
Noam Chomsky: Life Expectancy in the US Is Declining for a Reason - tomerbd
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-declining-for-a-reason/
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tgragnato
> Half the population has negative net worth, meaning debts outweigh assets.
> There has been stagnation pretty much for the workforce over the whole
> neoliberal period. That’s the group that we’re talking about. Naturally,
> this leads to anger, resentment, desperation. Similar things are happening
> in Europe under the austerity programs. That’s the background for what’s
> misleadingly called “populism.”

The way Chomsky thinks (and expresses himself) is always fascinating. The
linguistic background is as evident as his political activism, perhaps a tad
uncomfortable for conformists.

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yostrovs
It would be nice for him to stick to topics he's an expert in. Though
considering he's a "word" guy, he does know how to manipulate language to
achieve his goals.

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avmich
I'd assume that for long time he's an expert in much more than linguistics.
Even his colleagues from computer world still assume he's only a linguist, but
a man can learn.

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achenatx
Interesting that the article barely covers the reason for the decline of life
expectancy. Instead he goes on a very long tangent about the second amendment.
Murder rates are continuing to decrease, so the murder rate has nothing to do
with the decrease in life expectancy.

It could be as simple as overprescription of them and aggressive marketing and
sales by manufacturers.

This article goes into the actual statistics which are impacting the life
expectancy.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-
li...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-
expectancy-declines-again-a-dismal-trend-not-seen-since-world-
war-i/2018/11/28/ae58bc8c-f28c-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e7200cf4a8ec)

Chomsky asserts (without evidence) that opioid abuse is a disease of despair
and that it is a result of unemployment and the wealth gap. He doesnt provide
any data or citations demonstrating this link.

It seems that it is more likely that opioids became over prescribed as a
result of aggressive marketing and sales by pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Ironically the factor protecting nonwhite communities from opioid addiction is
the lack of health insurance to meet with doctors that can prescribe them.

This paper supports prescription as the possible underlying cause.

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2723625)

<<Conclusions and Relevance The race/ethnicity and income pattern of opioid
overdoses mirrored prescription rates, suggesting that differential exposure
to opioids via the health care system may have induced the large, observed
racial/ethnic gradient in the opioid epidemic. Across drug categories,
controlled medications were much more likely to be prescribed to individuals
living in majority-white areas. These discrepancies may have shielded nonwhite
communities from the brunt of the prescription opioid epidemic but also
represent disparities in treatment and access to all medications.>>

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Accipitriform
I guess Chomsky didn't point out the fact that opioid deaths fell last year
for the first time in around 30 years. That actually dovetails with the idea
that increased opportunity, low unemployment and improved wages helps.

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mgamache
Liberals have embraced capitalism leading to stagnation? I prefer Eric
Weinstein's formulation of the root cause. There has been limited
technological growth in almost all tech fields (except semi-conductors) from
1970 through present day. Physics, chemistry and biology for example are not
producing new technology that fuels growth. The explosive growth in semi-
conductors and computers have obscured this reality. We have greater knowledge
in all those fields today, but it's not translating to the rate of tangible
progress that was seen in previous years (like 1920-1970).

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mikojan
I think you don't actually disagree with Chomsky. This is what you'd expect
(1) shifting resources from the public sector to the private sector and (2)
financializing the economy because a corporation is by design oriented towards
short-term profits and highly trained workers such as mathematicians and
physicists are being tied up in finance.

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mcv
The smartest people today are working on optimizing the number of ad clicks
for Facebook and Google, or on optimizing profits on stock market
manipulations for Goldman Sachs and the like.

A lot of talent is used not to create new value for society, but to optimize
profits for rich people.

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closeparen
Why are business paying Google and Facebook for those ads?

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dev_north_east
The shocking obesity epidemic?

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musicale
I doubt Chomsky is the entire reason.

