What happened to the theory that the deaths were decreasing because we burned through our buffer of people susceptible to deaths of despair? That always seemed reasonable to me.
Eh. Most costs that matter scale to relative wealth, and the cost scales accordingly, and we have more homeless people than any rich country on earth, and we have no community worth a damn—we have snap, medicaid, and section 8, and our kind neighbors are rabid to end them all. This is, in most ways, the worst country on earth to be poor in. If i were poor in cincinnati suburbs I'd kill myself too.
Perhaps there's another place where poverty is a greater curse, though. But I would rather be poor in Burundi or Haiti than Ohio—at least I can sleep outside without dying and my neighbor won't fucking shoot me for existing. But this is what i get for living in the us, the place with the most evil people to have ever lived.
Wealth inequality doesn't cause this kind of despair. We have the greatest wealth inequality in history, but also the objectively best quality of life in history by most metrics (extreme poverty, hunger, starvation, death from disease, infant mortality...)
It does not matter to me if Elon Musk makes another billion dollars if I am making more as well. That does not cause "despair" to a well adjusted person.
Extreme poverty on the other hand (which has been decreasing) does cause these deaths. When people have nowhere left to go and no hope, they to turn to drugs.
Mental illness is another cause. I wonder if we should have gotten rid of asylums.
If bothers me if he spends that money exerting an outsized influence on my political institutions, though. Wealth inequality isn't really about wealth so much as power. I really don't care if Musk or anyone else lives more comfortably than me, but I do care if they have more than one figurative vote in how my society functions.
When is having an outsized influence allowed? Someone who pickets for a candidate will have an outsized influence; so will celebrities with many followers, etc.
You can't solve every problem, but that isn't an excuse to solve no problems. If you can buy an entire platform that functions more like public service or utility than a company and modify its political alignment, you have too much power.
Hunger and struggling to pay one's bills -- those cause despair. Envy surely does not (and should not). And anyways the claim that relative wealth inequality (as opposed to actual poverty) causes despair is an extraordinary claim and it requires that you present extraordinary evidence.
What do you mean by "objectively"? This smells like pinker-esque spinelesness. Like a "you can buy a smartphone if you ignore the world is dying" tone.
Yes, you can buy a smartphone. But most of what makes us care for each other has died. Why not kill yourself today, Sisyphus? There are fewer reasons than ever.
Because my life does not run on envy. It does not bother me that Elon is $100B richer when global outcomes have improved dramatically as well. Comparison is the thief of joy.
As long as conditions are materially improving, we are doing well. It is up to people to maintain a psychological outlook commensurate with their incredible quality of life gains. If they don't manage to do that, that is a personal failure caused by envy, not an inherent structural problem with wealth inequality.
Right, but what everyone is whingeing about is for it to be available even at a higher price point.
Digital signage shows the market is already solving this problem so if all this complaining is to mean anything people are talking about yet another new market that fits in between the smart TV price and the digital signage price
> the new product range is causing unease among play experts, who say it risks undermining what makes Lego special for children in an increasingly digital world.
I second that concern, but feel like the ship has already sailed. With my kids, at least anything except the basic “brick collection” classic series sets really limits the longevity of play and creativity they bring to it. It’s something about the disappointment of a model that needs to be right and can be
“broken”. But also maybe the difference between the perfect model designed by a professional and what they can create themselves.
Yes. If Venezuela does not meet our demands, we will continue to destroy them with sanctions. Therefore meeting our demands is doing what is right for the country.
May sound glib or tautological but its the real situation.
> I guess this would be a part of making an export oriented economy viable?
Not in the time of trade wars and tariffs.
That's the irony here, nationalism - both economic and cultural - is being pushed onto the world spearheaded by the current US administration, it's a worldwide push - anyone can impose tariffs for any reason and simply point to the US as an excuse.
End result - an export oriented economy can never take roots in the US during that time.
The fall of the dollar will only lead to more inflation, more poverty and higher wealth inequality.
> If you want to win a trade war against a country that holds a lot of your currency
There are no such countries compared to the volume necessary to harm them and much less compared to the volume necessary for the US to gain from it.
More importantly, tariffs and export restrictions can go both ways and their bang as weapons of trade war far exceeds the measly whisper of a falling currency.
At most, this can end as a loss for both sides, but the US is far more exposed and is going to lose a lot more - except for the super-rich of course, they have the rest as their human shields.
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