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[anewaname]

I blame the 1940's version of the American Dream, that political anthem of "a home, a car, and a family" with its sub-context of male-dominant/male-centric/traditional-family. There are politicians that still refer to it and the implication usually is, "we can't have American glory again unless we control the previously controlled". It is a message aimed at male-privilege.

What irks me about the abortion "debate" is that it's rarely about weighing female autonomy versus the unborn. It's about others imposing their will onto the woman, and brushing aside the implications about what an abortion does.

"Imposing their will onto the woman"... help the man control their woman, so the man can have his family, so the man will vote for you.

[dragdeler]

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[Starver]

supersoldier fetuses, or rather the fetusses  (feti?) feta use the drones like jetpacks.

Ah, something that is actually even more controversial.
Chiefly British form: foetus (plural foetuses or (hypercorrect) foeti)
Otherwise: fetus (plural fetuses or (hypercorrect) feti or (misconstructed) fetii)

...and, once again, I find the US usage uglier (especially "feti" which seems like a mix of "yeti" and "feta", and thus something that maybe should be Modded in as possible in DF if not already somehow so) though I can see why y'all in turn probably don't like the 'oe' (or, hypercorrectly, the 'œ', giving: fœtus (plural fœtuses or fœti)) and might find that ugly.

[MrRoboto75]

I blame the 1940's version of the American Dream, that political anthem of "a home, a car, and a family" with its sub-context of male-dominant/male-centric/traditional-family. There are politicians that still refer to it and the implication usually is, "we can't have American glory again unless we control the previously controlled". It is a message aimed at male-privilege.

The American Dream is largely a lie of economic prosperity.  The man can provide that home and car for his family.  It used to be one income for one family.

A lot of the deconstruction of it started with women in the workforce.  While working women gave them more rights as an individual (and I'll say that's a good thing) doubling the labor supply meant less wages, for everyone.  It's become a point of women's participation in labor is no longer optional.  Now both partners need to work, and there's less time (and money) to raise a proper family.  Daycare costs are absurd.

Moreover it raises the question of what functional 'role' does a man serve in a relationship?  Obviously women still bear and raise children, but the man's income is no longer specialized, much less impressive.

[scriver]

Considering the statistics of children of single mothers, I'd deem the man's importance/role in a family virtually untouched

[anewaname]

@MrRoboto75
Yeah, it is a lie... But that version of the American Dream is still bring sold in current politics, and it is being sold as a right you need to fight to keep, not as something to be earned.

There is that phrase, "politics as a substitute for war", and with the American Dream changing to a right you need to fight for, there has been a shift towards "war as a substitute for politics" (--> Jan 6th).

This is why I blame that 1940's American Dream for the continuing backlash against women's right, as well as other discriminations...

[McTraveller]

I don't think the American Dream was ever a right - it was always something you had to work toward.  Or did my socioeconomic group get a different version of the pamphlet?  I can see how you have to work differently or perhaps even harder now than decades ago, but never has the American Dream been without work.

The American Dream has a large component of "be your own boss," which entails hard work, and being free from a Tyrant that prevents you from being your own boss.  Maybe only recently has the dream morphed to "you can get lucky and be so rich you no longer have to work."  Basically that "be your own boss" spirit has been lost, and it feels to many of us that it's now "oh it's so hard to be your own boss, we just want society at large to take care of everyone."

If the sentiment was "government, get out of our way and protect us from the Oligarchs so that we can be our own bosses" instead of "government, we don't want to be bosses but make sure those Oligarchs have to pay for us anyway" many more traditional conservatives would not have such a hard time.

[Rolan7]

That's an interesting description to me, maybe even the classic one for all I know.  Without researching the history, let me try to describe the American Dream as I understood it growing up:

The American Dream is a promise of opportunity.  A right to equality of opportunity, you could say, though certainly not outcome.  An immigrant who arrives at Ellis Island with "nothing" can rise to the top of our society through hard work, self improvement and persistence.  The persistence is important - opportunity is a matter of luck, but if you just *keep working and improving*, it becomes statistically inevitable that you'll get your chance at that dream.  And being at the top still means working hard of course, maybe harder, but also enjoying comforts and security and acclaim.

Obviously nowadys I think this is blatant propaganda pushed by the rich to justify their place at the top, and to keep everyone else scrambling for that "dream".  There is no equality of opportunity.  Scholarships save *some* people, but some people get shitty upbringings and others get every advantage money can buy.  And as a bonus the scholarships get people fighting each other for those lifelines.

But the government stepping in like that does *help* address systemic inequalities.  Same with anti-discrimination laws.  We do have *some* degree of meritocracy here, and it's completely due to public programs and spending.  A public high school degree used to be worth something.  If you were lucky enough to have the better separate-but-equal school... but still, it was something.  Nowadays you're expected to indebt yourself for a meaningful degree - unless your parents can't just pay for you.  Meritocracy my ass.

Anyway I was just interested by the idea of the American Dream involving "be your own boss", where I see it more as the government giving everyone an opportunity even when no one else will.  Without government involvement we'd just have wage slavery and open discrimination, like when all those self-made entrepreneurs had their little corporate towns.  hard to imagine i know

But yeah "equality of opportunity" good, "equality of outcome" is just a bogeyman for conservatives

[McTraveller]

I think "equal opportunity" has always been a myth. The US wasn't even founded by law to treat everyone equally under the law (see suffrage and property ownership in the original Constitution and Bill of Rights), Declaration of Independence notwithstanding (which carries no force of law anyway).

Equal opportunity can perhaps be implemented as "equal opportunity under the law" but there is no physical way to have equal opportunity of circumstance, which is what I think you were hinting at. Even if every single person was given the same amount of money from birth, even if you funded schools exactly equally, the world itself is not "equal" across time and space - so there is no such thing as "equal opportunity" unless you define things very particularly.

You can't even say that people would always have equal opportunity to found a business or whatever; demand is never the same twice, so to speak.

That said - yes the folks who claim their megawealth is due to their own hard work are indeed blowing smoke; there is no meaningful philosophical argument that these men "worth" tens or hundreds of billions of dollars "earned" that. Their companies did perhaps, but not the individuals.  Yes there is some value in their leadership or charisma, but the material impact of their contribution should not entitle them to thousands of man-years of wealth.  I mean seriously I'm in peak earning years, and 10s of millions of dollars is hundreds of years worth of my income.  I'm all for letting people to earn lots, but I think that by statute we should basically tax income at something like 99% once wealth wealth is like 100 years of median income.  This would currently be about $6 million, which is a surprisingly small amount when it comes to "the wealthy."  You could probably add a kind of wealth surtax too, or appropriately treat sales of assets as income.

I bet you wouldn't even need estate taxes if you did something like that.... :thinking:

[MrRoboto75]

@MrRoboto75
Yeah, it is a lie... But that version of the American Dream is still bring sold in current politics, and it is being sold as a right you need to fight to keep, not as something to be earned.

Because, unfortunately, that's how you get votes in Michigan or Pennsylvania.  Coal and manufacturing still want the fantasy that those industries will come back to the US, any day now.

I don't think the American Dream was ever a right - it was always something you had to work toward.  Or did my socioeconomic group get a different version of the pamphlet?  I can see how you have to work differently or perhaps even harder now than decades ago, but never has the American Dream been without work.

The American Dream has a large component of "be your own boss," which entails hard work, and being free from a Tyrant that prevents you from being your own boss.  Maybe only recently has the dream morphed to "you can get lucky and be so rich you no longer have to work."  Basically that "be your own boss" spirit has been lost, and it feels to many of us that it's now "oh it's so hard to be your own boss, we just want society at large to take care of everyone."

If the sentiment was "government, get out of our way and protect us from the Oligarchs so that we can be our own bosses" instead of "government, we don't want to be bosses but make sure those Oligarchs have to pay for us anyway" many more traditional conservatives would not have such a hard time.

Problem honestly is, is that the loyalty between a company and the people that work for it is gone, at many levels in the company.  Careers aren't ladders anymore, and hard work isn't worth the trouble.  From personal experience, working hard just meant I got more work and responsibility piled on to my normal duties, yet my hours and pay stayed the exact same.  Instead of, say, being manager, I'm instead just two workers in one.

Nowadays staying at one job too long just makes you a sucker, and you have to make your own promotion by getting hired somewhere else for the wage your experience and work really deserved all along.

Same loyalty disconnect is at the top, though, as a CEO will do something to boost stock value in an unsustainable way only to quit before those consequences reach his stock-value pay, and get a severance bonus.

Either way, the prosperity was more due to dumb luck than anyone's hard work.  The US was just bombed the least over the two world wars, unlike anybody who could've competed with them.

Anyway I was just interested by the idea of the American Dream involving "be your own boss", where I see it more as the government giving everyone an opportunity even when no one else will.

Entrepreneurship can be the ultimate rejection of the labor market, but in present times entrepreneurship is less and less viable.  Brick and mortar shops have only diminished outside of very specific niches, and large corps like wal-mart or amazon can just 'cheat' at competing by operating at a loss.  Covid was the death knell for a lot of small business.

[McTraveller]

Brick and mortar shops are the most difficult type of entrepreneurship.  Skilled trades, artisan manufacturing, and services are much more likely to succeed.  Basically you want to actually produce wealth, not just shuffle it around.  Restaurants are kind of in the middle because they can be value-add rather than just being merchants; non-franchise can do well if you can get a following, but they are very sensitive to local economic shocks.

Retail is about the worst thing I'd recommend to try to start.  Be a plumber or electrician, even a good repair person can pull in a decent salary, but those do take a lot of actual effort.  Not just in the work itself, but also building the reputation.

[Duuvian]

@MrRoboto75
Yeah, it is a lie... But that version of the American Dream is still bring sold in current politics, and it is being sold as a right you need to fight to keep, not as something to be earned.

Coal I think is certainly on the way out the way it looks now; I recently read that solar is cheaper (though that may have been oil instead of coal, can't remember) and takes up less land footprint than coal does now. There is also this, which I found interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/syria-solar-power-idlib.html

I saw a commercial for an electric F-150 too that said it's battery could be used as an emergency power source. I bet that means it could be used to power tools in the field too; hope they have a power reserve shutoff though or some people will be walking home oops. I wonder if they will sell solar panel attachments for trucks like that, or if it will have to be through "official" recharge stations...

As to manufacturing, I read a while ago that a big expectation is that automation will take over more and more functions and require less workers. On the bright side, George Jetson has a sweet job. On the downside, we might have to pay people for things robots don't (currently) do, like play community sports or create artworks representative of emotion, with all our robot created wealth.

I do think in the short term a problem for manufacturing workers is that industries that do not have strong, existant unions are often hiring through temp agencies. Even some automotive companies with strong unions utilize "temps" for things like quality assurance when in contract disagreement with unions. This leads to complaints by businesses they can't keep "temp" workers, ironically, because surely it isn't the businesses' (lack of) employment policies that cause the workers to leave. The temps surely must just have been bad workers, not wanting the American Dream hard enough, or they would have stayed a "temp".

This is the conclusion I heard reached by management about the turnover rate at a temp using factory I worked at.

Meanwhile, at another factory I worked at that had no temp workers, the work was brutal compared to the other but they had almost no turnover. They didn't even give the raises the temp using company had to rely on to keep workers who impressed them (I must say to be fair that at the temp using company I got many raises, almost every 3 months even though what I really wanted was to be hired into the company rather than a temp agency in between me and my wages for the privelege of having to take Medicaid from the State)

[MrRoboto75]

A lot more industries are embracing temps and contractors over real employees, as the former receive less benefits.  Yet another way to trim bone and muscle after running out of fat to cut.

See traditional taxis versus Uber or Lyft.  Not real employees, so they get to foot insurance and wear-n-tear of the vehicle and the company saves a quick buck.

[McTraveller]

I think Uber, Lyft, etc. are borderline unviable business models anyway¹, and I think they probably should be sanctioned for their lack of transparency regarding net income.  If the "ride-share" companies had remained ride-sharing, instead of "gig career" companies, they would not be in so much deserved hot water.

Spoiler: Footnote 1 (click to show/hide)

It takes a lot of revenue to fund even a below-average $40k/year salary.  That needs a revenue of close to $50k/year, which averaged over 1920 hours is already $26/hour. I can't imagine a single vehicle has paying fares for more than 50% of its time, so now you're pushing a revenue target of $52/hour for paid time.  This would be $13 for a 15-minute ride.

"But CompanyX has tons of money, where do they get it!?" Well they get it from the fares of course (except for the investment capital that is).  Consider though if CompanyX only takes $1/hour from its drivers, which would not impact any individual driver that much - yeah they'd go from $50k/driver-year to $48k/driver-year.  But if Uber has a million drivers, this is $2 billion per year income to CompanyX.

Put another way - Megarich corps don't get rich by taking lots of money from a small number of people. They get rich by taking a small amount of money from a huge number of people.  That's the secret.  It's also why you can't just make these companies pay for cars or vehicle insurance or whatever; the amount of money they extract per driver doesn't usually pay what it would cost per-driver to pay that.

This is why I think on-demand gig-economy transportation is just flat out unsustainable; I don't see how there is enough demand to pay for it.  I suppose part is that I live in suburbia, not an urban area; my breakeven cost for on-demand transit would have to work out to what I pay for my vehicles.  Let me see... that works out to about $25 a day per vehicle for my house, when I include gas, repairs, sticker price of vehicle, etc. I don't know how to factor in how much of the cost of my house is the garage though - maybe based on my mortgage and scaling by square feet it's an additional $4 cost per day per vehicle.  Could we ever get to $29 / day for on-demand trips?  I highly doubt it - our most frequent destination is 13 miles one way, which by my estimates would cost $23 or so one-way.  There is no way we could replace my family's transit needs with on-demand travel unless it was probably 25% its current price, and I doubt even magic technology can reduce it that much.

[wierd]

The solution there, is that uber and pals need to do mass-transit with rented buses, and other fleet people moving vehicles.
Then they can collect multiple fares, with a single driver and a single vehicle.


They WONT do that of course;  It would be direct competition with municipal bus services, or with state-subsidized taxi service.



I could still see it being offered in niche settings however, such as tourism for larger families, who all wish to ride together, but do not necessarily wish to rent a vehicle-- Also, for extended-area coverage that airport shuttle services do not overlap with. That way they can cover the "large business meeting" airline patrons, all going to the SAME hotel, but are all individual fares-- In that hotel that is literally on the other side of the metro from the airport.