Cadillac ELR Coupe 2014 Commercial

If we want to reduce the incidence of distress in people and families, we need approach all these issues with compassion and an open mind. The open mind means considering various possibilities, while still being rational. Yes, one theory is that everything “just happens to be” innate from birth, and unchangeable, and we simply discover it later. This essentialist type of theory may in fact be the best one for extreme cases of any condition. But we have to be very careful applying essentialism across the board — is it true for even mild, increasinly widespread cases? Could we also not investigate the factors upstream of the issue? Not just before birth, but also in the environment, in the socialization, culture, economics, etc. And if we find factors that heavily seem to affect it, should we not consider trying to fix the problems upstream such that the “disorders” downstream become reduced in many cases? In the case of gender dysphoria, and to a lesser extent of depression being caused by serotonin, is too politically charged to start with. Many extremely creative people we know were born biologically male - the Wachowskis, Justine who made redbean, etc. transitioned their identity. They are adults who make a decision to live in ways they feel are more authentic to themselves amid the current culture and technology and that is their choice, as it should be. But we have to be careful not to therefore say there are no major issues in society upstream of millions of people who a

What's toxic is the system, for both men and women. A lot of the modern feminists and redpillers are anti-marriage, and advocate for men and women to never get married, for various reasons. Usually both gender warriors claim it's an oppressive institution. Meanwhile people have less children, and neglect their children, while corporations have them climbing the corporate ladder: ▶ this video I was there at Sheryl Sandberg's event when released her book "Lean In", about how women can do better climbing the corporate ladder. The culture now teaches kids to find life's meaning in something that will soon be automated by AI anyway. We'll have to figure out other ways of connecting again, spend time with our kids instead of sending them to government schools, take care of our parents instead of sticking them in nursing homes, etc. The problems are upstream (social networks, microplastics, factory farms, sugar, etc.) causing record teenage sadness, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, etc. The current solutions in USA are mostly medication downstream: amphetamines for kids with ADHD, SSRI inhibitors for depression, ozempic for diabetes, vaccines for a coronavirus that mostly affected people with diabetes / obesity (a real persistent epidemic that is hardly addressed at its root cause). This is what you should be worried about, in my opinion: link And the reason that boys end up looking to redpillers, blackpillers, MRAs, and guys the Tates etc. is because the system failed them. Dating sucks

Didnt a lot of studies finally come out by 2022 showing that SSRIs are not actually effective for most people, no more than a placebo? And the whole link between serotonin and depression was spurious… 2021: link 2022: link 2023: link In any case, I believe that ADHD, Depression and many other “umbrella” psychiatric diagnoses are being overdiagnosed, much like “hysteria” was for hundreds of years (eg 1 in 4 middle-aged women is on antidepressants now, and the opioid epidemic in men was largely exacerbated by the pharma industry, as has the overdiagnosis of ADHD prescribing amphetamines to kids). To be fair, the actual incidence of phychiatric conditions from ADHD to autism to depression has increased, as well as autoimmune disorders, diabetes etc. although not as much as the pharma industry wants us to believe. It could very well be the result of upstream changes in nutrition (eg wild increases in sugars like fructose across the board, antibiotic overuse on factory farms, buildup of microplastics everywhere etc.), and to a large degree society (including loneliness, dating, relationships, work, etc) and medicating them downstream (eg with amphetamines or opioids) is just a bandaid. Late stage capitalism has had a direct role in exacerbating this. For example, the tech industry (which many on HN are involved in) has redefined dating, relationships, job searches, political discourse, and much more. All of these affect how people interact. A seminal book even back in 2001 w

Corporations, just like governments, engage in pervasive propaganda, from impressionable school years all the way to adulthood. Edward Burnays said propaganda got a bad name after WW1, so they renamed it to "PR". It's how corporations got women to smoke, too: link How they control the crowd, featuring Edward Burnays and his uncle Freud (whose theories became famous ironically because of his nephew): link How the corporate world market to kids: link They marketed it to Black youth: link They marketed it to teen girls: link Sometimes the mask comes off and they do it too openly: ▶ this video The for-profit model of news corporations and social networks has led more and more adults to become perpetually angry and tribal politically: link There is even a term for what they resort to in order to please shareholders: surveillance capitalism: link I was at the event in NYC when Sheryl Sandberg unveiled her book, "Lean In": link Make no mistake. YCombinator and shareholder capitalism leads to this inevitably. Corporations have to please shareholders forever. And there is more and more push for inclusivity and part of that means adapting people from traditional roles (e.g. women homemakers) into types of work that benefit the market. As both sexes flooded the labor pool, wages got depressed, and marriage declined. People are distracted into being e.g. gender warriors (Red Pill vs Feminism) rather than realizing they are all being exploited by a for-profit capitalist system

This is what happens in capitalism. There's profit to be made educating the masses, and setting yourself up for social capital and intellectual capital by being a thought leader . In fact, these centrally controlled Big Tech platforms share this profit with influencers who help get eyeballs and engagement . On the startup side, venture capitalists encourage startups to fail fast and remove friction aka propping up money-losing economics, so they can have an IPO to wall street stockholders. After which the company must extract rents from its ecosystem and report every quarter to its shareholder class how well it's doing that. At every level, the system is designed to extract money from the masses of people. Whether it's "I will teach you how to flip a house" in the real estate bubble, to "I will teach you how to do AI stuff". The entire system optimizes for that. People might say "what, are you advocating communism"? Well, the alternative doesn't have to be that. It can be a universal basic income providing a floor to people, financed by pigovian taxes on fossil fuels (already done in Alaska for decades), plastic pollution, tolls for congestion of roads, etc. While at the same time subsidizing open source software. If the government did these two things, it would massively improve society. As the UBI would grow, we would not have so much need for labor unions, minimum wage laws, etc. to protect workers. People would spend time with their own families, learn new things, practic

No, because mass media was carefully curating its images to children (eg Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, Fox Kids, Animaniacs, Batman, PG-13 etc) and its profit motive wasn’t aligned with an algorithm that is designed to get people addicted to social media. Social media totally changed the expectations for teens… just like selling in a flea market vs selling on Amazon, you’re now competing against the whole world. Actually, there was a profit motive in children’s programming, it was for merchandise, and also had predictable results as capitalism always has: link link Many of the children’s shows (ahem, YuGiOh, Pokemon) were explicitly around selling shit to them, but at least it was external and not about their body image and social goals and expectations. Actually, the best analogy I can give, in terms of destructive power, to the TikTok/Instagram effect on teen girls, was the Gangsta Rap effect on teen boys (typically Black boys because that is who was selected by the music industry to be promoted). And with the same industry always claiming there is “no effect”, while an entire generation started cussin’ and acting much more violently than their parents. Sure, there are of course other socioeconomic factors, such as the rise of single-parent households typically without a father in the home, or both parents working long hours and neglecting the kids. That cannot be dismissed either. But that is also a result of corporations and their profit motive, selling a collective dream

I suppose the common thread is that they are all outspoken Black people, from different walks of life, who have all recognized that corrosive influences are coming from certain capitalist entertainment industries and contributing to cultural/moral degradation as a negative externality made in the name of profit. Cosby spent YEARS playing "America's dad" for the Black family, as did James Avery, Reginald VelJohnson and others. They provided a wholesome role model to look up to, of a married family man, who provides for his kids and teaches them manners and morals, as opposed to "role models" poppin bottles and bangin models that the rap industry provides. Misogynistic lyrics, racial slurs, materialistic lifestyles, sometimes even glorifying violence. What good does it do? If outsiders can't criticize it because it is "authentic Black expression", then it falls to Black voices to do so. And they do, increasingly. To try to combat moral / cultural degradation and restore family values takes both economic and cultural reform. This used to be the subject of Black sit coms: link And even CNN anchor Don Lemon used to OPENLY say stuff like this: link So Steven A Smith said the same: link Deloris Tucker: link I mean, I think you're tilting at windmills here when you're going after everyone's moral character who has said similar things. I could give you a lot more examples, but they haven't and don't make a dent in the capitalist machine. It has adapted. The reason it's on topi

This is like talking about "de"Platforming... why doesn't anyone talk about how these people GOT their platform and why people kept giving them a platform? Capitalism. "re"Possess? How about talking about Possessing in the first place? Why do we have so much "garbage" parked on our streets, namely cars that are owned but not used? Just like the American Dream of owning a home (and working 30 years to pay the money you rented to do that), or De Beers diamonds, or College, or whatever, there is a concerted effort to make you crave that thing and make that big-ticket purchase. Mainly to give into all the social pressure mechanisms. The car manufacturer industry relies on this kind of stuff -- to sell more cars. And sometimes they dial it to an 11: ▶ this video And the fossil fuel industry had relied for decades on colluding with them to make sure cars are locked into one type of fuel (fossil fuels). All your other appliances have long ago been able to take electricity -- so they can be powered by hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear fission, and even fusion as soon as it's enabled. But not cars, no. And government of course worked hand-in-hand with industry to subsidize fossil fuels and delay electric cars and battery tech: link The only people that this article would alarm are those who believe they want to own a self-driving car. Most people would just time-share them, and self-driving cars would be operated by Uber (another hyper-capitalist company that currently takes 50% of

Well, there can be various explanations, but France is not an underdeveloped country, neither is Finland. Their medical systems do report ADHD, although they might not so zealously overdiagnose it. French parents are more involved with their children, have far lower divorce rates, and work shorter hours than USA. Having "no time" is a point of national pride in the USA and there are even crass commercials that dial up the capitalism memes to an 11: ▶ this video Here are possible reasons why kids have ADHD: 1) The world is far more fast-paced. ADULTS haven't fared much better, and you'd hardly argue that everyone is genetically predisposed to having the attention span of a goldfish... it's clearly a societal thing: link 2) Technology affects society. Corporations are incentivized to put ever more ads in front of you, and now we all have cell phones in our pocket, connected to the internet at all times. Being distracted at dinner, notifications you have to check to make sure it's not important, etc. 3) Now that people can be reached anytime by their phone, any SMS or email causes anxiety that maybe it's from your boss, etc. 4) Even the tools that HN loves so much are often detrimental. Real-time is a gimmick, and studies show that Slack, etc. is actually worse for mental well-being and productivity overall. Here is a recent NYTimes article: link Again, ALL THESE THINGS are related to how capitalism and technology affects society and all of us. The very things that we are Hacker

That was talking about land, and Georgists were discussing creating one land tax. How many Americans own land? What is the distribution? Oh yeah: link Money is the new land. They are making more of it but they know everyone needs it, and the banking system has a monopoly on it. The “American Dream” was promoted was a way to get the plebs to take out large mortgages (to finance home construction, etc.) and be nice little workers and pay it off (this creates demand for the bank’s finance products and by extension the dollar). At least back then, only one parent worked long hours for corporations, because the culture mostly had women be homemakers and raise kids. Once both sexes started flooding the labor market, wages got repressed and corporations started promoting a new “Lean in” version of the “American Dream” to the men AND women… now everyone’s self-worth and satisfaction was supposed to be determined by climbing the corporate ladder: link Look at these modern ads specifically to US Americans, making them PROUD of how little free time they have… they don’t even try to hide it: ▶ this video This doesn’t lead to more happiness for the population, as measured.

Things become more fulfilling when you see everyone else doing them, such as raising kids. There are so many things people could be doing which are not compensated by the market and corporations. “Leaning in and earning $1 instead of 70c” is a meme that corporations use to get more humans to trade quality time with parents and kids for them. [1] Why don’t we ask about “Leaning out and spending more time with our families?” [2] Open source Science Philosophy Family Personal development Volunteering in community You’ve been CONDITIONED to think that large corporations are better ways to allocate your time and organize us all. That’s why many in NYC lamented when Amazon was not given tax breaks to come to our city. It’s almost as if we need Bezos’ company to organize ourselves an our time so we can get paid the money. Society spends tons on fossil fuels and commuting and for what? To sit in a chair 30 miles away? 1. ▶ this video 2. link

> So yeah, I detest this sense of entitlement that programmers have, where they want to a) get paid a lot and b) have lots of free time on the side. That mentality reminds me of the 2014 commercial for Cadillac ELR Coupe: ▶ this video It's not entitlement to want work-life balance and be paid well for your skills.