The rich are getting richer faster than the rest of us.
Real wages are stagnant. Social safety nets are constantly being removed.
Labor protections have been being rolled back or enforcement lax since the ATC strike.
Atomization and alienation have taken root.
The mythos of the nuclear family being paramount is fully embedded in the culture, destroying the older concept of a broader family and community taking part in the rearing of the next generation and just general socialization.
We're heading to the failure of multiple systems, including food production and power, due to climate change and the increasing frequency of disastrous weather systems.
"Greed is good" has been a value promulgated by the elites for a few generations now.
Things are getting more expensive faster than wage growth, especially basics and things needed for economic upward mobility (housing, education, healthcare, etc).
Identity politics and wedge issues are dividing people who otherwise have similar interests.
Modern life is anxiety and depression inducing, creating a rise in interpersonal conflict.
Our government is no longer accountable to the people or representative of them in any real way unless you're in the top quintile of wealth/income (and that is generous).
All of these things, and many more, are ripping apart the social contract. People no longer feel invested in the wellbeing of the places in which they reside or the governmental and societal systems they are a part of. Instead, they merely endure them with resentment. This won't end well.
I think some of these things ring true but you missed a few obvious ones, most of this stuff has been going on in California which is being governed into oblivion by its leaders:
- California is getting very soft on crime recently, people now realize they can rob and steal what they want and there are zero consequences for it, this has lead to almost a complete collapse of order in most major california cities(see excessive smash and grabs($1B stolen in a few weeks in LA/SF bay area) and skyrocketing drug use(SF has more addicts than high school students) and homelessness, along with car jackings and robberies). I live in california and my family has been here for over a hundred years so I have seen its rapid deterioration in the past 3-4 years.
- Complete abandonment of any type of positive morality from the media or any leaders.
- Extreme division due to both right and left moving farther from the center.
- Sky high college costs have made things very difficult for people that are in college and those leaving the system are left with life crushing debt.
- Housing and rent are at all time highs due to excessive money printing and over generous govt. handouts the past 1-2 years.
- Jobs are available and are plentiful there are just not enough workers for the positions or qualified people for the higher earning ones, in addition alot of people were making more sitting around getting checks and enhanced unemployment than working at the lower wage positions.
- I traveled to multiple states over the last year(Hawaii, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon) and this stuff is not happening everywhere, its mainly in CA and NYC and other high density urban areas.
> - I traveled to multiple states over the last year(Hawaii, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon) and this stuff is not happening everywhere, its mainly in CA and NYC and other high density urban areas.
You are claiming this isn't happening in those states, but especially New Mexico and Oregon, ... it is definitely happening in those states, so I question your experience with the other ones. Out of those, maybe Utah is not having those problems? Even as an island, Hawaii has had huge problems for decades, perhaps the worst (housing affordability, homelessness, rising crime rate).
Because of mandatory minimum sentences keeping people in jail for a long time. Just because that’s a bad policy doesn’t necessarily mean that sending people to jail at all is a bad idea.
Do you somehow think that creating a containment system works in solving crime? It alienates and breeds recidivism. We can’t lock everyone up for life.
>Extreme division due to both right and left moving farther from the center
This says a lot about your position in what you imagine is the 'center'; the reality is that both sides are only moving further right. This has been happening for decades.
>the reality is that both sides are only moving further right. This has been happening for decades.
This is a false statement according to actual studies. Democrats have been moving further left at a higher rate than Republicans have been moving further right. [0] [1]
Before you say this study is outdated and therefore no longer relevant, you need to find a well regarded study that supports your original claim.
Homicide and violent crime _has_ increased nationwide, and not just in California or in cities with progressive DAs. Florida and Texas, two states that frequently compare themselves against California, saw a similar pattern where property crimes decreased in 2020, but violent crimes increased, and continued to increase in 2021.
I think some of the points in your comment may be valid, especially regarding extreme division, loss of societal trust, and growing inequality. Trust in police and in our institutions probably hit an all time low in 2020. But I think pointing purely to "progressive DAs" doesn't map to reality.
>- Housing and rent are at all time highs due to excessive money printing and over generous govt. handouts the past 1-2 years.
Actually, I think they're at all-time highs because you literally refuse to build anything except suburban hellscapes full of single-family houses made of ticky-tacky that all look just the same. I'm serious about this. California's recently-passed upzoning law is the only effective policy intervention for housing I've seen from your state in decades.
Seems like the problem in the US is there are pockets of society which have multi generational issues where the parents don’t know how to teach their kids to be successful since their lives have been a failure too. As well as an environment that normalises crime.
It seems extremely difficult to break this cycle without actually removing kids from their parents/friend groups.
Another complicating factor could be that the US has a more diverse population. Tribalism is hard to overcome, especially with a messy history of racism and oppression.
That is a really simple take on law and human behavior.
Are we really going to ignore all of our modern understanding of psychology to say "criminal bad, criminal deserve jail"?
There's the real problem about everything - making judgments and decisions about the world based on emotions, not facts. You should care what other people say, especially the people who study things scientifically. I'm sure it sounds great and judicious to your enraged lizard brain to lock someone up and throw away the key, but there's a lot more to consider than what makes you feel good.
> The mythos of the nuclear family being paramount is fully embedded in the culture, destroying the older concept of a broader family and community taking part in the rearing of the next generation and just general socialization.
I think we're past "nuclear family" at this point. Getting married is actively discouraged by our legal system.
True. I certainly am not. Definitely part of Atomization. Large swathes of the country, especially the religious and conservative still buy into this mythos though.
>The mythos of the nuclear family being paramount is fully embedded in the culture, destroying the older concept of a broader family and community taking part in the rearing of the next generation and just general socialization.
It's not a "mythos", it's a fact that children raised in nuclear families have much better outcomes than those who are not [0]. Practically every sociological study confirms this.
Black children are the least likely to be raised in nuclear families in the US, and aligned with the study, are the most likely to suffer from health and mental/emotional/sociological issues.
It's recently become some weird leftist/neo-marxist talking point to subvert the "Western proscribed nuclear family". BLM had to remove this talking point from their website after it was widely criticized [1].
We're not talking about the nuclear family in opposition to single parents or blended families. We're talking about it in opposition to extended and clan families. Which is why I explicitly mentioned extended ("broader") families and communities. Obviously having a mom and a dad is good.
>We're talking about it in opposition to extended and clan families.
Which are specifically covered in the CDC report that I listed above.
"Children living in blended (i.e.,
stepparent), cohabiting, unmarried
biological or adoptive, extended, and other families were generally
disadvantaged relative to children in nuclear families, and were, for the most part, comparable to children living in single-parent families regarding most
health status and access to care
measures."
> Which is why I explicitly mentioned extended ("broader") families and communities.
Those "broader" families and communities have unfortunately been failing Black Americans for generations.
>Come on dude, use context clues.
Come on dude, use reading comprehension. At least you admitted here for all to see that you'd rather be a virtue signaler over being a data driven adult.
Again, I was not opposing the nuclear family to families without mothers and fathers. This is a misreading of what I am saying and clearly you are just engaging in the discussion to grind your axe about single parent households in black communities.
As I said, I agree that having a mom and dad is good. It produces better outcomes than having one or neither. Go grind your axe elsewhere.
It shouldn't be either-A-or-B; there are plenty of families whose day-to-day operation is as a nuclear family, but who have regular (more than once-a-week) contact with extended relatives. I don't think that's what this is describing; an "extended" family here is where the group of people who go to sleep every night and wake up every morning in the same house are more than just mom and dad and the kids.
The rich are getting richer faster than the rest of us.
Real wages are stagnant. Social safety nets are constantly being removed.
Labor protections have been being rolled back or enforcement lax since the ATC strike.
Atomization and alienation have taken root.
The mythos of the nuclear family being paramount is fully embedded in the culture, destroying the older concept of a broader family and community taking part in the rearing of the next generation and just general socialization.
We're heading to the failure of multiple systems, including food production and power, due to climate change and the increasing frequency of disastrous weather systems.
"Greed is good" has been a value promulgated by the elites for a few generations now.
Things are getting more expensive faster than wage growth, especially basics and things needed for economic upward mobility (housing, education, healthcare, etc).
Identity politics and wedge issues are dividing people who otherwise have similar interests.
Modern life is anxiety and depression inducing, creating a rise in interpersonal conflict.
Our government is no longer accountable to the people or representative of them in any real way unless you're in the top quintile of wealth/income (and that is generous).
All of these things, and many more, are ripping apart the social contract. People no longer feel invested in the wellbeing of the places in which they reside or the governmental and societal systems they are a part of. Instead, they merely endure them with resentment. This won't end well.