cheated, despite you receiving a longer life than literally anyone at this point in history ever has. You can have objectively more than other people and still be cheated. People in the modern west are absurdly more wealthy than anyone that lives outside the first world or has ever lived on the planet earth. The problems we have now are different than the problems of the past or the problems of poorer societies, that does not make them false problems, and going back to how things were is not the answer.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:31
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:People in the modern west are absurdly more wealthy than anyone that lives outside the first world or has ever lived on the planet earth. The problems we have now are different than the problems of the past or the problems of poorer societies, that does not make them false problems, and going back to how things were is not the answer. This is wrong and you are stupid. There are wealthy people outside the first world and throughout history who have had a higher standard of living and quality of life than modern poor people, or even the median household in the first-world. The major exception to this is something like healthcare, where for most of history, money couldn't buy your way out of not being able to cure diseases -- but that's only one area. I don't disagree with the idea that things have generally improved for everyone across the board (although some more than others, obviously) but the idea that simply by living in a first-world country you now outdo everyone throughout history and also everyone in a developing nation, is ridiculous and absurd.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:43
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Cicero posted:No it's not, it's a transparent attempt to keep the conversation grounded in reality. People who think the poor were all better off 50 or 100 or 150 years ago are living in fantasy land. You realize that the world is an entirely different place than it was even 50 years ago? The media landscape alone, with all the various reality bubbles we are (willingly or otherwise) forced in... the scientific disinformation campaigns being waged against labor, the lack of self-worth that will infect the mind of anyone unfortunate enough to live and work in the economically depressed areas Amazon Fulfillment Centers employ them in as they're treated as disposable automatons... immediately replaceable by the next hungry person looking for work who is willing to piss in a water bottle so the robot doesn't beep at them. Even if you are lucky enough to be employed in white collar space, the complete dissolution of even the facade of loyalty to your employer is rewarded. The only way to get a significant pay-increase is to jump from employer to employer, if you are afforded the luxury to take risks like this. I can't believe you're participating in this discussion in good faith. I don't think you've read a single post that didn't immediately start off praising your world-view. Ghost Leviathan posted:Trying to tell alienated and miserable people who see the world getting worse for them all the time that they're actually prosperous and should be thankful... Well, what response did you think you're going to get? Also, consider in the not too distant past that honesty was valued so much more than it is today. This is not an affirmation of the past being great, and that if only the rich were just nicer things would be better. It's an indictment of the passivity cultivated by our culture e.g. If you lied or cheated someone brutally out on oh... just a random thing... the frontier in the 1860s, you would probably be killed. Completely unrelated: Owlofcreamcheese posted:murder rate used to be higher too.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:44
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Paradoxish posted:No, this kind of bullshit is exactly what I'm talking about. You aren't saying anything or adding anything of value to the discussion. quote:If the argument is that the healthcare situation for the poor (or for anyone, for that matter) is bad, then by itself it adds absolutely nothing to say that it might have been even worse 50 or 100 years ago.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:46
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:There is no "threshold" where things are bad. It's always relative. In the future if everyone lives to 800 and your poor and live to 145 you are being hugely cheated, despite you receiving a longer life than literally anyone at this point in history ever has. You can have objectively more than other people and still be cheated. Come on, dude. It is entirely possible to set policy goals (which, yes, would be essentially arbitrary) for major issues like healthcare, employment, poverty, etc. It is entirely possible to define what an acceptable healthcare system might look like and judge whether we are there or not. The problem is that we aren't necessarily going to get there by incremental steps because many of these problems have specific causes that are going to be addressed by specific changes in policy. This is why data can be deceptive: an improvement in a single data point (or even data in aggregate) over time means nothing by itself and can just as easily be indicative of duct tape being slapped on a leaky pipe that's about to burst anyway. I have no idea why you think I want to go back to anything, so I'm going to assume that's just some weird non-sequitur.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:I have a deadly food allergy and it does indeed suck. I am pretty sure that children still get exposed to peanut early as ever was. I doubt peanut was big in small baby food before, but it remain common in normal food. It is indeed of better medical care. Do you know what happened to dangerously allergic to gluten people 20+ year ago? They ate normal food, slowly sickened further throughout childhood, and often died rather young without understanding of what condition was. Similarly small baby got exposed to peanut around because no one expected there be problem, get violent reaction in instant, and then die by time you get to hospital. Now people have thing like epipen around which is not quite proper treatment for such allergy, but may just mean you can stabilize small children to get to real treatment. Even if you do not carry one, someone who is allergic to another thing may be nearby to help you with.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:48
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im depressed lol posted:You realize that the world is an entirely different place than it was even 50 years ago? The media landscape alone, with all the various reality bubbles we are (willingly or otherwise) forced in... the scientific disinformation campaigns being waged against labor, the lack of self-worth that will infect the mind of anyone unfortunate enough to live and work in the economically depressed areas Amazon Fulfillment Centers employ them in as they're treated as disposable automatons... immediately replaceable by the next hungry person looking for work who is willing to piss in a water bottle so the robot doesn't beep at them. Yes, a lot of things still really suck, and there are some things that have gotten worse. I've never disputed that. Those things can be true while it also being true that overall things are less lovely for most people, including the poor. This doesn't mean the poor aren't suffering or that we can just declare victory or something. It's really absurd how many posters here are completely incapable of grasping the idea that things being less bad is not the same thing as things being good. Similarly there's a contingent that will reluctantly agree, but believes that admitting it sans duress makes you a class traitor or something. "[wrong thing]" "Actually that's wrong" "Maybe it IS wrong, but why would you acknowledge that unless you're working for Fox News???" I dunno, maybe because when you're on a political discussion forum, it's pretty normal to point out when someone says something that's wrong? Cicero fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 17:51
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Cicero posted:
Also the amount things are "lovely" isn't some constant. If it's 1700 and your son dies of diabetes because insulin doesn't exist that sure sucks, or if you are in rural india and you make a few cents a day and can't afford it, that sucks, if it's 2018 and you live in the US and have enough insulin to cover 80% of their needs that is way better and the historical or the guy in india would probably literally kill to get that if given a chance. But it's not like you are going to be happy watching your kid slowly go blind and slowly have his kidneys shut down by age 20 because he's poorly treated. There is not some absolute scale of suffering where we could just find the guy who is worst off then be happy forever because we are better off than him. You can have more than other people. Lots more even, and still be unfairly treated.
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Sep 27, 2018 17:56
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And this all ties into the system of exploitation, and often directly into racism and colonialism; ie, you may be poor, but you're WHITE and poor, not like those dirty nonwhites who need to be told their place
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Sep 27, 2018 17:58
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It's pretty obvious that a lot of people don't want to acknowledge that things are better because they feel it undermines their argument about how bad things are. If you were participating in, say, a televised debate for an election watched by normal humans who are very easily swayed by catchy sound bites, that'd probably be true, but here in D&D where everyone's an obsessive political news junkie? Not so much.
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Sep 27, 2018 18:02
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Cicero posted:It's pretty obvious that a lot of people don't want to acknowledge that things are better because they feel it undermines their argument about how bad things are. If you were participating in, say, a televised debate for an election watched by normal humans who are very easily swayed by catchy sound bites, that'd probably be true, but here in D&D where everyone's an obsessive political news junkie? Not so much. What do you believe that it says about the status quo and/or the current direction of policy in the US (or the west in general, if you prefer) that "things are better?" What argument are you supporting with this data?
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Sep 27, 2018 18:06
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Paradoxish posted:What do you believe that it says about the status quo and/or the current direction of policy in the US (or the west in general, if you prefer) that "things are better?" What argument are you supporting with this data? edit: Like, if someone says, "biking should be supported in SF because SF is so flat", I'm gonna point out that they're wrong about it being flat even if I agree with their conclusion that we should build more bike lanes there. Is that weird? I don't think I need to disagree with someone's overarching message to dispute a particular point. Cicero fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 18:10
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Paradoxish posted:What do you believe that it says about the status quo and/or the current direction of policy in the US (or the west in general, if you prefer) that "things are better?" What argument are you supporting with this data? That the idea of "things used to be better" is the heart of regressive/conservative thought and reflects a wish of how things were (because it supports the idea we need to go back to when it was better) instead of the truth (we need to change things to how they never were before to make things better)
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Sep 27, 2018 18:15
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Cicero posted:It's really absurd how many posters here are completely incapable of grasping the idea that things being less bad is not the same thing as things being good. Similarly there's a contingent that will reluctantly agree, but believes that admitting it sans duress makes you a class traitor or something. You're not wrong in these observations, and my response to your post was not written with the care it should have. I wrote with a lack of clarity, perhaps due to an internal tone set by responding to this, yes in a manner very similar to how you suggested earlier with dissenting opinions being met with the same vitriol as Fox News propaganda. There is a tremendous level of polarization in modern discussions that has been cultivated by various factors, not the least of which is the commodification of attention itself in the pursuit of advertising dollars. In simple terms (because I'm stetched for time but don't want to leave this hanging without responding to you), content we're suggested by sites such as Youtube or Google search results force us into an ever-present feedback loop. So you are only presented with media these content providers think you will click on, and a lot of this is demonization of whatever polarized opponent your demographic profile suggests.* This is what I was alluding to with what you have paraphrased as "the world's CHANGED man!." I know this is not some sudden-genius revelation, but in this context it's important to affirm it. It absolutely affects how we exchange information. I can't get spend any more time articulating a response, but I have been watching this thread for a long time and appreciate the discussion you are bringing. Edit: * added sentenced indicated. im depressed lol fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 18:23
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Cicero posted:The discussion got necro'd from a topic a few months back, but IIRC someone said or implied that things hadn't gotten better for average people/the poor since Marx' time, and I was like, "well no, standards of living have improved". At the time I don't think I had an overarching conclusion I was aiming for with that comment, I was just pointing out that part of a narrative was incorrect. Then it turned into a huge back and forth about whether things had actually improved and in what ways, and accusations that by saying so I was saying that things are fine now. This has happened in a lot of threads recently and it’s really weird. A poster named ytalia was even crying about it in cspam how all the dnd posters were ideologically and morally corrupt because when they look at a graph of life expectancy they can see that the trend is positive.
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Sep 27, 2018 18:25
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