America Doesn’t Have The Stomach For Growth

0 points by turb0_encapsulator 2 hours ago on reddit | 26 comments

EXPLODEDman | an hour ago

Of course! Having values that aren't growth are an inconvenience!

Of course, the best possible plan is to hand all governing authority to corporate America.

Saying that we should plow full bore into risks, and yearning for an expansionist period of US history in which there were enormous harms done to the public is quite the take.

CollaredParachute | an hour ago

Nice rhetoric, but think about California’s high speed rail. That would have been good growth but who knows if it’ll ever go from LA to SF at this point.

EXPLODEDman | an hour ago

Growth is a terrible blanket term, as it encompasses an enormous number of possible actions and motivations, including "growing" the corporate money pile.

Public infrastructure development is a good idea, though.

Ill-Bullfrog-5360 | 58 minutes ago

Maybe changing our constitution wasn’t the brightest approach…

Few_Map2665 | an hour ago

From the "about" section:

>Software engineer, History fan, knower of random facts, organizer of economics reading groups, monitor of situations

So basically he's the guy at the end of the bar who is full of opinions.

Few_Map2665 | an hour ago

Bwahaha he also follows Scott Alexander's substack. Hopefully he keeps up with David Duke as well!

scardien | 29 minutes ago

Who is Scott Alexander?

Few_Map2665 | 9 minutes ago

A San Francisco-based psychiatrist who's big in the rationalist community/cult. His big thing is to smuggling scientific racism into 20,000-word long blog posts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210217195335/https://twitter.com/TopherTBrennan/status/1362108632070905857

These days though, he's gotten bolder about it:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-learn-to

scardien | 6 minutes ago

Thank you. Didn't want to feed the algorithms by searching for him.

Rabid_Lederhosen | an hour ago

Another engineer who sees every problem as an engineering problem. Classic.

They’re only marginally less destructive than the MBAs who think that every country should be run like a corporation.

pinkycatcher | 57 minutes ago

Is he wrong?

Few_Map2665 | 44 minutes ago

His whine about nobody appreciating AI was pretty bad, but he's complaining about a lot of things here. Some of which are good from my perspective, but some not so much. For example while things like environmental reviews and the like can certainly be abused he doesn't seem to understand why and how they exist. He also doesn't seem to appreciate that lots of folks in the US are going to lose out of the "growth" that he's so bent on,

Few_Map2665 | an hour ago

>In America’s reaction to AI—our most revolutionary innovation since the internet—you see the basis of our stagnation. There’s barely excitement about the new possibilities it creates. Instead, politicians are already searching for new methods to arrest its progress. Artists are trying to level copyright claims, writers are trying to preemptively ban it from bookstores, lawyers are pushing legislation to prevent it from generating contracts. Teachers are fighting its use in classrooms. Every facet of American society is organizing to preserve its own particular rent.

Ohhh noooo!

People take issue with technology that relied on massive theft to get set up, doesn't fulfill its promises, and is promoted by what amounts to a smelly doomsday cult!

How ruuuude.

coleman57 | 39 minutes ago

He characterizes getting paid for creative labor as “rent”. That’s a stunning level of ignorance about the very trade he’s engaging in. Maybe he doesn’t mind doing it for free, but folks who are much better at it and work much harder have a right to protect their work from being taken and repurposed by the real landlords.

nonexistentnight | an hour ago

Like a lot of abundance claptrap, this article adds up a couple kernels of truth into a totally insane take. Everyday Americans have every right to be suspicious of "growth" when their lives have not improved over the last 45 years of it. The rent seeking industries that monopolize our lives don't use growth promoters like innovation and deregulation to our benefit. They use them to entrench themselves further and increase profits.

Blah-Blah-Blah-2023 | an hour ago

And yet American stomachs continue to grow

transcendental-ape | an hour ago

Growth requires risk. No one wants to risk anything. Most are too comfortable where things are and don’t want to lose it. Sure, growth may help some. But not all. Someone loses when high speed rail goes up. Or a homeless shelter. There’s no such thing as growth without some consequences for someone. And those are impossible to predict 100%. So those who are happy where they are chose to avoid risk.

Colorado_designer | 34 minutes ago

10 IQ analysis masquerading as 100

jaxnmarko | an hour ago

Growth that doesn't deal with Imbalance grows Imbalance. Resources to address the imbalance then shrink further. This type of growth makes money for developers and others but further sickens society. Developers aim at maximizing profits, so aim at those with the most money to spend, leaving those with less, out of the picture as much as possible.

[OP] turb0_encapsulator | 2 hours ago

Aakash Japi argues that Americans on both the left and right stymie growth and hold the country back from being competitive with China. From housing to industrial policy, Americans don't support the changes needed to accomplish that.

adamwho | 2 hours ago

I have a feeling these questions were motivated.

Of course I need to add a lot of context so this post isn't deleted. My point is that the questions would not ask "do you want growth or development" because most people would say yes.

Rather, "do you want unchecked capitalism to run government" or "do you want billionaires to be in charge of the US".

I hope this is enough....

CollaredParachute | an hour ago

Most people if asked if they want new housing near them, they’d say no.

sciencesez | 52 minutes ago

7% of Chinese citizens have no access to indoor plumbing, compared to 0.5% of Americans. I'm not so sure why we're racing against a communist country except to the benefit of Wall Street and corporate America. China does not have a society I wish to emulate in any fashion.

SSH_Pentester | 2 hours ago

Your post has been approved, have a nice day!