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Comment by dwaltrip | Hacker News Reader

Society is crumbling...? I'm pretty sure the data doesn't back that up.

We face many problems, to be sure, but this is nothing new.

It doesn't matter what the data says, the feeling that our society is crumbling is palpable, and that is what drives this overwork. People my age (40s) and younger do not believe that our institutions will be able to support us in our old age and retirement. We do not even believe that the earth's ecosystems will be able to support us (as a group) then. In 30 years, we as individuals better have resources accumulated to support ourselves, or we will be unable to afford basics like healthcare, shelter, and even food.

For that matter, many of my non-tech friends (in their 40s) are already only one health crisis away from being homeless. I only have two couches and they all can't stay with me. I am doing relatively well and even I feel the pressure to overwork and "make hay while the sun shines", so maybe I can help support them when they need it.

I'm waiting for a massive exodus of US citizens to Europe for healthcare.

Also the perceived society crumbling is self-imposed. Raging culture wars, terrorism as an excuse for totalitarian paranoia, freely accessible firearms, school shootings, obesity epidemic, trade tariffs, monopolistic corporations lobbying for laws, ecological disasters.

Frankly, I'm happy with my European backwater if the cost of getting off well after WW2 would be the list above. No wonder the US collectively is stressed out to the extreme.

It's not just healthcare. I often get into discussions about our ridiculous gun situation. Often, I am told by advocates for the status quo that if I don't like it, I should leave. Maybe I will take that advice. What happens to a community when all of the people who want to improve it who have the means to emigrate give up and leave?

Middle East

Detroit

I emigrated from America to the UK. Healthcare is the number one thing that would make me trepidatious about moving back, far ahead of the gun violence and even the general political lunacy.

Healthcare is insane here. I have a relatively good health insurance but a trip to the ER (no ambulance) for abdominal pains still cost me $1600 out of pocket. I questioned going to the ER and tried to wait as long as I could but figured if I have insurance then I might as well use what I have. I should have waited longer. I fully understand why under-insured people will avoid going to the doctor or ER until it's either life-threatening or too late. Sometimes I think it would be better just to get the cheapest insurance and build up the emergency fund more.

Another U.S. to UK transplant here. I thought the UK was bit better than the U.S. in terms of general divide and political nonsense. After Brexit, not so much.

This is a really interesting statement:

It doesn't matter what the data says, the feeling that our society is crumbling is palpable, and that is what drives this overwork.

There is an interesting conflict of interest buried in there, "someone" who is benefiting from your work figures out that if you "believe" that society is crumbling, you will work harder (which generates them more benefit), and so they arrange it so that in spite of the data to the contrary you are left feeling that society is crumbling.

Even the most intelligent and rational person will take action against their own self interest if they believe that such action is necessary. You can see that principle in action all too often today as people get caught up in a conspiracy theory and then decide to take action on their own.

I certainly agree that it's in the best interest of those at the top to make the rest of us believe retirement won't be there, and we must work-work-work to save-save-save.

However:

1) I have seen it become commonplace to have several generations of a family living in the same house.

2) I have seen my grandparents struggle to afford prescriptions even with 2 pensions and social security.

3) I have seen a sibling fall into poverty despite making bi-weekly efforts to establish an emergency fund. A totaled car was all it took despite full coverage.

4) I have been a part of the crowd commuting 4+ hours round-trip a day to jobs they can't move closer to.

It definitely feels as though institutions are failing us. I don't think social security will fail, but I do think they'll move the goal post on when we can retire.

There are conspiracies and there's anecdote..

If you are a young person in America, it is. Unless you were born into the top 10th percentile of wealthy households, you are pretty much guaranteed to grow up to be poorer than your parents, and you know it. This is something new for America, and the sense of desperation it creates is the young is, for once, entirely legitimate.

This is key. It's not that you're going to be third-world-country poor, it's that regardless of what you do, you won't experience the same economic benefits for the effort that you put in, compared to 30 years ago.

This is true for people all across the board: blue-collar workers, office workers, and doctors.

For societies that crumble, the data is always retrospective. Organisations and societies are entities where people tend to pretend (believe, even) that everything is okay or at least everything is manageable during catastrophic events, until the day that illusion can't be maintained anymore.

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