
People Are Dying Younger Because America Keeps Failing the Bad-Break Test - benevol
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/america-is-failing-the-bad-break-test-and-people-are-dying.html
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thechao
Many people vote against their own self interest---universal healthcare,
larger tax credits to the poor, cash welfare---because they think "if I can't
afford $15000 to give to the Feds, no one can". This is partly an innumeracy
problem; but, partly, I think it's the fact (naturally) those who are taxed
the most can mutually align their interests with those who are taxed the
least: they both say the same _words_ , but for entirely different reasons:
one is because they _can 't_; the other because they _wont_.

~~~
chrisseaton
Everyone keeps attacking poor people for voting against their interests,
suggesting as you have that they are innumerate, or conned by fake news, or
short-sighted, or just stupid.

Perhaps these people are voting with their conscience after careful
consideration, and doing what they think is morally right, despite knowing
that it will hurt them.

You wouldn't get an article about billionaires voting for left wing politics
even though it could be against their short-term interests, and laughing at
their innumeracy, because it's assumed that they would be doing so for moral
reasons.

People don't seem to believe the poor are also capable of making self-
sacrificing decisions for moral reasons.

~~~
cooper12
Care to share these moral reasons?

~~~
chrisseaton
Well you'd have to ask them, wouldn't you.

What I am saying is that you should consider that maybe these people are not
innumerate - they could realise that the policies they are voting for will
harm them but they believe that it is the correct thing to do.

Some people think that federal taxation in general is morally wrong and should
be reduced. Whether you or I agree with that is irrelevant if what we're
debating is have these people realised that it could help them but still think
it's right to vote against it.

~~~
pixelbash
Perhaps they are doing what they consider to be correct according to the
information available to them. The question then becomes what information are
they being given?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
What information are _you_ being _given_.

How are any of us supposed to vote in our best intetersts, individually or
collectively, when all the bastard politicians are pathological liers.

~~~
pixelbash
Therein lies the rub. It's all very relative, all one can do is try.

View through all the lenses at your disposal (there are many), apply critical
thought and compare theory to fact. If you find your answers change from
absolutes to 'it depends which perspective you start from' then you are
probably on the right track.

------
lucidguppy
This is why real education is so important. The government wants gullible and
apathetic citizens. They got what they wanted.

To bad it will destroy the US. We need longer school days to help 2 income
families, we need year round schools as well (yes we'll have to buy air
conditioning for summer school).

~~~
tzs
> We need longer school days to help 2 income families, we need year round
> schools as well (yes we'll have to buy air conditioning for summer school).

What do you mean by "help 2 income families"?

~~~
lucidguppy
Where both parents work.

~~~
tzs
I know that. I mean how do you think longer school days help them?

If you think it helps by giving their kids someplace to be when both parents
are at work, wouldn't it make much more sense to have some sort of public
child care program after school than to extend the school day?

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princetontiger
The USA has already started a long-term decline. Peak was 1998/1999 if you go
by peak productivity and real GDP/capita.

Unfortunately, not much can be done. We're in a situation similar to that of
the British Empire prior to 1915.

~~~
pessimizer
That was a stock bubble. The peak was somewhere between the end of WWII and
1980, when we decided to start funding the country through a continuing trade
deficit.

~~~
prodigal_erik
It was the late 1960s and early 1970s, when our trading partners got their
bombed-out domestic industries back in working order after a decade or two of
producing junk.

------
throw2016
Something changed in our global and economic system at the turn of the 70s.
The late 70's and early 80's were really a high point for global
utopianianism.

Since then the balance of power between the people and the state has shifted
towards the latter at quite an incredible speed over the last 30 years.

Concentration of tremendous wealth in the hands of large corporations and a
few individuals and the seeming impotence of the political system to keep them
in check has always been a recipe for disaster.

The amount of money spent by the state for instance on surveillance just gets
millions more 'uniforms' vested in the state. Security deparments keep getting
beefed up. And money being throw around by think tanks into the academic
sector, especially economics, and cultivating the mainstream press with all of
them parroting a similar message and ideology all point towards a fundamental
regression of democratic principles. Just the amount of double speak over the
last 5 years is astounding.

Sometime arrogance presumes control but its only a shaky interlude before
things completely unravel.

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johan_larson
The harsh-truth line for situations like this is that these people have been
living beyond their means. Right living doesn't just mean that you can cover
your expenses day to day. It also means that you have set enough aside to deal
with the inevitable occasional hurdles life sets before you. If you can't deal
with an illness or a job loss or a serious car repair, you only think you're
doing all right, and a hard rain is gonna fall.

Looking at that paragraph, I think it is basically true. Yes, you should set
something aside for contingencies. But is it the whole truth? It is well known
by now that people, even clever people, tend to discount the future heavily,
to the point of unreason. It seems to me this is a case where some sort of
institutional intervention is called for, to fight our own worst impulses.

~~~
maxsilver
> The harsh-truth line for situations like this is that these people have been
> living beyond their means. You (should) have set enough aside to deal with
> the inevitable occasional hurdles life sets before you.

That would require people to _not be poor_. With exploding 200%+ rise in costs
of rent / healthcare / education / childcare / etc, it's no longer feasible to
expect people to be saving lots of money for rainy days -- not because they
are bad people without the responsibility or fortitude to plan for the future,
but because _there 's literally no money for it_.

------
Animats
Drugs. Deaths from opioid overdoses are up by a factor of 4 in the last
fifteen years. That's huge.

Is becoming a druggie a "bad break", though? Losing a job, an injury, or an
illness is a true bad break. Becoming a druggie is self-inflicted. Do druggies
deserve tax-funded support? With limited resources, shouldn't tax money be
spent primarily on people who had a bad break that wasn't their fault? We can
usually bring people back from a broken bone or a lost job. Druggies, not so
much.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/heroi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/heroin-
deaths-surpass-gun-homicides-for-the-first-time-cdc-data-
show/?utm_term=.ae3ae435f16b)

~~~
Scalestein
I don't think many people 'choose' to become so dependent on drugs that they
cannot function in society and fatally overdose. A doctor prescribing opiates
for an injury without a plan for cessation and withdrawal is a very common
path to opiate addiction and overdose. I would absolutely classify this as a
'bad break'.

The path out of opiate dependence is so difficult and our society does very
little to assist. Saying "i'm addicted to drugs and in a downward spiral" and
having society respond in a manner that will actually help you out of the
situation is not currently a reality.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/veterans-face-
grea...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/veterans-face-greater-
risks-amid-opioid-crisis/)

------
nradov
Yes this is part of the reason, but people are also dying younger now due to
obesity. We are literally digging our graves with our teeth.

------
golemotron
It would be interesting to compare and contrast how societies with strong
family and extended family bonds do on the bad-break test. In the US and
Western Europe a strong individualist ethos has led to societies where
government is the fall back for individual and immediate family misfortune.
It's not ideal.

~~~
mikeash
Nothing is ideal, but having government as the fallback seems better than
having family as the fallback. Falling back on family only works if some of
your family has enough resources to help, and that's not always the case.

~~~
nickff
The big advantage is that family (and community) usually cares about you,
whereas bureaucrats care most about following rules. Because of this, family
can usually do more than just give you a few cheques.

~~~
Retra
What, condolences and sympathy? That's not better than a few checks.

~~~
pessimizer
Work, generally. It's a network of people that will vouch for you (with little
or no evidence of your worth), or simply employ you.

~~~
Retra
Oh, it's that easy? I can just ask my poverty-stricken family to bootstrap me
out of my poorness because they'll hire me to do the jobs they don't have?

I'm the highest-paid person in my family. You think I can go to my boss and
say "Hire my brother, he's been a gas-station attendant for 6 years. Probably
he's a great programmer."

It's easy to not be poor when you come from a family with wealth and hiring
power. If you _are_ poor, it's probably because you don't have either. You'd
think that would be obvious.

