Oh, but we do have an anger problem these days. People are not angry because they carefully examined their situation and decided it's caused by deep wealth inequality. People are angry because a) things are bad, b) media feeds them outrage-inducing bullshit, and c) they don't even verify any of that, but get angry.

That is, people's anger is often completely disconnected from reality.

I think your (a) is due to wealth inequality. Even if people don’t know those two words, it’s not hard to see that $10 to $20 per hour jobs will get you nowhere. I think people do see the increasingly winner take all nature of business, that moving up to th next class is impossible if you aren’t able to achieve select professional routes. And worst of all, it’s so obvious that their children will be so far behind in terms of networking, signaling, and resources that their chances are also diminished.

We would have a wealth inequality problem if "things are bad, caused by wealth inequality" resulted in people fighting to make things better by fighting for things that would reduce wealth inequality. This is not what we're seeing.

We do have an anger problem because "things are bad, possibly caused by wealth inequality" has resulted in people fighting to make things better by angrily striking at random directions, a lot of those actually increasing future wealth inequality - so if we want to solve the actual causes (for example, wealth inequality) we'd have to tackle the anger problem first.

> Oh, but we do have an anger problem these days. People are not angry because they carefully examined their situation and decided it's caused by deep wealth inequality.

It isn't about my personal situation. Wealth inequality doesn't affect the people on HN in any real, substantial way if they work for a tech company because we (mostly) are in the 6 figure household income bracket where you can live a good life in America without being bothered by things.

I'm still angry about it because I see its effects in larger political campaign spends and a constant push for lower taxes on the rich rather than the poor.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/tax-cuts-for-the-r...

> A growing body of research suggests that investments in children in low-income families not only reduce poverty and hardship in the near term, but can have long-lasting positive effects on their health, education, and earnings as adults. Cutting programs that support low-income families to fund tax cuts for the rich could therefore also have negative long-run economic impacts.

Tax cuts for the poor, not the rich. :p

> Wealth inequality doesn't affect the people on HN in any real, substantial way if they work for a tech company because we (mostly) are in the 6 figure household income bracket where you can live a good life in America without being bothered by things.

Maybe in some cases. But not in others. Some of us are "secondhand smokers" of wealth inequality.

Myself, I'm the only techie in the family. My parents were not in tech. My siblings are not in tech. My SO is not in tech. Many of my friends aren't either. Supporting them in hardships caused by the income situation does affect me personally, and so does looking at the problems of people I know.

I don't think you fully understand my point.

Your SO not being in tech + your income probably is $100k or more. Once you reach that point in the US, you are not materially impacted personally.

We all have friends/family/etc that are not in tech and we float them money sometimes when they are in a bind. That isn't the same thing as wealth inequality materially impacting you personally.

You see the larger impact it has on other people. And that bothers you, which is perfectly understandable. But that is a political problem rather than a personal thing at that point.

Nope, anger really is the problem. People's anger comes from a lot of places; distribution of wealth is just one option (particularly favored by intellectuals). Other people (generally not intellectuals), are angry at immigrants, at women who have abortions (and the lawyers who let them), at blacks, Jews, homosexuals, communists, Colin Kapearnick, etc.

If we were to accept your argument that "anger isn't the problem, but the cause of the anger is the problem", then we would have to accept these angry people's solutions: immigrants should be returned to their homes (or killed), women who have abortions should be prosecuted for murder (or killed), blacks/Jews/queer folk/etc should be killed, and as for Conlin, well, that last solution solves that one, I guess.

Another problem with the "argument for anger" is the tacit assumption that problems can't be identified or changed without anger. I have found the opposite to be true. Anger can be a handy divining rod for injustice in the world, but it is an equally good divining rod for personal ignorance. In short, anger lies. Moreover, it makes solving big problems very difficult, since anger fogs the rational mind.

Ironically, it is impossible to know where the anger is leading you, to change yourself, or to change the world, until you give it up.

Distribution of wealth is not just an option, it is a fact: The USA have one of the highest GINI-Index for wealth, meaning the wealth distribution is very imbalanced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribut... And it stays a fact, even if it mentioned by intellectuals.

That simpletons think that the cause for their misery are even poorer people (like immigrants etc.) is because they are told so. Unfortunately anger doesn't help thinking deeply, but it is definitely a sign that there is a problem. An therefor anger shouldn't be dismissed. Anger is like an alarm siren. Something is wrong, but just switching of the alarm is probably not the right solution.

Anger is itself a problem, quite aside from what causes it. Angry people are not especially rational and just about anything can become its target.

Angry about inequality? Blame the [Jews, Moslems, liberals, conservatives, blacks, wealthy, poor, women, social justice warriors,...]. It's both easier and more satisfying. Problems are hard to solve, after all.

It's also a great way to keep people who would otherwise be rioting to solve the real issues complacent and divided. If you're super rich because of offshoring profits, why not let people fight amongst themselves about which group of immigrants is ruining America? When you start getting more heat from people actually mad about the true issues, why not spend a very small percentage to fuel the distracting dividing issues to get everyone off your back for a while again?

Conservative anger has swept the White House, Congress, and most statehouses. One half of the anger, the half that propelled Trump to office, is the fact that people who say things like:

>Start taxing the rich a bit more, stop wasting the tax payers money on wars that cannot be won

are allowed to exist and influence policy and culture in any way. The other half is, of course, based on the existence of the opposite point of view.

> We have a problem with the distribution of wealth and this is where the anger comes from.

This is a tractable problem for a society that has the capacity for reasonable public discourse. This is a completely intractable problem for a society obsessed with hot takes.

Except that the people getting angriest are actually those with the most wealth.

If you tax the rich more they will just move offshore to a tax haven as they have the money to do so.