youre lucky i didnt include you in that list bucko
Peterson, Harris, etc....
- Thread starter prath92
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youre lucky i didnt include you in that list bucko
That was my point. Americans have no sense of humour
I don't actually know much about the man but that wasn't what came across on what he was saying either. More about where the conversation and debate is that can take place without it being bipartisan. It seemed to me very insightful and thought out. As I said I don't much about the man or his beliefs and standpoints so I have no pony in the race.
Stormfront surely.
It's unfortunate that the drop in access to material wealth has come at a time when people are more materialistic than ever, in much of the Western world. One of the benefits of that economic recession is the generations hurt hardest by it are seeing more to life than material wealth. Sadly other people are going in the opposite direction and becoming bitter and destructive.
You'd think people would be able to accept the idea of having less than their parents, given it's so obvious that many people who can't accept that idea are the ones who grew up with more than they needed. Is it that crazy an idea to see your parents as a fortunate generation, and see your grandparents as a better barometer for what's "fair"? I suppose that would challenge some of the principles of capitalism as we understand it.
But then you'd think that the people who hate capitalism would be more ready to accept that different perspective...and instead it seems they're often the most vocal, and most destructive. It's almost as if what they're directing their anger at isn't actually what they're most angry about, but they like the moral high-ground and reputation that comes with it.
yes that is crazy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46430047
this doesn't make sense, no one wants to change the economic systems because things are going well, why should anyone just sit back and accept that their life will always be shit
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I mean, sure, if you think christian sexual morality is insightful and thought out. It's not the first time he's talked about this kind of thing, and his answer always is "get married and have kids, kids"
there was also the time he was asked about incel violence and like a good christian boy he suggested men would be less violent if they were married as if domestic violence isn't a major issue.
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I'm not sure what you think that report says that refutes what I said, but all I can say is either you've misinterpreted the data or misinterpreted my point. You're so keen to prove your own point that you often don't hear what the other person is saying, particularly when you perceive them to be on the "other side".
People whose lives are shit should want to change their lives in whatever way they see fit. Changing an economic system seems a particularly impractical response to it, but it may well be effective. Or they may not care at all about it being effective, and they just care about the principles. I tend to find more of the latter than the former, but I don't spend my time immersed in that bubble like yourself so I wouldn't know.
There are many people that have a legitimate belief that their lives are shit. There are many other people who have worse lives than their parents, but better lives than their grandparents, and yet think their life is utter misery. That to me is not a particularly useful perspective to take, for the individual or the society they live in. And it doesn't seem that difficult to change your perspective, personally. Not having as good a life as your parents is not a disaster. Not having a home by your mid 30s is not a tragedy. It's just difficult, like most of our grandparents experienced - and in many cases worse. They had some things we don't have, don't have many things we do have, and have lived through situations much more traumatic.
it's not the people who grew up with more than they needed who are struggling, their parents don't start being poor when they become adults, it's people who's parents struggled who struggle more and more. and the reason for that is decades of wage stagnation and wealth concentration.
the rate of home ownership for people who didn't have home owning parents has halved in 2 decades for fecks sake
also you've said literally nothing here, it's so devoid of anything approaching a point that it's honestly like reading a badly designed horoscope generator
actually it's worse, because horoscopes sometimes tell you to look for love and be nice to people
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I'm not sure how you perceive yourself but on here you don't make useful, substantive points, you just let everyone know you're angry and let people know you think they're a dickhead. So feel free to criticise all you want man, means nothing to me, but you might want to look in the mirror
Yes, quoting the word dickhead there is very illuminating. Because I wasn't calling you a dickhead, nor do I think you are one. What I was saying was you give the impression you think that of many people, based on your tone. Either you weren't able to understand that, or you wanted to twist someone's words because it makes you feel better. You do one of those two things almost all the time, filled with passive aggression.
I don't need to look in the mirror because I accept your criticisms. Sometimes I'm a dick. Like I said it means nothing to me. I'm just saying, if you think it's worth pointing out to someone else that they aren't making substantive and useful points, that's cool. But that's how you are all the time.
for the record "well, your grandparents had a world war you so you're luckier" isn't a substantive point, it's vacuous and completely misses the point of economic critiques that at no point claim that we have a harder life than people getting killed in wars
you waded in calling people who want to change the economic system aggressive spoiled twats on their high horses, then responded to actual research showing that it's poorer families who disproportionately suffer with another rant about having it better than their grandparents, like some kind of Dickensian parody where if you're not literally living under a bridge you should shut your mouth and know your place
why would i respond to that with anything other than contempt?
You might think you have a better grasp of the economic critiques and the validity of them than I do. That's cool. For the record, I am of the same generation, face the same problems, and speak to literally hundreds of thousands of people as part of my job on a wide range of social and economic issues. I listen to all of them.
If you think that the children of parents with homes don't feel the same way you do, I think you're only seeing what you want to see. You are so focused on the people worst off thar you can't see that the people who are doing perfectly fine on a huge number of objective measures that think they're suffering miserably.
My view is they are wrong, unhelpful and they aren't furthering the cause they claim to support. They're making things harder for the people who need it most, either because they don't really give a feck about them or because they have a distorted sense of reality.
That doesn't mean I'm ignoring the genuine economic hardship or the huge number of social and economic issues we face as a country and as a generation. I just don't share your view in totality and you like to attack people who challenge yours.
At no point have I been ranting. The reason you interpret it that way is because you want to, because you like to argue, or because you spend so much time in that bubble. I was perfectly happy to have an open conversation supported by lots of good research you've read. I have no interest in pretending I have read everything, know everything or see everything clearly. You learn by speaking to others with different views. You didn't have any interest in that. No need to spin it any other way - you are who you are, own it.
you say that like it's a bad thing
and this isn't really true in the slightest, just because Tony Benn was born to aristocrats doesn't mean his work helping people gets voided
Your focus on the people worst off is admirable. It's also necessary for some people to do that. It just means you're not able to listen to any other part of the conversation, and attack people when you misunderstand their position. I wasn't saying the people you are talking about are not suffering. I was talking about a huge number of others, who are very real and very significant, that I think harm the people you're so keen to defend.
Ultimately, I don't see why being so aggressive to a bunch of strangers on the internet benefits anyone. If you spend all your free time thinking and talking about this, you're doing no one any favours putting it on here. Volunteer with some of these people and you'll be much more satisfied, and people here will suffer less. Choosing not to just means that what you really want is to get angry at people. Which is fine, but don't pretend it's something else.
Again that wasn't the subject in the video he was talking about. He was talking about a middle ground that can be discussed in political spheres that both sides could talk about without raising their bipartisan drawbridge, It had nothing to do with any Christian sexual morality. I'm not saying he doesn't advocate that ( I have no idea as I don't know enough about him ) but it wasn't in that video.
that is his MO
"let's have a rational discussion about responsible sexual practices"
if topic is abortion it then follows like this:
"well abortion is immoral, but you can't make it illegal, and that's not the point anyway, you have to see why it happens"
list couple of points why abortion happens, land on promiscuity
"well, people don't talk about sex when they have it, since women and men have the same sexual agency as men thanks to the revolutionary technology in the pill" completely ignoring decades of people talking about sexual practices
end with some classic christian morality about getting married and having children as in the videos I also posted in the last page
Again you're reading what you want to read, not what I'm saying. If you want substantive conversations this isn't the way to achieve it.
I don't talk to people like Tony Benn. I talk to people like you or me. People with enough free time and energy to talk about these things in a football forum. Or, put another way, people who do not suffer from true economic hardship. I have honestly spoken to more of these people than I can count, and analysed all kinds of data on the issues. You can dismiss my views but you can't dismiss my right to a view on them. I do also speak to people with the kind of economic hardship you speak of, but naturally there's less money invested in hearing their voices.
what, you know we've got posters here who were/are homeless yeah? posters who are primary carers for loves ones and struggle financially, etc. etc. it's a free website not a 5 star hotel on a private island
no one ever does this, this is another vacuous thing that doesn't mean anything
It doesn't surprise me that we have people who have been homeless. I would be shocked if we have people who spend as much time as you discussing the issues you do in the way you do that are also homeless. But like I say, I don't claim to know or see everything.
What economic position are you in? Maybe I have misjudged entirely. If we are literally living in different economic worlds then I understand your position much better. I would guess you are not in a different position to many of my friends who take the same stance you do.
Alternatively, you can continue sniping. But then don't complain about the lack of substantive conversation. You have a role in that.
There's a fine line between that comment and the point you're dismissing as ridiculous. My opinion isn't allowed, is how I read it.
I'm self employed and only had a few years where i made enough to pay income tax, proper broke
but it doesn't have anything to do with it, you don't have to be poor to want to change the economic system and it's a little insulting that you'd think that
I assumed you'd know Dickens. He portrayed capitalists who would subjugate the lower classes and that's what I was referring to.
No, I want to change the economic system. Just not in the way you do, to the extent you do. And you are in the same situation as some of my friends and family. I was there not long ago. I know what desperation and frustration is.
For you to need to go on verbal assaults at any opportunity, would suggest you're struggling to survive and desperate for someone, anyone, to hear. Even strangers on the internet with no power snd often no interest. If that's how you feel, fair enough. I hope that changes. I don't feel that way about myself, or about you. But I'm ignorant to your life.
I'll leave it here because no-one likes to read any of this. I would personally prefer if you were to be less quick to attack others. But if you need to, you need to. Here's to a better new year.
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The HYPOCRISY of Ben Shapiro
https://thinkprogress.org/ben-shapi...re-trump-conservative-hypocrisy-99ecd0a7940d/
https://thinkprogress.org/ben-shapi...re-trump-conservative-hypocrisy-99ecd0a7940d/
The problem is though that this isn't down to some freak disaster or accident, there are very noticeable and obvious reasons as to why our generation may end up being worse off than our parents, and most reasonable attempts at pointing this out are often shouted down or dismissed. Similarly, youngsters today often face being called snowflakes or are perceived as being 'weak' by the very same generation whose greed has left us in a worse off position economically. I'd understand annoyance at the anger of many young people if older generations were realising their mistakes and rectifying them to help us - the problem is that they're doing the exact opposite, presuming you're not keen on Trump or Brexit. Youngsters who aren't well-off or who are struggling are often just told they're not doing enough to get a job when the reality is that a lot of jobs aren't available now, and we live in an economic system where you're inevitably going to get some people who fail and need the help of the state - the very same system plenty of people have/or want to dismantle in many first-world countries.
The idea that things are just a little bit worse off as well largely depends on how the next few decades go as well. At the moment it may only be a slight reduction in material status we face, but if the climate continues to worsen things could get dramatically worse. And I'd say there's not really any room to sit around and hope such an issue goes away: it's got to be addressed, and (again) it's mainly older generations who caused the climate crisis who are hindering progress on that regard, or who deny the issue altogether. Again, the anger here is very understandable.
I do get what you're saying. Some of the leftists on here don't particularly offer anything substantive other than snide remarks at times and don't particularly contribute to the discussion. Similarly they often seem so angry and dismissive of anyone who doesn't share their own views that you're often not sure as to who they're trying to help. By the same token though, they're coming from a perspective where 'niceness' hasn't particularly helped the left in recent years, and has often just been a code word for centrists implementing fairly right-wing policy. Similarly the rise of Trump has shown that plenty of people are ultimately willing to vote for a politician who's uninterested in compromise and is brazen in promoting his own agenda, something the left arguably believe they need to do as well. I get the need for civil discussion but at the same point civil discussion is only often possible where people have views that come from a reasonably similar spectrum, where disagreements are minor, instead of being cases where people's entire political philosophies are at odds with one another. So, yeah, I get what you're saying. But at the same time I understand why a lot of youngsters are ultimately sick and tired of being told to engage in respectful discussion.
Good post but not sure what you mean by the bit in bold?
In what way is "greed" from Gen X the reason for the economic woes the younger generations are now facing? I'm not even sure you could justify that same accusation against Baby Boomers.
I think the way young people need someone to blame for their woes is part of the reason we have so much hostility from politicially active youngsters on t'internet (left and right wingers alike) If you're a lefty you need to be seen to despise the rich (and people from older generations). If you're a right winger, then direct your hatred at immigrants, snowflakes and the thought police.
Nobody seems to be willing/able to accept that maybe, just maybe, the ups and downs of the global economy are beyond the control of any specific individual, or group of inviduals. Which has always seemed the most likely scenario to me.
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Yeah, that's probably worded poorly - Gen X'ers aren't really as culpable as the Boomers for a lot of the problems we're seeing now. I do agree that there's a bit of danger in blaming a collective group as a whole - ultimately people are moulded and shaped by the world around them, and so if you were to place youngsters now in the situation of the Boomers you'd still likely see plenty of economic greed.
But I still do think a lot of the anger is generally understandable. The policies of politicians like Thatcher and Reagan in the 80s were a deliberate attempt to shift the economic paradigm firmly to the right, and since then it's remained that way. We've been seeing inequality widen in many first-world countries for a while and there haven't been any substantive attempts to rectify or address this, with many major countries if anything trying to cut taxes for the richest under some vague notion of it being good for business when it's fairly clear said inequalities aren't going to be addressed through approaches like austerity. And again - blaming collective groups or casting them as evil isn't necessarily a particularly good approach, but similarly issues like climate change have been caused by generations who came before this one, and it'll be our lot who mostly find ourselves left to address it. And a lot of older people aren't personally to blame for that - most of them are just trying to go about their lot and do what they can to get by. But I do think some of the anger is understandable when our generations find itself cast off as having it easy or being lazy, or being too easily offended etc.
Agree with most of this, with the one big caveat in a similar vein to Pogue's. The angst that is directed at a particular generation or portion of the population with a certain worldview seems misplaced, to me. I disagree with Pogue that it isn't any group's fault. I think the people in power are at fault, and in a lot of cases they're doing it for explicitly selfish reasons.
I just disagree with the idea that their supporters are at fault too. I think their supporters are mostly irrelevant. The people in power are making major decisions that no political group / supporters want. I understand some anger at the supporters, but blame? Personally I think that's misplaced and a pointless waste of emotional, mental and physical energy on both sides. At the very least, it's a waste of time to direct that energy at the passive supporters, who ultimately are the majority. It's a kind of active ignorance that shouldn't be legitimised, because it's only going to make things worse.
It's not that I think they shouldn't do it for the sake of civil conversation. I just think they're not furthering their own goals that way. It makes total sense as a response to the decades of being overly nice. I just think the new approach isn't very useful either. Partly that's because any approach doesn't achieve all that much because they have very little influence, because the power structures have been fortified and designed to make it so. But it's also just not an effective tactic in general.
There's no doubt young people's issues are dismissed, patronised and twisted in all kinds of ways to fit people's agendas, and sometimes for selfish reasons. Donald Trump doesn't care about the environment because he doesn't care about people. It's not that he thinks there will be an environmental disaster and he doesn't care, nor does he think pushing coal will save the world. He just doesn't care enough to consider the implications for everyone else, decades after his death.
That active ignorance from the person responsible for making these decisions is infuriating and makes you want to scream and force them to listen. The reality is, that doesn't work. Screaming at people on The street that voted for this guy has more instant gratification but it doesn't achieve the goals you're screaming about in the first place either. So if you're screaming just because you need to let it out, that's cool, there's all sorts of things to get angry about. But don't dress it up as anything more than that.
It's interesting that people blame Thatcher and Reagan for the current shit show when their time in power was followed by the most affluent couple of decades in modern history. And that affluence was felt throughout society, top to bottom. It's only when the economy faltered that we saw austerity politics come into play and genuine economic hardship start to increase.
Which partly explains why I'm a bit nihilist when it comes to politics. Even when you have obvious right wing shit gibbons like Reagan and Thatcher in power, you can end up with a massively improved standard of living for everyone, whether they were rich or poor to begin with. Similarly, ousting them for the far left flavour of the month carries absolutely no guarantee that this will improve life for the majority of people. In fact, we've feck all evidence from anywhere in the world, anywhere in history, that Corbyn's ideology has a realistic chance of making the world a better place. Certainly not for longer than the 20+ years of affluence that followed on from the era when Thatcher/Reagan were in power.
To me it just seems like politicians fiddle round the edges, while a relentlessly increasing human population and technological advances cycles us through booms and busts, with different generations either lucking out or being fecked over by the timing of the up and down turns in the global economy. I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who tries to tell me that their ideology is the "correct" one and we'd all be grand if it wasn't for the other guy, who ruined it for everyone.' But maybe that's just me. I do quite envy the certainty of youth. Life feels much more straightforward when you can so easily identify the enemy. I just think reality is far too complicated to try to apportion blame like that.
Which decades were people overly nice in? Segregation was law in living memory. Marital rape was legal over the world until the 90s. Homosexuality was illegal and gay people castrated in living memory. We've invaded several countries and bombed their people. Theresa May installed a hostile environment for foreign people and Labour responded by trying to be tough on immigrants as well. ICE is currently keeping children in cages. The war on drugs has been going for decades and targeting minorities. When the feck were were too nice?
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That's true but then the economics they espoused was largely predicated on a bubble which eventually burst in the last crash. And there's no reason as to why the societal advances achieved in the years after they were in power couldn't have been achieved with someone in power who was less to the right and wasn't intent on fecking over the poorest out there in the meantime.
I do think it's fair to be suspicious of alternative options though, for a variety of reasons. People are ultimately imperfect and plenty of those on the left will happily lose their convictions or use them for ill if they get the chance to do so, as is the case with people from all political persuasions.
But I do think that major issues like climate change are only ultimately going to be solved by certain rethinks of how we approaches things economically from perspectives that firmly don't come from the right. And while absolutism isn't necessarily the best approach, I similarly don't think it's always the case that solid left-wing government can't lead to substantial improvements for people. The introduction of the welfare state in Britain came from solidly left-wing thinking and had roots in socialism and was probably the most substantial transformation we've seen in Britain in regards to improving quality-of-life and lifting people out of poverty in the long-term. Similarly FDR's New Deal policies were beneficial for a great many people and were often opposed by the richest in society who felt those same policies would harm them from a business perspective. Figures like Attlee and FDR were often prone to compromise and were certainly far from perfect in many respects, but I'd similarly say they're examples of people who were able to lead governments that transformed their respective nations with policies that came from left-wing perspectives. Of course, you can't necessarily approach things exactly like they did - society changes, and in that regard you need to change how you want to implement policy with the aim of helping people.
Really? Reagan = 1980-88. Even if you don't want to consider the inequality and class aspect of it, that grey median line didn't seem to be doing anything dramatic in the 80s.
Yes, really. I'm going with 90s and 00s as the two decades following Reagan/Thatcher. Probably out by a few years, here and there, but was addressing the point that they shifted the paradigm to the right and everyone has been screwed since then. The data you've shown there shows that everyone (including 20th percentile income) had a pretty good time in that era.Really? Reagan = 1980-88. Even if you don't want to consider the inequality and class aspect of it, that grey median line didn't seem to be doing anything dramatic in the 80s.
EDIT: Although tbf it also shows that inequality got a lot worse from the 80s onwards. Which is presumably the point @Cheesy was making.
EDIT Part Deux: Although it also confirms that everyone is a lot better off right now, in 2018, than their parents or grandparents generations. Make of that what you will!
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ah yes, the teens where *checks notes* life expectancy is decreasing and we've been given a dozen year deadline to fix the environment
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...and-other-high-income-countries-idUSKCN1L723R
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...and-other-high-income-countries-idUSKCN1L723R
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report
I'm not sure that attributing the boom of the 90s entirely to them is correct- after all one judges politicians primarily by what happens under their watch- I think the emergence of computers might have a more important role, as well as the collapse of the USSR and worldwide lowering of trade barriers which gave western capital more places to go and more profits to collect. Of course, the availability of cheap credit, at least partly an effect of Reagan and Thatcher's deregulation, further fueled this boom.
The growth of the 2000s was stopped by a recession from which there has been little recovery (basically a reversion to 2008 numbers in the US, not even that in the UK); this recession might well be tied to the nature of the increase itself, especially the deregulation/financialisation.
The end result of this era, has been that the bottom 20% are literally stuck where they were before Reagan and the median has struggled to a 20% increase, while the top 5% have almost doubled their wealth.
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