Last Decade was "Uniquely Stupid"

NYU Business School professor explains how facebook made everyone dumber, more prone to anxiety disorders.

“Uniquely Stupid:” Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRuvKtFvqo

intercst

11 Likes

The article is worth reading, and has specific, actionable items at the end. The Tower of Babel is such a terrifying fitting metaphor for our times.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-…

Cheers,
Wot

8 Likes

Haidt said “specially Twitter.”

Go Elon!

The Captain

Someone should inform The Atlantic magazine that there was a time in the US where we had an
actual civil war as well as periods when active rebellions were on going.

Howie52
People just do not seem to recognize that history has a tendency to repeat itself when folks are not
looking or feel too self important - thinking that their views are somehow more valid than those of
folks in the past.

1 Like

Frontline on PBS this week had a report on money and finance.

They made the case emphatically that the greatest failure of the last decade is failure to invest in infrastructure during a long phase a very low interest rates.

They attribute it to discord in Congress. And of course the usual preference for tax cuts. And companies preference to use funds to buy back stock rather than invest–creating productive capability and job opportunities. Executives far more interested in rising stock prices and bonuses than in building industry leading corporations.

1 Like

He is a social scientist. That is not a psychiatrist or psychology. It might be a Ph.D in psychology but that does not mean a practicing ethical psychologist.

He is putting SM, Politics and the word “stupidity” into any relationship he likes.

The difference in the data where young people are reporting depression and anxiety may be two factors. One people needing treatment getting it in part and getting asked are you depressed or suicidal. Two people expressing themselves freely not just on SM but elsewhere in society.

He calls diversity fighting over stupid little things. That is not true. And it does not mean we end up being a banana republic.

Where can you buy his book? It is more expensive than firewood?

His audience will love him. I am talking to grandparents who wont support higher taxes for better funded school systems. Teachers are buying supplies for their jobs out of their own pockets. Thanks grandma and grandpa you are damned cheap. You can get this book on Kindle for $5.95 or something like that.

BTW you really want a full answer to all of these problems for the younger folks? The parents, not all, need to grow up. TVs and cellphones should not be in bedrooms. Kids should not be going out to late night meals because mom and dad work and wont cook. The parents some of them need to really straighten up. When Jonny as a kid does something wrong the teacher is not to blame. Jonny’s parents are spoiled brats raising spoiled brats. Parents need to stop demanding all sorts of things from teachers. Leveraging their position to take advantage of teachers is garbage. Parents need to stop thinking because Jonny is failing the curriculum was unfair or too hard. Jonny needs discipline.

ah!! Same guy now on parents. He is much better here. I am his audience on this one.

In econ there are other reasons for all of this. Outsourcing strips opportunity out of the economy. We have seen how the middle class in the US is faring.

Does the US have bad problems? Most of you will automatically say, “hell yes”. Does Mexico have worse problems? You all will say, “far worse”. The minimum wage in Mexico is about $16 per day.

I can see a day when Mexican gangs are negligible. With demand side economics wages in Mexico will rise for years to come just as they have in China. It will be far less risky and far more lucrative to get a job in Mexico in the years to come.

One of the things American kids have been facing is climbing college costs. It is not worth studying as a teenager for many of them. I get that is not true but many of these kids are locked out of going on in life. You can say we do not need so many college grads. I get that as well. Which bright young student should not go to college? Your grandchildren? Volunteering them?

The structures in the school systems are geared to send kids to college but the costs are out of reach. Going back to just getting a job the costs of having a family are out of reach because we have outsourced our factories.

This is why I pound the table for demand side economics. Human lives are at stake.

Adding separate headline on parental stupidity causing many many problems.

Florida university fires professor after racial justice lessons prompted parent complaint

  • Yahoo News

We had a news article on here earlier today about a young kid at a bar shoving a wheelchair down a staircase just because. We were outraged. Rightly so. How about the same outrage for a parent taking a professors job away because of a lesson on justice? That university is garbage. Worthless.

Sam Joeckel, a veteran professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, said in a statement Thursday that the West Palm Beach school had “made the disappointing decision to terminate my contract early.”