> the fabric of society is in danger of breaking
Really? That is hyperbolic to me, and I was not as interested in reading the rest of his article after that.
Really? That is hyperbolic to me, and I was not as interested in reading the rest of his article after that.
The language "is in danger of breaking" is frankly dialed down because he is obviously self-conscious about sounding like some wild-eyed radical. The fact is, if this trend isn't checked, there certainly will be a violent break down, which is a corresponding trend that is also growing before our very eyes in the form of BLM protests and the corresponding government response.
Violence is not condoned in our society. Therefore, it follows that manifestations of violence are a form of breakage. If such manifestations erupt directly from power/wealth/legal disparities, I'd say Bray's language is a rather mild flavor of perfectly accurate.
PG literally wrote an essay about it. http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html (not sure if it is the one I meant, but it touches on many of the subjects here. Including the "pie fallacy")
In that light, it is more surprising that so many people on HN are in favor of socialism.
Besides, what's the use of being a billionaire if you can't enjoy a night out on the town without fear of being robbed and killed by the jealous proles?
Note this does not imply socialism or expanding safety nets -- I was thinking more of very progressive taxes that fund public infrastructure, green energy, public transportation, public parks and water catchments, the kind of thing that makes the world better for everyone - rich folk inclusive.
Regarding the winners being undeserved: 1. It can be shown that just using chance (or slightly unequal starting conditions) simple economic systems develop into a state where there is one player who essentially owns all (I linked to the article earlier [1]). So yes it can be just chance. 2. Once the winners have sufficient power they will game the system in their favour. There's lots of evidence for this, just look at the Panama papers for example.
That’s one possibility, the other is that productivity has no bounds and increased efficiency just means further productivity, not a lessening of work to achieve the same productivity as before.
If those 100 people can’t afford things like health care and housing, they have been crushed.
I’m not arguing socialism v. capitalism. I’m simply pointing out that a trend of widening inequality leads to deep systemic problems, and is not sustainable. We can correct it without gasp socialism. Laws, regulation, and political finance reform are likely sufficient.
I don't read either of those in the comment you're responding to.
Your response is so disconnected from what I wrote I can barely understand it as such.
Our laws prohibit all forms of violence domestically, do they not? Those are the explicit rules of our society. Whatever else you are referring to, it seems less relevant than that.
Recent violent upticks with protestors v. police/military are a fact, and are relevant here. Do you think that all of this is indicative of a productive society? Destroyed police stations and dead/wounded protestors?
It warrants an adjustment. We must try to fix the root cause, because the cost of all of this is too high. For everyone.
That's a shame because if you had continue reading you could have judged if it was really hyperbolic or if there was some truth to it.
Besides why even care about some of the conclusions in the piece if you can also absorb the information and form your own conclusions?
(1) A global pandemic.
(2) A massive protest movement.
(3) The wake of what will soon be millions of evictions, not to mention the current unemployment rate and the effects we're seeing on wealth inequality.
(4) On the inevitable track of climate change displacing tens of millions to hundreds of millions of people. This branch will also lead to some supply-chain and food management issues I cannot even fathom.
(5) A concerning increase in polarization and even fascism. Increasing distrust in science and decreasing certainty in our news sources.
Just off the top of my head.
I'm not sure I agree with the rest of the article; it made some bad points and some good ones. And I certainly don't think it's clear that the fabric of society is in danger of breaking for the exact reasons the author listed, and that this can be solved by adoption the exact solutions the author advocates for. (Again, I'm not saying it's not true, just that I remain unconvinced.)
But...
...it's pretty god damn clear that the fabric of society is in danger of breaking down, certainly in the context of the US, and arguably in the context of the West as a whole.
Glance at the news, fill in your own list: Covid, antivaxxers, Portland, deficits, pension crisis at state and local government level, the increasing partisan divide, the collapse of the business models of traditional media, rampant conspiracy theories, BLM riots, anti-protect violence from the police, the balkanization of the news people consume, Trump, collapsing trust in institutions, increasing politicization of the courts, the stunning lack of Senate confirmed appointees in the current administration, etc., we could go on. At some point we're going to get a Covid vaccine, and we're going to need to launch a massive nation-wide vaccination campaign, but in the current climate literally everything is partisan, a decent chunk of the population has convinced themselves Covid is a hoax, people are resorting to violence when asked to wear a mask. How's that vaccination campaign going to go? Meanwhile the economy is lurching towwards a cliff. When Covid hit the US, it was at the end of the longest economic expansion in US history, but rather than store up resources for the inevitable contraction, the US was running unprecedented deficits. Now Covid has hit; what happens next? Especially if societal dysfunction prevents a coordinated response? And so on, and so forth.
I mean, obviously everything could be fine, but if your concern is that "the fabric of society is in danger of breaking" is just too hyperbolic, I think you need to open your eyes. You can point fingers where you like (and we do, which is a big part of the problem!) but regardless of who is to blame, things are not good.
That's the point of "the news" though: to keep you engaged by providing a daily crisis for you to worry about, because that makes you watch thew news. If one crisis goes away, or viewers get bored of it, a new one pops up and the old one is gone. Remember how we were supposedly "this close" to ww3 in February or March because of Iran?
Monster Of The Week Shows need monsters or they lose their audience.
It could just be me growing older and/or the news that I'm consuming becoming more globally focused. But are you really suggesting that 20 years ago we had issues comparable to the US giving up on pandemic response, to BLM, to impending climate catastrophe and rising fascism everywhere in the world?
Just that the headlines in the news always have the same font size doesn't mean that the news is always equally dramatic. This goes both ways.