[thisnotmyacc]

What rubbish!

This is the thinking of someone that lives in a country with a philosophy that puts country before individuals.

By almost every and any measure, we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone. There IS a subset within those places that has benefited less, or even gone backwards, no doubt.

But even for those people, what is the economic value of the wonders of the modern, internet and mobile phone age? When for the cost of an internet connection, people have access to millions of free flash games? Is that a better life than 1970s Harlem? I'm not sure either way, but it is a lot closer run thing that life is worse for the "losers" of globalization than people realize, and that is the comparison for the small minority that have missed out in the modern world, not the mean or median experience.

The only way people are worse off is if they compare the best of 1960s living - e.g. have only the husband work, own a 4 bedroom house in the burbs, make a decent salary without a degree - and ignore the things missing that are present in the modern lifestyle. Because in the 1960/70/80s west, people ate only basic food (nothing "foreign" like Thai or Indian), very few had cable TV, and went out at most once a week to the movies. They never bought an espresso, never owned a modern electronic device like a computer, never got to use the internet to settle an argument or play a computer game, unless they were extremely well off and got to play Pong circa say 1980.

If that sounds like a life people prefer - a big house, no lifestyle, no electronics, basic cable if lucky and only white people food - then I reckon most people could live like that even today if they so chose. But man, that isn't a life I'd be happy with. Not even slightly.

If that is "losing" - better lifestyle, better food, better (and cheaper) entertainment and slightly smaller living conditions and more people working, man, "winning" would have been insanely good.

[timthelion]

We eat less fresh food, we are less healthy, we are less happy, we are less able to go out in the woods or to the beach, because the woods have been logged or otherwise privatised in such a way that they are no longer accessible . The products we own and buy are of lower quality, they break more quickly. But that lower quality has not caused their price to drop tremendously. There are fewer Americans with the capital to sustain themselves, aka fewer small business owners who are able to make a living without having to find employment from some larger firm. And that directly results in reduced freedom for everyone, because there is less choice both in the employment sector and in the sector of choosing who you buy from.

And the only thing you have to offer is shitty cat videos with 30 second advertizements before 2 minutes of user created content.

Oh, and your stupid GDP. You know what the GDP measures? It is value transfer economics. It measures how many times money passed back and forth between two parties. If there weren't taxes you and I could spend all day passing $20 bills back and forth and our collective GDP would be higher than that of Switzerland. Completely meaningless number.

[greedo]

Ah nostalgia. Lower quality products? Let's just look at cars: the Pinto, the various AMC junk heaps; even my beloved first car, a VW Beetle (1969). All were horrible compared to what is available for today.

Let's look at PCs. I bought an Apple ][c in 1984 for $1400. That's almost $3300 adjusted for inflation. And that was a POS compared to what you can get for $300 today.

Culture? Let's look at what most people considered culture; TV. There were 3 main channels, all showing the same type of monolithic news, and sitcoms that were horrible. Today we have a multiverse of shows that inform and entertain. Yes, there's still crap on the tube, but you have far more options.

Education? When I graduated, college was for the highest achievers. Today, everyone is expected to go, and it's far easier to attend.

Race relations? We have a long long way to go, but compared to the early 70's? Racism was just the way things were then; America was extremely whitebread.

Acceptance? I had a friend hang himself in high school because he couldn't deal with the pressures of being in the closet. Today, we still have a long ways to go with LGBTq affairs, but we've progressed a lot.

Nostalgia is warm and fuzzy, but it puts blinders on us.

[leereeves]

People today eat less fresh food and are less healthy largely by choice.

People like to sit around, watch TV, play video games, and eat junk food. No one has to force us to do those things.

[timthelion]

I dissagree. I know of a number of famillies who used to have a small business, grow their own veggitables, and sell some vegitables on the side. However, the price of food, and the simple services of that these people provided has dropped, due to mass production, and those famillies were forced by lack of money, to change their lifestyles. They had to either sell land or take up a full time job elsewhere which meant that they no longer had time to live the way they used to.

[timthelion]

And even if it is caused by choice, I still think that it is better to look at reality than to look at choice. For example, during the totalitarian "comunist" state in the Czech Republic (I live here now) there were many free or low cost oportunities to join youth groups and play sports, go sking ect. and yet people still felt very restricted in their ability to do activities they enjoyed. It was illegal to "gather" in any more than a small number of people, and so planning a hiking trip with your friends could get you a visit from the secret police. Isn't it mearly a matter of choice that many people chose to skirt the law, rather than taking advantage of the many publicly planned youth outings?

[leereeves]

No doubt the economy has been hard for small farmers, but that's not why people aren't eating fresh food or exercising enough.

As you said, the price of food has dropped, and exercise is free.

[timthelion]

The price of food has dropped, but the price of fresh food has risen.

If you live in LA, unless you have the time to go out to one of the farmers markets, its not even possible to buy fresh food. The "fresh" food in the stores isn't fresh. It is usually weeks or even months old. Sometimes it has been on a ship across the ocean stored in a special atmosphere, maybe it "looks fresh" but it isn't. I grew up in Seattle, things are a bit better there, but you still have to drive out of your way to find fresh food. The concept of fresh and the concept of supermarket are just incompatible.

[leereeves]

But as you said, fresh food is available in farmer's markets. And if the price of fresh food has risen, it should be possible to make a living growing and selling it.

Except that the majority of people don't seek out fresh food.

[agumonkey]

No one likes to die after years of diabetes either. Our brains aren't the best compass, and society relies on shifting it as much as possible.

[leereeves]

Not many people make decisions today based on what's best for them in the long term.

Certainly society could impose choices on people that would be better in the long term, but is that compatible with freedom?

[agumonkey]

Freedom in today's society is pretty laughable. You don't have time to know, learn or experience a lot; how can you choose ?

[leereeves]

How does that make freedom laughable?

You can't do everything (you never could), but you can choose what to do.

[timthelion]

Oh, and American capitalism has promised us hoverboards, moon colonies, AI that can talk to me and make me feel loved, and a cure for cancer. None of that has come about.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "people ate only basic food (nothing "foreign" like Thai or Indian), very few had cable TV, and went out at most once a week to the movies. They never bought an espresso[...]"

So your argument is that getting to eat foreign foods, watch cable TV, go to the movies more often and drink espresso is much better than owning a house, not having a mountain of student debt, and having a well paid, secure job? Don't forget that most people don't have savings and when they lose their job (which happens often these days) it can take a long time to find a new one. Often too long. Most people would prefer the security of the past than the foreign foods and espresso of the future and if it was 1960 and you explained to me that was our future I wouldn't believe it could get that bad.

[jdietrich]

That's a really crap excuse for inequality. The rising tide of technology has lifted all boats, but the political and economic system has systematically neglected working people. Fairness and technological progress aren't mutually incompatible. We don't have a choice between 1960s society and modern life, but a choice between modern life in an unfair system and modern life in a fair one.

[kmuber]

"Fairness" is an imaginary concept.

Inequality on the other hand is quite a natural concept, as in you see it everywhere in nature and the universe.

There is no known process happening in nature that is trying to achieve "fairness".

Temporary stability and equilibrium on the other hand is achievable. And technological progress is naturally inequality increasing/destabilizing to such systems.

Tigers in nature don't just grow sharper claws or canines to be "disruptive". It happens only in response to an increase in the number of prey. Which usually happens in response to more grass on the plains. Which is in response to more rains and so on.

If the tiger starts evolving hunting efficiency at a faster rate than the deer evolves defensive features like speed, hearing etc the tiger will kill more and the entire system will soon breakdown. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVOHgztZ3XI

So to say "fairness and technological progress aren't mutually incompatible" is just not true.

[TheOtherHobbes]

There's nothing imaginary about fairness. It's an evolved response to resource misallocation in herd animals, including primates.

http://www.livescience.com/26245-chimps-value-fairness.html

What's imaginary is the idea that competitive advantage is always a good thing. The reality - as you say - is that too much competitive advantage leads inevitably to logistic collapse.

In humanity's case, the logistic collapse regularly leads to cultural extinction, and it's not impossible now for it to lead to physical extinction too.

The real problem is that competitive advantage is a very poor substitute for collective intelligence. we have an economy of competitive individualism, but we've yet to imagine an intelligence economy where growth is explicitly measured in increased collective insight and foresight.

[kmuber]

I meant imaginary in the sense that it exists in the minds of the chimps. It is imagined.

And for tech progress and "fairness" to coexist we need a better imagined version of it.

[arximboldi]

So what you are saying is that some humans are tigers and some are their preys.

Humans: the first massively cannibal species.

In fact, most developed mammals develop societies and specially in many apes these are quite egalitarian. In the same way as developing tools and understanding nature in order to adapt to it was key to the success of humans, I believe that the ability to cooperate and to feel for each-other via empathy is key as well.

Your mechanistic view of evolution and nature disregards all social aspects of human existence. It is unscientific and and excuse to support oppressive systems and the predatory behaviors that are putting the planet and humans themselves at risk.

Nature does not "disrupt", nature adapts and evolves. It creates symbiotic systems that enable long processes in which life, this weird mechanism constantly energy into movement, can happen. It created humans, with the abilities to discern, associate, help each other and pursue happiness. Your cannibalistic view of society is not gonna remove our "natural" thrive to build societies worth living in from the rest of us.

[kmuber]

I was responding to "fairness" and technological progress being able to exist side by side.

To talk about achieving fairness one must first accept it is a story we tell ourselves. A story that we collectively hardly ever agree upon and a story that needs improving.

There is nothing unscientific about that (which is why I posted the link) and there isn't any reason to feel insecure about it. Only after accepting that can the story improve.

[tashi]

a. That logic may apply to equilibrium in zero-sum games (I'm not sure it does), but in cooperative systems a rising tide is often helpful.

b. "Fairness" is a man-made concept, like "democracy" or "government" or "money." I'm not sure that disqualifies it from being of value to people.

[Fricken]

In the 60s things were pretty awesome. Gas, cars, housing and tuition were all way cheaper. Minimum wage was about $20/hr in inflation adjusted dollars. Labour unions were strong, there was a labour shortage. You could show up in a new city with $20 in your pocket and have a decent job and a place to live by the end of the week. A high school education was enough to for one person to comfortably raise a family of 4. Obesity rates were 1/4 what they are today. Life was so fucking easy the hippies happened, because you could literally just drop out and everything would be okay.

China, who asks not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country has lifted 650 million people out of extreme poverty in the last quarter century and raised the average wage 5x. America is in far too much a state of clusterfuck to be criticizing China for any reason, they've got their shit together and we need to go to rehab. Take the reigns, China, you guys are the global superpower now, your nation is run by engineers and ours is run by a demagogue and various special interest groups.

[vosper]

> China, who asks not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

China doesn't ask, China tells you. And if you don't like it, well, too bad. If you really don't like it, they have plenty of prisons you can rot in forever, or until your organs are harvested and sold.

> your nation is run by engineers

No, it's run by corrupt, unelected insiders who don't give a damn about freedom (speech, religion, assembly - take your pick) the environment, or much else than maintaining their positions and enriching themselves through shady deals and helping out their friends.

[sevenfive]

> Minimum wage was about $20/hr in inflation adjusted dollars.

Google says 10. [Citation needed]

[jmnicolas]

> By almost every and any measure, we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone.

I bet Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans and countless others beg to differ.

IMO the west got better at the expense of the rest of the world.

[smcmurtry]

Those are certainly examples of countries that have gone backwards in income and life expectancy over some of the recent years. However, the vast majority of countries have seen huge increases in average income and life expectancy over the last 100 years, 50 years, etc.

Source: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_chart-type=bubbles

[matthewbauer]

All 3 of those countries have experienced civil wars. I don't think that disproves GP's point.

Also, how does the west benefit from instability? This kind of thing is said by conspiracy theorists a lot but it's never made sense to me. Less oil, natural gas and other exports.

[ZeroGravitas]

I think the basic point of the article is that "the west" is not benefiting from the choices it makes.

It's like asking how the prisoner's benefit in the prisoner's dilemma. They each try to maximise their own utility and in doing so, because of the way the system is set up, they do worse than if they had co-operated.

[hnnsj]

I'm pretty sure the point made wasn't that the west benefits from the instability in that region, but that western policies have caused, or at least made worse, that instability. Which one may or may not agree with, but I think one should address the actual argument being made.

[repsilat]

It's hard to link American foreign policy to American economic policy, though. Iraq wasn't about oil (this time at least, I don't know anything about the Gulf War) and neither were Libya or Syria. Perhaps the argument is that rich countries can afford to go on overseas adventures, though? That perhaps if America were poorer she'd spend more time cleaning her house and less time making a mess of other people's?

I don't buy it. American intervention is down from it's glory days :/ of the '60s and '70s, violent deaths are down worldwide, and other countries are getting rich along with the US.

(Now that I reread the above comments, I guess it's more likely the point was just that "We should also mention a negative thing about America for balance," in which case this is all just argument for argument's sake.)

[AnAfrican]

THe quote is :

>the west got better at the expense of the rest of the world

"At the expense" means that there's a link.

[supercon]

According to Wikipedia[1], the biggest U.S. arms companies employ ~700.000 people, so I don't think you need to be a conspiracy theorist when you deduct from this that, if world peace were to settle to the globe it would mean less jobs for the people, less tax income for the government and less profit for the industry. Although most of the sales for these companies come from the U.S. government, according to TIME the export business isn't exactly pocket-change either[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry [2] http://time.com/4161613/us-arms-sales-exports-weapons/

[dingaling]

> the biggest U.S. arms companies employ ~700.000 people

Which is about one-half of Walmart's employee base, but the USA doesn't base its foreign policy on the whims of the Walton family.

What's more persuasive about the military-industrial-government complex is that most of its leaders emerged from the same universities and think-tanks. Essentially they share the same viewpoints and philosophies and can pull the appropriate levers in the domains that the control and they freely move from one domain to another.

[supercon]

> Which is about one-half of Walmart's employee base,

This doesn't take away the fact that there is interest in having these companies operating in the future.

> but the USA doesn't base its foreign policy on the whims of the Walton family.

If by "the USA" you mean the government, yes you are right, because it doesn't have to. Companies as big as Walmart, Lockheed Martin, McDonald's are fully capable of influencing the 'outside world' by their own means.

[zem]

and within the west the upper decile got better at the expense of the rest of the population

[nemo1618]

>This is the thinking of someone that lives in a country with a philosophy that puts country before individuals.

There is nothing wrong with putting the needs of the group above the needs of the individual. The West has been learning this lesson very slowly.

[Gibbon1]

In the US we've put the wants of a very small minority of individuals over everything. Probably less than 5000 families total out of a 100 million.

[bootload]

" we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone."

Health isn't one area .. "Public health experts say the rising white death rate reflects a broader health crisis, one that has made the United States the least healthy affluent nation in the world over the past 20 years." ~ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/04/10/a-new-d...

[simonh]

I think I have a bit more of a globalist perspective. I understand that incomes in the West have stagnated, but hundreds of millions of people across the world have risen out of poverty. It helps that my wife is Chinese and I've seen first hand the incredible transformation of that country. Looking at the world as a whole, the situation for the majority of the population is vastly better now than it was back in the 70s and 80s. It's almost miraculous.

Could the West have done anything different to preserve or advance worker incomes? I really don't think so. In theory all those manufacturing jobs in China could have been kept in the US or Europe, but I don't think that would actually have made anyone better off. The goods produced that way would have cost a lot more, to the workers as well as everyone else. Trade barriers are a conscious decision to make your economy less efficient and raise costs for all of the population in order to subsidize a few. It's not as if everyone working in manufacturing in the West became unemployed either - unemployment is no higher than it was in the 80s and the employment rate is actually higher.

As for the crash in 2008, yes it sucked but I believe it was inevitable. Where was the political pressure to reduce mortgage lending before 2008? Where was the popular pressure to reduce mortgage relief and reign back loans to home buyers that would have prevented the sub-prime crisis? There wasn't any. Instead all the popular and political pressure was on relaxing loan criteria, opening up access to 105% mortgages and expanding access to credit. The banks were doing exactly what the people and their elected leaders were demanding that they do. That doesn't excuse any wrong-doing or relieve anyone of responsibility for their actions, but lets be realistic. All the popular pressure was leaning hard towards boosting the credit bubble and an eventual collapse. Bank leaders should have better managed their portfolios and more responsibly managed their risks, but that would have at best delayed the inevitable.

So yes, the Dick "Deficits don't matter" Cheney attitude cost the USA a lot and exacerbated the bubble and it's collapse, but the wars are really a footnote to the overall economic picture at the 30 year level. The global economy and expanded and diversified. We live in a world with dramatically less poverty than 30 years ago. In 1981 52% of the world lived in poverty, now it's 22%. That's a stunning achievement.

[Gibbon1]

> I think I have a bit more of a globalist perspective. I understand that incomes in the West have stagnated, but hundreds of millions of people across the world have risen out of poverty.

This line is pure propaganda. And you've internalized and are now repeating it as your own.

[simonh]

I've physically, personally seen it happen.

[Gibbon1]

The propaganda contains a false assumption. That for people in China to not be totally poor the working/middle class in the US need to regress economically. Note the very wealthy got wealthier at the same time incomes stagnated for everyone else. And economic security declined.

It's propaganda.

[simonh]

> That for people in China to not be totally poor the working/middle class in the US need to regress economically.

I clearly, explicitly stated that I don't think that's the case.

I don't think the rise of China has really cost much in the way of working/middle class incomes. I think that's largely due to increasing automation, but rising inequality is certainly part of the equation.

[Gibbon1]

> I don't think the rise of China has really cost much in the way of working/middle class incomes.

This contradicts your original statement.

[tiatia]

"By almost every and any measure, we are all better off than 30, 40 or 50 years ago - Chinese, Americans, Indians, Europeans, almost everyone. There IS a subset within those places that has benefited less, or even gone backwards, no doubt."

I think you could doubt this for European and Americans. Yes, you have scientific progress. You can afford a hand-held super computer now. You can afford a car with 150 HP. You may get treatment for a disease that would have killed you 30 years ago. But:

- 50% youth unemployment rate in Spain? - Out of control house prices due to asset price inflation? - Central Banks Zero interest rates with unknown consequences. - And ever rising retirement age due to basically bankrupt retirement funds (yes, we live longer too) - Out of control health care costs in the US - Totally out of control big brother regulations

Once you were able to buy a house, a car, health insurance and raise kids with a single income.

[whack]

You're attacking a straw man. Jack Ma didn't say that things have gotten worse, only that we've engaged in unwise actions. I think that's certainly true. Our lives today may be good, but they would be so much better if we hadn't spent $2T fighting wars in the middle East.

[craigds]

Who goes to the movies more than once a week?

[aszantu]

I go to the movies once every 5-6 years.

[rustynails]

You obviously weren't around in the 70s. Here are a few corrections (there are more, obviously),

>Because in the 1960/70/80s west, people ate only basic food (nothing "foreign" like Thai or Indian), #We often used to eat Chinese food, Indian food and Italian food in the early 70s. I also remember eating Lebanese fast food occasionally too. We lived close to a Chinese restaurant but preferred a takeaway in the next suburb.

>very few had cable TV, and went out at most once a week to the movies. #I went out to the movies more then than I did now. I remember seeing Stat Wars, ET, Close Encounters and a host of other movies. However, this is an odd measure of happiness in my view.

>They never bought an espresso, never owned a modern electronic device like a computer, # seriously? The Commodore PET and a few other home computers were around in the 70s.

>never got to use the internet to settle an argument or play a computer game, unless they were extremely well off and got to play Pong circa say 1980. #Read up on BBS culture (bulletin boards). Plenty of average joes were on there (girls and guys in case you were wondering). I met many women face to face through BBS boards back then. Early nerd girls were fantastic, like my wife!

Now let me give you some examples of modern culture.

1. My local paper has only had one picture of a boy in the last few months (vs dozens of girls). In the 70s, this was always balanced in my local paper and would have been labelled as extremely sexist but no longer is labelled as sexist. Yes, I have hundreds of archived photos from the 70s to prove it. I understand this imbalance is now called "equality" when it's a significantly skewed ratio, according to the overwhelming majority of MSM (media).

2. People could be whatever they want, not this modern politically correct horse shit that encourages extreme sexism.

3. The media in the 70s would never point the finger at little boys being the root cause of domestic violence (see 1800 respect, a government Department who saturated prime time TV with aggressive ads to bully young boys in a manner that shocked most non-sexist people I have spoken to), nor would people in the 70s refuse to acknowledge male victims and female perpetrators of crimes. Yet, it's common today.

4. An average guy (eg. Matt Taylor) would never have been viciously attacked by the media (like The Verge) for wearing a shirt designed by a woman in the 70s. There are plenty of examples of similar aggressive and unfounded attacks in the last 10 years in MSM, all targeting one gender.

I could raise many more points about how screwed up and aggressively sexist we've become. Culturally, the 70s had many advantages over today that are far more important than something flippant like an espresso machine.

In the 70s: Tolerance was ahead of today (look at 70s ads on YouTube for some examples. I really like "care for kids" and "life be in it" as examples of excellent diversity and inclusiveness, despite accusations to the contrary by a very dishonest gender based group starting with F (as in F for fallacy). Social freedom was ahead of today. Open a newspaper from the 70s and you will see far more open mindedness and far less sexism than you do today. It saddens me when I look back because I realise many of the social freedoms we've lost.

No generation is perfect, but, the last 10 years have been terrible for freedom, respect and sexism. I can't think of a decade that comes even close to the lows of today. See code.org and find me an educational institution in the last 50 years that was even close to that sexist. I'm yet to find one, despite code.org toning down the sexism significantly in the last six months. It's still worse than anything from the 70s/80s/90s that I have found.