Penn Jillette
Because our environment is on the decline. Our oceans are full of plastic, our forests are converted to farmland for cattle, pollution from electronics is rising, and our global climate is changing for the worse.
Even optimistic areas like health care are being confounded by obesity and malnutrition. It’s great that global health care and poverty rates are improving. But in some of our own countries things are getting worse. There’s a growing income inequality and an obesity epidemic. My generation may be the first in a while to have a lower life expectancy than my parents’. Many of my friends are feeling hopeless because their university degrees are buying them 20 hours a week at minimum wage (which has not adjusted for inflation too well) while the cost of housing sky rockets.
In the Eastern US the low point for forest cover was in 1872 [2]. In the western US a major problem is too much ground cover resulting in worse forest fires. (Which is not to say that forests are healthy - the pine beetle epidemic is devastating.)
I'm not going to say things are great, but whether they're better or worse depends on where you look and what you compare against.
[1] https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2017/#air_pollution
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_...
Just like starfish are being laid low by a virus normally kept at bay by lower ocean temperatures (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/scient...), I expect there to be higher rates of unexpected disease in human populations as well.
I think it’s crazy to assume we won’t find answers to the problems you bring up and take a sky is falling attitude when you look at the track record of human progress. Even though your friends are struggling to find jobs, they’re likely living better than John D. Rockefeller did. Doesn’t excuse the problem, but don’t take these things for granted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: it looks from your recent history like you've primarily been using HN for ideological battle. That destroys what this site is supposed to be for, so we ban accounts that do it. Please don't do it. That is also in the site guidelines.
This may be true in material terms but it assumes that material wellbeing is all that counts.
The reason this comment triggered such a strong reaction is that it dismisses the emotional distress that goes along with being at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile.
Factors like student debt, medical costs and the general costs of living in many places put many people into profound distress, that can turn into unbearable chronic misery, for which air conditioning seems like small consolation.
I agree with your overall point, and I am one of those that is able to take an optimistic view of the future and trust that problems that seem like existential threats now can be resolved in time.
But I'd urge you to be sensitive enough to anticipate the kinds of reactions you'll trigger when you make a claim like this, even if it's true by the narrow definition you've chosen.
That comparison to Rockafeller is nonsense. Go ask someone working at McDonald’s if they’d trade places with one of the richest men ever.
When you make absurd conclusions, you should examine your premises.
Not that that actually matters.
Working on challenges tends to remove feelings of hopelessness.
“I‘m surprised your not happy about hardship?”
Do you actually look at something like obesity, or addiction and say “ah, what a great PROBLEM to work on.”
The crux of the article was that people, the media, etc always focus on things getting worse while the data shows they’re getting better. I agree with that. In the future, I will be more careful in expressing myself so as not to arouse resentment. I’ll also stop posting about BTC.
You take these things for granted because you live in a rich enough society that enables you to do so.
You're convinced that anyone who has a problem with their standard of living in America has no perspective, when really you're the one who can't see the perspective of the lower class of someone living in one of the richest countries in the world. Seriously, you're making these arguments on the internet, on a forum where everyone is presumed to be working in technology and therefore not starving, how about you go volunteer at a shelter in your city like I do and tell those people "cheer up! I bet you wouldn't want to switch places with John Rockefeller!"
I know you won't though.
And yes, I would like my perspective to be understood.
Rockefeller could literally pay an army of people to fan him with palm leaves, make sorbet from the ol' ice house and make him fresh iced tea as he walked around town if he wanted.
What the fuck does Rockefeller care if the carrying capacity of agricultural land increases due to the Haber process if his personal consumption would remain the five-star best-in-class ingredients for every meal he ever has if he so chooses. He doesn't care about the mean's position. He is the tail.
The existence of air conditioning and the Haber process doesn't make the life of the working poor better than his.
I understand their point, because they're just repeating the title of a blog post that hit the front page a while back. There was some good faith discussion in that thread between people who disagreed. They didn't start by throwing out a pithy quote and then refusing to respond to someone who presents a valid counter example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16086244).
Please apply your own formula to the post you're replying to. Are you understanding what he's telling you, or just trying to tone police?
What happens when your conversation partner is not actually interested in having a discussion, and simply posits a position then abandons it immediately? Is it fruitful to create a position for them? Is that a fair burden for a responder to bear to batter down weak, fallacious, but amply spread falsities?
Re-reading my comments above, one thing I think that could be improved is the use of "you": it's colloquial to use it to refer to a person in general as opposed to the person you're currently responding to, and that can be misread (perhaps even unconsciously), particularly when discussions get heated.
Do you have other recommendations as to how this might be better conveyed? What indications do you have that I'm misreading 'chickenfries? I recognize that whether I actually am misreading them (which is always a possibility) and whether or not you read me as misreading them are distinct, and it's my responsibility to do my best to reduce the likelihood of mismatch.
As for your last paragraph, ff you've determined your conversation partner is not actually interested in having a discussion, in my opinion it's best to just let the matter drop, which is what I recommended in my initial comment. You're right, I don't think it's fruitful to create a position for them. Continuing the discussion at that point just adds noise and arguably degrades the forum. FWIW, I'll take my own advice here if I decide that my contributions to this thread are contributing more heat than light.
Sure, because you're focused on the quality of conversation. That's what you're optimizing for. For others, who are interested in the quality of available information, posting a quick rebuttal to signal to other readers that the post in question has issues may be preferable.
I see plenty of misleading and dangerous musings about law on the forum from people who don't know better and frankly don't care to know better; your advice would be to walk away. Mine is to signal to individual that there is clear and present danger in treating the post's content as factual.
You view that response as creating noise. I don't.
To be useful and more than noise, it needs to actually rebut the point in line or pointing to additional resources. HN is pretty good on that point: the community is large enough that it's going to get addressed well. Quality of conversation and quality of information needn't be at odds, and both are addressed in the guidelines.