02-26-2017, 04:37 PM
Quote:OK -- not what I thought you were saying.
Yes, you saw "disability claims", stopped reading, and immediately went with a pre-programmed response. More or less as I suspected. Bad Dave!
Quote:Yes and no. There is a real issue here, but the issue has more to do with our view of ourselves than it does with the safety net, in whatever condition it may be. We've all been raised to be hyper-individualists, and that's not a good option going forward. It's easy to be a failure and full of self hate, if your goals are unachievable by any means. Anu Partanen has written about this extensively; here's a short example.
So this is an American problem, but the culture of Appalachia is particularly resistant to communalism. Hillbilly Elegy covers that pretty well. I don't see that changing, but, then again, it's not universal. Some will find a way out, and may be in the best position to help others. The adaptation gene will be the success gene for most of your generation and the next. I'm already out ... or on my way. For me, ,it's academic.
FWIW, no community has been better at adaptation than the Jewish diaspora, and it's well documented. A little light reading?
Yes, yes, Jews and Scandinavia good, rednecks bad. The limited range of responses you people are capable of (as demonstrated previously with the disability thing) is always funny, when it isn't very tedious.
You link to an article discussing things like family leave and healthcare as discussed by some Finnish lady living in NYC. What the hell would that have to do with the issue we were discussing of permanent unemployment and what it does to people? Access to government healthcare is how those people are getting opiates in the first place. What different does employer family leave make to people who are unemployed?
Please explain to me what the Jewish diaspora (presumably the historical one) has to do with said issue. You do realize I pointed out that this phenomenon is a bit more widespread than just modern Appalachia, right?
Are you actually capable of independent thought, and discussing an issue rationally in its own right, or do you just have a limited range of responses provided to you by your betters that you trot out in response to particular keywords?