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Comment by EGreg

2 years ago

I sometimes like to say the facts out loud and challenge people so here it goes.

We live in the safest, least racist, least sexist, least antisemitic generation in history. At the same time, automation and productivity has reduced demand for human labor, and people increasingly can’t afford the rent. Perhaps the answer to many disparities isn’t systemic sexism, racism etc. but economic factors. Whatever you are worried about, your grandparents had it much worse.

Also, let’s improve our systems to stop polluting the environment and destroying ecosystems for corporate profit at the expense of future generations. That’s the major issue of our day, far bigger than climate change.

7 comments

EGreg

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travem  2 years ago

> At the same time, automation and productivity has reduced demand for human labor, and people increasingly can’t afford the rent

Given the juxtaposition of the claims above, I think it is useful to note that demand for labor is still relatively high (unemployment rate at ~3.5% in the US). The reason for unaffordable rents is driven more by the supply of housing not growing along with demand IMO.

  • Cthulhu_  2 years ago

    And demand being artifically inflated by investors (ranging from boomers / gen-X ers who have extra money to Saudi oil barons) who buy up houses with the intent to rent them out or whatever.

robotresearcher  2 years ago

> At the same time, automation and productivity has reduced demand for human labor

We have approximately the lowest unemployment rate in modern history.

  • EGreg  2 years ago

    That’s only a tiny slice of the story.

    It doesn’t count the people who have opted out of the workforce.

    It doesn’t count the job insecuroty of the gig economy. Or the people with terrible conditions.

    It actually underscores the fact that both sexes flooded the labor pool in the last few decades, automation increased and wages got depressed due to all these factors.

    USSR also had near-total employment, for men and women, way earlier than USA did. And ironically, the rent cost a ton less. But people overall couldn’t afford that much.

    Your grandfather could have supported an entire family on one man’s paycheck, and paid for an entire house. Today, millennials onwards can’t afford any of that. The generation of adults with the least savings in probably a century.

    But, as I said, we still have it amaing. Medical advances, technology like air conditioning, electricity and so on. The Internet spreads so much knowledge around the world. I’m just saying that the remaining problems are often rooted in economic issues, more than a rise in “systemic X ism”