
People in the USA no longer share a common lived experience - rahuldottech
http://larrysummers.com/2019/10/10/we-no-longer-share-a-common-lived-experience/
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fsagx
I humbly offer an alternate title:

"Larry Has No Common Lived Experience with People Outside His Bubble"

Comparing Arlington, VA or any of the top-earning metro areas to Flint, MI
makes little sense to his argument. There are thousands of communities that he
could compare to Flint and find much in common.

A more compelling argument might be: 100 million people throughout the USA
similarly struggle to make ends meet. They unemployed black man in Flint has a
great deal in common with the under-employed white woman working at walmart in
Peoria, Larry just can't see it.

~~~
jccalhoun
Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? Even in purely
economic terms anyone who wasn't a white male would disagree that there has
ever been a time when this was true.

~~~
coldtea
> _Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience?_

In eras with much less inequality? In eras without so easy access to echo
bubbles? In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your
preferences/prejudices?

The "the world was always exactly the same" / "we never had it as good as
today in any aspect" argument is getting tiresome, on top of being
ahistorical.

~~~
otterley
I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there
was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is
now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were
more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men
and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and
minorities.

I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t
getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial
shaft.

~~~
coldtea
> _I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there
> was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is
> now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men
> were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between
> men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and
> minorities._

There are different kinds of equality (equality between the sexes, races,
economic, etc).

Economic inequality, which are talking about here, was less in decades past:
"The Great Divergence is a term given to a period, starting in the late 1970s,
during which income differences increased in the US and, to a lesser extent,
in other countries":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_\(inequality\))

> _I can’t think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn’t
> getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the
> proverbial shaft._

Which is neither here nor there. Even at that, there have been periods and
societies much better than 2019 US in almost all of those aspects.

The very concern of "white" vs else is a US one, due to its "melting pot"
nature (and the very recent historical baggage of slavery, segregation, etc.
Other European countries for example where done with that shit for centuries,
not merely until the ...70s). And of course, in more homogeneous societies
(all white, all asian, all black, etc) those things weren't a concern.

~~~
UncleMeat
But this is precisely the sort of analysis that writes over racial minorities,
women, the incarcerated, and gay people.

Yes, economic inequality is greater now. But "let's just ignore the other
kinds" while lamenting the loss of shared experiences snacks of blinders.

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sixtypoundhound
"Invest more in education" seems to be a bad pattern.

We need to invest in job creation; a lot of those newly "educated" people have
only raised their fixed costs while competing for the same jobs (that don't
require the degree)

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lukebuehler
What about consumerism? Things like going to the mall, Center Street, your
nearby strip mall, huge grocery store, and amusement parks. All these things
have a distinctive North American flavor and are quite homogeneous across the
US and Canada.

~~~
coldtea
> _Things like going to the mall, Center Street, your nearby strip mall, huge
> grocery store, and amusement parks. All these things have a distinctive
> North American flavor and are quite homogeneous across the US and Canada._

And all of those things have been in decline, especially malls and "center
street"...

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pseingatl
Not true. The sole, unifying common and shared American tribal experience
continues to be high school.

~~~
robbyt
Don't you think highschool is a bit different in NYC compared to Nebraska?

~~~
hannasanarion
Not significantly. I did high school in a farming town in rural South Jersey
and a Phoenix suburb and didn't notice that big of a difference other than
that the building was newer and nobody wanted to spend time outside.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I did high school in a farming town in rural South Jersey and a Phoenix
> suburb and didn't notice that big of a difference

I did public high school in one of the bigger cities in California's Centela
Valley and in a relatively affluent suburb on the fringes of the Bay Area
(and, for a brief while, a third place less than 50 miles from the second) and
noticed huge differences at all three that had nothing to do with physical
infrastructure or climate.

~~~
pseingatl
In what ways were there "huge" differences? No cliques? No sports teams?
Vastly different curricula?

~~~
dragonwriter
Violence, race relations, involvement of street gangs, degree and nature of
law enforcement presence and regular interaction on campus, nature and
pervasiveness of drug culture, diversity of academic and extracurricular
opportunities; some of these in exactly the way you'd expect based on relative
wealth and demographics of the various districts, though the differences in
the last went the other way, I suspect because they were controlled more by
the size of both the school and the district.

Some of that (most except the last and possibly the penultimate) probably
would be attenuated (though still present) in the experience of middle class
and higher white students.

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coldtea
Inequality will do that for you...

Not knowing "how the other half lives" was always a thing, but at least back
in the day was easier to see if one cared.

Now with so much of life spend in the artificial world of echo bubbles, the
internet, social media, secluded communities, gentrified areas, coasts and
inner states, etc, that's increasingly more difficult.

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selimthegrim
If his idea helps Louisiana kick the habit of corporate tax giveaways I’m all
for it (and yes I know what economic theory says about corporate tax and
deadweight loss getting passed to consumers, these recipients are not consumer
products companies by and large)

