I think people in the West haven't come to terms with the fact that the gravity and dynamism of the global economy has shifted eastward and since the 2000s is in India, China and the Middle East.
For every depressed westerner posting doom and gloom online like this, there are a million people who have been lifted out of poverty and into the middle class and have experience upward mobility like nothing else in history.
My friends in China show me entire cities that didn't exist 20 years ago but now have millions of people whizzing around in high speed trains, driving electic cars and making 20-30x what their parents used to make.
My home town in India went from having a one-lane road when I was growing up to being connected to a national highway, an international airport and a subway.
The town I lived in the Middle East in the 90s now peppered with skyscrapers and factories and one of the largest ports in the world.
Meanwhile, my neighborhood in the Bay Area complains about building a new apartment complex and looks pretty much like what it did in the 1970s. And then people write blog posts about how nothing is improving.
Maybe it's time to look outside your narrow viewpoints and realize there's world outside that has changed dramatically and you're left behind.
abakker•6mo ago
I mean, that is definitely true, but also kind of the observation that drives a lot of MAGA - visible progress in construction, engineering, and physical goods is an important part of how people "experience" the economy. It is easier to look at a new house with a big screen TV and experience progress than a new app. Even if the app transforms our lives and our knowledge, intermediated socializing is still something recognizably similar to what we all know how to do without the intermediation. There's nothing indirect about boarding a high speed train, or seeing a skyscraper rise out of the ground.
IMO, the biggest challenge is that we don't use metrics that accurately convey the change in the physical environment and the physical capital that we have and must maintain. In illustration, in today's dollars, 15 years of paint budget for the Golden Gate Bridge is about the same cost as building the Golden Gate Bridge. In nominal dollars, we spent $35m to build the bridge (in 1937), and last year we spend $97m to paint it.
its hard for people to see the progress in maintenance, and so the incredible progress of our forebears becomes our burden, and the consumptive effects of maintenance weigh on the west while the east experiences the novelty of real, direct progress.
h3lp•6mo ago
35M of 1937 dollars is $784M$ today according to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/. Also, 97M$ is quoted as a total budget for maintenance; painting apparently costs just 0.3M$ (I have no idea what else goes into mainenance--probably they include roadways and connectors, toll booths(?) etc.)
umeshunni•6mo ago
For every depressed westerner posting doom and gloom online like this, there are a million people who have been lifted out of poverty and into the middle class and have experience upward mobility like nothing else in history.
My friends in China show me entire cities that didn't exist 20 years ago but now have millions of people whizzing around in high speed trains, driving electic cars and making 20-30x what their parents used to make.
My home town in India went from having a one-lane road when I was growing up to being connected to a national highway, an international airport and a subway.
The town I lived in the Middle East in the 90s now peppered with skyscrapers and factories and one of the largest ports in the world.
Meanwhile, my neighborhood in the Bay Area complains about building a new apartment complex and looks pretty much like what it did in the 1970s. And then people write blog posts about how nothing is improving.
Maybe it's time to look outside your narrow viewpoints and realize there's world outside that has changed dramatically and you're left behind.
abakker•6mo ago
IMO, the biggest challenge is that we don't use metrics that accurately convey the change in the physical environment and the physical capital that we have and must maintain. In illustration, in today's dollars, 15 years of paint budget for the Golden Gate Bridge is about the same cost as building the Golden Gate Bridge. In nominal dollars, we spent $35m to build the bridge (in 1937), and last year we spend $97m to paint it.
its hard for people to see the progress in maintenance, and so the incredible progress of our forebears becomes our burden, and the consumptive effects of maintenance weigh on the west while the east experiences the novelty of real, direct progress.
h3lp•6mo ago