
The Debate on Whether America’s Best Days Are Past, or Ahead - w1ntermute
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/business/economy/a-somber-view-of-americas-pace-of-progress.html
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oldmanjay
Consider the framing of the article, using a tv show to describe the reality
of the past. Is there more than a vanishingly small percentage of people who
have ever lived as a sitcom portrays?

With such an intellectually bankrupt start, and remember, this is a framing
device meant to set your opinion on a guided track, what could we actually
expect to get from this article?

~~~
bsbechtel
>>this is a framing device meant to set your opinion on a guided track

This is all too common with the NY Times.

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oldmanjay
It is common with all media. The key is to be aware of the framing and
question what the author wants you to believe is true.

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bsder
I think that people are far too pessimistic and have lost sight of the end
goal.

The goal is not to create _productivity_. The goal is to create _leisure_.
And, so far, we've done a really shitty job of that.

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x5n1
That's the thing, we were all supposed to be living luxurious lives, instead
we're working 60 hour work weeks. And the elite think that more of that should
be in store for us, you know because the economy just isn't doing all that
well. Mainly because they are busy disrupting everything and automating it,
using massive piles of capitals they have amassed on our backs to coerce us to
work harder and produce more with less money -- productivity.

With automation they need less of our work, so we should work more for less,
while the capital they have amassed does most of the work through automation.

Logically nothing we do as a species makes sense unless looked through the
logic of economics, consumption, and production. It's a system with its own
logic and we are so conditioned to think in its terms that we can think of no
other way of organizing people and/or work.

The best days for America was the American Dream as George Carlin said you
have to dreaming to believe it. It was simply a hope that more of that money
would trickle down to pretty much anyone if they worked hard enough.

That hope is no longer there. No matter which way you frame it.

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FreedomToCreate
Pretty Cynical there. Its really all about perspective. Look at this.

As we continue to automate things, we reduce the time and effort required to
manufacture the things we need. This creates an immense amount of leisure
time. As we focus on creating social systems which provide basic income and
living needs, we are currently on trajectory for a system where people can
choose to do whatever they want, with complete leisure. All need for food and
devices is sustained by machines, we are provided with all basic needs by the
government and you can do whatever your heart desires.

Now people may think that is pointless, but imagine what people could
accomplish with the ability to pursue anything they want. There is 7 billion
people on this planet. Its impossible to expect everyone achieving the
american dream through sheer handwork.

~~~
wfo
>As we continue to automate things, we reduce the time and effort required to
manufacture the things we need. This creates an immense amount of leisure
time.

The first sentence has been very true as we progress with technology and the
economy, etc. The second has not followed and there is no reason to believe it
will. Less time and less effort will be required to produce, but that will not
translate to leisure time for the underclass (it never has -- benefits go to
the people who have the power to decide where the benefits go tautologically,
i.e. capitalists), it will translate to more profit for the overclass.

So long as wealth inequality continues to get worse and we dive wholeheartedly
into capitalism progress will just mean centralization of wealth and a
stratification of the overlords and the peasantry who work until they drop
being paid nothing for someone else's profit.

Embracing socialism a little more will help, and failing that the wealthy may
realize living surrounded by unwashed hungry angry violent masses is
unpleasant and set up some kind of charity for those who behave according to
their wishes.

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x5n1
In the past the over-class needed the peasants and serfs to mind the farms.
They no longer need the peasants and serfs for anything. The capitalist class
needed them to produce goods they could sell for a profit. We basically need
some role for the elites to play to justify giving money to other people that
they no longer need.

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FreedomToCreate
I think the cynical thing here is assuming that the Elite class will continue
to grow and make the lower economic classes suffer at their expense. The thing
is though that being overly rich in a shit world is not much of a benefit to
anyone. The Elite could set up there own little world (I'm kind of thinking
like Elysium), but even that eventually will break into some elites who have
more than other elites, and the cycle repeats.

The system will improve once we democratize resources more and more.

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chishaku
> The system will improve once we democratize resources more and more.

Where do you see evidence of this happening?

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FreedomToCreate
To use a tech example, look at computers. Just 20 years ago they were
extremely expensive and out of the hands of many people, especially schools in
poorer communities. Through manufacturing processes, we have driven there
price extremely low (ex raspberry pi) enabling even the poorest communities to
have access to learning programming and creating things. This would not be
possible without the democratization of technology.

Another example is food. Advances in science and agriculture have enabled us
to create vast amounts of fruits, vegetables, etc... and our distribution
system allows for these resources to reach even the smallest of communities;
And this can be done at extremely low costs. Here is a way to put it into
perspective. 50 years ago you couldn't go to a rural community in Northern
Canada and get a pomegranate without paying a huge premium to have it
delivered there from a warm country where it is grown, thus only rich people
in that community could enjoy a pom. Now, Poms are growing readily and moved
around the world, so for a couple dollars anyone can enjoy one.

That is the power of democratization of technology and resources, and the next
big step is democratizing our financial systems and marketplaces to distribute
wealth better.

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ranprieur
This whole debate seems philosophically sloppy. The rate of return on capital
investments, the pace of technological change, the disposable income of
ordinary people, and subjective quality of life are all different things that
are only loosely related. But if we throw around the word "progress" without
carefully defining it, we might imagine they're all the same thing.

~~~
nabla9
The central issue is economic growth, not some wague "progress". You should
read Gordon's research paper, not articles about them if you want more rigor.

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315](http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315)

>Even if innovation were to continue into the future at the rate of the two
decades before 2007, the U.S. faces six headwinds that are in the process of
dragging long-term growth to half or less of the 1.9 percent annual rate
experienced between 1860 and 2007. These include demography, education,
inequality, globalization, energy/environment, and the overhang of consumer
and government debt. A provocative "exercise in subtraction" suggests that
future growth in consumption per capita for the bottom 99 percent of the
income distribution could fall below 0.5 percent per year for an extended
period of decades.

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TheOtherHobbes
Which just makes the point - growth is a meaningless statistic if it's not
widely distributed.

A more accurate statistic would be median disposable income, as a proxy for
general economic self-determination - and that's been on a steady downward
slope since the 1970s.

The tragedy is that there's plenty of physical work that could be done,
outside the pointless confines of Web 2.0. The US and the rest of the West
needs better energy distribution grids, smart everything, renewable power, and
mitigation against climate change.

A lot of the existing infrastructure, including surface transport, is barely
fit for purpose. Improved education at all levels is an easy win. And so on...

None of this is likely to happen within current economic and political
narratives. So yes - the US and the West do not have a bright future, unless
the narratives change.

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stult
I'm really sick of seeing articles about this guy's book. He identifies a
trend and claims that the trend will continue. Yet the existence of the trend
itself has no inherent predictive value.

Current income inequality does not tell us anything about tomorrow's policy
environment and its effects on future income inequality. Demography considered
in isolation does not predict economic growth. Decreased labor force
participation from boomer retirements may in fact reduce inequality by
restricting the supply of labor and raising its price.

Not to mention that he blithely refuses to consider what technological
advances are actually in the R&D pipeline and how they may affect economic
growth. Any one of the long list of potential tech revolutions over the next
20 years could reverse the trend. Fusion and miniaturized fusion (e.g. what
they're developing at Skunkworks) could completely eliminate emissions and
completely crash energy prices. Self-driving cars and trucks will drastically
reduce transportation costs. Imagine the effect of fusion-powered 99%
automated ships on the cost of global supply chains. Biotech is increasing
quality of life and the length of time workers are able to participate in the
workforce while cutting down on time spent out of the workforce due to
disability or illness. And that's just scratching the surface.

Gordon fails to realize that innovation tends to happen in bursts. Information
technology did not have as much of a direct impact on productivity as previous
technological revolutions, but it has impacted innovation itself and will
increase the frequency of those bursts.

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pj_mukh
Two quick things,

-Has America ever considered that it is not a loss of American power as much as its an equalization of power across the world. Everyone wants what America has and roughly, they are getting it. This should not really diminish what America has or will get. This does not need to be zero-sum.

-There are a couple of things that keep America ahead of everyone else (even though as I established, it is pointless) and that is soft-power and immigration. Everyone wants what the latest Hollywood star has and everyone wants to move close to Hollywood (or other American power centers).

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beamatronic
Whenever I read an article like this I think, well, what is the purpose of
life anyway? I like to think our destiny is to colonize other planets. So if
you look at it that way, from an economic point of view, we have built and are
continuing to build the infrastructure needed for future space exploration and
colonization.

~~~
dsabanin
What will we do on other planets? Begin building new infrastructure to
colonize more planets? I think that's a philosophy of a virus dressed in a
shiny space suit with NASA logo on it.

Exploration is great and it's worth pursuing, but making it a main goal and
coincidently (or on purpose) an excuse for ruining our only real existing
livable planet is I think wrong.

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logfromblammo
Humans are the tools that bacteria use to colonize other planets.

~~~
ferentchak
Richard Dawkins would say it's the gene's tool for colonizing other planets.
Plus if genes are going to survive the sun exploding they are going to have to
get even more mobile :)

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clock_tower
From the article: "What does this portend for our well-being over the next
half century? Has technological progress slowed for good?"

Yes -- but is that a problem? Technology naturally reaches plateaus from time
to time; at present, we're on such a plateau, able to catch our breath and
more fully deploy our ideas before whatever it is that comes next. Africa has
skyscrapers now; who cares if we don't have jetpacks?

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laotzu
>Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of
the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The
machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires,
namely, in providing him with wealth.

-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964

~~~
ableal
An under-appreciated little book. Although sometimes pushing its theses past
the breaking point, it sports quite a few interesting insights.

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jordanpg
I've heard of Gordon before, and I've understood his important point to be
less about innovation and productivity, and more about the remarkable
historical and technological circumstances of post-war America and the
associated economic growth that Americans tend to accept (insist?) as _de
rigueur_.

It was a perfect storm of capital, values, and scientific progress, but
notably, it has never been seen before and it is unlikely to last forever.

I think because comfortable (say, median income or better) Americans literally
cannot even imagine how uncomfortable things can actually get (or how
uncomfortable they actually are in some places) these conversations tend
towards unwarranted optimism.

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warfangle
> the remarkable historical and technological circumstances of white, cis-
> gendered, cis-sexual male post-war America

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dominotw
NPR had a debate recently about this

[http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-
debates/item/1...](http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-
debates/item/1251-declinists-be-damned-bet-on-america)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FseKcahmDiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FseKcahmDiA)

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rconti
Life expectancy has 'only' increased by 10% in 50 years? That sounds pretty
damn good to me.

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tokenadult
Moreover, contrary to opinions often expressed on Hacker News, the demographic
data from all countries with good data show that increases in healthy lifespan
are occurring at all ages, even age 40, age 60, or age 80. "Humans are living
longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries
can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human
longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an
average of six hours a day."[1]

[1]
[http://www.prb.org/Multimedia/Video/2010/humanlongevity.aspx](http://www.prb.org/Multimedia/Video/2010/humanlongevity.aspx)

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sjg007
They are always ahead of us.

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mwfunk
What's depressing is that I think most of us would agree that America's best
days are not the current era, therefore they must be in the past or future. :(

~~~
drzaiusapelord
What metric exactly makes you think things are in a decline? Currently GDP per
capita $53,041.98 (2013). Human Development Index Rank: 8. Unemployment rate
5%. GDP $17T, worldwide rank #1 ($3T in 1980 which is $8.6T fixed for
inflation, so DOUBLE the GDP of the 80s). Violent crime rate 4.4 percent,
lowest since 1970s, etc.

Those pining for the productivity of the 50s and 60s certainly are allowed
their biases, but be aware this includes making sure women and minorities
can't get good jobs and keeping college enrollments expensive and out of reach
for many. You needed to be a middle-class or higher white male to get the
benefits of society at that time. Why do we assume in this hypothetical where
we go back in time and enjoy those peroids that we aren't a woman or a black
person or that we don't care about any of the social issues of the time?

Also, I hope you're not a steelworker in 1960's in this scenario or actually
any manufacturing, because in a decade your job will disappear permanently due
to foreign competition. Oh and all the good jobs are "company men" jobs so
daily overtime is expected, drinking with your coworkers is expected after,
socializing only with your coworkers is expected, and the family is the sort
of thing your wife manages and who you interact with on the weekends.

~~~
laotzu
GDP and Unemployment rates are very poor measurements to look to for
indications of "progress"

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ck2
Which "best days of the past" ?

Let's limit it to just the past 50 years to be fair.

The ones where people of color couldn't drink at white water fountains?

Jim Crow laws only ended in 1968 and you can be sure their mindset persisted
for years after that well into the 70s where it may not have been illegal but
it could end your life.

Or maybe it was the vietnam war years?

Maybe it was the decades when two people of different color couldn't marry or
two people of the same gender?

How about the living hell decade Bush put us through over invading Iraq for
literally made up reasons and caused ISIL?

If you think the past was great, you probably were privileged one way or
another and fortunate not to be a minority.

America can only get BETTER, it certainly isn't hard to do better than the
past with all of our poor choices.

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kelukelugames
Remember the 90s? Terrible time for LGBT community.

