I suggest you put this in a file and pull it out whenever someone talks about something unimportant or silly to you. You'll be surprised what an effect this will have on your relationships! Very quickly you'll weed out the superficial, vain, silly people and be left with only those who share your values.

You're welcome.

Pre-emptive “you’re welcome” for unrequested advice is really grating imo.

Also, totally missing the entire point of the sorry that seemingly silly and unimportant things are, in fact, the most important of all.

0/10 take, please revisit source material.

Or no one

I believe this was the point that all of the so-far higher-voted sibling comments have missed. Or am I the only one seeing the sarcasm emanating from parent?

Way to miss the point.

> It’s astounding to me that Americans accept this constant death and destruction as part of a transportation system.

Just to be explicit-- do you think the impending growth of self-driving vehicles (as they are currently implemented) over the next decade will a) add to this constant death and destruction or b) subtract from it?

Probably reduce deaths if the deployed systems are sufficiently capable. This may be offset somewhat by an increase in miles travelled as driving becomes easier.

Why?

Because the current capabilities are insufficient, yet people are using those capabilities as if they are self-driving options. So when Tesla owners get overconfident about their assisted driving mode it ends up adding to the problem.

I even saw a video where a Tesla owner was letting a Youtuber drive and tried to goad him into leaving the car in assisted mode at a dangerous intersection, just to "see what it would do." I think the Youtuber was wise to not do that.

I'll buck the trend here and agree with you. It's great that this family has a heartwarming story, but ideally circumstances shouldn't be so bad to begin with that we celebrate the rare and extraordinary occasion of escaping those circumstances.

There's a name for this phenomenon: the orphan crushing machine https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine

If recognizing that society is unfair is an indictment, might I suggest opening a history book, or even spending some time reading about the current affairs and policy news from literally any part of the globe? Human existence is unfair. Arguably, the mere fact we exist is a series of random occurrences that align to a local optimum for natural incentives evolving to our current state of existence. Randomness is an expression of the basic entropy of the universe and touches on the individual lives of not just humans, but every atom in every living and non-living entity on this planet (and beyond). This sometimes expresses it in the unfairness encounter in some person's life. It is hardly an indictment of society.

If you’re willing to appeal to the intrinsic randomness of the universe at the atomic level then you’re basically arguing that every nuance is random and meaningless.

And if you’re not, then you’re just cherrypicking things that suit your fancy.

The universe has sufficient structure to observe its properties even if the underlying mechanisms are random.

Since you are making book suggestions (or not), I would suggest then that you open this [1] book up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything

Thanks for the recommendation, I will definitely check it out. I really liked "Debt: The First 5000 Years" and "Bullshit Jobs" by the same author.

I’m about halfway through TDoE and it’s pretty reactionary and disorganized. They do provide many interesting pieces of information but so far have not woven them into a compelling narrative. In fact they often fleetingly admit that their examples could be counter to their hypothesis or that it’s simply impossible to know.

I do eventually also want to read Debt, but unsure I need to spend any time on Bullshit Jobs, as my assumption is that it’ll be myopically focused on the idea that some wizard behind the curtain has made the world economy the way it is, instead of it being an emergent phenomenon; an interconnected web of Chesterton fences that the author, in his usual condescending way, will be all too happy to burn, while providing no meaningful alternative.

I mean I’ve had some jobs that felt like BS but I don’t need to spend my precious free time being preached to about it. It comes off as pandering, just more high brow than the tract material you find for cults and religions that seem to zero in on their target population’s biggest qualms with society and offer the promise of a better way.

>This sometimes expresses it in the unfairness encounter in some person's life. It is hardly an indictment of society.

Except that's crap, because the vast majority of suffering in the developed world is entirely unnecessary.

Oh please. Yes let’s take a good story and use it as an opportunity to get on our soap box and grandstand.

I’m sorry my thoughts on the article so distressed you.

Inequality in education and traffic death have been on my mind lately and this article touched on them in an unexpected way, so I posted to share my thoughts. I understand that’s more or less the purpose of online forums.

I’m sorry? Which society doesn’t have such unfairness?

And don’t randomly say Europe, that is such a misconception.

Every other developed economy in the western world has less inequality than the US. It’s public data, look it up if you doubt it.

That being said the middle class in some of those countries would be poor in the US. Inequality by itself isn’t necessarily bad, in fact it’s necessary in capitalism. It is important, however, to keep as many people from falling out of the middle class as is practical. The US doesn’t do well on that, most western countries do better, but the cut off for middle class in those countries is usually lower.

Why would inequality be the important metric, and not absolute quality of life? If we killed a few billionaires, there would be less inequality in America, but I don't think anyone's life would actually be better for it.

That’s precisely my point. I don’t care how rich the 1% are. I care about my quality of life.

I want an economic system that optimizes the latter, not one that reduces inequality.

Communism is a great example of an economic system aimed at reducing inequality. What it actually achieves is making everyone equally poor.

I emphasize, inequality is agonizing and it feels like communism would prioritize people better, but it simply doesn’t.

It creates a terrifying hybrid of the political class and the capital class. Titans of American capitalism are subject to laws because they aren’t the government. And the government butts heads with capital all the time.

Also, markets and money form a distributed concensus mechanism for people to quite literally vote with their money to create a world they want. Unique products, new ways of doing things, tiny shops, giant multinationals, mutual aid organizations and co-ops. It’s all experiments running in capitalism right now.

Central communist planning relies on an infinitely informed class of philosopher kings to run the economy. It doesn’t scale because it can’t. In the absence of information, bean counters and demagogues thrive. That a vibrant world does not make.

Communism just isn’t compatible with incomplete information or human flaws. Capitalism isn’t perfect, but communism is certainly worse.

Oh, you mean the mostly white, wealthy western European nations?

Plus Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.

Why do you want to bring race into a discussion that has nothing to do with race? Fuck off.

If you think South Korea and Japan are the lane of opportunity you basically invalidated everything you have argued with your ignorance of these nations current cultural situations.

SK makes american capitalistic inequality and unfairness look like a playground. Japan is literally dying of its frozen cultural mobility issues.

It feels like you don’t know what you are saying.

Oh the results of colonialism 'Canada, Australia, New Zealand' and the countries brought to power specifically due to the US 'Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan'?

Yes, let's just conveniently alter the stats by leaving out all of the countries that are worse.

This isn't reddit, tone down the anger please. Also, maybe look up the definition of mostly before going off in rage commenting mode.

Always funny to see the denials Americans are in.

USA poverty rate is on the same level than Turkey. https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm

For income inequality rate, USA is also in the worse: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm#indic...

Yes, USA is denial while your pad your stats by only mentioned a handful of western European nations.

"Handful of western European nations" Country on the east of Germany aren't west Europe.

Huh?

"First, two young people have their lives taken when car drivers crash into them. It’s astounding to me that Americans accept this constant death and destruction as part of a transportation system."

Are there countries that don't have car crashes? Please list them, I'm sure everyone would like to know how they've prevented this.

"Second, one person takes a pretty irrational interest in the success of a student with a 1.6 GPA and gives them some basic confidence and support they had apparently never received from the education system. That struggling student is now a medical doctor and the first person in their family to graduate from college."

This is an indictment on the American system how? It seems like the opposite to me. Is your stance that no one should ever have to struggle? You believe regardless of success in secondary education everyone should just be sent to medical school? You do realize that EVERY country that provides "free" higher education has pretty stringent requirements to get in. In the US, anyone that has the money, wants to take out a loan, or does well in school can go to college. All that would happen if everyone though the way you do, is that you would just dilute the pool of applicants and you'd still have people that didn't get successful jobs. You're already seeing this with the federal loans letting everyone into college in the US.

It's obvious you just hate the US, but at least come up with some logical stances for the reasons. You failed miserably at describing any legitimate reason for your staunch hatred.

> Are there countries that don't have car crashes?

For pedestrian deaths, there's been a decoupling between the US and the rest of the developed world in recent years.

https://www.vox.com/culture/23496462/crisis-american-roads-p...

"The pandemic years weren’t outliers, though. Pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise for more than a decade. Increasingly, the United States stands alone, with an overall traffic fatality rate that’s 50 percent higher than comparable nations in Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia. According to the Urban Institute, Americans are now almost three times more likely to die in a car crash than their counterparts in France."

Before you blame cell phones, note that other countries also have cell phones.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upshot/road-deaths-pedest...

It's pretty obvious for anyone who has traveled and driven in other countries that drivers in the US are utterly terrible. We have effectively no licensing standards, and effectively no enforcement of basic safe driving practices. The only thing that's generally enforced in the US is speed limits, and this is only done for revenue purposes, especially since most speed limits in the US are set artificially low to help local authorities meet their budget.

It's both possible that the US is uniquely worse and that the same sort of unfair and senseless outcomes are not only possible but happen in other countries. The fact the US is worse doesn't actually change the point of the person you're responding to.

I could write a much better indictment of driving in the US than pointing to a single random occurrence and actually talk about the completely fucked way people drive here on a daily basis. That said, the same basic reason why things are the way they are won't change for the outcome of my screed, as it is a simple matter that the US is so heavily car-centric as a society that it is impossible for the average person to participate in daily life without driving and therefore it's seen as unnecessarily punitive to restrict people's driving privileges except in the most egregious circumstances (and often not even then). We'd have to massively change the attitude towards cars in the US to effectively change anything about our current situation to make it possible to enforce reasonable standards of driving skill.

I think US's car fatality problem stems from the "driving classes" you take at 16 for one day to become a driver. You don't really learn to deal with all possible scenarios doing 3 left turns and parking. There's 2 other big reasons the roads are unsafe due to the states just not taking care of their own roads. The other reason is the popularity of bigger SUVs and trucks. 90% of big vehicle owners feel safer due to the weight of their vehicle as if they truly intend to total anyone else's vehicle that they hit. When I was in Europe I noticed cars are a lot more popular than SUVs or trucks. Getting in an accident with 2 cars is a lot less destructive than a 4,000 lb car hitting a 6,000 lb truck or SUV.

The U.S. has nearly triple the automotive fatality rate of other western nations. With the large vehicle preferences common in the U.S. this may be as much of an idictment on consumer taste as the transportation laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

I think the commenter wasn't remarking on the availability of higher education, but that that public education had failed to prepare this person and apparently a whole community for higher education. He didn't know a single person who attended class after high school and the high school curriculum was so weak that he was failing out of community college.

> but that that public education had failed to prepare this person and apparently a whole community for higher education. He didn't know a single person who attended class after high school and the high school curriculum was so weak that he was failing out of community college.

Our education system is failing, but it's failing because it's not an education system, it's a system to monitor and contain young people for some set hours per day so their parents can theoretically work, regardless of their behavior or outcomes. The education in this country has huge cultural and community disparities that almost perfectly correlate w/ wealth disparities, racial disparities, and family life disparities. Most of these things are symptoms rather than causes, but they're symptoms that accelerate a negative feedback loop. The causes are pretty straightforward, but intractable: 1. Lack of cultural and racial integration in broader society 2. The failure of families (as a concept) in America, with this failure more heavily concentrated in lower class households with a racially disparate distribution.

"Western Nations"

You do realize the US doesn't have the public transport of massive cities in western Europe right?

Maybe think a bit and you'll realize that Americans have to drive more to get places.

Regardless, the crashes have nothing to do specifically with the way America has implemented anything.

"but that that public education had failed to prepare this person and apparently a whole community for higher education"

The comment was specifically about how the US has done it badly. Not everyone needs to be prepared for higher education. Countries like Germany that have "free" higher ed decide that certain kids will go intro trades early on. Are you going to flag Germany as not preparing a whole demographic of kids for "higher ed" ?

I don’t hate the US. I love living here. I think fewer of its citizens should die in car crashes and that more should be able to achieve their full career potential.

Regarding free college, I think a good system would have high standards for graduation and low penalties for failure. This is the system currently afforded to rich people in the US, who can afford multiple tries at good schools without being saddled with lifelong debt. We should extend this ability to more people. I love Americans, they have enormous potential, but so many of them get shunted off to unsatisfying, low productivity careers because a few bad circumstances or choices push them off the very narrow golden path

Regarding car accidents, the US does have a higher rate of deaths per 100k inhabitants [0] than most other countries of similar development. I imagine that's largely because of the lack of public transport and therefore increased number of miles driven by US inhabitants (as well as lower population density perhaps).

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Edit: a better data source here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.TRAF.P5