There's around 12.8 million people in the US working in manufacturing.
They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
> Because now most Americans don't slave away in unsafe factories 7 days/week for dollars an hour.
Now they're collecting disability in their unsafe neighborhoods, getting morbidly obese while their substance abusing kids play vidya games in the basement into their 30s.
Yes, it's really like that. People want their factories and incomes back. I don't claim that anything happening here is going to deliver that, but that's the pitch they're voting for. To their credit, at least they're pursuing that in lieu of some UBI ideocracy made of fantasy money.
As for you: it's fine to point out all the ways they may be misguided and/or misled, but unless you have an alternative that doesn't amount to expecting everyone to somehow earn an advanced degree, and then discover it's next to worthless (even before "AI",) your really not contributing much. So what do you have?
Anything?
This conundrum, like so many others in public discourse, is downstream of the widespread but fundamentally incorrect belief in free will (which in turn is downstream of belief in supernatural powers, because free will sure as hell isn't explained by anything in nature).
Nothing is in anyone's control. There's no such thing as "eyes wide open". People's behaviors are 100% downstream of genetics and environment. Some people behave rationally some of the time, and to the extent they do so it is because the environment set them up to do that. There is absolutely no coherent reason to generalize that into the idea that most people vote (or do anything else) rationally.
Just because free will doesn't exist, doesn't mean they didn't act "rationally" (whatever that even means in this case).
Deindustrialization and Nikefication in the past several decades isn't "rational" long-term behavior either.
> Deindustrialization and Nikefication in the past several decades isn't "rational" long-term behavior either.
Maybe, but I was responding to "They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice."
There's an implication here, and in a subsequent reply that people voting against their interests is "[t]he go to midwit rationalization for every electoral loss", that people exercised free will when they voted.
This is plainly incorrect, because free will quite clearly does not exist. No one has ever shown the kinds of violations in the laws of physics that would be required for free will to exist.
Since free will does not exist, there is simply no a priori reason to believe that people voted in their interests. People's voting decisions, like everything else they do, are out of their control. To the extent that they vote in a particular way that's good or bad for them, it's driven purely by luck and circumstances.
It is this a priori belief that people vote or act in their own interests that's the real "midwit rationalization".
There's no such implication.
> This is plainly incorrect, because free will quite clearly does not exist.
> Since free will does not exist, there is simply no a priori reason to believe that people voted in their interests.
What are you even talking about.
People (and living beings in general) acting in their own self-interest - pretty much all the time - it is the most universal general principle of life if there ever was one. This doesn't require or involve free will.
How well a biorobot (no free will!) executes in pursuing his self-interests, is the selection critereon.
Now, the people make mistakes pursuing their self-interests, doesn't mean they aren't acting in their self-interest. Because they sure as hell are - all the frigging time! It's their whole firmware!
Deindustrialization / nikefication all the way through the value chain except the very, very top last step of the value add - hasn't been in their self-interest, it isn't in the interests of their nation either.
It's only in the self-interests of short-term thinking shareholders that min-max asset valuations with great costs to everyone else but themselves.
Base evolutionary instincts to survive don't translate to humans living in complex modern societies acting in their self-interest.
What are you talking about?
Base evolutionary pressures and instincts have translated in exactly that.
Complex modern societies, and emergent behaviors and strategies arise from agents acting in their own self-interest (organizing in groups or otherwise to further their goals).
The idea that not only people don't act in their self-interest, but you - in fact - know better what's in their best interest is truly some mid-tier thinking. Or that you have some unique ability to know what's in their best self-interest, but they... for some reason... don't.
Now it doesn't mean that acting in self-interest doesn't sometimes result in ruin, because it surely can! That however doesn't mean that all these choices weren't made with self-interest in mind, front and center, despite people claiming otherwise.
The groups and societies that enact the winning, most sensible strategy, economic and industrial policy will win out. Those individually or in groups that don't, will go to shitter and or be selected out. It's that simple.
For petes sake dude, people act in their own self-interests. That includes so called "people with expertise and training", or more correctly put - credentialed people.
They worked towards getting these credentials (fancy law or economics degree at a fancy university) - not because they were interested in acting in interests of the "untrained people". They just wanted a cushy, high status, well paid job.
What do you think governments are ran by - generally speaking? People without "expertise"(cough, cough) and "training"?
No, they are ran by people with "expertise and training" (ie. credentialed)!
The problem is that they mainly act in their self-interests (and interests of their social group) first and foremost, and not for their expertise or lack-thereof. And the people that vie for positions of power and status act in their self-interests and interests of their social clique squared or cubed. Everything else is an afterthought.
>I also think that the fact that this isn't blindingly obvious to most folks is at the heart of a lot of the rot in modern society.
You vastly overestimate your mental acuity
The orange has a degree in economics by the way (from a ivy league uni too). So you could say he has both the credentials, the experience and the training. You could even... dare I say... call him an expert.
Or you could just accept the obvious - any barely functioning middling brain can get credentials and become an "expert". And that they do. It is neither a competency nor an intellect filter.
Neither is there personal responsibility or real liability if they are wrong about their economic and other policies that lead to ruin (endless list of examples of this in past). Seen any heads on the pike lately? Yeah, me neither.
Nor are there incentives in place to think what's in other "common" peoples best interests. So why would they?
There's a long line of "expert economists", Paul Krugman among others who advocated for free-trade policies that directly led to nikefication, deindustrialization of US. Now they are nowhere to be seen to take the credit, woops!
The presumption that the credentialed ("expert") knows (or even cares frankly) what's in other common peoples best interest is completely baseless and extremely naive.
The credentialed "experts" being so incompetent and confidently wrong is what gave you the orange. Now orange is the "expert"! And you better listen!
Simply having a credential is not enough. You need actual training and expertise — to be good at what you do. I'm thinking of all the scientists and bureaucrats who run things like the NIH, vaccine programs, and air quality/pollution control. Many people do not perceive those programs to be in their self-interest. But in reality they are, regardless of someone's personal opinion.
Or maybe they can't afford an expensive electric vehicle and an old dirty gas guzzling clunker is the only means of transportation they have.
Or that they move from a pollution free country-side to a polluted dirty city, not because they seek the pollution, but because the opportunities and jobs are more in their self-interests than... ODing on fenta in pristine clean air.
Naah, midwits don't do this. They presume they are smart and everyone else is stupid and need guidance from the expert (that would be me, the midwit of course), and everything else is derived from it.
When the "expert" gets rejected on basis of incompetence or not acting in their self-interests, that always upsets the midwit, because the midwit always self-identifies as an expert. And rejection of the "experts" equals rejection of the midwit.
Of course, the midwit never has demonstrated competence (nobody doubts demonstrated competence!), all they have is credentials and university degrees and papers. This frustrates the midwit to no end.
Demonstrated expertise and competence is always outside their abilities and reach - they are far from somebody like John Carmack, Michael Abrash, etc who has many shipped products, you can see his code. Nobody doubts their competency, etc. All they have instead is some sort of paper that says "believe me I'm an expert".
No matter what training, education or experience midwit has... he still is just a midwit at the end of the day.
Absolute statement, confidently made, obviously incorrect. Is there a level of "wit" you feel this represents?
I implore you to bring evidence where demonstrated competency of John Carmack or Michael Abrash is called into question. Demostrate how that is a phenomenon or a trend. And if you can't, I rest my case.
It is obvious to any reasonable person that in the statement "nobody" doesn't literally mean not a single entity within 8 billion population of the planet.
My own competence has repeatedly been questioned, even though I've consistently delivered results on the teams I've been on. My body of work is almost all public so feel free to verify yourself. It turns out that how much you're questioned has a lot to do with race and gender — basically every single highly skilled minority I know has been in this position.
I did specifically mention Carmack and Abrash to give a concrete example of what demonstrated competence is. And to avoid having to argue some vague, watered down, abstract pedestrian notion of what "demonstrated competence" is.
>My own competence has repeatedly been questioned, even though I've consistently delivered results on the teams I've been on. My body of work is almost all public so feel free to verify yourself. It turns out that how much you're questioned has a lot to do with race and gender — basically every single highly skilled minority I know has been in this position.
It looks like my intuiton has been on point here. You see yourself as a highly skilled, competent expert.
Except others are apparently not always sharing in your self aggrandizing perception of self.
Since you can't come to terms with this, hijinx insues wherein you assume that everyone else is just stupid, irrational instead. Or you surmise that they reject your "competency and expertise" based on irrelevant immutable characteristics.
Timeless classic.
People vote against their own interests constantly. This is literally evidence of that.
The go to midwit rationalization for every electoral loss.
Note the abject lack of anything resembling an alternative.
But are they willing to work for below minimum wage for ridiculously long hours ?
Because otherwise that factory will be uncompetitive against China, Vietnam, India etc.
Unless of course you want to resort to tariffs which will instead transfer that cost onto everyone.
> People want their factories and incomes back
Sounds like what they really want is safety and hope for their futures. I'm not sure going back to the way things were - good or bad - is the way for society to move forward though.
> They benefitted from it so hard they voted for the exact opposite with eyes wide open. Twice.
Did you ever work at a factory? I did. I would most certainly prefer to collect a pension and play video games (which I do now in retirement). Anyone would.
And precisely 0.0 alternatives offered.
I can't imagine anyone being surprised that we've ended up with Trump et al. When all you offer is un-actionable thoughts and cowardly status quo, no one will listen to you. Meanwhile, the cohort of disenfranchised, disposable people grows around you until they fear the status quo more than they fear change.
Congratulations!
Whereas some did vote for the Trump in spite to make others suffer as they already do.
But, they choose not to. To some this choice is noble, to others it’s foolish. Either way, what can you do?
Saying Americans haven’t been hurt they’ve benefited applies to white collar workers only - no change to jobs and cheaper goods.
>> No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
> Saying Americans haven’t been hurt they’ve benefited applies to white collar workers only - no change to jobs and cheaper goods.
And that's a big reason why Trump won: white collar workers, like the GP, lecturing blue collar workers, while being ignorant of their actual situation.
It's a dumb strategy, and it isn't working anymore.
The point is that as a country it has adapted by people moving into industries that aren't able to be easily outsourced.
Those jobs aren't coming back.
some benefit. many have been in a state of perpetual poverty/welfare, but we don't see those in the official stats because the rich are so rich here it skews numbers
No they haven't. They've benefitted from it.
Because now most Americans don't slave away in unsafe factories 7 days/week for dollars an hour.