Will America ever be great again?

[doodle]

What happened to us?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor- ... ons-giants

[dualstow]

What happened to us?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor- ... ons-giants

I’m not a monarchist, but sometimes I do envy how the Chinese get big projects done. Those maglev trains, for instance.

[doodle]

What happened to us?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor- ... ons-giants

I’m not a monarchist, but sometimes I do envy how the Chinese get big projects done. Those maglev trains, for instance.

Yeah, the train tech out of Japan is amazing. I'm always kind of confused when people refer to the moribund stagnant low growth economy of Japan. The image that conjures up doesn't seem to fit with everything I watch or read about the country. We on the other hand somehow keep growing but our roads and bridges crumble and my city is currently injecting sewage waste into aquifer underground because of a lack of basic infrastructure.

[dualstow]

Kern County?

[Kriegsspiel]

Yeah, the train tech out of Japan is amazing. I'm always kind of confused when people refer to the moribund stagnant low growth economy of Japan. The image that conjures up doesn't seem to fit with everything I watch or read about the country. We on the other hand somehow keep growing but our roads and bridges crumble and my city is currently injecting sewage waste into aquifer underground because of a lack of basic infrastructure.

That's right, I think. Andy Serwar made the same point a bit ago [EDIT: half a year ago, but I guess it stuck in my mind] in an article I read:

All the places economists say are terrible seem pretty great to me, and all the places the economists say are wonderful, well, let’s just say they have issues. . .

As for Japan, I just traveled there for the first time and because of how economists had predisposed me, I was expecting a country almost in collapse. Yes GDP growth has been anemic for the past 30 years, and yes the population of 127 million makes for crowded conditions, but my take was the world’s third largest economy and exporting juggernaut (autos!) was hardly moribund. And though people work long hours in Japan, the quality of life there is appealing. The bullet train and subways are still amazingly clean and orderly. The food’s remarkable and the culture is rich. That counts for a lot in my book.

Meanwhile life in NYC and Silicon Valley is stressful as hell, replete with soaring costs, 18-hour work days and endless traffic, which is literally killing.

Answering the OP question... I don't know man. It's really tough to say at this point.

[pugchief]

What happened to us?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor- ... ons-giants

You don't seem to be the type to be reading Fox News.

But VDH already answered your question in the piece: Ridiculous layers of government and their respective regulations, special interest groups and their opposition, and lawyers lawyers and more lawyers suing everybody and everything. It's sad, for sure.

[sophie]

Doodle, thanks for posting this. It is a thought provoking, take-a-step-back-and-think read.

Partial answer to your question in the article:

Californians tried to build a high-speed rail line. But after more than a decade of government incompetence, lawsuits, cost overruns and constant bureaucratic squabbling, they have all but given up. The result is a half-built overpass over the skyline of Fresno — and not yet a foot of track laid.

I can fill in a few of the blanks:

- UNIONS. These became super-powerful at about the same time that these large projects stopped being possible (in the 1960s/70s).

- Social justice warriors arguing over minutia...there is no such thing as a large public works project that doesn't mess up something related to the environment. Birds might get killed by windmill blades etc.

And I remember reading many years ago that the state of Ohio had more lawyers than the entire nation of Japan. Pretty sure things have only gotten worse.

It's not because there aren't capable young people around. One of the things that keeps me going with my job is that I get to work with brilliant, enthusiastic and incredibly hard-working medical and graduate students. They are the antidote to the rapidly increasing administrative b-s. My job amounts to protecting my lab members from administrative roadblocks so that they can get on with science. It's draining and agonizing, and never ending. Every day I go in to find a new form to fill out and sign, new administrative requirement for something, etc etc. Just the new bureaucratic b-s takes at least 1-2 hours out of every day, and that doesn't count keeping up with the pre-existing bureaucratic b-s.

[Kriegsspiel]

Just got around to reading this article on the relationship between sexual morality and cultural decline. Thoughts?

[pugchief]

Kriegs, to your article:
Men require sex to be happy; it is biologically wired. Monogamous marriages are a societal programming. There is no question that a two parent household is better for any children, but is it better for men? Laws are written so that if the woman wants out for any reason, the man is screwed (not in the good way, pun intended). The government makes things worse by offering welfare to single mothers, making them think they don't need a man to take care of them or have a father figure for their kids.

There is probably some truth to the findings, but cultures evolve. Should we not use rational thinking? Rational men might not want to get married knowing the laws and their biology. Culture is not the same as it was in 1800 or 1900 because of knowledge and technology that were not available then. Families didn't disperse across the country. Culture adapts.

[sophie]

So how do you reconcile that with studies showing women tend to become more miserable after getting married than men, who generally get happier?

I can't remember sources, sorry - but I've read multiple reports like this.

[pugchief]

So how do you reconcile that with studies showing women tend to become more miserable after getting married than men, who generally get happier?

I can't remember sources, sorry - but I've read multiple reports like this.

The men are mostly miserable, too. They just don't complain as much.

Why do you think 50% of marriages end in divorce? Of the remaining 50% that stay married, how many are couples where both (or either) partner is happy? And then what degree of happiness? I know lots of people who are not happy, but (as they describe it) not miserable. So they stay because:

-it's easier and they are lazy
-for the kids
-divorce is expensive (especially for men, but women, too)
-fear that the unknown will be worse than the known
-fear they will be alone forever (is that worse than being unhappy?)
-religious convictions
-fear of societal shaming
-etc, etc

[Xan]

Don't forget the publicly made a solemn vow to each other and to God to stay married until one of them dies. Not a vow to stay together until they thought they might be happier doing something else.