| ▲ | cedws 7 hours ago |
| I don't even know what the selling point of AI is for regular people. In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. The middle class have financially benefited very little from the past 20+ years of productivity gains. Social media is driving society apart, making people selfish, jealous, and angry. Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. It will just be used to stomp on ordinary people and create even more inequality. |
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| ▲ | jaredklewis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. I'm skeptical of this explanation for falling birthrates just because birthrates are falling across the world and there seems to be no correlation between fertility and financial security. America has low birthrates. Scandinavia (usually considered to have generous welfare states) has low birthrates. Hungary, where the government gives massive tax breaks (IIRC they spend around ~6% of their GDP on child incentives), has low birthrates. Europe, East Asia, India, the Middle East, the Americas, basically the whole world except for central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (which are catching up) has low birth rates. Obviously the economic conditions between basically all the countries in the world varies wildly, but there isn't a consistent relationship between those conditions and fertility. Also within countries, the number of children people have is not always correlated with wealth (and at times in the past 60 years it has been negatively correlated). Anyway, I find your argument intuitive, but it doesn't seem to align with the data we have. |
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| ▲ | uniq7 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | In which of those countries is it possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children? | | |
| ▲ | jaredklewis an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I mean that I know of first hand, just the US and Japan. "Possible" being a low bar that just means that I've seen it at least once. I don't think data with all of those factors (household income, number of earners per household, gender of the earners, home ownership, and number of children) exists for any country. Do you have data like that for 1960s America or is your argument based on extrapolations from watching Leave it to Beaver? But if we abstract your hypothesis slightly to: fertility is lower now than in 1960 because people are less financially secure now than they were in 1960, I don't think the data we have supports this. | |
| ▲ | amy_petrik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's a simple catch-22 - women don't want to leave the workforce because one salary cannot support a family - yet women remaining in the workforce, since single-salary is infeasible, thusly doubling supply of workers, lowering salaries, which itself makes it infeasible to single-income a family Not to pick on women, as a feminist if you ask me, all modern men should have to be houseboys to serve their feminine masters. It does suck but it is necessary to benefit the modern women who did not suffer, in so by causing modern men to suffer -- to make amends for the suffering of all women in the perpetuity of history at the hands of all historical men, neither of which are alive today. |
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| ▲ | Demiurge 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. Every kind of a man, or woman? > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. Well, this probably why statistics exist. |
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| ▲ | jitix 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America. The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. We can see the economic crisis' in the US first in the 70s/80s with Europe and Japan rebounding, then again in 90s/00s with China and East Asia growing, and now again with the rest of the world growing (esp Latin America, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, etc). Unless US physically invades and devastates China, India or Brazil the competition will keep getting exponentially higher. It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war. | | |
| ▲ | xnx 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war. Don't give them any ideas. | |
| ▲ | pfannkuchen 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Were there a lot of imports at that time in terms of materials or labor or food? If not, I don’t really see how money flowing in from abroad actually changes the economy in this area. If the wood is harvested in America and the workers are in America and the wood and workers are available, then any amount of money value generated by everyone else will be sufficient to pay them, unless there is a significant stream of imports that need to be paid for (which I’m not aware of in this time period). What could have made a big difference is if foreign competition arose for American materials and land, which it did. But that is under our control, we collectively can choose whether to allow them to buy it or not, and whether to let people in at a rate that outpaces materials discovery and harvesting capabilities. We also restricted materials harvesting quite a bit during this time period, for example I believe a lot of forestry protections were not in place yet. | |
| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. What does this sentence mean? | | |
| ▲ | redhed 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process. | | |
| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up. | | |
| ▲ | rightbyte an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted I don't see your point. Those rules does not apply to the upper class and middle class workers have way more leeway regarding that than the lower class. | |
| ▲ | jrjeksjd8d 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The existence of an upper class necessitates the existence of a lower class. You can't just pull everyone up to be above average. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What's your point? I didn't make any claims about averages. We could do a lot more to improve opportunities and social mobility for people caught in the permanent underclass. | | |
| ▲ | Ferret7446 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | But we have. The underclass today has much better lives in many aspects than the highest class from many decades ago. The absolute level of wealth has increased, it's simply that the delta between the high and the low is widening. Would you rather live equally in poverty or live comfortably with others who are way more wealthy than you? Surprisingly people do seem to prefer the former, though I'd prefer the latter |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | bonsai_spool 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. This is wrong. The increase in administrator pay began well after the crises cited in OP. You could cite spending on the sciences (and thus Silicon Valley), but the spending by the US did not accrue to administrators; and further, federal money primarily goes to grants and loans, but GP is citing a time over which there were relatively low increases in tuition. Edit: Not at home, but even a cursory serious search will turn up reports like this one that indicate the lack of clarity in the popular uprising against money "[going] to administrators" https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-u... | | |
| ▲ | malcolmgreaves 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. | | |
| ▲ | bonsai_spool 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. First, where is your data? Second, this discussion is clearly about post-secondary education ("the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.") |
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| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Things that let workers focus on innovation. IT workers in cheaper countries have it much easier while we have to juggle rising cost of living and cyclical layoffs here. And ever since companies started hiring workers directly and paying 30-50% (compared to 10-15% during the GCC era) the quality is almost at par with US. | | |
| ▲ | palmotea 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >>> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. >> What does this sentence mean? > Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Cheaper education? Public K-12 schools, the GI bill, generous state subsidies of higher education (such that you could pay for college with the money you made working a summer job). Free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support? Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. | | |
| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. I work in edutech and our goal is to cut costs faster than revenue. Enrolments are down, students are over burdened with student loans, and new grads can't compete in the market. Also, do you think kids going to K-12 in the US can compete with kids who go to international schools in China and India? High end schools in those countries combine the Asian grind mindset with western education standards. > Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a common western idiom based on centuries of observations. Just because there was 20-30 years of unnatural economic growth doesn't make it the global or historical norm. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Education is a tough one. Like healthcare, it's highly subject to Baumol's Cost Disease. Technology holds some potential but fundamentally we still need a certain ratio of teachers to students, and those teachers get more expensive every year. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/baumols-cost-disease-long... Education should be well funded. But at the same time, taxpayers are skeptical because increasing funding doesn't necessarily improve student outcomes. Students from stable homes with aspirational parents in safe neighborhoods will tend to do well even with meager education funding, and conversely students living in shitholes will tend to do badly regardless of how good the education system is. If we want to improve their lot then we need to fix broader social issues that go beyond just education. Anyone who has gotten involved with a large school district has seen the enormous waste that goes to paying multiple levels of administrators, and education "consultants" chasing the latest ineffective fad. Much of it is just a grift. | |
| ▲ | palmotea 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >> Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? > Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. So? That's not really relevant to the historical period you were referring to when you said: "It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs." At the time, Americans already had many of the things you're saying they should've invested in to get. How were they supposed to predict things would change and agitate for something different without the hindsight you enjoy? > This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. Exactly why do you think it is it unnatural? I think you should be more explicit about how you think things should be for families. Because going on an on about how the times when things were easier was "unnatural" may create the wrong impression. Also keep in mind where talking about human society here, the concept of "natural" has very little to do with any of it. What were really talking about is the consequence of the internal logic of this or that set of artificial cultural practices. | | |
| ▲ | jitix 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > How were they supposed to predict things would change and agitate for something different without the hindsight you enjoy? By comparing themselves to their counterparts in other countries. By 1955 there should have been alarm bells ringing as Europe re-industrialized. Same with 70s oil crisis but the best that US could do was to cripple Japan with Plaza Accords. Americans even now have a mindset that nothing exists beyond their borders, one could assume it was worse back then. > Exactly why do you think it is it unnatural? Because only two industrialized countries were left standing after WW2 and those two countries enjoyed unnatural growth until others caught up - first the historical powers in Europe then Asia. | | |
| ▲ | palmotea 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > By comparing themselves to their counterparts in other countries. ... Americans even now have a mindset that nothing exists beyond their borders, one could assume it was worse back then. That's not realistic, except in hindsight. Most people everywhere pay more attention to their immediate environment and living their lives. Not speculating about what is the global economy is going to look like in 50 years, and how would those changes affect them personally. You're talking about stuff only some PhD at RAND would be doing (or would have the ability to do) in the 1960s. Without the democratic pressure of common people either 1) having a need or 2) seeing things get worse, no changes like you describe would happen. > Because only two industrialized countries were left standing after WW2 and those two countries enjoyed unnatural growth until others caught up - first the historical powers in Europe then Asia. What's natural? And more importantly: how do you think things should be for families. |
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| ▲ | sparrc 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US is not perfect by any measure, but your argument that the US doesn't have innovative nor "high-value" jobs is absurd beyond belief. | |
| ▲ | judahmeek 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Right, because Europe is so innovative. The mother of invention is idiomatically necessity, not comfort. Ultimately, increased levels of competition should lead to higher levels of innovation. Btw, what is "the GCC era" a reference to? | | |
| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Europe is quite innovative on per-capita basis. Not like US but the workers there have much happier lives and their societies don't have extreme inequality and resulting violence like the US. China is arguably more innovative than all and has terrible work life balance, but their society is stable and you won't go from millionaire to homeless just because you had to get cancer treatment. GCC = global consulting companies, the bane of innovation. Outsourcing of all kinds (even domestic C2C) should be banned. | | |
| ▲ | toomanyrichies 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Is GCC an acronym you just now came up with, or is does it commonly mean “global consulting company” in your part of the world? I ask because, when I do a Google search, the two most common meanings for that term are “Global Capacity Center” and “Gulf Cooperation Council”. |
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| ▲ | leptons 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. The US just renamed "Department of Defense" to "Department of War" and they seem willing to go to any extreme to "Make America Great Again". Threatening to take over Canada, Greenland, and Panama already in the first few months of the current administration. Using US military on US soil. There's no line they won't cross. WW3 isn't off the table at all, unfortunately. | |
| ▲ | eli_gottlieb 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So you're saying that working-class living standards are a zero-sum competition across capitalist countries, even negative-sum as competing national economies grow their total output and hourly productivity? That sounds like a really shitty system. | |
| ▲ | palmotea 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America.... > In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war. So, what's your point? That the plebs shouldn't expect that much comfort? | | |
| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A common maxim across all cultures is to "manage expectations" for happiness. And while comparing societal standards expand the time horizon to 100 years, not nitpick one specific unnatural era of history. An automotive engineer in Detroit in 1960 was a globally competitive worker because most of his counterparts in other countries were either dead, disabled or their companies bankrupt. The equivalent in today's world would be aerospace engineers, AI researchers, quantum engineers, robotics engineers, etc who arguably have the same standard of living as the automotive engineer in 1960s Detroit. Economic and technological standards evolve - societies should invest in human capital to evolve with them or risk stagnation. | | |
| ▲ | palmotea 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > An automotive engineer in Detroit in 1960 was a globally competitive worker because most of his counterparts in other countries were either dead, disabled or their companies bankrupt. > The equivalent in today's world would be aerospace engineers, AI researchers, quantum engineers, robotics engineers, etc who arguably have the same standard of living as the automotive engineer in 1960s Detroit. You know were not really talking about top-end positions like automotive engineers in Detroit in 1960. I think we're talking more about automotive factory workers in Detroit in 1960. > Economic and technological standards evolve - societies should invest in human capital to evolve with them or risk stagnation. You need to be more explicit about how you think things should be for the common man. | | |
| ▲ | jitix 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I hope you understand the concept of relative prosperity - The current equivalent would be a factory worker at Boeing. In 60s cars were innovative in US, now Nigeria can outcompete China in cars. Times change, standards rise, competition increases. If America wants to remain competitive globally you need to work in the top 1% fields like you did back in 60s, not expecting $25 per hour for flipping burgers (which should have been automated with robots by now). | | |
| ▲ | palmotea 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You need to be more explicit about how you think things should be for the common man. |
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| ▲ | apsurd 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I originally upvoted the parent comment. But I changed it. "The good ol' days" ... yeah, but good for who? | | |
| ▲ | crossbody an hour ago | parent [-] | | The good old days... that never were! Life has improved for nearly everyone on nearly every metric. But if one myopically focuses on house purchasing as the only thing that matters and takes anomalous post WW2 period, then sure, things are bad (ignoring the fact that housing space and quality + amenities improved dramatically, but hey, who cares about nuance, we just love to complain!) |
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| ▲ | Karrot_Kream 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah if you bar over 50% of your workforce from working at market clearing wages then naturally the other 50% are going to get paid at their expense. When you underpay minorities and often outright ban women from working formal employment, it's not hard to see how wages for the others remain high. | | |
| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well congratulations! We have succeeded in having stagnating wages and stagnating standard of living for everyone now! | | |
| ▲ | Karrot_Kream 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you want to take a 20% pay cut so I can take the marginal benefit? Who wants to volunteer to be barred from working so I can negotiate better salary? | | | |
| ▲ | doctorpangloss 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lemme guess, we should bring back Bretton Woods? |
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| ▲ | tharne 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Well, this probably why statistics exist. How are statistics going to answer this question? Statistics are used to measure things. They don't tell you what things you should be measuring. | |
| ▲ | scythe 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A lot of the people who admire the caricatured midcentury economy are probably actually just nostalgic for the '90s. Case-Shiller was much lower, gas was cheap, college was still relatively affordable. The biggest economic complaints of the present day were not as serious then. (There were still affordable parts of the Bay Area!) The subjection of black people and women that existed in the 60s obviously wasn't necessary for those things to be possible. But each decade's economy is the product of decades past. The policies of the 90s brought us to the present. So we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the 90s, and the 80s are associated with the iniquities of the Reagan administration. Thus you get this misplaced nostalgia for the 50s-70s without really understanding the problems or the progress that society made even as the highest levels of government seemed to drift off course. | |
| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Every kind of a man, or woman? Why do so many people miss the point on this? Instead of making this dream true for all the people who were previously excluded, we have pursued equality by making this dream accessible to NO ONE. > Well, this probably why statistics exist. Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy? | | |
| ▲ | apsurd 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're both right. I take your point to mean similar to the disastrous outcome of "no child left behind" act. I do agree with you, but people didn't seriously _intend_ for the result to be everyone lowers to a shit position. Or maybe you're saying that's always how these initiatives turn out? It can't be helped? | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Why do so many people miss the point on this? Because one party wants to return to those times with the exact same social norms. So it's a dangerous line of thinking to forget that women were walled out of many jobs, or had a huge wage gap when they were let in. As well as minorities only barely starting to really get the same opportunities after a lot of struggle. >Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy? Yes. When it affects the majority is only when we start to pay attention. | |
| ▲ | watwut 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think there is something to be valued about historical accuracy. > Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy? In the 60ties, suicide rates went UP. Peaked around 1970 and we did not reached their levels. Long terms statistics about alcoholism rates and drug use are also a real exiting thing. We know that cirrhosis death rate was going up in the 60ties up to 70ties, peaked and went down. It was the time when drinking and driving campaigns started. Current drug use is nowhere near what it was a generation ago. |
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| ▲ | cedws 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not going to engage with you on a debate because you aren't acting in good faith. |
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| ▲ | rr808 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. Most of the people I see working in tech can easily afford this. Maybe not private schools or McMansions but the basics are pretty easy. Sure if you're a humanities major with health problems its tough. |
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| ▲ | ocdtrekkie an hour ago | parent [-] | | This is far from true. Aside from Valley pay, which also has Valley housing costs, a "tech job" will barely pay for healthcare and housing for one, much less healthcare and housing for four. | | |
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| ▲ | rockemsockem an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'd say the most mundane thing I use chat GPT for is to tell me which deeply nested menu some option is in for software I don't use very often. I feel like most people would get value out of that. Most recent example from a few days ago 'How do I change settings around spacing for "heading 2" in a document?' |
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| ▲ | Terr_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. It will just be used to stomp on ordinary people and create even more inequality. The problem isn't "more technology" (nor is the solution "less) but rather a change in who controls it and benefits. We shouldn't surrender-in-advance to the idea that the stompers will definitely own it. |
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| ▲ | FloorEgg 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| To me this all just looks like a big frothy chemical reaction playing out far beyond any one person's control. With that view, many things oscillate over time, including game theory patterns (average interaction intentions of win-win, win-lose, lose-lose), and integration / mitosis (unions, international treaties, civil wars),etc. So my optimistic view is that inevitably we will get more tech whether we want it or not, and it will probably make things worse many for a while, but then it will simultaneously enable and force a restructuring at some level that starts a new cycle of prosperity. On the other side it will be clear that all this tech directly enables a better (more free, more diverse, more rewarding, more sustainable) way of life. I believe this because from studying history it seems this pattern plays out over and over and over again to varying degrees. |
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| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Either that or the AI robots kill us all. Could go either way. | | |
| ▲ | FloorEgg 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | My guess is that whatever actually happens it will be very different than what the average person has imagined could happen (including me). |
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| ▲ | Eisenstein 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When you say that this pattern plays out, can you be specific? | | |
| ▲ | FloorEgg 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't have time to be precise, but I'll do my best to be more specific. New system better at organizing human behavior -> increases prosperity -> more capacity for invention -> new technologies disrupt power dynamics -> greed and power-law dynamics tilt system away from broad prosperity (most powerful switch from win-win to win-lose) -> majority become unsatisfied with system -> economics break down (too much debt, not enough education, technology increasingly and disproportionately benefits wealthy) -> trust break down -> average pattern of behavior tilts towards lose-lose dynamics -> technology keeps advancing -,> new technologies disrupt old power structures -> restructuring of world-powr order at highest levels (often through conflict) -> new system established, incorporating lessons learned from the old (more fair, more inclusive) -> trust reestablished, shift back to win-win dynamics (cycle repeats) In reality it's more messy than this. Also the geographical location of this cycle and the central power can move around. Some places may sit out one or more cycles and get stuck. | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | gizajob 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The majority of people are already doing ”bullshit jobs” and many of them know it too. Using AI to automate the bullshit and capture the value leaves them with nothing. The AI evangelists generally overlook that one of the primary things that capitalism does is fill people’s lives with busywork, in part as an exercise in power and in another part because if given their time back, those people would genuinely have absolutely no idea what to do with it. |
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| ▲ | SrslyJosh 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The middle class have financially benefited very little from the past 20+ years of productivity gains. More like the last 50 years. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-... "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades" The TL;DR is that in 1964 the average hourly wage was $20.27. As of 2018, average hourly wage was $22.65. |
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| ▲ | Avicebron 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What's crazy is that people will jump all over themselves to say "well you could totally live like that at a 1960s level" like that's even a viable possibility today (in the US). What's that about the falcon and the falconer? The center cannot hold.. |
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| ▲ | Retric 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | People do make it work in the US with tiny incomes and a better standard of living than you’d see in a typical 1960’s household. I know people raising a family of 4 on 1 income well below the median wage without a collage degree. They do get significant help from government assistance programs for healthcare, but their lifestyle is way better off than what was typical in the 1960’s. Granted they aren’t doing this in a ultra expensive US city, but on the flip side they’re living in a huge for 1960’s 3 bedroom house with a massive backyard. | | |
| ▲ | crossbody an hour ago | parent [-] | | Finally a rational comment and not blind hating-complaining. Thank you |
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| ▲ | georgeecollins 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A lot of this stuff about baby boomers vs now is based on how remember things. The data is more complicated. Example: The average home in 1960 was like 1600 sq ft, now its like 2800 sq ft. Sometimes we are comparing apples to oranges. I am not trying to blunt social criticism. The redistribution of wealth is a real thing that started in the tax policies of the 1980s that we just can't seem to back away from. But a lot of people are pushing gambling, crypto, options that are telling people that they have no hope of getting ahead just by working and saving. That's not helpful. |
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| ▲ | p1necone 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The average home in 1960 was like 1600 sq ft, now its like 2800 sq ft. Statements like this are not particularly meaningful unless there is actually a supply of 1600 sqft houses that are proportionally cheaper, otherwise you're just implying a causal relationship with no evidence. | | |
| ▲ | crossbody an hour ago | parent [-] | | Supply is driven by demand unless there is a monopoly in house building (there isn't). If this wasn't the case, one could quickly become a billionaire by starting first company that build small houses that are supposedly in demand but not provided by the market | | |
| ▲ | phantasmish 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is developers maximizing profit per lot. All this means is there are enough buyers who can afford 2,800 sqft houses to keep builders from wasting a lot on a 1,600 sqft house. There could be a lot more people who want a cheaper 1,600 sqft house (including some of the 2,800 sqft house buyers!) than who want 2,800 sqft houses, but the market will keep delivering the latter as long as the return is better (for the return to improve for 1,600 sqft houses, see about convincing towns and cities to allow smaller lots, smaller setbacks, et c). | |
| ▲ | p1necone an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're still presupposing that there's a linear (or at least linear enough to be significant amongst the myriad other factors involved) relationship between square footage of house and cost. And that that relationship extends arbitrarily downwards as you reduce the square footage. |
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| ▲ | bananaflag 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I don't even know what the selling point of AI is for regular people. AI healthcare, for example. Have an entity that can diagnose you in a week at most, instead of being sent from specialist to specialist for months, each one being utterly uninterested in your problem. |
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| ▲ | xnx 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? It has been for the last few thousand years. |
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| ▲ | ThrowawayR2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > "In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children." In the 1930s, it wasn't possible so what's your point? (History time: What happened on October 24, 1929?) Choosing the 1960s as a baseline is artificially cherry-picking an era of economic growth (at the expense of the rest of post-WW2 Europe and Asia who were rebuilding) instead of an era of decline or normalcy. |
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| ▲ | Dylan16807 an hour ago | parent [-] | | > cherry-picking an era of economic growth But we already did the growth. We didn't shrink back. So we should still be able to get those results. |
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| ▲ | astura 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| According to the census bureau median family income in 1960 was $5,600, which is $58,946.59 in Jan 2024 dollars. It's $83,730 in 2024. For individual males, in 1960 it was $4,100 ($43,157.33 Jan 2024 dollars) and $71,090 in 2024. Sources: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1962/demo/p60-03... https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28... https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl The thing is, a 1960s standard of living would be totally unacceptable by almost everyone today. Single car max, no air conditioning, small house or apartment, multiple children sharing bedrooms, no cellphones, no Internet, no cable, no streaming. Local calls only. Children allowed outside by themselves. |
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| ▲ | byryan 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think you're out of touch with what "almost everyone" considers an acceptable standard of living. I know plenty of people who have a single car or none at all, live in apartments living pay check to pay check with no kids at all because they are afraid they can't afford them. They would love to have what you described, minus the no cell phones/internet. | |
| ▲ | Terr_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I feel there is something unsound with that comparison, because you could also apply it to kings of history, simply by listing things that technologically unavailable or unaffordable. Imagine transmigrating King Louis XVI (pre-revolution) into some working class professional with a refrigerator, a car, cable TV, etc. I don't think it's a given that he'd consider the package an upgrade. | | | |
| ▲ | ethanwillis 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | now tell us how they calculate those inflation adjusted dollars-- what basket of goods? prices in which markets? | | |
| ▲ | tharne 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | They've cited and linked their sources. What's the issue? | | |
| ▲ | ethanwillis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The "issue" is the comparison is much more complex than people may be led to believe. It's not a simple "adjust the dollars to be the same" calculation. There are a lot of assumptions that go into making that calculation. If I tell you that the value of a dollar you hold has gone down or up this year versus last year because of the price fluctuation of an item you never have or never will purchase, such as hermit crabs in New Zealand. Would you believe your dollar is worth more or less? What if the price of a good you do spend your dollars on has an inverse relationship with the price of hermit crabs in New Zealand? Or what if the prices of the items you do buy haven't moved at all? | |
| ▲ | bpt3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The issue is that it doesn't support his preconceived notion that everyone is doing terribly. |
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| ▲ | SchemaLoad an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| We will be able to build even bigger super yachts for billionaires now though. Bezos can have his own personal cruise ship. |
