
Inequality driving 'deaths of despair' - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-48229037
======
macawfish
I urge anyone who is using dark patterns in their software or business models
to take a step back and think about this: some of the people your projects
engage are fighting to keep their head above water. Your decisions, however
abstracted they may be from these people, could make or break somebody's will
to live.

Concretely, I was so disheartened to hear of Facebook/Cornell's studies a few
years back around effecting users moods by controlling the negativity of
content. In the communities I come from mental health is not simple and people
are dying. Relationships are being stretched. People are out on thin ice just
to survive. Those researchers were clearly completely out of touch with the
gravity of their decision to experiment on people like that. We need to do
better.

~~~
traderjane
But how many people on HN have this level of authority... it's akin to asking
the person who flips the burgers to think about American health. People who
set research agenda at Facebook likely have PhD's and are involved primarily
in research.

------
theothermkn
The summary line of the article:

> Widening inequalities in pay, health and opportunities in the UK are
> undermining trust in democracy, says an Institute for Fiscal Studies report.

It's addressed again, later in the article:

> Sir Angus said "people getting rich is a good thing" but not if it meant
> "enriching the few at the expense of the many".

In the U.S., we talk of the American Dream, but the more modest versions of it
weren't really a dream, but more of a promise, or an agreement: You could get
by, and even modestly prosper, by being a person of good will with a dose of
diligence and hard work; life could be fair. I think that got lost in the
inevitable exaggeration of that dream for dramatic effect, things along the
lines of forming the next Google in your garage or of winning the lottery or
getting promoted into the C-Suite for your ingenuity or "moxie" or whatever.
Granted, this hasn't been a credible belief for all sectors of society (It
helped to have had white skin.), but it enjoyed some prevalence. To the extent
that it was believed, it animated people's actions. They could bear up under a
dreary job to send their kids to college, or to save up for retirement, or
both. Devastations like cancer or some other personal disaster could be
regarded as exceptions, enough so to hold the Dream together.

It just isn't like that anymore. Predatory insurance companies seem bolder in
their greed. Hospitals seem complicit. The easy money available from being the
only manufacturer of (honestly pretty shitty) cars went away, and labor prices
deflated out from under the working classes. Houses, formerly built to last a
lifetime, are built to sell, and then fall apart. The whole thing has turned
to ashes.

Honestly, the honest, modest version of the American Dream is gone. Hard work
is rewarded with insecurity and layoffs. The ACA even seems tenuous under
Republican rule, and that only for the slight majority that think the ACA to
be progress over private victimization. All that seems left is the prospect of
walking over one's peers to a better life. We may malign CEOs as having said,
"Fuck you, I've got mine," but we feel left with, "I'm sorry, I have to get
mine."

The point of this ramble is not to diminish the contribution of naked
inequality of the scale we're seeing. (I think, practically speaking, that's
the cause.) Rather, the point of this ramble is that it's something like the
modest American Dream that has to be tenable in order for a stable working
class, and therefore democracy, to limp along much longer. Where there is no
vision, the people perish.

~~~
WalterBright
> Houses, formerly built to last a lifetime, are built to sell, and then fall
> apart

I suspect people think that older homes are better built because the only
older homes around today are the best built ones. The rest fell down and were
replaced. I.e. survivorship bias.

------
ZhuanXia
I have been reading the works of the great social reformer Henry George. A
socialist literate in political economy, he advocated a land value tax, which
does not distort economic incentives as land cannot be produced.

I see many angry youths, even very intelligent angry youths entranced by neo-
Marxism, which seems to consider any concrete policy proposal as
“logocentric”.

I stumbled across a Marxist YouTube channel, PhilosophyTube, whose solution to
the housing crisis was to outlaw the housing market and distribute the houses
to democratic committees. Things like incentives for production, supply and
demand, the many pathologies of democracy, the sense people have that they
ought to be able to express their choice as individuals, public choice theory,
and the fact that no given unit of housing is fungible were presumably too
logocentric to address.

I have seen the Marxist movie before and where it leads is not pretty.

I would urge people who think egalitarianism is important to read George. The
space of political economy is much larger than either left or right would have
you believe.

There are forms of wealth distribution that do not decrease economic
efficiency, such as said land value tax. Harberger taxes are another such
policy.

~~~
api
I must second George. His whole idea of taxing things humans do not produce
instead of labor, etc. is remarkably rational.

Both Marxism and fascism have made a comeback in a big way. Neither offer any
solutions that will lead anywhere other than dystopia.

------
hogFeast
The UK is a very odd place. There is an entrepreneurial spirit but that is
held almost entirely by people who will never become entrepreneurs.

The reason there is stagnation isn't "the rich". It is the vast swathes of
middle-class people who are determined to get something for nothing. An
investment without risk. A job without effort. Respect from others without
ability. The list continues forever.

What is bizarre, but totally typical of the British media, is to blame "other
people" for something that is obviously systemic (the BBC is, ironically, a
great example of British feebleness).

