America is a sick society

[Eric the Green]

(12-20-2016, 11:51 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-17-2016, 10:28 AM)Odin Wrote: Technology is advancing too quickly for people to culturally adapt. A big reason for the angst in rural America and in the Rust Belt is people simply being unable to comprehend automation and it's ultimate end-game. Americans are raised to believe that one must earn one's money through hard work, and that ever since WW2 we have been raised to expect a good-paying job to be our birthright, even for those people who are not capable of higher education.

At the same time, a lot of these people are stuck where they are, their wealth is tied up in their houses and good luck trying to sell a house in a small rust belt town, nobody want to move to those places, which makes all the talking points about how they should just move downright tone-deaf and just increases the resentment against the "educated elites".

Then mix this together with people having chronic pain as a result of a lifetime of blue collar work, which then leads these people to end up addicted to opioid painkillers.

This is exaggerated by various parts of the country having traditions of and workforces trained for specific industries.  The new companies and jobs tend to be high tech.  If one is booting up a high tech start up, it would be silly not to locate in Silicon Valley, Route 128 or similar enclaves.  That's where you find workers with the skills you need to make it.  You can find such workers even though the cost of living would be a downer.

The Rust Belt towns are often built around one factory.  When that factory goes away, you get a slow death.  Wishful thinking suggests all one needs is some sort of replacement.  Not easy.

I agree.

I think there is no hope for these people unless they start voting Democratic. Then they can get government help to retrain, re-educate and/or re-locate; if not for themselves, then for their children who can support them. And failing that, guaranteed income from taxes on the robot and machine owners.

They voted, some of them, for better trade deals. If that happens, it might help in some cases. If they voted for immigration restriction, there's no hope for them.

The same applies, of course, to coal country nearby; part of the same Trump-belt.