We live in a time where almost everything is getting worse. Products are getting smaller, service is getting worse, businesses are closing, quality is going down. I don't think I've ever experienced such an obvious decline in commercial society in my entire life.
Is it the financialization of everything? Is that we reached peak growth and profit increases are only possibly through extreme optimization? Is it financial inequality?
I was just wondering if it's just me feeling like everything is on a highway to terrible.
- Prices in my city, just this year, have felt like they've jumped 10 or 15 percent.
- I've been working in tech for a decade now and for the first time a new company simply refused to negotiate salary.
- I feel financially worse off than 5 years ago making a third of what I make now.
- Housing prices have exploded. I worry I will never own a home.
- Denmark has started deleting public holidays to save our social welfare state.
- Health care is the worst it's ever been. You can not get basic health diagnostics for most things in Denmark without screaming.
- Europe has a literal war at our doorstep.
- Public transit prices have jumped in the last year.
- Good quality grocery stores have closed and been replaced with discount chains. The quality of the produce is terrible.
- Democracy feels increasingly shittier and hijacked by two extremist poles of very-online meme-thought.
- Gen Z is looking like the most garbage generation of the last two centuries with more mental illness than any generation in history.
- Everything has become a political lightning rod.
I feel exploited by invisible forces I can't see or touch or name. I feel as if I have no mastery over my own life. I no longer know why I continue to contribute to a society that does not give anything back to me for my labor and exploits the best years of my life for taxes that do not improve my lot in life.
Can someone tell me everything is going to get better?
I see this all around me here in the US, and feel the same way that you do. Ironically, some Americans see this as a US-centric problem, and look at places like Denmark as an example of a country that still has its shit together, but your own comment seems to confirm that we're in the midst of a global cultural malaise that could probably give the 1970s a run for their money.
We have a total lack of competent leadership across all institutions -- political, commercial and social -- increasing extremism and authoritarianism from every political faction, and cynical short-term thinking from every economic institution. Everything is drowning in mediocrity and pessimism, and society is increasingly dysfunctional in every aspect. Extremists keep proposing authoritarian political solutions, but I see their proposals only as even worse iterations of the problem. What can we do about it, apart from admitting defeat and going off-grid in the mountains?
Boomer checking in. I totally blame my generation. We spent our whole lives sucking the long term value out of everything we could, for our short term gain. Leaving your generations with massive debt and nothing to show for it. You’re welcome.
Yea, I hate generation wars, but it seems to be increasingly true that most of the economic value created in the last, say, 50 years, was currently either 1. captured by a few extremely wealthy individuals, or 2. locked up in the retirement accounts and real estate of people over 60 years old.
I feel like we (the younger generations) are all sitting here holding our breath in this stasis, waiting for that generation to die, and hoping those portfolios somehow get magically spread across the population. I don't know what mechanism is available to do that spread, but if it doesn't happen, where will all that locked up wealth go?
You are in Denmark? WOW!! From here in the US, my impression of Denmark is a small country of really smart people with gorgeous women having really good lives!!! Your post questions that impression ....
Here in the US, there are what seem to be related issues. Opinions about what is wrong and why differ. It can seem that we don't address the issues or what is wrong, for example, it can appear that the media believes that making clear the issues and faults are too deep for the audience of the media. For example, so far I've yet to see good engineering style graphs of even the basic measures from the economy, health, education, happiness, etc. In simple terms, the birth rate is so low we are going extinct -- some graphs over time might provide some insight. To avoid going extinct should be worth some graphs of related data?
Here is one guess: Some people want more government involvement, activity, services, ..., at the national level. Involved are money and power, money collected from taxes and/or borrowed and then spent and the people spending the money getting power. Then for the money the guess is that the spending is too inefficient, that is, too often wasted. For the power, it can stop what might be solutions. So, with the waste, we are throwing away our efforts, and with the power we are blocked from better approaches.
For this view, the US has some old images, from history, the movies, some parts of education, and even from some of recent history: So, the old images are from, say, the movie The Big Sky from the 1830s of 20 or so men and one Native Indian woman leaving Saint Louis on the Mississippi River (major US river from the north east going south and dumping into the Gulf of Mexico) and the Missouri River (from the northwest of the US close to the Pacific Ocean and flowing ~2000 miles to the Mississippi) to trade with the Blackfoot tribe to give them woven blankets, guns, tools and get beaver pelts.
The whole effort was lawless, that is, no government, laws, police, political power, regulations. So there was fighting, killing. No medical care, so there was suffering. There were lots of injuries from struggles with the river. It was all highly risky with lots of struggles and losses but in the end successful.
There were more such movies about the US, people on their own, risking everything, fighting, struggling, having failures, in the end being successful. There was Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers (had a bicycle shop), etc.
To the present, there were two guys at Stanford University in a project for indexing the contents of libraries. They thought of indexing the Web sites on the Internet and were offered ~$1 million for their work and Web site. They turned down the $1 million, started a company, and had success. It was all risky. It's now worth ~$1 trillion, called Google. Other successes, risky, one or a few founders, include Microsoft, Walmart, FedEx, Facebook, Amazon, Burger King, McDonald's. One guy, sole, solo founder, used some old Dell computers, an early version of Microsoft's Windows and Web software ASP.NET, built a romantic matchmaking service, grew it, ..., and sold out for ~$550 million.
Mostly these successes are examples of significant increases in economic productivity, that is, how much utility get from each hour of work. Personal computers? Killed off the typewriters with just astounding increases in productivity; same for email; Zoom, .... In cars, using digital electronics to get fuel mixture and spark timing a lot better resulted in the engines lasting much longer -- if looked carefully into what was going on with the old carburetors and breaker point ignitions and the huge ways they were wrong (unburned gasoline diluted the engine oil and, thus, wore out the main engine parts) can understand. Tires -- progress in the synthetic rubber chemistry made the tires last much longer, maybe 5 times as long.
The theme is, as in the movie, leave individuals with a minimum of taxes and government power and let them try and take the risks. The victories can generate massive increases in productivity, wealth, and a better life.
Heck, I like music, A. Vivaldi, J. Bach, ..., S. Barber. Used to be, had to go to live performances. Then we got audio tapes, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, and the Internet. So, now just from a few keystrokes I can get terrific performances of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Bach's Chaconne, ... Barber's Adagio for Strings.
Those are some of the ideas that have floated around. Money and power: The idea that just these two are the main causes of all of society's problems is tough to accept. But, for the problems in Denmark, maybe these two should get some attention.
I think the big successes that you describe are the exception rather than the rule. I think you'll find the majority of economic success comes from simple rent seeking -- whether literally as landlord, or as financial service, or otherwise being in middle.
With all the significant increases in economic productivity that has not benefited the average American. We can see historically that as productivity has increased, the wealth of individuals has decreased. We like to think of utopia where increased productivity means we would all get to work less and have more but that isn't how capitalism works. We have made everything significantly more efficient and continue to do so but who is benefiting? For most people things are getting worse because that is actually more efficient.
> leave individuals with a minimum of taxes and government power and let them try and take the risks.
Living in a country with a good social safety net is pretty helpful for risk taking. It's a lot easier to quit your job and start a business when you don't have to worry about losing health care and potentially dying or going bankrupt.
> I think the big successes that you
describe are the exception rather than the
rule. I think you'll find the majority of
economic success comes from simple rent
seeking -- whether literally as landlord,
or as financial service, or otherwise
being in middle.
So, $1 trillion companies versus some guy
with $400K a year from 15 well run
convenience stores, .... We have a lot of
both.
> With all the significant increases in
economic productivity that has not
benefited the average American.
Maybe not in comparative terms, i.e.,
maybe the distribution curve for wealth
has not changed much.
But in absolute terms, some of what I
listed are huge benefits for "the average
American":
Nearly no one in the US would want a 1950
Ford, forced to use a typewriter instead
of a word processor on a computer, news
papers on paper instead of the Internet,
no mobile phone or Zoom, 1950s health
care, lath and plaster instead of drywall,
oak flooring instead of vinyl (cheaper and
more durable), microwave ovens, synthetic
yarn in cloth and clothing, in general, as
in the famous movie, no "plastics",
railroads and busses instead of airplanes,
no summer air conditioning, no gasoline
powered lawn mowers, no calculator aps or
pocket calculators instead of adding
machines, no computers instead of punched
cards, car tires that wear out in 20,000
miles instead of 100,000 miles, elevator
operators instead of electrically
controlled elevators, etc. ....
If you gave Americans the option of those old things but also a single income could house, feed, a clothe a family of 5 I think it might be closer than you think. It's not fair to describe what we've gained without describing what we've lost.
My parents owned different homes their entire lives. I make significantly more than they ever did and don't and could never afford my own childhood home. My children are even worse off than that.
Maybe some news source would publish a graph over time of the ratio of house prices to, say, prices of gasoline, ground beef, carrots, a wool blanket, a car, a refrigerator, etc.
We are very short on news that has credible information, gets to causes, presents like STEM field information, etc.
Also the appliances in my childhood home weren't energy inefficient but they were solid. My current fridge is full of cheap (and broken) plastic. My new stove lasted just past a year before a part that cost 1/5 the price of the entire thing broke. You can get appliances with a touchscreen but you can't get one that will last 20 years anymore.
If it wasn't for government safety regulations that 1950's Ford might actually be safer than what would be produced now without them.
Sometimes it's monopoly. Not this time, though; Red Lobster was a minor player.
Red Lobster was a leveraged buyout. (Most "private equity" is leveraged buyouts. The buyer seldom puts up full cash.) Plus the equity to debt conversion.
I've been thinking about this a lot too. It just feels like all ends of the spectrum, for a consumer, are crashing down. Everything is harvesting and selling data, stock at stores is low and usually favors the generic (and sometimes lesser) option over the higher quality names... Apps like facebook, twitter, IG, tiktok, reddit, and youtube are making life worse for their users. Overall, it is kind of a depressing time to observe.
In case it helps you, I find the following products / services have improved their quality and offering in the past decade:
TVs: I get a much nicer TV now for the same amount what I paid for a crappier one in 2012
Smartphones: very powerful and do a lot of things better (eg. camera, connectivity)
Entertainment: Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime, ... you can pick 1-2 of those, binge all you want and then rotate. Costs < 30$/mo
Travel options: Ok, even in 2014, there were very good travel options. But I see a lot more options these days (direct flights from SF, more obscure locations on the travel map etc)
Cars: I bought a new car in 2021 (previous one was 2010). New one is cheaper and has some nicer features (rear view & other cameras, various warning signals)
Sorry, I don't think that helps at all. If anything, it comes across with a "You should skip the avocado toast" energy.
The vast majority of these things are not all that important to most people, not like prices of groceries, household goods, clothing, energy, childcare costs, transport costs..etc.
I don't care that cars have nicer features now, if buying a new car is most of my annual wages pre-tax. I don't care that I can fly to more interesting destinations from SF when I can't afford to go to urgent care without having to switch to rice and beans for a week. I do on the other hand care when my grocery bills double unless I spent multiple hours a week collecting coupons and driving around to find sales. I care when I have to wake up in the morning shivering because I can't afford to keep the heat at even close to a comfortable temperature.
> The vast majority of these things are not all that important to most people
Hmm I don't think you and I share the same definitions of "most people" then, or "important" for that matter. Just to give 2 examples:
>85% of US adult population uses smartphone. The way smartphone revolution has occurred and the big role they play in our lives (entertainment, communication, public services, finances) in just 15-16 years since its invention is truly astonishing.
>90% US households have a car. ~40K Americans die every year in car road accidents. Improving car safety is literally a matter of life and death and numbers prove[1] that we are doing better over time.
It’s what inverting the age pyramid feels like as the average age of society keeps increasing and risk mitigation becomes the meaning of life, espoused in phrases like ‘stay safe!’
We are slowly in the midst of going through a black plague of sorts when it comes to the % change in population that is occurring, except we will be left with an elderly population instead of a dynamic healthy and young population.
Corporate consolidation, some would say. IIRC, at some point in the last some decades, the US got the bright idea that antitrust isn't really worth enforcing if potentially anticompetitive business practices and mergers can also result in lower prices.
That kinda works— Until a small handful of corporations gain enough power that there is not really any meaningful competition anymore, and they can effectively engage in price-gouging with monopoly power. Which has now happened, apparently, in most industries. …Hence everything getting worse.
…I think there was an article I read some time back that explained it really well. But I can't seem to find it, so these links will have to do. The Guardian/Youtube ones might seem clickbaity, but that man was also Clinton's Secretary of Labor:
Ticketmaster, Facebook, grocery prices, even the Boeing 737 mess— I suppose a lot of these problems do basically come down to a company or an oligopoly getting so powerful that nobody can hold it accountable anymore.
Most people used to believe in Jesus Christ with values built on the Bible. That was true from lay people to Ivy League colleges to even folks in prison. His blessings with His accountability both made many good things happen and limited lots of damage we’d cause. America was prosperous as the Bible said it would be.
Over the decades, people turned away from God and those values to chase new ones: money first, pleasure first, self/ego first, atheism, subjectivism, Marxism. These by themselves, if increasing enough, guarantee massive amounts of suffering for people. Whereas, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians only does good for people when you increase it. Society made their choice.
As in Romans 1, God handed us over to our depraved minds and sins to let us feel the full consequences of selfish, godless, subjective societies. Everything has gotten worse. The solution is to repent and turn back to what God gave that worked before. Then, gradually improve ourselves in any weak areas. Wr must bake righteous values back into our families, businesses, and government. Inward change creates positive, outward results.
On an individual level. God promises them national prosperity for obedience in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There’s curses for disobedience, esp turning away from God, that are very specific. Then, we see those patterns happening in the following books for Israel and the other countries. We’ve seen both happen in the U.S.
I'm a little bit concerned about Jesus crashing the fishing industry by dumping product onto the market at prices that are too low for anybody else to compete with. It would be especially bad if it triggers some kind of broader trade war. It would be better if there was some way to quantify the risk involved.
As an American Millennial, all my life I've seen Christians who talk about love and charity on Sunday, and then work the rest of the week to lower taxes on the rich, shame women, and get as many guns into as many American hands as possible. Ultimately, they found their political apotheosis in Donald Trump, who seems to be the physical manifestation of the deadly sins. If he was created in a lab by Atheists to prove that Christians are hypocrites above all else, they could not have done a better job.
I'd suggest that if they want more Americans to live the values preached by Jesus, they should try starting with themselves. I don't know how many people they have turned into Atheists with this behavior, but I can say for sure they did for me, and I suspect they have alienated many others as well.
Somewhat ironical, but I'd be a bit more charitable and simply chalk that up to edge cases; additionally it's no different than typical ideological signaling. I find it less interesting to care about the extent people can bastardize a given idea, also because that's an entirely different, sociological issue.
Tho really any belief system that becomes so institutionalized will inevitably attract flies and become debased over time. However one could cheekily remark that by virtue of its message and who it spoke to, early Christianity was inherently debased, and certaintly ignoble.
There are certainly many people who claim to believe in Christ while committing many sins. There’s also tons of atheists and liberals with similar sins. It would certainly help if people acted in line with their values. Also, if they stop causing others harm individually or politically. I’m with you there.
As I look at the Word, we see Jesus Christ promised that anyone who repents and believes in Him would receive eternal life by how good He was, not our own works. It’s a gift of grace. From there, John 15 shows real believers who are in the vine bear the fruit. We’re all steadily changed over time (sanctification) to be more like Him. So, we’ll all have faults.
Even in God’s Word, we see all kinds of sin in the churches. They have fake leaders, people about money, sexual immorality, ego, and James says they starve the poor. Yet, apostles call them “saints” because Jesus bought their future. Instead of discarding them, the apostles keep exhorting them to improve to become who they need to be. Anyone that confessed and made an effort would make it.
Whereas, we can’t let any excuse… ourselves or others… separate us from Christ. Apostasy leads to a worse fate than non-belief if one never returns. John says Christ will never let anyone snatch His real sheep out of His hand. He’ll forgive anyone that returns. I encourage you to return to your first love and find a Biblical church (eg GiveThemLife.com has help).
Yea, I dislike that frequent atheist rejoinder cuz it totally misses the point; religion is concomitant and merely used as a pretense. Which I equally dislike, I wish there were more transparency about one's innate will to dominate rather than masquerading behind fictitious ideological claims.
In another article, America was rated as the most Christian with the most missionaries. Yet, it’s had hardly any wars motivated by religion. They’re usually about the selfish motivations of non-Christian worldviews.
Whereas, Communists have killed tens of millions of people, cultural Marxism is spreading in universities, and that should worry people. You might want to cite liberal beliefs and atheism as top killers in future comments.
When and where did that really ever work? Evidence please. The bible says nothing about America. I assume that abolishing slavery was where we turned away from biblical principles.
You don’t even really need it. You can go right to the roots.
Let’s compare two sets of things on a basic level.
1. You know God will judge what good or evil you did at the end of your life. You factor that into your decisions.
2. You think we’re an accident, nothing matters, people are just over animals, actually just chemical reactions, universe itself disappears in enough time, nothing matters in the long term unless you say so, and no accountability for any horrible thing you did.
Which is more likely to lead to righteous behavior? Which is more likely to lead to destructive behavior?
Next set are Christ’s basic commandments vs the world’s:
1. Love and obey God first. That means truth, justice, avoiding self-destructive behavior, family, and good work ethic. From there, love others as you would yourself in all your interactions with them.
2. Do whatever you want to whoever you want. It might be limited by whatever is popular at the time which will change. The Devil has most media focusing on individualism over family, squeezing max profit out of everything, and chasing pleasures with reckless abandon.
Which of these logically creates more good? Which leads to more damage?
I think we could stop there. The consequences of just those differences in believes are tremendous. Those in set 2 are currently doing the most damage in all areas of life. They include people who identify as Christian but don’t live like it. Lip service.
Whereas, my first-hand experience with hundreds of people following Christ and Biblical teaching is that it’s working. Their problems often come from sin, not obedience.
I haven't observed any correlation between belief in God and righteous or destructive behavior. Seems like most theists and most atheists try to live the virtues you've described as best they can.
I'm an atheist, and I do my best to live those virtues because it's just the right thing to do, and because it feels better than the alternatives. I don't think I'm exceptional in not needing a final judgement to make me want to be kind, honest, work for justice, live with integrity, etc.
Much respect to my theist brothers and sisters, and please consider that your atheist brothers and sisters are worthy of respect as well.
Yea, Spinoza effectively argues that the Commandments were necessitated by practical utility to control the unruly and uneducated masses and have since become even more bastardized by sectarian religions that wield these appeals to control people and actually prevent them to fully getting to know "God", which he finds entirely possible through reason alone.
And humorously, the latter of each of GP's respective points map pretty well to the destructive effects of what Nietzsche most feared of what he sensed was impending nihilism. Tho the difference, among many, is that "belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable".
We do evil for selfish reasons. God’s Word says the Father draws us to Him, faith itself is a gift He enables, and those who repent receive eternal life and close fellowship with God Himself. Then, His presence in our lives in many ways from changing character to answered prayers. Committing to rebellion in this life gains us nothing in the long term in comparison.
A sovereign ruler who is just necessarily has to enforce the law. That sinning against a perfect, loving, and good being would be punished severely shouldn’t shock you. It would happen in human, legal systems and likely your own house.
The beauty is God’s mercy outweighs His wrath. The wages of sin are death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. He took the punishment for us so we can just turn away from sin and back to God. Then, He never lets us go. You do have to put your God first, though.
The parent that I originally responded to asked a broader question about why we’re seeing declines, esp moral and quality, across many areas of life. They were wondering if this example was one of a general trend happening. I showed it was.
There were also predictions about what would happen if we followed Christ and His model vs other models centered on selfish gain. The other side denied the Biblical truth saying we’d have a better America with godlessness, capitalism, and/or communism. We’ve had time to see where those philosophies would take us. What happened?
God’s Word came true quite literally in many ways while the godless’ predictions were wrong with damaging results. So, the rational choice between multiple worldviews is to think the one that works and has correct predictions is true (or better). And then commit to Christ and repent.
Now, let’s tie that directly into Red Lobster:
1. Christ-like business over worldly greed would have the new owners not sell the real estate the business depended on.
2. Jethro and Paul said to pick leaders of great character and wisdom who aren’t sellouts. They’d have managed it better.
3. Humility in the service sector means constantly listening to customers to adapt to their needs since we put others first. Red Lobster would’ve changed with the times in some way which might have worked out (or not).
4. Proverbs focused on equitable or profitable arrangements. Jesus said to count the cost before you commit to a plan. The Bible often says to seek counsel. These would preclude all you can eat shrimp every day.
In short, Biblical morals would’ve prevented every aspect of this situation. Whereas, godless, unloving capitalism… all those together… naturally leads to things like this. If you will benefit from, but never be held accountable for, destroying the chain… why not make a fortune destroying it?
Good morals are basic math: create the world you want to live in. Golden rule and all that.
It turns out that Allah and Vishnu are both quite popular. And none of it supported by actual evidence. We can do better. God's plan is never to reveal that God makes any sense, just random whims. The immoral false prophets get rich and influence millions. So, gotta wait until you die to find out? Maybe. But the Abrahamic bible is so full of misinterpreted BS as to be unusable.
lol. congrats on working a sermon into a post about red lobster but... this is exceedingly poor argumentation if your goal is to actually convince anybody.
it's spot-on if you just want to feel good about yourself though. you start off with a whopper of a false dichotomy and strawman, and don't improve from there.
> Over the decades, people turned away from God and those values to chase new ones:
Most people leaving the church today do so because of how hateful and toxic the modern US church has become over the recent decades. If you don't like Christians leaving the church for Marxism, you shouldn't have let Marxism be the only ideology loving thy neighbors while the church was too busy chasing the delusions of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism.
Is it the financialization of everything? Is that we reached peak growth and profit increases are only possibly through extreme optimization? Is it financial inequality?