"New Optimism isn't optimistic at all. If you think that the current system isn't far from the ideal one, you have a deeply pessimistic view of what humanity can achieve. If you have a pessimistic view of the existing system, you have an optimistic view of what humanity can achieve." Nice way of putting it. Really enjoyed this video!
It's an interesting concept, as those with the described "optimistic view" tend to chase progress even if it means taking huge chances - like trying to get one more jenga block higher yet risking it all falling down. Yet those who have the described "pessimistic view" would rather hold onto what we already have for fear of just such a collapse or the destabilizing that progress brings. Both forces are needed, as unfettered conservation leads to stagnation, and unfettered progress rides right into ruin. I'm actually contemplating a video on the subject.
@@OntheOtherHandVideos In a global order structured around constant "growth", unfettered conservatism is just refusing to either steer or brake as your truck careens through a mine-field.
No it's a really dumb way of putting it. The type of people who critique the current system aren't doing so for rational or rigorous reasons. It's just their nature to be malcontents so they ruthlessly critique all that exists, thinking that this will somehow create a better world. And those same types of people will exist regardless of the system they're in. So even if you get your vague "radical change" that you are soooo optimistic about, once it comes about you'll just start to critique THAT. Because all you are is a critic.
@@jeremyinvictus That's the most stupid thing I've heard in a while honestly. You seem to think that finding flaws and criticising things means to be miserable. There will always be things to critique or improve on, but just because we'll never reach a perfect system doesn't mean every imperfect system is equal. We are very much critiquing the current system for rational reasons, because there are objectively many things that are suboptimal or down right regressing based on most people's values today. We're critiquing because we believe things can be better, not just the current state, but also how we progress. Failing to find something to critique on a complex system means that you don't have any meaningful and nuanced understanding of said system, and cannot address its shortcomings. And no, we're not "optimistic about radical change". *We're optimistic that there's potential for radical change*, because the current systems has so many things to be improved upon. Big difference.
@@Ermude10 The problem is we're already making progress within the context of the current system, and yet you want to destroy it anyway. So no your critiques aren't rational, they're purely emotional and political. You're just a defective human who has a predilection for revolution, so you're trying to revolt. You're literally trying to overthrow the system that is improving people's lives more than anything in history and you're claiming it's because you're interested in improving people's lives. Ya know, normally when revolution it happens it's because a system is actually broken and peoples lives are getting WORSE. There's no reason for revolution when things are getting better.
I remember seeing a Ted-talk with this dude. All his graphs showed a decline in bad things so when he got to CO2 i was curious how he would handle it. He couldn't show world CO2 emissions (that graph doesn't have the shape he wants) so he cherry picked per capita emissions from the US in the last few decades.(in a time period where this country exported most of their industrial manufacturing base abroad) Since then i call him Cherry Pinker.
*Globally*, 72% of Greenhouse gasses are emitted from the production of energy. The US has shifted from largely using coal-based plants to natural gas burning plants over the time period Pinker depicts, because natural gas is *cheaper*. Burning natural gas, which still emits greenhouse gasses, emits significantly less greenhouse gasses than does coal
@@iii-ei5cv True, but they also shifted a huge amount of manufacturing to countries that still use high greenhouse gas emissive processes so the "gains" are, again, cherry picked data.
"Saying we need radical changes actually has little to do with denying the advancements we have already made. It just means that the system which got us here isn't the one we need for the future."
@@Synerco yeah, unlearning economics says a lot of very dumb things... i mean, your username literally has socialist in it, so i don't expect u to have any grasp of economics or real world practicality what so ever.
Um why would any sane person support radical change, if the current trajectory seems positive and stable? Radical problems need radical solutions, but why should people risk everything when things are going well?
@@pablowall sure socialized education and healthcare is great, but it doesn’t solve some of the root issues in society such as extreme poverty or the exploitation of the working class.
This was really excellent. I don't normally go for long videos but listened to the whole thing, along with several other of your vids today. Finding them extremely useful, superbly written, sometimes over my head but very engaging. Can't say I've heard the term 'shitty life syndrome' but we all know it, having worked in some of the most deprived parts of the UK and the most affluent, it's incredible how health outcomes change.
It would be awesome if you made a video about health and inequality from a doctor's perspective. ... Unless you have already done that. I admit I haven't watched all of your videos.
@@intellectually_lazyHumans need to stop infighting long enough to topple our oppressors Mitch McConnell is Emperor Palpatine Some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make! - Lord Trump @Justin Y. Trump is evil. He ignored this virus until he couldn't ignore it...the steps taken have been deliberately slow to contain this virus, as the government has made huge financial gains in allowing particularly older, retired people to die...no more pay outs each month...voting, if still valid in this country...is our only peaceful, legal recourse...voting 3rd party is the ONLY WAY to get real humans in power, rather than dynasty families and career politicians. When we realize the 2 parties we are divided over LOVE the division among us...then and only then may America be great again... @Justin Y. Lack of knowledge of the deep state? I just accused our government of mass murder...I understand deep state...fact that you refuse to listen, only attack, says too much about you...clearly you haven't known hardship. Clearly none of this has impacted you negatively...you are part of the problem, offering zero solutions. @Justin Y. Calling me stupid really helps your case...Trump has very limited brain power, as evidenced by his rambling, generally repetitive, toddler talks...although most of us are sorely undereducated, Trump really amazes me every time i listen to his banter. Trump did not close the borders in time, many flights to the USA brought sick folk here. Action wasn't taken until very late February, and by then 15 confirmed cases were more than enough to basically allow what amounts to airborn, quickly lethal AIDS《why this? (Because this virus mutates too fast to create an effective vaccine, which may never get made), upon the world. This is dangerous because common behaviors of common folk, such as shoulder to shoulder events, shopping and sardine packed working conditions, helped this virus along...even as people died in China daily...America went forward 2 full months wothout any concerns...then...rather than force the hands of state officials, and put the population through a 2 month quarantine, we've been seeing states react, rather than prepare...and all at the natural stages this virus thrives on...complacency among enough of us to allow the spread to continue. You refusing to see this logic isn't a blight on my mental capacity, just proves you are as simple as our Lord Trump...and likely among those very few, who like many elites, don't even understand the plight of the masses, whom I speak for, in this contrived crisis...Trump is calm about the virus because he exists outside the bounds of common folk...Trump and other powerful people would never have to take the risk of infection seriously as they are all well protected by expendable servants or can at the least afford to continue living lavishly and distanced from peons such as myself. 9/11 was an inside job and this proves what I've feared since then...that the government can perform mass murder and the people will always just accept it, hire the next sociopath in line, whichever of the 2 evil divisionary parties they aspire to dwell in... Our educational system is archaic. We could be educating everyone from home...there are no valid excuses for our current broken schooling, and no teachers need lose jobs...as the internet is an amazing communication device... Taxes are broken. Your dollar earned gets hit so many times...and we all just accept that blindly. Medicine is broken. My grandmother died because her selfish daughter needed cable tv more than grandma needed diabetes medicine...and millions suffer from the inability to afford insulin, despite that drug initially starting out as a gift to humanity from a generous genius, privatized by evil and greed, priced beyond reality for most. Our 2 party system is designed to keep us bickering...division keeps us docile enough to accept our own government conspiring to murder us, with our acceptance. 3rd party candidates are generally real humans...that care about other humans, even, gasp, total strangers and foreigners... We are all on the same damn spaceship...Earth. I judge character...not race, not whatever religion folks are born into. I am old...I am tired of seeing disaster after disaster get slow attention from government, as poor people die in thousands due to delayed or nonexistent help. It's about time the many take control, with votes, to dethrone the sociopaths that control us, play games with our very lives... When there are only voluntary homeless, when the janitor is paid living wage, when a high school graduate can earn enough in food service, or retail, to support a modest home and essentials, while creating a nest egg...when veterans are given the same care as Congress, Senate and other positions of highest power, rather than left to suffer and die, when the lowest paying jobs are enough to survive on, then and only then, can America boast of being great... As it stands...I feel most of us are born into lies we have no control over...It's well orchestrated, as my points are made clear in every satirical broadcast about the plight of the expendable masses, world wide... Do I want peace, equity and kumbaya? Yeah...I do...are there sociopaths in power oppressing the common folk...yeah...there are...have good Democrats and Republicans existed? Yes...they get blocked by evil at every turn, often resigning due to unbeatable corruption. Do I pity the very people I label simple? You bet I do...I want this planet to be a better place for most...not some...for all...if ever possible... This covid virus isn't done. It mutates too fast to pin it down with a vaccine...and we haven't seen the end of it because we, as a planet, would have to agree on a few ground rules to consider being a functional society. That's my 2 cents...some of it...take it or leave it. Most of us just exist and watch, lazily, rather than get directly involved in change. @soaringvulture We don't seem to take note...we, the expendable masses, are being told to push through life ignoring this virus...it took ONE infection to start a Planet Wide Pandemic...and because we didn't quarantine from January 1st to February, we get to watch innocent and otherwise lives lost, daily...who are "we", in "we're in it together"? Certainly not the elite...they step on us to avoid harm...I'm furious with humanity as a whole...I'm furious we accept all this death and Trump's toddler talks...like a Ted talk without useful insight... Those of us suffering are many...while the privileged watch the show They created...when...when will the common folk unite against tyranny, through the only peaceful means we have...vote out career politicians and dynasty families in favor of fellow human beings, with consciousness and compassion for the lowest among us. We won't stop the cycle of abuse by trading Democrats and Republicans, two sides of the same evil, corrupt coin. Vote 3rd party...vote for real people, with flaws, that understand what struggle is...that have put time behind any of these so called essential, yet minimum wage jobs... This economy is screwed...always has been. The vast majority of work available is menial labor...food service, retail, janitors, grocers...a great many take their wages in government...which is far too big, complex and unsustainable... Until any job can offer a modest secure household, until the only homeless are those who volunteer to live "free"...until the pill giants are mandated to make life saving medicine reasonably priced...we are a selfish, horrid nation, divided by the very people that oppress us, yet too busy fighting amongst ourselves to take any useful action towards a better tomorrow for the MANY, not the FEW
If things got any better than this people will start popping, literally popping from the wet bulb conditions coming to highly concentrated population areas mostly in the global south. Fuggedaboutit.
Also, the Boris and Igor joke isn't about inequality or whatever Pinker thought, it's a joke about the spitefulness and cruelty that come from extreme poverty. It's a pretty common theme in Soviet humor.
Yeah, I was about to write that too, because I’ve also only heard it as an example of spite as a Russian character trait, never as something that shows the systemic misery of the USSR, let alone that striving for equality is somehow unreasonable in and of itself. Yet, should we really be by now surprised that Pinker either: A) Didn’t understand the humour or point of the joke. B) Grabbed it and the misunderstanding of the point from someone else writing some superficial tract/opinion piece how bad the USSR was.
In Romania, a variant of that joke is very common, but for a different purpose entirely. "Sa moara si capra vecinului" (your neighbour's goat should also die) is a common descriptor of the "crabs in a bucket" mentality, where nobody can have anything nice because if I can't have it, you can't have it either, consequently dragging everyone down. In practical everyday terms, your colleague shouldn't get a raise because you haven't gotten a raise either, or if you have to work overtime then everyone else should have to as well. In short, it's about the knee-jerk reaction of wanting everybody to be dragged down to your level, rather than raising up to a better standard (you getting a raise as well as your colleague, or you not doing overtime because nobody else is)
@@DebatingWombat The spite was a result of the systemic misery. I think for Pinker it was definitely B. A lot of Americans project their worldview onto the Soviet Union.
Ain't that the truth. According to americans, literally anything bad that happens in the US happens a million times worse in socialist countries. The red scare never ended here, it just evolved to oppose every left wing government.
@@guy-sl3kr like abusive parents throwing out half-invented stories of murderous, thieving parents to excuse themselves for hitting/screaming/bullying their own kids.
About engaging in thought experiments: that's the entire foundation of neo-classical economics for you. It's all a thought experiment, and the attitude towards empirical data is always: "If it agrees with my model, it's true; if it doesn't, it's noise."
Pinker basically already have a conclusion and just nitpick data to support it, similar to the fossil fuel industry. His blind optimism literally blind him to the reality of the world.
The "Neo" in "Neo-classical" stands for classical political values minus all the pesky philosophical groundwork of conceptualizing rationality, knowledge-crafting, empiricism, subjectivity, falsifiability... I wish I was even joking but I've seen too many "classical liberal" celebrity intellectuals take spicy edgelord poos all over Kant or Popper or whatever foundational pillar of scientific/statistical epistemology that inconveniently pokes holes in their idea of what constitutes "rational thinking".
That's interesting, I have the same idea of people on the left. You go back in history and inspect the record on the success of collectivization and it's nothing but failure. Starting from the Russian revolution up until now, time and time again charismatic leaders con their people into adopting something resembling communism and at best it leads to misery, at worst it creates brutal oppressive states. Karl Marx himself imagined his theory, he didn't exactly get to his conclusions from data. He just saw what he wanted to see (poor people not getting as much income as he thought they should) and imagined that there was a better way, and predicted that people would pick his way. They didn't, he failed to predict a bunch of revolutions, and wherever it caught on, it led to bad results. Every time a country proposes to follow his way, leftists do the same, they come out of the woodwork to tell us how great it is going to be, but it never is great, it's always bad. On the other hand, wherever you have capitalism, you have success. The dominance of the USA and the collapse of the USSR should have been a big *empirical* hint to you guys commenting on these videos, but you missed it, just like you manage to miss all hints, and I don't know why that is, but it does suggest to me that it is you who are blind to the evidence. Finally, take a look at the actual field of economics. Go read some articles from The Economist or something, and tell me which way, politically, they tend to lean. Go look at graphs detailing the political leanings of professors and students in economics courses in college: you'll see "neo-classical economics" majorly over-represented. The fact is, people with education in economics tend to agree with it. You can say that it's a big conspiracy, that it's big businesses influencing universities. Fine. It happens the other way too. You don't think there's journals out there trying their hardest to come up with data to tell us that increasing minimum wage has no effect on unemployment, even though it goes against one of the central laws of economics which is the law of supply and demand? There might be weirdness in our economies, there are deviations from these laws, people don't always act rationally, but to say that it is this part of economics, which is the basis of laissez-faire liberalism, that is the part that's wrong and not in agreement with evidence is ignorant. Even worse, to say that "it's all a thought experiment" is the equivalent to not being able to read, it points to a major flaw in your education.
This sort of content is *extremely* important to left wing politics. Way too many people focus almost exclusively on social issues, and only touch on economics on a very surface level. Or are more about moral grandstanding and petty drama than genuine education. Keep it up!
@@effexon this can be a problem especially, sure. But by default all political actors want power. That's what politics is all about But the power for who to do what? Do they hunger for power, or do they want the power to end hunger?
@@dogeyes7261 just insecurity of their status in society, perhaps from childhood or some other experience, which leaves scar in soul, psyche, causing greedlike void, to be filled with more power, for power's sake... ofc skilled people with balanced head can use this for good, like Oprah. Ofc this applies to right or any person whatsoever, not limited to left. But left is perhaps more tempting for this group, as victimhood as virtue may seem "my kind of people". But fixing domestic violence as motivation from something personal like this, or helping Iraq veterans are more left themes, going with this. Original thought was someone originally from working class but now has very good salary and upper middle class life, but still has bitterness left from working 20 years to get there, so want to get decision maker position, without clear clue what to decide when there. Just see any old person in politics, they've long since forgotten why they are there, let alone lack information to use to decide.
@@effexon Operah? The liberal identity politics left seeks strength thru weakness. But that's not class politics. We don't form unions or socialist governments just for the sake of power, we do it because the power is necessary to pursue our objectives as workers, just like the bourgeoisie toppled feudal governments made up of the aristocratic class to pursue their bourgeois class objectives
I think the undeniable, embarrassing even, criticism of libertarian Economics is that they idealize Adam Smith as their founder. Their ideology is built around the concept of the invisible hand of markets. A term Adam Smith only uses once. When you read Adam Smith rather than idealize him, the reality is that he's very concerned with the poor. He's also critical of the financial institutions of his day. I tried a small social "experiment" once, (Not proper double-blind science but worth doing to explore the matter), where I texted quotes from Adam Smith about the poor and asked people who they think wrote them. I only asked people who had some sort of exposure to economic education. Overwhelmingly people guessed these quotes were from Karl Marx. If the claimed founder of your school of thought when quoted sounds like your arch rival....You didn't do the reading, or the economics, you just adopted an ideology.
I am amused just because I do basically the same thing as the first part of this video for my high school economics students, within a larger unit on poverty and inequality. I show them the "Our World In Data" graph on extreme poverty, and then I give them Hickel's critique, and elicit their thoughts/debate on which perspective is more meaningful.
@@salokin3087 Well, it can't be worse than the World Bank's definition, which is entirely arbitrary... At least his class can then debate the merits or issues with Hickel's definitions.
This is an *excellent* video, 10/10. Honestly, it feels less than a dunk on Pinker and more as a college-level class on poverty, made very accesible to those outside economic studies. I learned a lot from it and changed my perspective on the issue. I’m going to check some of the sources you have cited that piqued my interest. Kudos.
I’d suggest you read more into it. This video is a disguised steel-manning of Hickel. I stopped when he described him as an “expert on the poverty data.” He’s made dozens of errors. I don’t think he should be cited as an expert per se. When trying to understand stuff like this it’s helpful to keep in mind the background of the person writing/producing the material. I suggest looking at Branko Milanovic’s work and his responses to Hickel for an “optimistic” take that comes from a left-wing but not radical chic position.
@@sirhansirhan6176 Hickel is a published academic. Agree with him or not that de facto makes him an expert. I'm a published academic who has made errors. That doesn't mean I'm not an expert in my field.
5/10. A few interesting issues with data pointed out. Except from that... I've even seen a better critique of Pinker (by Sean Last; TLDW: regardless what show data on material well being, data on happiness or any available proxy indicators are either are flat or even go slightly down or by Jolly Heretic TLDW: we're clearly living in borrowed time concerning accumulating mutational load; awful gene environment mismatch makes us unhappy and disoriented.)
@@krausewitz6786 again, Hickel makes severe mistakes on poverty and development. For example: he classifes Russia, Turkey and China as "poor countries" in the same category as central America. Its absurd.
The idea of using GDP to measure poverty or people’s well being has always seemed completely ridiculous. As has portraying everyone in pre-capitalist or pre-industrial societies as being in “extreme poverty”.
It has to be known that poverty and death was much more of a threat in the past. But it still is for most, that is true and painfully evident if only one was to see everyone as human.
I live in a country whos GDP per capita is amongst the highest in the world - not because the people are actually wealthy, but because of massive corporations using us as a tax haven and skewing the numbers
It is true that people were worse off a hundred years ago. However this isn´t exactly the same as reducing poverty but entirely attributable to generally more advanced technology. People often scoff at seeing poverty in relative terms but why should we not? It may be the case that fewer people starve to death today but what interests me primarily is not what we have achieved but what we could further improve. Looking at what has improved is sensible in this regard however these "optimists" seem to instead have the goal of using it to prevent further improvements. When someone has told me about how much better the modern world is it has almost always been in the context of some sort of proposal for reform or some critique of the current system. For this reason I find the idea of these people being optimists as questionable. To me it seems they are generally likely to reject any serious attempt at reform or improvement. How is this optimistic? They do not seem to believe the current system can be improved. They might believe people will be better off and we may be a little safer in a hundred years but they reject the idea things could be fundamentally improved. In that sense we can also understand the obsession with GDP. It is a measure that barring disaster will generally go up no matter what. All while not considering the actual distribution of wealth. Ignoring essentially what could be and the flaws of the current system.
Well that's one way to solve the issue of human progress! Just have a metric that presupposes that pre-industrial societies were all dirt poor. We did it guys, we solved it all! See also: how to solve racism within left wing or non white communities. Just adopt a definition of racism that presupposes... No! No! No!
Not only is GDP not a good measure of poverty in historical, non-market societies; it's a poor measure of poverty in modern, market-based societies because GDP does nothing to measure the distribution of wealth, only total generated wealth. It can measure the wealth of a country (maybe), but not of the people within those countries. Which is exactly why the World Bank (not a neutral actor, that is) doesn't use it as a measure of poverty after 1981. The focus on GDP in neo-classical and neo-liberal economics is one of its achilles' heals. It assumes that markets are efficient at distributing wealth, an assumption which is falsified regularly by empirical data. This should lead economists to discard the neo-classical foundation as a failed model, but no such realization seems forthcoming. An intellectual revolution in Economics is past due.
@@JohnPaulsonJohnisaStegosaurus The bit about flying horses ocurred during an interview with Richard Dawkins. The "cattle" remarks can be found in his wiki article.
I love this video but I can't agree. What's shown in the video is that he consistently mischaracterizes, and either misunderstands Pinker or strawmans him. He didn't get the point about equality and called it a 'strawman' and completely missed the mark about relative poverty.
"New optimism" is pessimism disguised as optimism. These people believe things magically get better on their own and any critique and any attempt to actively take action to improve things are bound to result in calamity. This is historical revisionism of the worst kind.
That’s literally the opposite of what he says in the book. Pinker says that entropy tends towards making things bad unless we apply energy rationality and sympathy in the other direction. You are completely wrong.
Have you actually read Enlightenment Now? He does not say that things get automatically and inevitably better at all. In fact he strongly rejects that notion
That was a beautiful last line, "The Critics are the true optimists, because they believe that things could be better". Peter Stinker needs to stop trying to hold the world back from progress.
@@paulwillisorg lmao are you seriously unironically calling communism anything you don’t like? “Most of the critics” lmao let me guess the ones who aren’t communist are the criticism you agree with.
@@paulwillisorg You just label critics as communists and communists as regressive and voila, you dodged the issue of engaging with the criticism by just renaming it to something you don't like. This might be sufficient to you, but it won't convince anybody.
Pinker believes in continuing progress. He never says that progress has ended. Saying that human progress has a limit would be pessimism. And Pinker cites physicist David Deutsch several times in his book. Deutsch famously defends that progress doesn’t have to end
To question what did him bring away from Marxism he replied _Facts_ as somebody with slavic Background,and spoken in German language, i was curious about the "Facts" but never found something,references,work. Somebody can help me?
Pinker is that dude popping his head up from the well from that meme. Serf: "We should improve society somewhat." Pinker: "Yet you live in a society. I am very smart."
I never took it like that. He seems to regularly acknowledge we face great challenges and still have plenty of suffering in the world - only it's not the worst of the worst time. I'm still not really convinced we aren't living in some of the best times. It certainly seems like we have to do or change much less right now to achieve some form of utopia than if we were feudal farmers or fishermen at constant risk of being reaped and raped or whatever.
@@AsifIcarebear3 I think you're understating how bad things are for modern poor people and overstating how bad things were for feudal farmers (not that things were good for them). I mean, modern wage slaves face those same risks but now their employers have even less incentive to care for them since they are replaceable. Not to mention they're forced to work a year-round 40 hours per week (or more) and aren't even guaranteed housing for it. The biggest obstacle preventing a better society is the same today as it was then - the means of production are controlled by people opposed to change. Except nowadays, the owning class has access to modern weaponry and would sooner commit a global genocide than lose wealth and power.
@@AsifIcarebear3 Feudal farmers and fishermen (for example in western Europe) had more vacation days and national holidays than post-industrialization farmers and fishermen. Having a job and being homeless was less common under American slavery and sharecropping compared to the conditions following the Great Depression and the sub-prime mortgage Recession and the Co-vid crisis. Medieval Sharia law was in many aspects more humane compared to the current moral framework governing relationships between creditors and debtors. "The Stealing of the Commons" was a 17th century poem lamenting the privatization of property away from public use, heralding a series of Inclosure Acts that destroyed access to historical roadways, reduced the mobility of the peasant and migrant labor class, pushed rural subsistence farmers into industrial and service labor, conditions under which shortened their average life expectancy for centuries, and accelerated wealth inequality between the land-owning class and everyone else--the impact of which is still felt today in England. I don't know if you've checked the rape and rape prosecution statistics, I don't know on what basis you think society has this situation under better control now compared to historically.
As a disabled person looking down the barrel of abject poverty, I'm going to have to disagree pretty passionately with Pinker. My wealth of issues is made much worse by my lack of funds and in the near future when my parents die I will be absolutely screwed and with no possible positive outcome. Things really aren't alright.
Personally I think being an optimist does not mean you are just happy with the status quo. More so I think it means you see that we can do better and you are optimistic about our chances to achieve this better future. Just liking the status quo is more just denying or ignoring all the bad stuff.
I, a random RUclips commentor, can highly recommend The Divide by Hickel, as well. It's cited throughout this video. There's a ton of great detail about how the IMF and World Bank end up reinforcing inequality instead of alleviating it.
@@Ermude10 in the 90s, South Korea entered the international market. Now, prior to entering the international market, South Korea's economy was controlled by chaebols which were family companies that were... Basically like the Walmart family. These chaebols enjoyed political protections and in return, provided the government with certain guarantees for the citizens. A pseudo planned economy of sorts that prioritized stability over growth. They enter the international stage and essentially take advantage of exports while strictly limiting imports, protecting their chaebols from competition from abroad, while enjoying the benefits of foreign consumer market access. America by way of the IMF paid South Korea a visit and let them know very politely that either they liberalize their domestic markets and break down their chaebols, or bad things could happen. So south Korea liberalized its markets and broke down their chaebols. Almost immediately south Korea collapsed and required the IMF to save it from the crisis the IMF caused. The IMF imposed austerity measures which further annihilated South Korea's domestic market autonomy and caused its economic recovery to lag for many more years than it should have. This absolute failure of the IMF during the entire period of the Asian financial collapse led the East to create their own regional monetary funds so they wouldn't have to rely on the IMF anymore. Very much, "with friends like you, who needs enemies". I'm sure if there is an actual south Korean in the comments they can do a better job explaining it than I did.
I've noticed that whenever the morality of excessive wealth is brought up, many neoliberals immediately draw examples in defence of it from the 3 A's: Artists, Authors, and Athletes, see 57:27. These careers best represent the neoliberal ideal that those at the top actually create significant value, that work is relatively similar at every level, and that people are divided by individual success and talent. Obviously it's more complicated than that in reality, but even from the most basic level it's fundamentally invalid to draw direct comparison between J.K. Rowling, who created a fictional universe (which is admittedly heavily appropriated and unoriginal) that people have regardless spent hundreds of hours obsessing over, and the average billionaire CEO, who is a glorified desk worker and/or PR front. I don't see this false equivalence addressed enough, and I'm tired of seeing neoliberals get away with it. EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't think the 3 A's are actually representative of any sort of 'good' capitalism. I very much agree with Unlearned Capitalism's point about individual and collective action he makes in the video. Luck and cronyism are often the dividing factor between success and obscurity more than actual talent, as well as a willingness to be exploited by the corporations that run these industries. The skills, commitments and risk required to commit to these careers often excludes people in poverty, as does prejudice against marginalised people. Not to mention that the reality of the people who do things like translate the books or even ghostwrite turn the supposed 'best labourers' into exploiters like anyone else at their level of wealth, or that the people publishing or managing the 3 A's aren't making value either in spite of often getting even fatter paycheques.
Man that's a good point since even some pro-capitalists find it unpalatable when they're forced to argue the "value generated" between someone tilling soil or doing financial calculations, but who can deny the value generated by the three As? I think the catch is that the three As are directly measuring the "mass reaction" to a single act via ticket/book sales so it's a unique situation that can't be applied to other arguments about "who generates the value". Society has already put the three As in a position for a large crowd to instantly throw money at them.
I think that's fair, but it's not really a false equivalency. The point is that even if the world was fair, the three A's would still create some major wealth inequality.
That betrays their hidden belief that the worker creates value otherwise they would be brave enough to site as an example a stock owner or other types of parasites who siphon value from the workers making money by owning, not by their labor. AAAs are workers, albeit labor aristocracy who actually produce value. Furthermore AAAs professions are not a good way to make money. The AAA market is extremely competitive and a winner takes all kind of market.
@@user-zf9wq9gn6e Jeff Bezos basically admitted decades of corporate propaganda on CEOs creating value was bullshit when he thanked all the Amazon workers for making his joyride possible
I have read Pinker's book, the best way I can describe the book is one part fairytale for the rich, and the other part corporate gaslighting. The New Optimism tells the reader, that the rich do not need to change their ways, because everything works as designed, as long as there is money in the economy, people can buy what they need and want, so the wealthy can be comfortable in their fairytale. However, Pinker is also gaslighting the reader, that progress in economics and government are not necessary, because will challenge the status quo, right now that status is ideal, it's not perfect, but as long as there is happiness every will be fine, so feel free to keep spending. Pinker is basically a spin doctor for the neoliberal elite, in addition, he is also a cheerleader for capitalism, Pinker does not see any problems with the system, because it benefits someone, even if the wealthy have all of their needs met, his graphs and statistics paint the narrative that positivity, is believing that letting the rich get richer is the greater good.
A new kind of feudalism where the uber rich are allowed to get even richer and engage in philanthropy which is the equivalent of throwing a few few gold coins to the masses every now and then to convince yourself that you're the good guy.
Adam Smith always surprises me with how sensible he is because I fall into the trap of assessing his work against his crazy advocates, who I'm starting to think have never read him.
@@criSOME1 Adam Smith advocated for capitalism regulated heavily by government to oppose the formation of monopolies and the extreme accumulation of wealth. His idea was to be rid of the nobility, not create a new nobility.
What got me was 22:50. I consider myself a socialist and often use data+statistics to argue points. I've fallen into the trap of making the *exact same argument* that Pinker uses to argue that the world has gotten better, without realizing there was a whole wealth of research that poverty has gotten worse over time. Now I'm embarrassed at making the argument (not for being wrong, but for saying the same thing as Pinker) and I'm glad this video exists to help me understand this!
There is also the fact that humans are imperfect and unpredictable. Sometimes something upsets the trend because someone in a high position just decided to do something illogical on a whim or for a very personal reason and the circumstances were just so that this escalated into something big. Economies are human structures and so will always be subject to the randomness of human behavior to some extent. You also have random events like the central figure of some massive corporation could be struck by lightning or die in a plane crash.
Of course, certain factors, conditions, and measures can worsen while others are improving. As a leftist, economic problems are important. But for long-term changes, I suspect Pinker is closer to right in recognizing the powerful leverage comes from continuing rise of IQ, as an indicator of improved neurocognitive development. That will determine our ability to solve problems over the coming generations. Still, that doesn't mean most people alive right now will benefit from it. Such changes are often easier to see across centuries. We leftists should stay focused on the long game. But at the same time we should seek immediate benefits when possible.
@@MarmaladeINFP On the subject of metrics that are basically meaningless and cherrypicked like GDP, IQ is equally meaningless. It measures a singular type of intelligence, and only works on people who have lived within a specific culture, knows a specific history, and understands the intricacies of a single language. Those non-native to where IQ applies, those who do not speak the language of the test fluently, those who are not within the white-middle-to-upperclass culture, and those who are incredibly intelligent but just have certain psychological divergencies that do not work well in test environments are shown as less intelligent than they are, and those with prior knowledge of the test and all the factors stated above are shown as more intelligent than they are. An increase in IQ is completely worthless if all the information that that high IQ person gets is based on false statistics, or if that person is able to ignore their own intuition to accept a comfortable lie, or to avoid effort. People with a high IQ who believe that the world is unsalvageable are going to use their intelligence (assuming IQ is actually a good measure of it) to benefit themselves as much as possible at the expense of the world, causing more damage than someone who knows nothing about anything. I once knew a guy who was incredibly astute and intelligent, but as soon as a subject came up that he was incredibly biased in (namely his religion), his intelligence would reduce massively, and he would start using the exact logical fallacies that he was previously decrying others for using in other subjects, and not responding to you calling him out on it. His personality completely changed as if he was going back to being a child or something. I have seen this happen a lot with very intelligent people, who suddenly curl up into a ball as soon as you bring up global warming and increased income inequality; the way they talk, their discussion techniques, even they body language completely changes. Their intelligence and problem solving abilities counted for absolutely nought because they were unwilling to acknowledge there was a problem they needed to apply their intelligence to.
IQ measurements are the opposite of meaningless. Across cultures, research shows they're strongly correlated and causally.linked to literacy levels, reading comprehension, educational attainment, lifetime earnings, nutrition levels, lead toxicity, parasite load, and much else. Part of what IQ tests measure is brain health and neurocognitive development, specifically in terms of fluid intelligence, pattern recognition, unique problem solving, perspective shifting, cognitive flexibility, cognitive complexity, ambiguity tolerance, aesthetic appreciation, openness / intellect, and other traits related to liberal-mindedness and sociopolitical liberalism, including low right-wing authoritarianism. All of that seems extremely real and significant.
I bought it because of Bill Gates rec, It was something along the lines of "If you only get one book this year, get this" . My ostrich head is firmly out of the sand now and I actually threw that book away rather than reintroduce it to a place to be sold or read again.
@@JulianPerez-zv6os yes but you see, we will all get to be pedophiles on a plane in about a thousand years thanks to the magic of capitalism. Idk what the rich will be up to then, maybe doing the same thing somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy
Thanks for this. Pinker is another Canadian psychologist that likes to speak broadly in fields in which he has no expertise. Nice to hear and eloquent debunking of his patently absurd ideas.
Exactly, and it's such a shame because he has done very important work in the field in which he _does_ have expertise (psycholinguistics, and more specifically theories of language and its innateness), and it's clear that he's very able to deeply engage with and criticise its pertinent theories and develop his own. Unfortunately, he's cursed with eloquence and a very readable writing style which he has confused with an ability to write about anything.
Brand tantruming at data he doesn't like was childish and embarrassing. It is like holding your breath until the vegetables turn into ice cream. He should have just covered his ears and made la la la sounds until it was over.
Pinker: When looking at poverty, you need to look at proportions, because the population is always changing! Also Pinker: The amount of wealth in the world is always changing, which means you probably have more today than you would have had a century ago. No, let's not talk about proportions.
@@MrNikeNicke if in my block one of my neighbors gets richer by 5 million dollars the total number of money in my block has risen by 5 million, but it would be utterly stupid to assume that I'm benefiting from it in any meaningful way. Proportions and absolutes need to be applied in the right context, but in this context proportions are undeniably important.
@@mookosh I agree, but mostly you show that the word liberal is completely useless in current discourse. Leftist now use the word progressive, but that suffers from similar problems. And that makes these labeling exercises just a game. A pity, because the subjectmatter is extremely serious.
@@valk5045 I mean i was mostly just joking. Liberals are left leaning individuals who aren't quite within the ambit of "leftists" they're pretty easily defined as moderate left and basically all fall into the category of neolib. Any further left than neolib and you tend to just fall into another leftist category. But tbh I think left and right are stupid distinction that mean absolutely nothing so I've no real horse in this race. I just wanted to say the phrase "Petersonian Utopianism" tbh
A perfect mindset for any political movement. 20th century was filled with governments who tried to solve the unsolvable problems. This led to horrible tragedies, genocides, mass murders, starvation and so on. My country suffered a lot from a lot of such projects coming from different sources - Marxism, National Socialism and even to some degree democracy. It is better for governments to step away and let the problems which are solvable be solved on local and/or voluntary level. And unsolvable problems are not worth putting effort into.
I'm glad Hickel's work is seeing more readership, can't recommend The Divide enough if you're interested in statistical whitewash and neocolonialism. The graph of payment flows between Global North & South is pretty mindblowing.
@@whythelongface64 A lot of Commie apologists wrote brilliant and prophetic critiques about the downsides of capitalism. They simply tossed out human rights as their "solution"; made everyone poor, enslaved and miserable.
Well the true question never mentioned here is this: How is a product's revenue evenly distributed when it's production was caused without distribution of labor? If Labor is key for the production of products for trade then this implies Gross domestic products cannot be used to govern nor discern Total wealth, only the application of a nation's wealth and innovation Note, at no point have we've seen this video handle these issues for what they are He could of showed us the wealth in India from per-industrial to post-industrial times Could of researched several ancient empires to track the accumulation and distribution of wealth through rights, trade and political choices Lots of means to figure out nuance I mean again the intention is to try and enrich all people across the global, so when promoting globalist economic philosophy it makes sense to avoid the nuance of history, this video disregards that the whole foundations of his argument is equally as baseless as the other side he criticizes I mean again, if we were to find a mean, range and mode out the sum of global income meeting another set of data on Global GDP you can get a better idea of where, why and when these specific regions began to struggle All businesses require costs and expenses to start, same with an economy and industry, upkeep and start up costs are measurable and can be seen to be positive when the decrease is followed by a rise in wealth, social stability, medical efficiency and other factors Even the concept of Poverty is corrupted to fit his use here Poverty:the state of being extremely poor. the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. and the renunciation of the right to individual ownership of property as part of a religious vow. So the key to solving poverty has little to do with distribution of capital/resources but how they are accumulated, which throws out the first part of the video entirely I mean seriously, he conflates "enclosure" without realizing that the act of "enclosing" a "natural resource" like a forest, is the privatization of that resource- timber, land etc etc So of course you can't track GDP for nations that have no industry or products, that is a huge influence in global poverty, America, without innovation would have nothing and it's wealth would not exist, hence why most nations that stop producing suffer social collapse regardless of the general wealth of the populace... Though to be fair, I think Europeans learn and fixate on different concepts and ideals than non-europeans, so course the whole crux of this situation is the pointing out of Western apathy and "cultural bias" while implying the reallocation of goods, services and labor to create a utopian ideal unfounded on any empirical data of his own It's like listening to two Christians argue about which denomination is more useful for mankind while also trying to argue which is more biblical- two different issues, and even within these questions more abound that affect the response required While I disagree with Pinker, reflexively dismissing the grounds and focuses of their theories as if you can't understand how they reached those conclusions is sort of whack studio.ruclips.net/user/videonuPd5Swc-E0/edit
"Our motto must therefore be: Reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but through analyzing the mystical consciousness, the consciousness which is unclear to itself, whether it appears in religious or political form. Then it will transpire that the world has long been dreaming of something that it can acquire if only it becomes conscious of it. It will transpire that it is not a matter of drawing a great dividing line between past and future, but of carrying out the thoughts of the past. And finally, it will transpire that mankind begins no new work, but consciously accomplishes its old work." - Karl Marx, "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing"
41:05 Sowell getting debunked is something I have been waiting to see ever since a former friend recommended "Basic Economics" to me. I got to chapter 7 before I was incapable of hearing another "Why the USSR was bad and unregulated economies are good" structure.
Guessing this is Thomas Sowell - Dylan Wiliam is such a big fan and Sigler’s views (ala Quinn Slobodian) don’t seem to warrant such praise. Would love to learn more
@@OntheOtherHandVideos The USSR having not done well in some area of economic activity is not a reasonable argument for saying Standard Oil's monopoly was good. Sowell very much makes that kind of argument.
@@TulipQ Interesting. Do you by chance remember the book or talk that Sowell made that argument in? And "The USSR having not done not done well in some area of economic activity" is quite a general statement that could range from trivial things to starvation. Do you remember which areas in particular were being referenced?
Pinker was such a good writer when he was writing about linguistics and the possible origins of language and their potential implications on the development of consciousness. I won't argue people can't change interests and have to only do whatever they did best in the past, but I will lament his recent hobby choices and the company he now keeps.
@@styno9295 The Language Instinct 1994 was excellent. Words and Rules 2000 was great. How the Mind Works 1997 was, uh, well, interesting - not entirely what the title promises, but that's to be expected from such a grandiose title.
@@silverharloe I've had his book "The Sense of Style" on my shelf for a while now, been meaning to read through it as an amateur writer myself. Is it alright? It really seemed like an interesting exploration of more modernized English texts, but, seeing this video, it makes me a bit anxious that the things contained in the book are, in a similar way, shallow and distorted.
I remember when being poor didn't stop you watching the football. going to the pictures, going to the seaside, seeing bands etc. For most poor people those pastimes are now out of their price range. They are just faced with the day-to-day drudgery of paying bills, paying the rent, scraping money together for the basics. Okay, it's not the third world, but it's hardly much fun either. But in many ways such problems can't be fixed by redistribution alone, as means of production change, some things that were once cheap are now expensive. Such as footballers could start demanding massive hikes in pay due to televised events. Music got massively commercialized due to media hype on various music channels and the internet. Whereas the Stones, the Beatles, the Clash, the Pistols started out playing the club circuits, now they'd be straight on the festival circuit. As for cinemas, the local fleapits are gone, the multiplexes have monopolized the market. The cheapest tickets around £8. When you're talking about a family of four, that's 32 quid, a massive wedge of the food budget. Basically entertainments and leisure have gone through the roof but wages for the lowest paid have stagnated. And now even that great British institution, the hub of the community - the pub is closing down, as the poor just can't afford the prices. So we're talking working class life devoid of pubs, football, music, the pictures, seaside holidays - no wonder the poor are miserable. The joys of the poor have been ripped asunder.
Pinker is a psycho-linguist, primarily, and as such, his work is highly regarded. His forays into economics, sociology, history is proof that some academics can claim to be "renaissance men", and some can't. He (and his buddy JBP) are squarely in the second camp.
Even the renaissance men are well known for showing excellence in one field (or even topic) and then going bonkers into dogma, speculation and random indescribable nonsense on other topics. A good example on this is Newton, he helped invent calculus and the theory of gravity, and his work on optics was extremely influential, and yet he very much enjoyed dabbling in alchemy and "the occult". His later years were almost all spent exclusively on this. If we're to take anything from the renaissance "natural philosophers" is that expertise in one field doesn't make you an expert in other fields. And even then, your expertise has to be filtered through the process of scientific discovery and criticism before it's of any value to anyone.
I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate the time and effort you put into these videos. Truly, this is what RUclips is for. Thank you. Love from Mexico
This video seemed to be, 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality'. So will the Sowell video be the same? Agreeing with the basic premise, but outlining small complications and telling people Sowell didn't look enough into Unleared's priorities?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos People very rarely manage to say things that are altogether completely wrong in every way. However the idea that the premise of this video is 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality' is far off from the position presented here. So yes, a fair critique of Sowell will most definitely not amount to 'amazing, every word of what you just said was wrong' but that doesn't mean that it will be summed in 'Sowell is right but he missed these tiny points where he didn't go deep enough, though truth be told I have encountered places where everything Sowell said was just totally wrong.
@@ewengilary7669 Thanks for the response! So what do you feel like the premise of this video was? And what things do you feel like Unlearning specifically disproved? And finally, what places do you feel like "everything Sowell said was just totally wrong" specifically?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos New Optimism: 'Leveraging evidence of incremental progress through rhetoric that derails, gaslights, silences attempts to address contemporary problems and (intentionally or unintentionally) obstructs efforts towards further progress on a policy level'
i barely know anything about economics so these kinds of videos are always really interesting and informative for me & i often find myself reading most of the texts you cite and looking into their subjects further just because of the interest you've inspired in me to gain a greater understanding of these sorts of things. thanks for doing what you do!
@@whythelongface64 Such as myself but it is also just an effective sentence. A value free objective statement based on reasonable interpretation of the facts. Approve or disapprove of the situation the statement is completely non ghoulish. lets play nice.
@@thisperson3240 Ok so you just ignored the video, anyway, I don't much care what a gringo has to say. I am yet to see onr which has something of worth to say.
Great video! My background is in public health so I love how you mentioned socioeconomic disparities. I’ve always thought it makes more sense to measure poverty using human metrics (hunger, homelessness, access to clean water and sanitation) rather than economic ones. The US, for example, has one of the highest per capita incomes but has a lower life expectancy than some middle income countries.
My favourite Pinker moment was when he was on Ghoul Maher's show and tried to pull the "on average things are getting better" line, and even Maher had to object. If there are 10 people in a room and each has an apple, if one person gains 10 apples while all the others each lose their one, there are now more apples in the room. Yay.
Ive listened to this 3 times now and have learned new bits everytime. You're videos are literally inspiring me to go back to college for Econ. Thanks for everything you do!
Humans need to stop infighting long enough to topple our oppressors Mitch McConnell is Emperor Palpatine Some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make! - Lord Trump @Justin Y. Trump is evil. He ignored this virus until he couldn't ignore it...the steps taken have been deliberately slow to contain this virus, as the government has made huge financial gains in allowing particularly older, retired people to die...no more pay outs each month...voting, if still valid in this country...is our only peaceful, legal recourse...voting 3rd party is the ONLY WAY to get real humans in power, rather than dynasty families and career politicians. When we realize the 2 parties we are divided over LOVE the division among us...then and only then may America be great again... @Justin Y. Lack of knowledge of the deep state? I just accused our government of mass murder...I understand deep state...fact that you refuse to listen, only attack, says too much about you...clearly you haven't known hardship. Clearly none of this has impacted you negatively...you are part of the problem, offering zero solutions. @Justin Y. Calling me stupid really helps your case...Trump has very limited brain power, as evidenced by his rambling, generally repetitive, toddler talks...although most of us are sorely undereducated, Trump really amazes me every time i listen to his banter. Trump did not close the borders in time, many flights to the USA brought sick folk here. Action wasn't taken until very late February, and by then 15 confirmed cases were more than enough to basically allow what amounts to airborn, quickly lethal AIDS《why this? (Because this virus mutates too fast to create an effective vaccine, which may never get made), upon the world. This is dangerous because common behaviors of common folk, such as shoulder to shoulder events, shopping and sardine packed working conditions, helped this virus along...even as people died in China daily...America went forward 2 full months wothout any concerns...then...rather than force the hands of state officials, and put the population through a 2 month quarantine, we've been seeing states react, rather than prepare...and all at the natural stages this virus thrives on...complacency among enough of us to allow the spread to continue. You refusing to see this logic isn't a blight on my mental capacity, just proves you are as simple as our Lord Trump...and likely among those very few, who like many elites, don't even understand the plight of the masses, whom I speak for, in this contrived crisis...Trump is calm about the virus because he exists outside the bounds of common folk...Trump and other powerful people would never have to take the risk of infection seriously as they are all well protected by expendable servants or can at the least afford to continue living lavishly and distanced from peons such as myself. 9/11 was an inside job and this proves what I've feared since then...that the government can perform mass murder and the people will always just accept it, hire the next sociopath in line, whichever of the 2 evil divisionary parties they aspire to dwell in... Our educational system is archaic. We could be educating everyone from home...there are no valid excuses for our current broken schooling, and no teachers need lose jobs...as the internet is an amazing communication device... Taxes are broken. Your dollar earned gets hit so many times...and we all just accept that blindly. Medicine is broken. My grandmother died because her selfish daughter needed cable tv more than grandma needed diabetes medicine...and millions suffer from the inability to afford insulin, despite that drug initially starting out as a gift to humanity from a generous genius, privatized by evil and greed, priced beyond reality for most. Our 2 party system is designed to keep us bickering...division keeps us docile enough to accept our own government conspiring to murder us, with our acceptance. 3rd party candidates are generally real humans...that care about other humans, even, gasp, total strangers and foreigners... We are all on the same damn spaceship...Earth. I judge character...not race, not whatever religion folks are born into. I am old...I am tired of seeing disaster after disaster get slow attention from government, as poor people die in thousands due to delayed or nonexistent help. It's about time the many take control, with votes, to dethrone the sociopaths that control us, play games with our very lives... When there are only voluntary homeless, when the janitor is paid living wage, when a high school graduate can earn enough in food service, or retail, to support a modest home and essentials, while creating a nest egg...when veterans are given the same care as Congress, Senate and other positions of highest power, rather than left to suffer and die, when the lowest paying jobs are enough to survive on, then and only then, can America boast of being great... As it stands...I feel most of us are born into lies we have no control over...It's well orchestrated, as my points are made clear in every satirical broadcast about the plight of the expendable masses, world wide... Do I want peace, equity and kumbaya? Yeah...I do...are there sociopaths in power oppressing the common folk...yeah...there are...have good Democrats and Republicans existed? Yes...they get blocked by evil at every turn, often resigning due to unbeatable corruption. Do I pity the very people I label simple? You bet I do...I want this planet to be a better place for most...not some...for all...if ever possible... This covid virus isn't done. It mutates too fast to pin it down with a vaccine...and we haven't seen the end of it because we, as a planet, would have to agree on a few ground rules to consider being a functional society. That's my 2 cents...some of it...take it or leave it. Most of us just exist and watch, lazily, rather than get directly involved in change. @soaringvulture We don't seem to take note...we, the expendable masses, are being told to push through life ignoring this virus...it took ONE infection to start a Planet Wide Pandemic...and because we didn't quarantine from January 1st to February, we get to watch innocent and otherwise lives lost, daily...who are "we", in "we're in it together"? Certainly not the elite...they step on us to avoid harm...I'm furious with humanity as a whole...I'm furious we accept all this death and Trump's toddler talks...like a Ted talk without useful insight... Those of us suffering are many...while the privileged watch the show They created...when...when will the common folk unite against tyranny, through the only peaceful means we have...vote out career politicians and dynasty families in favor of fellow human beings, with consciousness and compassion for the lowest among us. We won't stop the cycle of abuse by trading Democrats and Republicans, two sides of the same evil, corrupt coin. Vote 3rd party...vote for real people, with flaws, that understand what struggle is...that have put time behind any of these so called essential, yet minimum wage jobs... This economy is screwed...always has been. The vast majority of work available is menial labor...food service, retail, janitors, grocers...a great many take their wages in government...which is far too big, complex and unsustainable... Until any job can offer a modest secure household, until the only homeless are those who volunteer to live "free"...until the pill giants are mandated to make life saving medicine reasonably priced...we are a selfish, horrid nation, divided by the very people that oppress us, yet too busy fighting amongst ourselves to take any useful action towards a better tomorrow for the MANY, not the FEW
Update: I still think it's advantageous to be cautiously optimistic, but this video aids me in my dislike of Stephen Pinker and gave me an insightful lesson on welfare/labor economics.
“Being cautiously optimistic” is one thing, “picking out data to justify laughing off people who are pointing out major global issues” is a very different thing.
It may be "advantageous" in the sense you won't make other guests at dinner parties feel so awkward - "honestly, we're fucked" never goes so well. But optimism, and a belief in unalterable "progress", is absolutely disastrous when it comes to policy making.
@@larsfrisk6658 That's what I'm trying to get at. I always got the notion that Dr. Pinker was always hasty in his analysis. This video only helps justify my opinion.
Had seen that graph before but i never heard someone call it "Elephant graph"... or it being drawn with eyes and a smile. I feel cheated, gonna return my economics degree.
This just popped up on my RUclips feed today, but it's a great video and the refutation of Pinker's simplistic trend analysis is important. I'm glad that there are people addressing this, because I have always been extremely uneasy about Pinker's analysis ever since reading one of his earlier books many years ago. It's like the gentleman from "We're in Hell" says toward the middle, "Pinker's work serves...to deliver hope...for those enjoying it's rewards." I agree - Steven Pinker's books provide "data" for people enjoying Western financial prosperity to feel comfortable in their wealth, but for the rest of us (people with engineering degrees who can't afford a house even into our 40s, college graduates who can barely pay rent, etc.) it provides little comfort. It's like if someone had a pipe burst in their apartment, and instead of fixing things right away the maintenance people simply said, "Well, the general trend is that pipes are working better than they used to, and you're lucky you have running water since people in the old days had to go down to a well to get their water."
I predict Pinker's idea will age as well as Fukuyama's. The fact is that, at least in the developed West, quality of life has been in decline for about 50 years. If at the end of that 50 years, you invest your entire interpretive framework in comparing today to 1750, you will miss this. And possibly miss what is really happening.
Whenever I watch one of your videos, I literally feel like I just want to "drink it all in", like there is so much knowledge and I can't get enough of it. By far my favourite youtube channel at the moment!
I've watched this video three times over the last months, and every time I'm blown away by the quality again. Also very happy to hear mention of Sapolsky. Fantastic and engaging work, made me get up and read some Jason Hickel.
I love the reasoning of New Optimists. "More total people in poverty isn't BAD because the RATE is down a little." Which might be worth celebrating if it wasn't for the horrific reality of literally more and more actual humans suffering under poverty. Its almost like waiving your hands and going "look over here don't worry about that!"
Your comment confuses me. I don’t understand how anyone could read that and not see it as a good thing. Aren’t relative rates of poverty going down as opposed to going up preferable, even if population has increased such that absolute amount of poverty has increased?
Just watched this again. So good. The only thing which I feel wasn't covered as much as I might've liked is: 1) Pinker seems to imply that people earning over $1.90 ushers them into the middle class or, at the very least, he elides the vast gap between poverty and the middle class which, definitionally, seems to be only possible in advanced economies. 2) The difference between $1.90 a day in a country like Brasil and in Britain is also vast. The number of people that seem to think that people in poverty in the UK are not as poor as people in poverty in Brasil because they have more in absolute terms (I was arguing with one Twitter just yesterday) is astonishing. People actually seem to believe that poverty, and its negative consequences for intellectual ability via poor nutrition and environmental factors, don't exist in "rich" countries... and that's before looking at the effects of perceived inequality within the country.
It's not like I'm a fan of Pinker and have plenty of critiscm of him but this is something I truly don't understand. I lived in South America for 3 years not in Brazil but Colombia and I had no idea just how bad rock bottom is. Like it doesn't make sense how bad things can be until you see it because it just feels like it shouldn't be allowed, like there should be some kind of inherent fairness in the world. So yes of course there's poverty in every single country. There always will be a "bottom of the curve" insofar as things aren't perfectly equal. But comparing poverty from the UK to Brazil and you just lost any credibility you had. This says more about feeling validated then it does about anything that's related to the real world.
@@michaelbarker6460 Really? One can't even make a comparison? Isn't that exactly what a global definition of poverty, at $1.90 per day, is trying to do? Notice, though, that I was specifically talking about the impact of poverty on the individual's intellectual ability rather than population-level impact, which is clearly not comparable. Can we now not compare the impact of generational poverty and a shrinking safety net in the UK to the outright lack of those things in Brazil? OK, let's compare the buying power of the $1.90, then. I had a quick look at current exchange rates and this year's BigMac index. It turns out that $1.90 buys 40% of a Big Mac in both the UK (GBP 1.50 - Big Mac 3.79 - 40%) and Brazil (BRL 9.09 - Big Mac 22.90 - 40%). But I'm guessing your response to that would be along the same lines as it was to my prior comment: that even thinking about a Big Mac comparison is absurd. OK, so how about a cost of living comparison? [2][3] Here's a list of staple foods, the average UK cost (and the proportion of $1.90 that represents) followed by the cost in Brazilian Reai (and the proportion of $1.90 that represents). It probably won't present as tidily once I hit 'Reply' as it does on my screen right now :( Milk (regular), (1 litre) 1.29 £ (86%) 6.06 R$ (67%) Loaf of Fresh White Bread (500g) 1.35 £ (90%) 7.86 R$ (86%) Rice (white), (1kg) 2.01 £ (134%) 6.12 R$ (67%) Eggs (regular) (12) 3.09 £ (204%) 10.08 R$ (111%) Local Cheese (1kg) 6.86 £ (457%) 45.07 R$ (496%) Chicken Fillets (1kg) 7.22 £ (481%) 19.13 R$ (210%) Beef Round (1kg) 10.78 £ (719%) 44.51 R$ (490%) Apples (1kg) 2.04 £ (136%) 10.85 R$ (119%) Banana (1kg) 1.19 £ (79%) 7.21 R$ (79%) Oranges (1kg) 2.07 £ (138%) 5.70 R$ (63%) Tomato (1kg) 2.83 £ (187%) 8.80 R$ (97%) Potato (1kg) 1.12 £ (75%) 6.06 R$ (67%) Onion (1kg) 1.10 £ (73%) 5.41 R$ (60%) Lettuce (1 head) 0.82 £ (55%) 3.28 R$ (36%) So, in Rio your $1.90 goes further on every single food item, and there are many more that are actually affordable on $1.90. Indeed, I would argue that someone in a favela could make a nourishing meal, like feijao (rice, onion and black beans and maybe a little meat) for $1.90, but a person in poverty/homeless person in London could maybe make some kind of hash (potato and onion and whatever meat could be scrounged), at best. And that's before we take into account that a British person that is in poverty will be in fuel poverty as well, by definition, whereas that won't really be a problem in Rio (at least not from the point of view of heating). Further, a homeless person in London would struggle to be warm enough for several months of the year. The primary benefit of being in poverty in London vs. Rio is the level of crime and particularly homicide, but you could say that about Detroit or Chicago (both of which have higher homicide rates than Rio's favelas). [1] www.economist.com/big-mac-index [2] Cost of Living London: www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/London [3] Cost of Living Rio: www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Rio-De-Janeiro
@Alan_Duval I'm not disputing any of the differences in price between different countries. I honestly am completely lost though. The $1.90 global standard has almost nothing to do with medium to high income countries. It is completely meaningless anywhere else except the countries that have a significant population that falls within that range. This is the bare minimum standard that is set for the poorest people in the poorest countries just so that there's at least a standard and a goal to rise above High income countries use an entirely different standard to determine what's considered living in poverty for their specific situation. Looking up what's considered poverty in the UK and the standard is set at 60% of the areas median income. London for instance has a median income of £36000 or $45000 usd. To find the poverty rate for London we just use 60% of that median which is £21000. For a household with 2 kids the poverty level would be at about £35000. For an adult (23+) with a job in the UK it's impossible to make less than £10.42 an hour because that's the legal minimum wage. Even if you're homeless you can easily make over £50 per day panhandling and usually much more. No one is living on $1.90 a day in the UK or the rest of western Europe or anywhere in the US and Canada. Brazil has set their minimum wage at about $1.50 an hour but there's no way to legally enforce that. Also the unemployment rate in places like a favela or a slum is anywhere from 20-50% depending on the area. It's just a completely different world. This doesn't mean that people living in poverty in wealthier countries don't have it bad. Of course it's not fun to live like that especially in broken homes with a lot of drug, alcohol and abuse problems. That's a terrible way to live especially if that was your childhood. But as someone who has spent a lot of time in South America and has seen the intensity of just how bad "global poverty" can be I'm not going to go along with this weird mentality that "since it's more expensive to live in wealthier countries therefore its just as bad or even worse to be in poverty in those countries." No, not even close
@@michaelbarker6460 Lots of people fall below the minimum wage, in effect. Zero-hours contracts are a thing. Universal credit is equivalent to £2.13 per hour.* Anyway, thanks to the drastic cutting back on social spending in the UK, the likelihood of people with mental health issues that impair their ability to work who are not getting any kind of help and so are living on the streets is very high. So, I ask you to provide evidence for your claim that "No one is living on $1.90 a day in the UK or the rest of western Europe or anywhere in the US and Canada." But, most importantly: " I'm not going to go along with this weird mentality that "since it's more expensive to live in wealthier countries therefore its just as bad or even worse to be in poverty in those countries..." Fine and dandy, because what I said was: "People actually seem to believe that poverty, **and its negative consequences for intellectual ability via poor nutrition and environmental factors**, don't exist in "rich" countries... and that's before looking at the effects of perceived inequality within the country." So, yeah, well done for robustly attacking something I didn't say and would indeed agree with you on. * Monthly standard allowance If you’re single and over 25 is £368.74/month. www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get
I literally Cannot stop laughing after the Rogan clip..."ah, yeah, great man. I'm not going to read your [garbage] book"! Haven't used this one in almost a decade but...ROFLMAO!!! Seriously-tears in my eyes as I play it back half a dozen times , laughing harder and harder every go around. Thanks for that-gotta share it w/Everyone I know🤣 Good luck w/this fantastic new channel, may it proliferate throughout our entire culture, shifting awareness to be more in line w/the harsh realities we truly face. (Not certain if DH sub'd or if I snatched you off of one of my lefty channels but you might want to hit up Thought Slime, The Acid Left and Non-compete...Three channels that may be excited to share your most excellent insights into economics, someone has to dispell the fairy tales or these kids will never have a shot at changing anything for the better. Or the rest of us, come to think of it). Thank you from the bottom of my hollow, strip mines heart ;)
It exists, because humans do not only care about their own absolute wealth, but about their relative wealth in regard to their fellow humans. If the poor didn't exist, humans would create them.
@@Der_Thrombozyt humans didn't seem to care about relative wealth during hunter gatherer times, just maybe what humans think and believe has a strong correlation with the material conditions. Hoarding wealth during hunter gatherer times isn't an idea that resonates with the society because egalitarian practices are what keeps these societies alive. Poverty in times where poverty could be abolished can't just be explained by some human nature or other idealist notions. Systemic questions have to be asked. Capitalist wealth accumulation and profits motive in addition with a class system that has an asymmetry of power, could just be accountable for the working class beeing worse of and not enjoying the fruits of their labor
As a teenager I saw graphs of global wealth exploding after the widespread adoption of capitalism and thought that was about as definitive a proof as you could get that capitalism is the way to go, but then I started working and started wondering how exactly most human throughout history survives on the equivalent of about $100/year when damn near every problem I have can only be solved with money. Then it clicked: most people didn't solve most of their problems with money. They solved their problems with their own skills and made connections with people with other skillsets. A lot of the growth of capitalism has actually been the "commodification" of previously uncalculated labour.
I am writing this only 20 minutes into the video, but it is difficult for me to follow the arguments presented. On both sides (optimist and pessimist), they are mostly laid out by academics in developed countries who may not have much real-world experience. Over the last 35 years, I have spent considerable time in the developing world. Not everywhere and not all the time, but in a good slice of countries. What I have seen over that time span is an absolutely massive improvement in people's living standard, not only in cities, but even way out in the countryside and in the mountains. Obviously, there are still pockets and areas of extreme poverty, but overall the improvement has been so great it almost makes me want to cry with joy.
My perspective is only from visits to my home country in the Philippines, and I do agree with seeing improvements. The main thing I disagree with these optimists is how they attribute these improvements to too broad of things, like globalism. Like specifically I feel conditions have improved from technologies and expansion of the markets in the most general terms. But the specific terms in which the markets expand is often at the cost of the futures of developing nations, their resources, workers, and industries. Like anything resembling globalism would bring some improvements, but that doesnt mean what we actually have can take credit for it. (Im not sure why i replied to your comment specifically but cheers.)
Awesome to see you back! And by the length of this video, I can see why it took you so long. Worth it though. Also, your videos inspired me to use some of my free time to take an Economics A-level through a remote learning college, so thanks
This video seemed to be, 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality'. So will the Sowell video be the same? Agreeing with the basic premise, but outlining small complications and telling people Sowell didn't look enough into Unleared's priorities?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos It felt more of a refutation of the premise of pinker's argument, that the world is orders of magnitude better and that is thanks to capitalism. Inequality is a massive issue, and dimissing it is more than a small complication. The world getting better in some metrics is the lowest bar for celebration you can set.
@@diegosanchez894 So do you think that inequality negates the improvements that the world has seen? I could be wrong, but I didn't hear him mention any ways where the world is flat out worse, just ways that the progress touted wasn't as significant as was implied. The world is a much better place than it used to be, so I think it's just a matter of arguing how much better we think it is. Would you agree?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos I don't care tht the world is getting better in some ways, of course it does. Pinker comes and says "the world is getting better and it's because of free markets" and leftists come and say "actually those free markets cause a lot of inequality which could be fixed with specific policy measures" to which pinker replies "do you hate/dislike the progress we've made! look how far we've come!! are you afraid of the progress we will make thanks to free markets". My problem is less with what he's saying and more with why he's saying it which is to defend the status quo.
@@diegosanchez894 That's fair. I think I ultimately line up more with the free market side of the argument, but I appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thanks for an engaging and polite conversation!
For those that are interested there is an excellent book that has just been written called "Civilized to Death" which I highly recommend people read, which looks in-depth at actually how healthy and positive life was for hunter gatherers, and how many of the common attributions about high levels of disease, pestilence and violence are based on either tall tales or misattributions.
While there are clearly health metrics that they got better than early farmers (and pre-modern farmers) how are you going to deal with archaeological and anthropological data so far showing really impressive number of violent deaths?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 A lot of that data has since been revisited by today's most foremost and largely credited anthropologist's and been found to be either completely incorrect or based on assumptions that are far outdated, often due to being made by people hundreds of years ago without elaboration since. Things like assuming humans had no predators, humans had less technological capabilities and knowledge of their environments than they did. That is about an in-depth an answer as youtube warrants, if you want in-depth explanations with hundreds of references to top science papers in the field read the book suggested above.
"A lot of that data has since been revisited" Our world in data had a database of archaeological sites and anthropological data concerning hómicide rate. Whichever part of that one we cherrypick either one get an impression of a bloódbąth or of an insane blóodbąth. It looked robust in case of dumping a few observations, If you are saying that's bs, then could you point me to some updated database? “ [Non-English alphabet for censor-bot]
“are based on either tall tales or misattributions” I don’t think you can have this way. In case of entering new environment there had been a population explósion, while later the population remained roughly stable as if extra limiting factor appeared. In the model to which you prescribe, how this excess population was being ęliminątęd?
hope this won't provoke another Twitter war that lasts too long. thank you that didn't get discouraged from the twitter mob and continued to publish more videos!
1:24:10 “Progress comes from skepticism, from asking not ‘if poverty has declined in country X under the policies & system(s) that it has used during a certain amount of time’ but ‘why it has still existed during & despite those same measures in country X’.” Very good. Well said. If capitalism’s and personal responsibility for (ideally all) your problems so great for the poor, why are they still so present here ?
I don’t know how in hell he thinks he could measure the prosperity of hunter gatherer societies with no state to gather any statistics. Hard enough to get basic archaeological data.
While the life of a hunter gatherer is exciting to daydream about, dying from a toothache in your teens, or getting raped to death by neighbouring tribes, or getting murdered by rivals, or any other horrible destiny that would cut your life short is probably closer to how life actually was. I'll wager that such things happened far more often than today. Life today is filled with challenges and no small amount of suffering, and lacks many basic and primal things I believe humans have evolved to feel joy over, but let's not pretend life right now is only misery and sadness unfixably awful. And if you believe it is, maybe you should seriously consider working to move out into a hut in the forest and survive.
@@AsifIcarebear3 Did you mean to post this as a reply to me specifically? My point was the lack of statistics for hunter gatherers which would be even more difficult to gather data for than more sedentary agricultural societies that leave more of an archaeological record. (partly the point in the video).
@@AsifIcarebear3 Also, this is filled with misunderstandings about hunter-gatherer life and 'pre-civilisation' life. Not saying that HG life if easier or doesn't have dangers or wrongs but your thinking about HGs is informed by a century of racist anthropologists who characterised HGs as 'savages' and inherently worse than 'civilised' society. Tooth decay and widespread infectious disease emerged with static civilisation, when diets changed to higher sugar and more people were living in close proximity to eachother and domestic animals. Also ,some HG groups are more egalitarian than many larger sedentary societies.
@@alisadavies8943 It sure is. I didn't even bother answering that part. If you study them at all you'll no how ignorant the comment is. For instance, teeth got worse for most of agricultural history. Only in the 20th century did dentistry fix all the problems with crowding and the results of more refined starchy foods + sugars.
Your videos make me wish I could take this information back in time to debates I had as a first year arts student with a first year statistics student I was dating. I thought his ideas about how the world worked were so wrong but just couldn't articulate why. It's infuriating to have this knowledge now. Love your work.
1:23:51 _"New Optimism isn't optimistic at all. If you think the current system is not far from the ideal one, you have a deeply pessimistic view of what humanity can achieve. If you have a pessimistic view of the existing system, you have an optimistic view of what humanity can achieve. Progress comes from skepticism, from asking not if poverty has declined, but why it still exists."_ Why did I have to watch the whole video for that brilliant quote? It really puts Pinker's views, and others like him, into perspective. Why jerk yourself off over how good the current system is, when there are clearly so many negatives? No one is arguing that we should go back to feudalism because "at least we had job security." There were clearly many benefits from the transition to mercantilism, and clearly many more from the transition to capitalism. Why not transition again?
Those profiting from the status quo have a logical reason to resist any change jeopardizing their current wealth, even if it is destabilizing the very foundation their privilege rests upon. They managed to convince themselves and even some people they fuck over, that their best option is to defend the rights of those who exploit them.
I had to pause this, but not because I didn't like it! Normally I listen to podcasts while cleaning a bit, but sometimes your videos (when I also have to look at some graphs from time to time). But the points made were quite illuminating, and gave quite some food for thought. So, I will have to sit down and listen and watch this properly later. I will even have to rewatch some parts to make sure I didn't miss anything. :)
I can't recall Pinker saying something akin to "this is fine". The whole point of the book is "the better angels of our nature" is to say "this is getting better".
Great video. At the risk of digressing slightly, I would recommend 'Inglorious Empire' by Shashi Tharoor to anyone interested in the history between Britain and India. It discusses the devastating impact Britain imposed on India historically - from the East India Company to Winston Churchill.
Pinker explicitly states a lot of times, that the world should be better, could be better, and we can make it better. The whole point of the book is to motivate us toward progress by demonstrating it's existence and power. "A significant dose of pessimism is warranted" Maybe, but overblown pessimism has it's dangers just like overblown optimism has their own. If we feel that the word is horrible around Us, it makes Us careless of destroying imperfect but important institutions, because "What could we loose." In this word where politics and the media both are well interested in emphasizing on the bad, I welcome some counterbalance. "Progress comes from pessimism" Serious doubts here. Human motivation just not works this way.
He's very much a leftist and reads a lot. I don't know what his actual power level is, but he's easily 10000x better at recognising and calling peoples' bullshit than, say, Joe Rogan.
It almost took a week but I watched all of this every morning while I made breakfast. This is such stellar work. I hope you’ll be here for the long run
"New Optimism isn't optimistic at all. If you think that the current system isn't far from the ideal one, you have a deeply pessimistic view of what humanity can achieve. If you have a pessimistic view of the existing system, you have an optimistic view of what humanity can achieve."
Nice way of putting it. Really enjoyed this video!
It's an interesting concept, as those with the described "optimistic view" tend to chase progress even if it means taking huge chances - like trying to get one more jenga block higher yet risking it all falling down. Yet those who have the described "pessimistic view" would rather hold onto what we already have for fear of just such a collapse or the destabilizing that progress brings.
Both forces are needed, as unfettered conservation leads to stagnation, and unfettered progress rides right into ruin. I'm actually contemplating a video on the subject.
@@OntheOtherHandVideos In a global order structured around constant "growth", unfettered conservatism is just refusing to either steer or brake as your truck careens through a mine-field.
No it's a really dumb way of putting it. The type of people who critique the current system aren't doing so for rational or rigorous reasons. It's just their nature to be malcontents so they ruthlessly critique all that exists, thinking that this will somehow create a better world. And those same types of people will exist regardless of the system they're in. So even if you get your vague "radical change" that you are soooo optimistic about, once it comes about you'll just start to critique THAT. Because all you are is a critic.
@@jeremyinvictus That's the most stupid thing I've heard in a while honestly. You seem to think that finding flaws and criticising things means to be miserable. There will always be things to critique or improve on, but just because we'll never reach a perfect system doesn't mean every imperfect system is equal. We are very much critiquing the current system for rational reasons, because there are objectively many things that are suboptimal or down right regressing based on most people's values today. We're critiquing because we believe things can be better, not just the current state, but also how we progress. Failing to find something to critique on a complex system means that you don't have any meaningful and nuanced understanding of said system, and cannot address its shortcomings.
And no, we're not "optimistic about radical change". *We're optimistic that there's potential for radical change*, because the current systems has so many things to be improved upon. Big difference.
@@Ermude10 The problem is we're already making progress within the context of the current system, and yet you want to destroy it anyway. So no your critiques aren't rational, they're purely emotional and political. You're just a defective human who has a predilection for revolution, so you're trying to revolt. You're literally trying to overthrow the system that is improving people's lives more than anything in history and you're claiming it's because you're interested in improving people's lives. Ya know, normally when revolution it happens it's because a system is actually broken and peoples lives are getting WORSE. There's no reason for revolution when things are getting better.
I remember seeing a Ted-talk with this dude. All his graphs showed a decline in bad things so when he got to CO2 i was curious how he would handle it. He couldn't show world CO2 emissions (that graph doesn't have the shape he wants) so he cherry picked per capita emissions from the US in the last few decades.(in a time period where this country exported most of their industrial manufacturing base abroad)
Since then i call him Cherry Pinker.
*Globally*, 72% of Greenhouse gasses are emitted from the production of energy.
The US has shifted from largely using coal-based plants to natural gas burning plants over the time period Pinker depicts, because natural gas is *cheaper*.
Burning natural gas, which still emits greenhouse gasses, emits significantly less greenhouse gasses than does coal
Hah cherry pinker
Pinker deals with the prospect of climate change in Chapter 10 of Enlightenment Now.
And you call him the cheery picker?
@@iii-ei5cv True, but they also shifted a huge amount of manufacturing to countries that still use high greenhouse gas emissive processes so the "gains" are, again, cherry picked data.
One in the cherry, two in the pinker
"Saying we need radical changes actually has little to do with denying the advancements we have already made. It just means that the system which got us here isn't the one we need for the future."
we don't need radical change though, we need SLIGHT change, with regard to minimum wage, we need to socialize education and healthcare, that's it.
@@pablowall 1:23:55
@@Synerco yeah, unlearning economics says a lot of very dumb things... i mean, your username literally has socialist in it, so i don't expect u to have any grasp of economics or real world practicality what so ever.
Um why would any sane person support radical change, if the current trajectory seems positive and stable? Radical problems need radical solutions, but why should people risk everything when things are going well?
@@pablowall sure socialized education and healthcare is great, but it doesn’t solve some of the root issues in society such as extreme poverty or the exploitation of the working class.
This was really excellent. I don't normally go for long videos but listened to the whole thing, along with several other of your vids today. Finding them extremely useful, superbly written, sometimes over my head but very engaging. Can't say I've heard the term 'shitty life syndrome' but we all know it, having worked in some of the most deprived parts of the UK and the most affluent, it's incredible how health outcomes change.
Ayyyy I love your channel! Know we know you're based
your channel is great :)
It would be awesome if you made a video about health and inequality from a doctor's perspective.
... Unless you have already done that. I admit I haven't watched all of your videos.
You haven't heard of shit life syndrome? damn
Fantastic to see you here.
To put it simply:
New optimism is just pessimism with an anxious smile. Actual optimism is a stern gesture with a desire for change
my patron saint is, the unjustly maligned, debbie downer. if you ain't down with the struggle you're the negative one, bwah, bwah
@@intellectually_lazyHumans need to stop infighting long enough to topple our oppressors
Mitch McConnell is Emperor Palpatine
Some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make! - Lord Trump
@Justin Y. Trump is evil. He ignored this virus until he couldn't ignore it...the steps taken have been deliberately slow to contain this virus, as the government has made huge financial gains in allowing particularly older, retired people to die...no more pay outs each month...voting, if still valid in this country...is our only peaceful, legal recourse...voting 3rd party is the ONLY WAY to get real humans in power, rather than dynasty families and career politicians. When we realize the 2 parties we are divided over LOVE the division among us...then and only then may America be great again...
@Justin Y. Lack of knowledge of the deep state? I just accused our government of mass murder...I understand deep state...fact that you refuse to listen, only attack, says too much about you...clearly you haven't known hardship. Clearly none of this has impacted you negatively...you are part of the problem, offering zero solutions.
@Justin Y. Calling me stupid really helps your case...Trump has very limited brain power, as evidenced by his rambling, generally repetitive, toddler talks...although most of us are sorely undereducated, Trump really amazes me every time i listen to his banter. Trump did not close the borders in time, many flights to the USA brought sick folk here. Action wasn't taken until very late February, and by then 15 confirmed cases were more than enough to basically allow what amounts to airborn, quickly lethal AIDS《why this? (Because this virus mutates too fast to create an effective vaccine, which may never get made), upon the world. This is dangerous because common behaviors of common folk, such as shoulder to shoulder events, shopping and sardine packed working conditions, helped this virus along...even as people died in China daily...America went forward 2 full months wothout any concerns...then...rather than force the hands of state officials, and put the population through a 2 month quarantine, we've been seeing states react, rather than prepare...and all at the natural stages this virus thrives on...complacency among enough of us to allow the spread to continue. You refusing to see this logic isn't a blight on my mental capacity, just proves you are as simple as our Lord Trump...and likely among those very few, who like many elites, don't even understand the plight of the masses, whom I speak for, in this contrived crisis...Trump is calm about the virus because he exists outside the bounds of common folk...Trump and other powerful people would never have to take the risk of infection seriously as they are all well protected by expendable servants or can at the least afford to continue living lavishly and distanced from peons such as myself. 9/11 was an inside job and this proves what I've feared since then...that the government can perform mass murder and the people will always just accept it, hire the next sociopath in line, whichever of the 2 evil divisionary parties they aspire to dwell in...
Our educational system is archaic. We could be educating everyone from home...there are no valid excuses for our current broken schooling, and no teachers need lose jobs...as the internet is an amazing communication device...
Taxes are broken. Your dollar earned gets hit so many times...and we all just accept that blindly.
Medicine is broken. My grandmother died because her selfish daughter needed cable tv more than grandma needed diabetes medicine...and millions suffer from the inability to afford insulin, despite that drug initially starting out as a gift to humanity from a generous genius, privatized by evil and greed, priced beyond reality for most.
Our 2 party system is designed to keep us bickering...division keeps us docile enough to accept our own government conspiring to murder us, with our acceptance. 3rd party candidates are generally real humans...that care about other humans, even, gasp, total strangers and foreigners...
We are all on the same damn spaceship...Earth. I judge character...not race, not whatever religion folks are born into. I am old...I am tired of seeing disaster after disaster get slow attention from government, as poor people die in thousands due to delayed or nonexistent help.
It's about time the many take control, with votes, to dethrone the sociopaths that control us, play games with our very lives...
When there are only voluntary homeless, when the janitor is paid living wage, when a high school graduate can earn enough in food service, or retail, to support a modest home and essentials, while creating a nest egg...when veterans are given the same care as Congress, Senate and other positions of highest power, rather than left to suffer and die, when the lowest paying jobs are enough to survive on, then and only then, can America boast of being great...
As it stands...I feel most of us are born into lies we have no control over...It's well orchestrated, as my points are made clear in every satirical broadcast about the plight of the expendable masses, world wide...
Do I want peace, equity and kumbaya? Yeah...I do...are there sociopaths in power oppressing the common folk...yeah...there are...have good Democrats and Republicans existed? Yes...they get blocked by evil at every turn, often resigning due to unbeatable corruption. Do I pity the very people I label simple? You bet I do...I want this planet to be a better place for most...not some...for all...if ever possible...
This covid virus isn't done. It mutates too fast to pin it down with a vaccine...and we haven't seen the end of it because we, as a planet, would have to agree on a few ground rules to consider being a functional society.
That's my 2 cents...some of it...take it or leave it. Most of us just exist and watch, lazily, rather than get directly involved in change. @soaringvulture We don't seem to take note...we, the expendable masses, are being told to push through life ignoring this virus...it took ONE infection to start a Planet Wide Pandemic...and because we didn't quarantine from January 1st to February, we get to watch innocent and otherwise lives lost, daily...who are "we", in "we're in it together"? Certainly not the elite...they step on us to avoid harm...I'm furious with humanity as a whole...I'm furious we accept all this death and Trump's toddler talks...like a Ted talk without useful insight...
Those of us suffering are many...while the privileged watch the show They created...when...when will the common folk unite against tyranny, through the only peaceful means we have...vote out career politicians and dynasty families in favor of fellow human beings, with consciousness and compassion for the lowest among us.
We won't stop the cycle of abuse by trading Democrats and Republicans, two sides of the same evil, corrupt coin.
Vote 3rd party...vote for real people, with flaws, that understand what struggle is...that have put time behind any of these so called essential, yet minimum wage jobs...
This economy is screwed...always has been. The vast majority of work available is menial labor...food service, retail, janitors, grocers...a great many take their wages in government...which is far too big, complex and unsustainable...
Until any job can offer a modest secure household, until the only homeless are those who volunteer to live "free"...until the pill giants are mandated to make life saving medicine reasonably priced...we are a selfish, horrid nation, divided by the very people that oppress us, yet too busy fighting amongst ourselves to take any useful action towards a better tomorrow for the MANY, not the FEW
I had no idea I was being so damn *optimistic* whenever I flip people off and desire them to stop being assholes~
@@Phoenix0F8 keep up the good work, you piece of garbage (lol)
New optimism is begging for the status quo. It's a mask of calm hiding a face of pleading.
Everything is fine!
Hey there, sweet comrade!
If things got any better than this people will start popping, literally popping from the wet bulb conditions coming to highly concentrated population areas mostly in the global south. Fuggedaboutit.
Everything is fine by qbomb
Everything is fine.🔥🔥🙂🔥🔥
username does NOT check out
Also, the Boris and Igor joke isn't about inequality or whatever Pinker thought, it's a joke about the spitefulness and cruelty that come from extreme poverty. It's a pretty common theme in Soviet humor.
Yeah, I was about to write that too, because I’ve also only heard it as an example of spite as a Russian character trait, never as something that shows the systemic misery of the USSR, let alone that striving for equality is somehow unreasonable in and of itself.
Yet, should we really be by now surprised that Pinker either:
A) Didn’t understand the humour or point of the joke.
B) Grabbed it and the misunderstanding of the point from someone else writing some superficial tract/opinion piece how bad the USSR was.
In Romania, a variant of that joke is very common, but for a different purpose entirely. "Sa moara si capra vecinului" (your neighbour's goat should also die) is a common descriptor of the "crabs in a bucket" mentality, where nobody can have anything nice because if I can't have it, you can't have it either, consequently dragging everyone down. In practical everyday terms, your colleague shouldn't get a raise because you haven't gotten a raise either, or if you have to work overtime then everyone else should have to as well.
In short, it's about the knee-jerk reaction of wanting everybody to be dragged down to your level, rather than raising up to a better standard (you getting a raise as well as your colleague, or you not doing overtime because nobody else is)
@@DebatingWombat The spite was a result of the systemic misery. I think for Pinker it was definitely B. A lot of Americans project their worldview onto the Soviet Union.
Ain't that the truth. According to americans, literally anything bad that happens in the US happens a million times worse in socialist countries. The red scare never ended here, it just evolved to oppose every left wing government.
@@guy-sl3kr like abusive parents throwing out half-invented stories of murderous, thieving parents to excuse themselves for hitting/screaming/bullying their own kids.
About engaging in thought experiments: that's the entire foundation of neo-classical economics for you. It's all a thought experiment, and the attitude towards empirical data is always: "If it agrees with my model, it's true; if it doesn't, it's noise."
Pinker basically already have a conclusion and just nitpick data to support it, similar to the fossil fuel industry. His blind optimism literally blind him to the reality of the world.
"if a scientist supports what I beleive to be true he is a good scientist, if he doesn't he is biased"
See how that works?
The "Neo" in "Neo-classical" stands for classical political values minus all the pesky philosophical groundwork of conceptualizing rationality, knowledge-crafting, empiricism, subjectivity, falsifiability...
I wish I was even joking but I've seen too many "classical liberal" celebrity intellectuals take spicy edgelord poos all over Kant or Popper or whatever foundational pillar of scientific/statistical epistemology that inconveniently pokes holes in their idea of what constitutes "rational thinking".
@@TravistheGREAT03 No, it does not work, here
That's interesting, I have the same idea of people on the left. You go back in history and inspect the record on the success of collectivization and it's nothing but failure. Starting from the Russian revolution up until now, time and time again charismatic leaders con their people into adopting something resembling communism and at best it leads to misery, at worst it creates brutal oppressive states. Karl Marx himself imagined his theory, he didn't exactly get to his conclusions from data. He just saw what he wanted to see (poor people not getting as much income as he thought they should) and imagined that there was a better way, and predicted that people would pick his way. They didn't, he failed to predict a bunch of revolutions, and wherever it caught on, it led to bad results. Every time a country proposes to follow his way, leftists do the same, they come out of the woodwork to tell us how great it is going to be, but it never is great, it's always bad. On the other hand, wherever you have capitalism, you have success. The dominance of the USA and the collapse of the USSR should have been a big *empirical* hint to you guys commenting on these videos, but you missed it, just like you manage to miss all hints, and I don't know why that is, but it does suggest to me that it is you who are blind to the evidence.
Finally, take a look at the actual field of economics. Go read some articles from The Economist or something, and tell me which way, politically, they tend to lean. Go look at graphs detailing the political leanings of professors and students in economics courses in college: you'll see "neo-classical economics" majorly over-represented. The fact is, people with education in economics tend to agree with it. You can say that it's a big conspiracy, that it's big businesses influencing universities. Fine. It happens the other way too. You don't think there's journals out there trying their hardest to come up with data to tell us that increasing minimum wage has no effect on unemployment, even though it goes against one of the central laws of economics which is the law of supply and demand? There might be weirdness in our economies, there are deviations from these laws, people don't always act rationally, but to say that it is this part of economics, which is the basis of laissez-faire liberalism, that is the part that's wrong and not in agreement with evidence is ignorant. Even worse, to say that "it's all a thought experiment" is the equivalent to not being able to read, it points to a major flaw in your education.
This sort of content is *extremely* important to left wing politics. Way too many people focus almost exclusively on social issues, and only touch on economics on a very surface level. Or are more about moral grandstanding and petty drama than genuine education. Keep it up!
Absolutely. When the left can return to the real fight, the fight for all working class, is when the people will win.
Problem with left ppl isnt economics, but their subconscious thirst for power, which they dont acknowledge, it is scapegoated with economic concepts.
@@effexon this can be a problem especially, sure. But by default all political actors want power. That's what politics is all about
But the power for who to do what? Do they hunger for power, or do they want the power to end hunger?
@@dogeyes7261 just insecurity of their status in society, perhaps from childhood or some other experience, which leaves scar in soul, psyche, causing greedlike void, to be filled with more power, for power's sake... ofc skilled people with balanced head can use this for good, like Oprah. Ofc this applies to right or any person whatsoever, not limited to left. But left is perhaps more tempting for this group, as victimhood as virtue may seem "my kind of people". But fixing domestic violence as motivation from something personal like this, or helping Iraq veterans are more left themes, going with this.
Original thought was someone originally from working class but now has very good salary and upper middle class life, but still has bitterness left from working 20 years to get there, so want to get decision maker position, without clear clue what to decide when there. Just see any old person in politics, they've long since forgotten why they are there, let alone lack information to use to decide.
@@effexon Operah? The liberal identity politics left seeks strength thru weakness. But that's not class politics. We don't form unions or socialist governments just for the sake of power, we do it because the power is necessary to pursue our objectives as workers, just like the bourgeoisie toppled feudal governments made up of the aristocratic class to pursue their bourgeois class objectives
I think the undeniable, embarrassing even, criticism of libertarian Economics is that they idealize Adam Smith as their founder. Their ideology is built around the concept of the invisible hand of markets. A term Adam Smith only uses once.
When you read Adam Smith rather than idealize him, the reality is that he's very concerned with the poor. He's also critical of the financial institutions of his day.
I tried a small social "experiment" once, (Not proper double-blind science but worth doing to explore the matter), where I texted quotes from Adam Smith about the poor and asked people who they think wrote them. I only asked people who had some sort of exposure to economic education. Overwhelmingly people guessed these quotes were from Karl Marx.
If the claimed founder of your school of thought when quoted sounds like your arch rival....You didn't do the reading, or the economics, you just adopted an ideology.
I am amused just because I do basically the same thing as the first part of this video for my high school economics students, within a larger unit on poverty and inequality. I show them the "Our World In Data" graph on extreme poverty, and then I give them Hickel's critique, and elicit their thoughts/debate on which perspective is more meaningful.
Sounds like a great class!
@@unlearningeconomics9021 Thanks! My academic background is in the humanities, and that definitely shapes how I teach the subject.
Teach on, Regulus! Teach on!
Except Hickel's understanding of poverty, wealth and inequality between nations is poor at best, especially how he categorises them
@@salokin3087 Well, it can't be worse than the World Bank's definition, which is entirely arbitrary... At least his class can then debate the merits or issues with Hickel's definitions.
This is an *excellent* video, 10/10. Honestly, it feels less than a dunk on Pinker and more as a college-level class on poverty, made very accesible to those outside economic studies. I learned a lot from it and changed my perspective on the issue. I’m going to check some of the sources you have cited that piqued my interest. Kudos.
I’d suggest you read more into it. This video is a disguised steel-manning of Hickel. I stopped when he described him as an “expert on the poverty data.” He’s made dozens of errors. I don’t think he should be cited as an expert per se.
When trying to understand stuff like this it’s helpful to keep in mind the background of the person writing/producing the material. I suggest looking at Branko Milanovic’s work and his responses to Hickel for an “optimistic” take that comes from a left-wing but not radical chic position.
@@sirhansirhan6176 Hickel is a published academic. Agree with him or not that de facto makes him an expert.
I'm a published academic who has made errors. That doesn't mean I'm not an expert in my field.
5/10. A few interesting issues with data pointed out. Except from that... I've even seen a better critique of Pinker (by Sean Last; TLDW: regardless what show data on material well being, data on happiness or any available proxy indicators are either are flat or even go slightly down or by Jolly Heretic TLDW: we're clearly living in borrowed time concerning accumulating mutational load; awful gene environment mismatch makes us unhappy and disoriented.)
@@krausewitz6786 again, Hickel makes severe mistakes on poverty and development. For example: he classifes Russia, Turkey and China as "poor countries" in the same category as central America. Its absurd.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 5/10? what would be some issues of the video
I greatly enjoyed, and appreciated, the video. I am happy to see you are continuing to work on projects.
wow didn't expect you here. I only saw a video about how bad friendly baron is lmao
OHKO is the failure of new optimism
@@bigsmoke4592 LOL
what the fuck are you doing here
How are you allowed to comment here? Weren't you in witness protection?
Its honestly so refreshing seeing someone simply lay out their points in a decent manner, referencing their sources and everything. This is golden
36:50 "Society is a mechanism for distributing hope"
Idk how to describe this but my eyes widened a lot and i had to pause the video
Holy shit
The idea of using GDP to measure poverty or people’s well being has always seemed completely ridiculous. As has portraying everyone in pre-capitalist or pre-industrial societies as being in “extreme poverty”.
It has to be known that poverty and death was much more of a threat in the past. But it still is for most, that is true and painfully evident if only one was to see everyone as human.
I live in a country whos GDP per capita is amongst the highest in the world - not because the people are actually wealthy, but because of massive corporations using us as a tax haven and skewing the numbers
It is true that people were worse off a hundred years ago. However this isn´t exactly the same as reducing poverty but entirely attributable to generally more advanced technology. People often scoff at seeing poverty in relative terms but why should we not? It may be the case that fewer people starve to death today but what interests me primarily is not what we have achieved but what we could further improve.
Looking at what has improved is sensible in this regard however these "optimists" seem to instead have the goal of using it to prevent further improvements. When someone has told me about how much better the modern world is it has almost always been in the context of some sort of proposal for reform or some critique of the current system. For this reason I find the idea of these people being optimists as questionable. To me it seems they are generally likely to reject any serious attempt at reform or improvement. How is this optimistic? They do not seem to believe the current system can be improved. They might believe people will be better off and we may be a little safer in a hundred years but they reject the idea things could be fundamentally improved.
In that sense we can also understand the obsession with GDP. It is a measure that barring disaster will generally go up no matter what. All while not considering the actual distribution of wealth. Ignoring essentially what could be and the flaws of the current system.
Well that's one way to solve the issue of human progress! Just have a metric that presupposes that pre-industrial societies were all dirt poor. We did it guys, we solved it all!
See also: how to solve racism within left wing or non white communities. Just adopt a definition of racism that presupposes...
No! No! No!
Not only is GDP not a good measure of poverty in historical, non-market societies; it's a poor measure of poverty in modern, market-based societies because GDP does nothing to measure the distribution of wealth, only total generated wealth. It can measure the wealth of a country (maybe), but not of the people within those countries.
Which is exactly why the World Bank (not a neutral actor, that is) doesn't use it as a measure of poverty after 1981.
The focus on GDP in neo-classical and neo-liberal economics is one of its achilles' heals. It assumes that markets are efficient at distributing wealth, an assumption which is falsified regularly by empirical data. This should lead economists to discard the neo-classical foundation as a failed model, but no such realization seems forthcoming. An intellectual revolution in Economics is past due.
Kudos to that journalist interviewing Pinker, he did more research than Pinker did for his book.
Mehdi Hasan is pretty consistently good.
Except when he says he believes in flying horses and calling non-muslims "cattle", etc.
@@mzau0102 ?
@@JohnPaulsonJohnisaStegosaurus The bit about flying horses ocurred during an interview with Richard Dawkins. The "cattle" remarks can be found in his wiki article.
I love this video but I can't agree. What's shown in the video is that he consistently mischaracterizes, and either misunderstands Pinker or strawmans him.
He didn't get the point about equality and called it a 'strawman' and completely missed the mark about relative poverty.
I look at that GDP graph and my inner physicist says "someone needs to log at least 1 axis of that graph"
I’m glad someone said it
Given the existence of inflation it's not at best disingenuous NOT to have a log scale.
If they do that they can't as easily hide the fact that the data is mostly just missing or guess-work in the "flat" part of the graph.
Yes.
Or at least make it relative to the world population
"New optimism" is pessimism disguised as optimism. These people believe things magically get better on their own and any critique and any attempt to actively take action to improve things are bound to result in calamity. This is historical revisionism of the worst kind.
That’s literally the opposite of what he says in the book. Pinker says that entropy tends towards making things bad unless we apply energy rationality and sympathy in the other direction. You are completely wrong.
@@siroutrage1045 What Pinker says and how his ideology manifests in reality, are two different things.
Have you actually read Enlightenment Now? He does not say that things get automatically and inevitably better at all. In fact he strongly rejects that notion
It is getting better tho bro
@@odst2247 No, it ain't.
That was a beautiful last line, "The Critics are the true optimists, because they believe that things could be better". Peter Stinker needs to stop trying to hold the world back from progress.
Many times the critics are just communists. And their progress is regress.
@@paulwillisorg Stop being so pessimistic.
@@paulwillisorg lmao are you seriously unironically calling communism anything you don’t like? “Most of the critics” lmao let me guess the ones who aren’t communist are the criticism you agree with.
@@paulwillisorg You just label critics as communists and communists as regressive and voila, you dodged the issue of engaging with the criticism by just renaming it to something you don't like. This might be sufficient to you, but it won't convince anybody.
Pinker believes in continuing progress. He never says that progress has ended. Saying that human progress has a limit would be pessimism. And Pinker cites physicist David Deutsch several times in his book. Deutsch famously defends that progress doesn’t have to end
This video is the same length as My Neighbor Totoro and only slightly shorter than Eraserhead.
oh shit, you're right
Yeah but My Neighbour Totoro didn't come with a 1.75x speed adjustment
@@krombopulos_michael Netflix has speed watching now (sidenote: must be a sociopath to use)
A person that can appreciate My neighbour totoro, is a man whose comment deserves a like
It's not very far off of podcast lengths, and is like 90% podcast with a few graphs
41:08 "Sowell, your time will come". Oooooh yeaaaah, babyyyyyyyyyyy, can't wait for that one
I am so hyped for that one
To question what did him bring away from Marxism he replied
_Facts_ as somebody with slavic Background,and spoken in German language, i was curious about the "Facts" but never found something,references,work.
Somebody can help me?
Sweatshop lovers.
Hypeee.
@@workingproleinc.676 who are u refering to?
Pinker is that dude popping his head up from the well from that meme.
Serf: "We should improve society somewhat."
Pinker: "Yet you live in a society. I am very smart."
I never took it like that. He seems to regularly acknowledge we face great challenges and still have plenty of suffering in the world - only it's not the worst of the worst time. I'm still not really convinced we aren't living in some of the best times. It certainly seems like we have to do or change much less right now to achieve some form of utopia than if we were feudal farmers or fishermen at constant risk of being reaped and raped or whatever.
@@AsifIcarebear3 I think you're understating how bad things are for modern poor people and overstating how bad things were for feudal farmers (not that things were good for them). I mean, modern wage slaves face those same risks but now their employers have even less incentive to care for them since they are replaceable. Not to mention they're forced to work a year-round 40 hours per week (or more) and aren't even guaranteed housing for it.
The biggest obstacle preventing a better society is the same today as it was then - the means of production are controlled by people opposed to change. Except nowadays, the owning class has access to modern weaponry and would sooner commit a global genocide than lose wealth and power.
@@AsifIcarebear3 Feudal farmers and fishermen (for example in western Europe) had more vacation days and national holidays than post-industrialization farmers and fishermen.
Having a job and being homeless was less common under American slavery and sharecropping compared to the conditions following the Great Depression and the sub-prime mortgage Recession and the Co-vid crisis.
Medieval Sharia law was in many aspects more humane compared to the current moral framework governing relationships between creditors and debtors.
"The Stealing of the Commons" was a 17th century poem lamenting the privatization of property away from public use, heralding a series of Inclosure Acts that destroyed access to historical roadways, reduced the mobility of the peasant and migrant labor class, pushed rural subsistence farmers into industrial and service labor, conditions under which shortened their average life expectancy for centuries, and accelerated wealth inequality between the land-owning class and everyone else--the impact of which is still felt today in England.
I don't know if you've checked the rape and rape prosecution statistics, I don't know on what basis you think society has this situation under better control now compared to historically.
@@cindytwo3260 : Could you please elaborate on what you are trying to say when you invoke rape statistics? That was nebulous to me.
@@SpectrumDT the commenter I was replying to concluded their thought with rape in the feudal era for some reason. it is nebulous to me also.
As a disabled person looking down the barrel of abject poverty, I'm going to have to disagree pretty passionately with Pinker. My wealth of issues is made much worse by my lack of funds and in the near future when my parents die I will be absolutely screwed and with no possible positive outcome. Things really aren't alright.
Personally I think being an optimist does not mean you are just happy with the status quo. More so I think it means you see that we can do better and you are optimistic about our chances to achieve this better future. Just liking the status quo is more just denying or ignoring all the bad stuff.
Aka Toxic Positivity
I, a random RUclips commentor, can highly recommend The Divide by Hickel, as well. It's cited throughout this video. There's a ton of great detail about how the IMF and World Bank end up reinforcing inequality instead of alleviating it.
Hmm. I might have to get that.🤔
South Koreans will never forget what the IMF did to them.
@@mookosh Now I'm curious. What did IMF do to South Korea?
@@Ermude10 in the 90s, South Korea entered the international market. Now, prior to entering the international market, South Korea's economy was controlled by chaebols which were family companies that were... Basically like the Walmart family. These chaebols enjoyed political protections and in return, provided the government with certain guarantees for the citizens. A pseudo planned economy of sorts that prioritized stability over growth.
They enter the international stage and essentially take advantage of exports while strictly limiting imports, protecting their chaebols from competition from abroad, while enjoying the benefits of foreign consumer market access.
America by way of the IMF paid South Korea a visit and let them know very politely that either they liberalize their domestic markets and break down their chaebols, or bad things could happen.
So south Korea liberalized its markets and broke down their chaebols. Almost immediately south Korea collapsed and required the IMF to save it from the crisis the IMF caused. The IMF imposed austerity measures which further annihilated South Korea's domestic market autonomy and caused its economic recovery to lag for many more years than it should have.
This absolute failure of the IMF during the entire period of the Asian financial collapse led the East to create their own regional monetary funds so they wouldn't have to rely on the IMF anymore.
Very much, "with friends like you, who needs enemies". I'm sure if there is an actual south Korean in the comments they can do a better job explaining it than I did.
@@mookosh Thanks for explaining, haven't heard about this at all before.
Wow Steven, after “reading” your “book” I think I need a “large bottle” of “malt whiskey”
Lol i always see you on leftist channels
@@2FadeMusic yeah, I post too much lol
I've noticed that whenever the morality of excessive wealth is brought up, many neoliberals immediately draw examples in defence of it from the 3 A's: Artists, Authors, and Athletes, see 57:27. These careers best represent the neoliberal ideal that those at the top actually create significant value, that work is relatively similar at every level, and that people are divided by individual success and talent. Obviously it's more complicated than that in reality, but even from the most basic level it's fundamentally invalid to draw direct comparison between J.K. Rowling, who created a fictional universe (which is admittedly heavily appropriated and unoriginal) that people have regardless spent hundreds of hours obsessing over, and the average billionaire CEO, who is a glorified desk worker and/or PR front. I don't see this false equivalence addressed enough, and I'm tired of seeing neoliberals get away with it.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't think the 3 A's are actually representative of any sort of 'good' capitalism. I very much agree with Unlearned Capitalism's point about individual and collective action he makes in the video. Luck and cronyism are often the dividing factor between success and obscurity more than actual talent, as well as a willingness to be exploited by the corporations that run these industries. The skills, commitments and risk required to commit to these careers often excludes people in poverty, as does prejudice against marginalised people. Not to mention that the reality of the people who do things like translate the books or even ghostwrite turn the supposed 'best labourers' into exploiters like anyone else at their level of wealth, or that the people publishing or managing the 3 A's aren't making value either in spite of often getting even fatter paycheques.
Investors make more money from innovations than the innovators and inventors they're investing in.
Man that's a good point since even some pro-capitalists find it unpalatable when they're forced to argue the "value generated" between someone tilling soil or doing financial calculations, but who can deny the value generated by the three As? I think the catch is that the three As are directly measuring the "mass reaction" to a single act via ticket/book sales so it's a unique situation that can't be applied to other arguments about "who generates the value". Society has already put the three As in a position for a large crowd to instantly throw money at them.
I think that's fair, but it's not really a false equivalency. The point is that even if the world was fair, the three A's would still create some major wealth inequality.
That betrays their hidden belief that the worker creates value otherwise they would be brave enough to site as an example a stock owner or other types of parasites who siphon value from the workers making money by owning, not by their labor. AAAs are workers, albeit labor aristocracy who actually produce value. Furthermore AAAs professions are not a good way to make money. The AAA market is extremely competitive and a winner takes all kind of market.
@@user-zf9wq9gn6e Jeff Bezos basically admitted decades of corporate propaganda on CEOs creating value was bullshit when he thanked all the Amazon workers for making his joyride possible
I have read Pinker's book, the best way I can describe the book is one part fairytale for the rich, and the other part corporate gaslighting. The New Optimism tells the reader, that the rich do not need to change their ways, because everything works as designed, as long as there is money in the economy, people can buy what they need and want, so the wealthy can be comfortable in their fairytale. However, Pinker is also gaslighting the reader, that progress in economics and government are not necessary, because will challenge the status quo, right now that status is ideal, it's not perfect, but as long as there is happiness every will be fine, so feel free to keep spending. Pinker is basically a spin doctor for the neoliberal elite, in addition, he is also a cheerleader for capitalism, Pinker does not see any problems with the system, because it benefits someone, even if the wealthy have all of their needs met, his graphs and statistics paint the narrative that positivity, is believing that letting the rich get richer is the greater good.
A new kind of feudalism where the uber rich are allowed to get even richer and engage in philanthropy which is the equivalent of throwing a few few gold coins to the masses every now and then to convince yourself that you're the good guy.
Adam Smith always surprises me with how sensible he is because I fall into the trap of assessing his work against his crazy advocates, who I'm starting to think have never read him.
As someone who just began reading Adam Smith, I concur.
Yeah Smith says capitalism will only work if heavily regulated by government. His fans think the opposite.
What’s leftist of Adam smith again?
@@criSOME1 Adam Smith advocated for capitalism regulated heavily by government to oppose the formation of monopolies and the extreme accumulation of wealth.
His idea was to be rid of the nobility, not create a new nobility.
@@des-trina That could mean anything that applies to laissez fair capitalism. Not leftist but very classical liberal which is your basic libertarian.
What got me was 22:50.
I consider myself a socialist and often use data+statistics to argue points. I've fallen into the trap of making the *exact same argument* that Pinker uses to argue that the world has gotten better, without realizing there was a whole wealth of research that poverty has gotten worse over time. Now I'm embarrassed at making the argument (not for being wrong, but for saying the same thing as Pinker) and I'm glad this video exists to help me understand this!
There is also the fact that humans are imperfect and unpredictable. Sometimes something upsets the trend because someone in a high position just decided to do something illogical on a whim or for a very personal reason and the circumstances were just so that this escalated into something big. Economies are human structures and so will always be subject to the randomness of human behavior to some extent. You also have random events like the central figure of some massive corporation could be struck by lightning or die in a plane crash.
Of course, certain factors, conditions, and measures can worsen while others are improving. As a leftist, economic problems are important. But for long-term changes, I suspect Pinker is closer to right in recognizing the powerful leverage comes from continuing rise of IQ, as an indicator of improved neurocognitive development.
That will determine our ability to solve problems over the coming generations. Still, that doesn't mean most people alive right now will benefit from it. Such changes are often easier to see across centuries. We leftists should stay focused on the long game. But at the same time we should seek immediate benefits when possible.
@@MarmaladeINFP On the subject of metrics that are basically meaningless and cherrypicked like GDP, IQ is equally meaningless. It measures a singular type of intelligence, and only works on people who have lived within a specific culture, knows a specific history, and understands the intricacies of a single language. Those non-native to where IQ applies, those who do not speak the language of the test fluently, those who are not within the white-middle-to-upperclass culture, and those who are incredibly intelligent but just have certain psychological divergencies that do not work well in test environments are shown as less intelligent than they are, and those with prior knowledge of the test and all the factors stated above are shown as more intelligent than they are.
An increase in IQ is completely worthless if all the information that that high IQ person gets is based on false statistics, or if that person is able to ignore their own intuition to accept a comfortable lie, or to avoid effort. People with a high IQ who believe that the world is unsalvageable are going to use their intelligence (assuming IQ is actually a good measure of it) to benefit themselves as much as possible at the expense of the world, causing more damage than someone who knows nothing about anything.
I once knew a guy who was incredibly astute and intelligent, but as soon as a subject came up that he was incredibly biased in (namely his religion), his intelligence would reduce massively, and he would start using the exact logical fallacies that he was previously decrying others for using in other subjects, and not responding to you calling him out on it. His personality completely changed as if he was going back to being a child or something. I have seen this happen a lot with very intelligent people, who suddenly curl up into a ball as soon as you bring up global warming and increased income inequality; the way they talk, their discussion techniques, even they body language completely changes. Their intelligence and problem solving abilities counted for absolutely nought because they were unwilling to acknowledge there was a problem they needed to apply their intelligence to.
IQ measurements are the opposite of meaningless. Across cultures, research shows they're strongly correlated and causally.linked to literacy levels, reading comprehension, educational attainment, lifetime earnings, nutrition levels, lead toxicity, parasite load, and much else. Part of what IQ tests measure is brain health and neurocognitive development, specifically in terms of fluid intelligence, pattern recognition, unique problem solving, perspective shifting, cognitive flexibility, cognitive complexity, ambiguity tolerance, aesthetic appreciation, openness / intellect, and other traits related to liberal-mindedness and sociopolitical liberalism, including low right-wing authoritarianism. All of that seems extremely real and significant.
@@MarmaladeINFP Key word being "seems".
"My new favorite book of all time." - Bill Gates
*foreshadowing*
I bought it because of Bill Gates rec, It was something along the lines of "If you only get one book this year, get this" . My ostrich head is firmly out of the sand now and I actually threw that book away rather than reintroduce it to a place to be sold or read again.
@jmalcolmg123 gates has fucked every secretary and woman in a position under him, but I don't think pinker is anywhere near as bad
@@wile123456 Pinker was associated with Epstein, yes - and long after he was known to be a criminal
@@JulianPerez-zv6os yes but you see, we will all get to be pedophiles on a plane in about a thousand years thanks to the magic of capitalism.
Idk what the rich will be up to then, maybe doing the same thing somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy
@jmalcolmg123 what evidence is there for this? I'm curious
Thanks for this. Pinker is another Canadian psychologist that likes to speak broadly in fields in which he has no expertise. Nice to hear and eloquent debunking of his patently absurd ideas.
He's actually a linguist, but your comment is right.
@@macgp44 He's the psychology professor at Harvard.
@@macgp44 I’m pretty sure he is a linguist and a Harvard professor.
Exactly, and it's such a shame because he has done very important work in the field in which he _does_ have expertise (psycholinguistics, and more specifically theories of language and its innateness), and it's clear that he's very able to deeply engage with and criticise its pertinent theories and develop his own. Unfortunately, he's cursed with eloquence and a very readable writing style which he has confused with an ability to write about anything.
If you use good references, you don’t have to be trained in the field. And he does use an abundance of references
Russel Brand's patronizing of that lovely little graph is strangely endearing.
Brand tantruming at data he doesn't like was childish and embarrassing. It is like holding your breath until the vegetables turn into ice cream. He should have just covered his ears and made la la la sounds until it was over.
Pinker: When looking at poverty, you need to look at proportions, because the population is always changing!
Also Pinker: The amount of wealth in the world is always changing, which means you probably have more today than you would have had a century ago. No, let's not talk about proportions.
Are you criticizing the idea that wether the absolute number or the relative number is more important depends on context?
He’s not wrong
@@MrNikeNicke if in my block one of my neighbors gets richer by 5 million dollars the total number of money in my block has risen by 5 million, but it would be utterly stupid to assume that I'm benefiting from it in any meaningful way.
Proportions and absolutes need to be applied in the right context, but in this context proportions are undeniably important.
New optimism is the perfect mindset for conservatives who don't want to do anything to solve any problems
No, that's Petersonian Utopianism. New optimism is for liberals who don't want to do anything to solve problems.
@@mookosh I agree, but mostly you show that the word liberal is completely useless in current discourse.
Leftist now use the word progressive, but that suffers from similar problems. And that makes these labeling exercises just a game. A pity, because the subjectmatter is extremely serious.
@@valk5045 I mean i was mostly just joking. Liberals are left leaning individuals who aren't quite within the ambit of "leftists" they're pretty easily defined as moderate left and basically all fall into the category of neolib. Any further left than neolib and you tend to just fall into another leftist category.
But tbh I think left and right are stupid distinction that mean absolutely nothing so I've no real horse in this race. I just wanted to say the phrase "Petersonian Utopianism" tbh
A perfect mindset for any political movement. 20th century was filled with governments who tried to solve the unsolvable problems. This led to horrible tragedies, genocides, mass murders, starvation and so on. My country suffered a lot from a lot of such projects coming from different sources - Marxism, National Socialism and even to some degree democracy.
It is better for governments to step away and let the problems which are solvable be solved on local and/or voluntary level. And unsolvable problems are not worth putting effort into.
@@endlesssolitaire731 dafuq you on? who defines what an unsolvable problem is? you?
I'm glad Hickel's work is seeing more readership, can't recommend The Divide enough if you're interested in statistical whitewash and neocolonialism. The graph of payment flows between Global North & South is pretty mindblowing.
Yeah, good book. Hate the way the citations are formatted though
I'm happy to report that you convinced me to order the book at my local book store
Lenin wrote about this too y'know
@@whythelongface64 A lot of Commie apologists wrote brilliant and prophetic critiques about the downsides of capitalism. They simply tossed out human rights as their "solution"; made everyone poor, enslaved and miserable.
@@asnark7115 Ok, your opinion is worthless then 👍
Even Destiny said that GDP per capita is useless to measure poverty or quality of life since most GDP gains can be unevenly distributed.
Well the true question never mentioned here is this:
How is a product's revenue evenly distributed when it's production was caused without distribution of labor? If Labor is key for the production of products for trade then this implies Gross domestic products cannot be used to govern nor discern Total wealth, only the application of a nation's wealth and innovation
Note, at no point have we've seen this video handle these issues for what they are
He could of showed us the wealth in India from per-industrial to post-industrial times
Could of researched several ancient empires to track the accumulation and distribution of wealth through rights, trade and political choices
Lots of means to figure out nuance
I mean again the intention is to try and enrich all people across the global, so when promoting globalist economic philosophy it makes sense to avoid the nuance of history, this video disregards that the whole foundations of his argument is equally as baseless as the other side he criticizes
I mean again, if we were to find a mean, range and mode out the sum of global income meeting another set of data on Global GDP you can get a better idea of where, why and when these specific regions began to struggle
All businesses require costs and expenses to start, same with an economy and industry, upkeep and start up costs are measurable and can be seen to be positive when the decrease is followed by a rise in wealth, social stability, medical efficiency and other factors
Even the concept of Poverty is corrupted to fit his use here
Poverty:the state of being extremely poor.
the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.
and the renunciation of the right to individual ownership of property as part of a religious vow.
So the key to solving poverty has little to do with distribution of capital/resources but how they are accumulated, which throws out the first part of the video entirely
I mean seriously, he conflates "enclosure" without realizing that the act of "enclosing" a "natural resource" like a forest, is the privatization of that resource- timber, land etc etc
So of course you can't track GDP for nations that have no industry or products, that is a huge influence in global poverty, America, without innovation would have nothing and it's wealth would not exist, hence why most nations that stop producing suffer social collapse regardless of the general wealth of the populace...
Though to be fair, I think Europeans learn and fixate on different concepts and ideals than non-europeans, so course the whole crux of this situation is the pointing out of Western apathy and "cultural bias" while implying the reallocation of goods, services and labor to create a utopian ideal unfounded on any empirical data of his own
It's like listening to two Christians argue about which denomination is more useful for mankind while also trying to argue which is more biblical- two different issues, and even within these questions more abound that affect the response required
While I disagree with Pinker, reflexively dismissing the grounds and focuses of their theories as if you can't understand how they reached those conclusions is sort of whack
studio.ruclips.net/user/videonuPd5Swc-E0/edit
@@ThatOneAlbinoMofo mucho texto
Also driving your car Into a wall and repairing both after is positive for the GDP
Be as "pedantic and academic " as you like! This stuff is pure gold! Thank you.
"Our motto must therefore be: Reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but through analyzing the mystical consciousness, the consciousness which is unclear to itself, whether it appears in religious or political form. Then it will transpire that the world has long been dreaming of something that it can acquire if only it becomes conscious of it. It will transpire that it is not a matter of drawing a great dividing line between past and future, but of carrying out the thoughts of the past. And finally, it will transpire that mankind begins no new work, but consciously accomplishes its old work." - Karl Marx, "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing"
41:05 Sowell getting debunked is something I have been waiting to see ever since a former friend recommended "Basic Economics" to me. I got to chapter 7 before I was incapable of hearing another "Why the USSR was bad and unregulated economies are good" structure.
Guessing this is Thomas Sowell - Dylan Wiliam is such a big fan and Sigler’s views (ala Quinn Slobodian) don’t seem to warrant such praise. Would love to learn more
Out of curiosity, does that mean you the the USSR was good or that regulations can go too far?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos The USSR having not done well in some area of economic activity is not a reasonable argument for saying Standard Oil's monopoly was good.
Sowell very much makes that kind of argument.
@@TulipQ Interesting. Do you by chance remember the book or talk that Sowell made that argument in? And "The USSR having not done not done well in some area of economic activity" is quite a general statement that could range from trivial things to starvation. Do you remember which areas in particular were being referenced?
You gotta admit the USSR was pretty bad tho
Pinker was such a good writer when he was writing about linguistics and the possible origins of language and their potential implications on the development of consciousness. I won't argue people can't change interests and have to only do whatever they did best in the past, but I will lament his recent hobby choices and the company he now keeps.
Aww, shame. Still, maybe I can get something from the linguistic parts.
@@styno9295 The Language Instinct 1994 was excellent. Words and Rules 2000 was great. How the Mind Works 1997 was, uh, well, interesting - not entirely what the title promises, but that's to be expected from such a grandiose title.
You sound like a blast at parties.
@@silverharloe I've had his book "The Sense of Style" on my shelf for a while now, been meaning to read through it as an amateur writer myself. Is it alright? It really seemed like an interesting exploration of more modernized English texts, but, seeing this video, it makes me a bit anxious that the things contained in the book are, in a similar way, shallow and distorted.
I like that the subtitles are included from day 1
I remember when being poor didn't stop you watching the football. going to the pictures, going to the seaside, seeing bands etc.
For most poor people those pastimes are now out of their price range. They are just faced with the day-to-day drudgery of paying bills, paying the rent, scraping money together for the basics.
Okay, it's not the third world, but it's hardly much fun either. But in many ways such problems can't be fixed by redistribution alone, as means of production change, some things that were once cheap are now expensive. Such as footballers could start demanding massive hikes in pay due to televised events. Music got massively commercialized due to media hype on various music channels and the internet. Whereas the Stones, the Beatles, the Clash, the Pistols started out playing the club circuits, now they'd be straight on the festival circuit.
As for cinemas, the local fleapits are gone, the multiplexes have monopolized the market. The cheapest tickets around £8. When you're talking about a family of four, that's 32 quid, a massive wedge of the food budget.
Basically entertainments and leisure have gone through the roof but wages for the lowest paid have stagnated.
And now even that great British institution, the hub of the community - the pub is closing down, as the poor just can't afford the prices.
So we're talking working class life devoid of pubs, football, music, the pictures, seaside holidays - no wonder the poor are miserable. The joys of the poor have been ripped asunder.
Absolutely 💯
"Progress comes from skepticism" Damn that one really hit me, great presentation!
Pinker is a psycho-linguist, primarily, and as such, his work is highly regarded. His forays into economics, sociology, history is proof that some academics can claim to be "renaissance men", and some can't. He (and his buddy JBP) are squarely in the second camp.
Even the renaissance men are well known for showing excellence in one field (or even topic) and then going bonkers into dogma, speculation and random indescribable nonsense on other topics. A good example on this is Newton, he helped invent calculus and the theory of gravity, and his work on optics was extremely influential, and yet he very much enjoyed dabbling in alchemy and "the occult". His later years were almost all spent exclusively on this.
If we're to take anything from the renaissance "natural philosophers" is that expertise in one field doesn't make you an expert in other fields. And even then, your expertise has to be filtered through the process of scientific discovery and criticism before it's of any value to anyone.
I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate the time and effort you put into these videos. Truly, this is what RUclips is for. Thank you. Love from Mexico
'Sowell, your time will come'
yes yes yes yes yes ' can't wait
This video seemed to be, 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality'. So will the Sowell video be the same? Agreeing with the basic premise, but outlining small complications and telling people Sowell didn't look enough into Unleared's priorities?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos People very rarely manage to say things that are altogether completely wrong in every way. However the idea that the premise of this video is 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality' is far off from the position presented here.
So yes, a fair critique of Sowell will most definitely not amount to 'amazing, every word of what you just said was wrong' but that doesn't mean that it will be summed in 'Sowell is right but he missed these tiny points where he didn't go deep enough, though truth be told I have encountered places where everything Sowell said was just totally wrong.
@@ewengilary7669 Thanks for the response! So what do you feel like the premise of this video was? And what things do you feel like Unlearning specifically disproved? And finally, what places do you feel like "everything Sowell said was just totally wrong" specifically?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos If I had time to answer that I wouldn't be looking forward to UE making a video about Sowell.
@@OntheOtherHandVideos New Optimism: 'Leveraging evidence of incremental progress through rhetoric that derails, gaslights, silences attempts to address contemporary problems and (intentionally or unintentionally) obstructs efforts towards further progress on a policy level'
i barely know anything about economics so these kinds of videos are always really interesting and informative for me & i often find myself reading most of the texts you cite and looking into their subjects further just because of the interest you've inspired in me to gain a greater understanding of these sorts of things. thanks for doing what you do!
"The world is becoming middle class"
What kind of ghoul says stuff like this? Can't imagine
If one's world is an american suburb, one is primed to think so I would think
@@whythelongface64 Such as myself but it is also just an effective sentence. A value free objective statement based on reasonable interpretation of the facts. Approve or disapprove of the situation the statement is completely non ghoulish. lets play nice.
A ghoul who has looked at the data?
@@thisperson3240 Ok so you just ignored the video, anyway, I don't much care what a gringo has to say. I am yet to see onr which has something of worth to say.
The world is becoming middle class
Leftist nonsense will not pass
Great video! My background is in public health so I love how you mentioned socioeconomic disparities. I’ve always thought it makes more sense to measure poverty using human metrics (hunger, homelessness, access to clean water and sanitation) rather than economic ones. The US, for example, has one of the highest per capita incomes but has a lower life expectancy than some middle income countries.
The existence of Steven Pinker implies the existence of Steven Stinker.
Therefore God
The multiverse is endless morty
he's both at the same time and it only when you observe him that you see which one he is.
and, arguably, Steven the Brain(er)
post "peven stinker" at him on twitter, he'll block you lmao
My favourite Pinker moment was when he was on Ghoul Maher's show and tried to pull the "on average things are getting better" line, and even Maher had to object.
If there are 10 people in a room and each has an apple, if one person gains 10 apples while all the others each lose their one, there are now more apples in the room. Yay.
I can't believe how one of the metrics for things getting better for one is "More Films" haha
Ive listened to this 3 times now and have learned new bits everytime. You're videos are literally inspiring me to go back to college for Econ. Thanks for everything you do!
You should, but know that Hickel is certaintly not an "expert on poverty".
Econ is a discipline that has no ethics 😅
Humans need to stop infighting long enough to topple our oppressors
Mitch McConnell is Emperor Palpatine
Some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make! - Lord Trump
@Justin Y. Trump is evil. He ignored this virus until he couldn't ignore it...the steps taken have been deliberately slow to contain this virus, as the government has made huge financial gains in allowing particularly older, retired people to die...no more pay outs each month...voting, if still valid in this country...is our only peaceful, legal recourse...voting 3rd party is the ONLY WAY to get real humans in power, rather than dynasty families and career politicians. When we realize the 2 parties we are divided over LOVE the division among us...then and only then may America be great again...
@Justin Y. Lack of knowledge of the deep state? I just accused our government of mass murder...I understand deep state...fact that you refuse to listen, only attack, says too much about you...clearly you haven't known hardship. Clearly none of this has impacted you negatively...you are part of the problem, offering zero solutions.
@Justin Y. Calling me stupid really helps your case...Trump has very limited brain power, as evidenced by his rambling, generally repetitive, toddler talks...although most of us are sorely undereducated, Trump really amazes me every time i listen to his banter. Trump did not close the borders in time, many flights to the USA brought sick folk here. Action wasn't taken until very late February, and by then 15 confirmed cases were more than enough to basically allow what amounts to airborn, quickly lethal AIDS《why this? (Because this virus mutates too fast to create an effective vaccine, which may never get made), upon the world. This is dangerous because common behaviors of common folk, such as shoulder to shoulder events, shopping and sardine packed working conditions, helped this virus along...even as people died in China daily...America went forward 2 full months wothout any concerns...then...rather than force the hands of state officials, and put the population through a 2 month quarantine, we've been seeing states react, rather than prepare...and all at the natural stages this virus thrives on...complacency among enough of us to allow the spread to continue. You refusing to see this logic isn't a blight on my mental capacity, just proves you are as simple as our Lord Trump...and likely among those very few, who like many elites, don't even understand the plight of the masses, whom I speak for, in this contrived crisis...Trump is calm about the virus because he exists outside the bounds of common folk...Trump and other powerful people would never have to take the risk of infection seriously as they are all well protected by expendable servants or can at the least afford to continue living lavishly and distanced from peons such as myself. 9/11 was an inside job and this proves what I've feared since then...that the government can perform mass murder and the people will always just accept it, hire the next sociopath in line, whichever of the 2 evil divisionary parties they aspire to dwell in...
Our educational system is archaic. We could be educating everyone from home...there are no valid excuses for our current broken schooling, and no teachers need lose jobs...as the internet is an amazing communication device...
Taxes are broken. Your dollar earned gets hit so many times...and we all just accept that blindly.
Medicine is broken. My grandmother died because her selfish daughter needed cable tv more than grandma needed diabetes medicine...and millions suffer from the inability to afford insulin, despite that drug initially starting out as a gift to humanity from a generous genius, privatized by evil and greed, priced beyond reality for most.
Our 2 party system is designed to keep us bickering...division keeps us docile enough to accept our own government conspiring to murder us, with our acceptance. 3rd party candidates are generally real humans...that care about other humans, even, gasp, total strangers and foreigners...
We are all on the same damn spaceship...Earth. I judge character...not race, not whatever religion folks are born into. I am old...I am tired of seeing disaster after disaster get slow attention from government, as poor people die in thousands due to delayed or nonexistent help.
It's about time the many take control, with votes, to dethrone the sociopaths that control us, play games with our very lives...
When there are only voluntary homeless, when the janitor is paid living wage, when a high school graduate can earn enough in food service, or retail, to support a modest home and essentials, while creating a nest egg...when veterans are given the same care as Congress, Senate and other positions of highest power, rather than left to suffer and die, when the lowest paying jobs are enough to survive on, then and only then, can America boast of being great...
As it stands...I feel most of us are born into lies we have no control over...It's well orchestrated, as my points are made clear in every satirical broadcast about the plight of the expendable masses, world wide...
Do I want peace, equity and kumbaya? Yeah...I do...are there sociopaths in power oppressing the common folk...yeah...there are...have good Democrats and Republicans existed? Yes...they get blocked by evil at every turn, often resigning due to unbeatable corruption. Do I pity the very people I label simple? You bet I do...I want this planet to be a better place for most...not some...for all...if ever possible...
This covid virus isn't done. It mutates too fast to pin it down with a vaccine...and we haven't seen the end of it because we, as a planet, would have to agree on a few ground rules to consider being a functional society.
That's my 2 cents...some of it...take it or leave it. Most of us just exist and watch, lazily, rather than get directly involved in change. @soaringvulture We don't seem to take note...we, the expendable masses, are being told to push through life ignoring this virus...it took ONE infection to start a Planet Wide Pandemic...and because we didn't quarantine from January 1st to February, we get to watch innocent and otherwise lives lost, daily...who are "we", in "we're in it together"? Certainly not the elite...they step on us to avoid harm...I'm furious with humanity as a whole...I'm furious we accept all this death and Trump's toddler talks...like a Ted talk without useful insight...
Those of us suffering are many...while the privileged watch the show They created...when...when will the common folk unite against tyranny, through the only peaceful means we have...vote out career politicians and dynasty families in favor of fellow human beings, with consciousness and compassion for the lowest among us.
We won't stop the cycle of abuse by trading Democrats and Republicans, two sides of the same evil, corrupt coin.
Vote 3rd party...vote for real people, with flaws, that understand what struggle is...that have put time behind any of these so called essential, yet minimum wage jobs...
This economy is screwed...always has been. The vast majority of work available is menial labor...food service, retail, janitors, grocers...a great many take their wages in government...which is far too big, complex and unsustainable...
Until any job can offer a modest secure household, until the only homeless are those who volunteer to live "free"...until the pill giants are mandated to make life saving medicine reasonably priced...we are a selfish, horrid nation, divided by the very people that oppress us, yet too busy fighting amongst ourselves to take any useful action towards a better tomorrow for the MANY, not the FEW
I think that the channel is saying that it's kinda shit at college.
Off the bat, I think it's advantageous to be cautiously optimistic. I will update my thought in 90 minutes.
Update: I still think it's advantageous to be cautiously optimistic, but this video aids me in my dislike of Stephen Pinker and gave me an insightful lesson on welfare/labor economics.
“Being cautiously optimistic” is one thing, “picking out data to justify laughing off people who are pointing out major global issues” is a very different thing.
It may be "advantageous" in the sense you won't make other guests at dinner parties feel so awkward - "honestly, we're fucked" never goes so well. But optimism, and a belief in unalterable "progress", is absolutely disastrous when it comes to policy making.
@@larsfrisk6658 That's what I'm trying to get at. I always got the notion that Dr. Pinker was always hasty in his analysis. This video only helps justify my opinion.
@@samuelskillern7365 I love you.
Had seen that graph before but i never heard someone call it "Elephant graph"... or it being drawn with eyes and a smile. I feel cheated, gonna return my economics degree.
This just popped up on my RUclips feed today, but it's a great video and the refutation of Pinker's simplistic trend analysis is important. I'm glad that there are people addressing this, because I have always been extremely uneasy about Pinker's analysis ever since reading one of his earlier books many years ago. It's like the gentleman from "We're in Hell" says toward the middle, "Pinker's work serves...to deliver hope...for those enjoying it's rewards." I agree - Steven Pinker's books provide "data" for people enjoying Western financial prosperity to feel comfortable in their wealth, but for the rest of us (people with engineering degrees who can't afford a house even into our 40s, college graduates who can barely pay rent, etc.) it provides little comfort. It's like if someone had a pipe burst in their apartment, and instead of fixing things right away the maintenance people simply said, "Well, the general trend is that pipes are working better than they used to, and you're lucky you have running water since people in the old days had to go down to a well to get their water."
"Sowell...Your time will come"
Bahahahaa
the best response to a Sowell citation
I predict Pinker's idea will age as well as Fukuyama's.
The fact is that, at least in the developed West, quality of life has been in decline for about 50 years. If at the end of that 50 years, you invest your entire interpretive framework in comparing today to 1750, you will miss this. And possibly miss what is really happening.
Whenever I watch one of your videos, I literally feel like I just want to "drink it all in", like there is so much knowledge and I can't get enough of it. By far my favourite youtube channel at the moment!
I was afraid unlearning died or quit and I was so damned excited when I saw him with we are in hell!
This was extremely good and the collab with We'reInHell was great.
I've watched this video three times over the last months, and every time I'm blown away by the quality again. Also very happy to hear mention of Sapolsky. Fantastic and engaging work, made me get up and read some Jason Hickel.
I love the reasoning of New Optimists. "More total people in poverty isn't BAD because the RATE is down a little." Which might be worth celebrating if it wasn't for the horrific reality of literally more and more actual humans suffering under poverty. Its almost like waiving your hands and going "look over here don't worry about that!"
Most of that is between 2 nations.
@@simonjaz1279 Most of what? Poverty? Yeah the 2 countries with the highest population have the higher number of people in poverty, no crap.
Your comment confuses me. I don’t understand how anyone could read that and not see it as a good thing. Aren’t relative rates of poverty going down as opposed to going up preferable, even if population has increased such that absolute amount of poverty has increased?
Just watched this again. So good.
The only thing which I feel wasn't covered as much as I might've liked is:
1) Pinker seems to imply that people earning over $1.90 ushers them into the middle class or, at the very least, he elides the vast gap between poverty and the middle class which, definitionally, seems to be only possible in advanced economies.
2) The difference between $1.90 a day in a country like Brasil and in Britain is also vast. The number of people that seem to think that people in poverty in the UK are not as poor as people in poverty in Brasil because they have more in absolute terms (I was arguing with one Twitter just yesterday) is astonishing. People actually seem to believe that poverty, and its negative consequences for intellectual ability via poor nutrition and environmental factors, don't exist in "rich" countries... and that's before looking at the effects of perceived inequality within the country.
It's not like I'm a fan of Pinker and have plenty of critiscm of him but this is something I truly don't understand. I lived in South America for 3 years not in Brazil but Colombia and I had no idea just how bad rock bottom is. Like it doesn't make sense how bad things can be until you see it because it just feels like it shouldn't be allowed, like there should be some kind of inherent fairness in the world. So yes of course there's poverty in every single country. There always will be a "bottom of the curve" insofar as things aren't perfectly equal. But comparing poverty from the UK to Brazil and you just lost any credibility you had. This says more about feeling validated then it does about anything that's related to the real world.
@@michaelbarker6460 Really? One can't even make a comparison?
Isn't that exactly what a global definition of poverty, at $1.90 per day, is trying to do?
Notice, though, that I was specifically talking about the impact of poverty on the individual's intellectual ability rather than population-level impact, which is clearly not comparable. Can we now not compare the impact of generational poverty and a shrinking safety net in the UK to the outright lack of those things in Brazil?
OK, let's compare the buying power of the $1.90, then.
I had a quick look at current exchange rates and this year's BigMac index. It turns out that $1.90 buys 40% of a Big Mac in both the UK (GBP 1.50 - Big Mac 3.79 - 40%) and Brazil (BRL 9.09 - Big Mac 22.90 - 40%).
But I'm guessing your response to that would be along the same lines as it was to my prior comment: that even thinking about a Big Mac comparison is absurd.
OK, so how about a cost of living comparison? [2][3]
Here's a list of staple foods, the average UK cost (and the proportion of $1.90 that represents) followed by the cost in Brazilian Reai (and the proportion of $1.90 that represents). It probably won't present as tidily once I hit 'Reply' as it does on my screen right now :(
Milk (regular), (1 litre) 1.29 £ (86%) 6.06 R$ (67%)
Loaf of Fresh White Bread (500g) 1.35 £ (90%) 7.86 R$ (86%)
Rice (white), (1kg) 2.01 £ (134%) 6.12 R$ (67%)
Eggs (regular) (12) 3.09 £ (204%) 10.08 R$ (111%)
Local Cheese (1kg) 6.86 £ (457%) 45.07 R$ (496%)
Chicken Fillets (1kg) 7.22 £ (481%) 19.13 R$ (210%)
Beef Round (1kg) 10.78 £ (719%) 44.51 R$ (490%)
Apples (1kg) 2.04 £ (136%) 10.85 R$ (119%)
Banana (1kg) 1.19 £ (79%) 7.21 R$ (79%)
Oranges (1kg) 2.07 £ (138%) 5.70 R$ (63%)
Tomato (1kg) 2.83 £ (187%) 8.80 R$ (97%)
Potato (1kg) 1.12 £ (75%) 6.06 R$ (67%)
Onion (1kg) 1.10 £ (73%) 5.41 R$ (60%)
Lettuce (1 head) 0.82 £ (55%) 3.28 R$ (36%)
So, in Rio your $1.90 goes further on every single food item, and there are many more that are actually affordable on $1.90. Indeed, I would argue that someone in a favela could make a nourishing meal, like feijao (rice, onion and black beans and maybe a little meat) for $1.90, but a person in poverty/homeless person in London could maybe make some kind of hash (potato and onion and whatever meat could be scrounged), at best. And that's before we take into account that a British person that is in poverty will be in fuel poverty as well, by definition, whereas that won't really be a problem in Rio (at least not from the point of view of heating). Further, a homeless person in London would struggle to be warm enough for several months of the year.
The primary benefit of being in poverty in London vs. Rio is the level of crime and particularly homicide, but you could say that about Detroit or Chicago (both of which have higher homicide rates than Rio's favelas).
[1] www.economist.com/big-mac-index
[2] Cost of Living London: www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/London
[3] Cost of Living Rio: www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Rio-De-Janeiro
@Alan_Duval I'm not disputing any of the differences in price between different countries. I honestly am completely lost though. The $1.90 global standard has almost nothing to do with medium to high income countries. It is completely meaningless anywhere else except the countries that have a significant population that falls within that range. This is the bare minimum standard that is set for the poorest people in the poorest countries just so that there's at least a standard and a goal to rise above
High income countries use an entirely different standard to determine what's considered living in poverty for their specific situation. Looking up what's considered poverty in the UK and the standard is set at 60% of the areas median income. London for instance has a median income of £36000 or $45000 usd. To find the poverty rate for London we just use 60% of that median which is £21000. For a household with 2 kids the poverty level would be at about £35000.
For an adult (23+) with a job in the UK it's impossible to make less than £10.42 an hour because that's the legal minimum wage. Even if you're homeless you can easily make over £50 per day panhandling and usually much more. No one is living on $1.90 a day in the UK or the rest of western Europe or anywhere in the US and Canada.
Brazil has set their minimum wage at about $1.50 an hour but there's no way to legally enforce that. Also the unemployment rate in places like a favela or a slum is anywhere from 20-50% depending on the area. It's just a completely different world.
This doesn't mean that people living in poverty in wealthier countries don't have it bad. Of course it's not fun to live like that especially in broken homes with a lot of drug, alcohol and abuse problems. That's a terrible way to live especially if that was your childhood. But as someone who has spent a lot of time in South America and has seen the intensity of just how bad "global poverty" can be I'm not going to go along with this weird mentality that "since it's more expensive to live in wealthier countries therefore its just as bad or even worse to be in poverty in those countries." No, not even close
@@michaelbarker6460 Lots of people fall below the minimum wage, in effect. Zero-hours contracts are a thing. Universal credit is equivalent to £2.13 per hour.*
Anyway, thanks to the drastic cutting back on social spending in the UK, the likelihood of people with mental health issues that impair their ability to work who are not getting any kind of help and so are living on the streets is very high. So, I ask you to provide evidence for your claim that "No one is living on $1.90 a day in the UK or the rest of western Europe or anywhere in the US and Canada."
But, most importantly:
" I'm not going to go along with this weird mentality that "since it's more expensive to live in wealthier countries therefore its just as bad or even worse to be in poverty in those countries..."
Fine and dandy, because what I said was:
"People actually seem to believe that poverty, **and its negative consequences for intellectual ability via poor nutrition and environmental factors**, don't exist in "rich" countries... and that's before looking at the effects of perceived inequality within the country."
So, yeah, well done for robustly attacking something I didn't say and would indeed agree with you on.
* Monthly standard allowance If you’re single and over 25 is £368.74/month.
www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get
Ever been to Appalachia in the states? Or the slums in Jaywick in the UK? I'm guessing no
I literally Cannot stop laughing after the Rogan clip..."ah, yeah, great man. I'm not going to read your [garbage] book"! Haven't used this one in almost a decade but...ROFLMAO!!!
Seriously-tears in my eyes as I play it back half a dozen times , laughing harder and harder every go around.
Thanks for that-gotta share it w/Everyone I know🤣
Good luck w/this fantastic new channel, may it proliferate throughout our entire culture, shifting awareness to be more in line w/the harsh realities we truly face.
(Not certain if DH sub'd or if I snatched you off of one of my lefty channels but you might want to hit up Thought Slime, The Acid Left and Non-compete...Three channels that may be excited to share your most excellent insights into economics, someone has to dispell the fairy tales or these kids will never have a shot at changing anything for the better. Or the rest of us, come to think of it).
Thank you from the bottom of my hollow, strip mines heart ;)
'Why does poverty exist at all' really is the question indeed.
It exists, because humans do not only care about their own absolute wealth, but about their relative wealth in regard to their fellow humans. If the poor didn't exist, humans would create them.
Poverty requires no explanation. It is the default situation. Wealth has to explained.
@@Der_Thrombozyt humans didn't seem to care about relative wealth during hunter gatherer times, just maybe what humans think and believe has a strong correlation with the material conditions. Hoarding wealth during hunter gatherer times isn't an idea that resonates with the society because egalitarian practices are what keeps these societies alive. Poverty in times where poverty could be abolished can't just be explained by some human nature or other idealist notions. Systemic questions have to be asked. Capitalist wealth accumulation and profits motive in addition with a class system that has an asymmetry of power, could just be accountable for the working class beeing worse of and not enjoying the fruits of their labor
Because we have created a system that prioritises profit over well being
In early civilization systems began to favor psychopathy, and they have evolved that system since then.
As a teenager I saw graphs of global wealth exploding after the widespread adoption of capitalism and thought that was about as definitive a proof as you could get that capitalism is the way to go, but then I started working and started wondering how exactly most human throughout history survives on the equivalent of about $100/year when damn near every problem I have can only be solved with money.
Then it clicked: most people didn't solve most of their problems with money. They solved their problems with their own skills and made connections with people with other skillsets.
A lot of the growth of capitalism has actually been the "commodification" of previously uncalculated labour.
I am writing this only 20 minutes into the video, but it is difficult for me to follow the arguments presented. On both sides (optimist and pessimist), they are mostly laid out by academics in developed countries who may not have much real-world experience.
Over the last 35 years, I have spent considerable time in the developing world. Not everywhere and not all the time, but in a good slice of countries. What I have seen over that time span is an absolutely massive improvement in people's living standard, not only in cities, but even way out in the countryside and in the mountains. Obviously, there are still pockets and areas of extreme poverty, but overall the improvement has been so great it almost makes me want to cry with joy.
My perspective is only from visits to my home country in the Philippines, and I do agree with seeing improvements. The main thing I disagree with these optimists is how they attribute these improvements to too broad of things, like globalism. Like specifically I feel conditions have improved from technologies and expansion of the markets in the most general terms. But the specific terms in which the markets expand is often at the cost of the futures of developing nations, their resources, workers, and industries. Like anything resembling globalism would bring some improvements, but that doesnt mean what we actually have can take credit for it. (Im not sure why i replied to your comment specifically but cheers.)
This is why I love this channel - detailed, well-sourced analysis and critique. Your effort is appreciated.
Awesome to see you back! And by the length of this video, I can see why it took you so long. Worth it though.
Also, your videos inspired me to use some of my free time to take an Economics A-level through a remote learning college, so thanks
The last part, the TLDR, is art. Excellent work, can't wait for the sowell takedown.
This video seemed to be, 'the world IS getting better, but they didn't talk enough about inequality'. So will the Sowell video be the same? Agreeing with the basic premise, but outlining small complications and telling people Sowell didn't look enough into Unleared's priorities?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos It felt more of a refutation of the premise of pinker's argument, that the world is orders of magnitude better and that is thanks to capitalism. Inequality is a massive issue, and dimissing it is more than a small complication. The world getting better in some metrics is the lowest bar for celebration you can set.
@@diegosanchez894 So do you think that inequality negates the improvements that the world has seen? I could be wrong, but I didn't hear him mention any ways where the world is flat out worse, just ways that the progress touted wasn't as significant as was implied.
The world is a much better place than it used to be, so I think it's just a matter of arguing how much better we think it is. Would you agree?
@@OntheOtherHandVideos I don't care tht the world is getting better in some ways, of course it does. Pinker comes and says "the world is getting better and it's because of free markets" and leftists come and say "actually those free markets cause a lot of inequality which could be fixed with specific policy measures" to which pinker replies "do you hate/dislike the progress we've made! look how far we've come!! are you afraid of the progress we will make thanks to free markets". My problem is less with what he's saying and more with why he's saying it which is to defend the status quo.
@@diegosanchez894 That's fair. I think I ultimately line up more with the free market side of the argument, but I appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thanks for an engaging and polite conversation!
For those that are interested there is an excellent book that has just been written called "Civilized to Death" which I highly recommend people read, which looks in-depth at actually how healthy and positive life was for hunter gatherers, and how many of the common attributions about high levels of disease, pestilence and violence are based on either tall tales or misattributions.
That doesn't sound right.
While there are clearly health metrics that they got better than early farmers (and pre-modern farmers) how are you going to deal with archaeological and anthropological data so far showing really impressive number of violent deaths?
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 A lot of that data has since been revisited by today's most foremost and largely credited anthropologist's and been found to be either completely incorrect or based on assumptions that are far outdated, often due to being made by people hundreds of years ago without elaboration since. Things like assuming humans had no predators, humans had less technological capabilities and knowledge of their environments than they did. That is about an in-depth an answer as youtube warrants, if you want in-depth explanations with hundreds of references to top science papers in the field read the book suggested above.
"A lot of that data has since been revisited" Our world in data had a database of archaeological sites and anthropological data concerning hómicide rate. Whichever part of that one we cherrypick either one get an impression of a bloódbąth or of an insane blóodbąth. It looked robust in case of dumping a few observations, If you are saying that's bs, then could you point me to some updated database? “
[Non-English alphabet for censor-bot]
“are based on either tall tales or misattributions” I don’t think you can have this way. In case of entering new environment there had been a population explósion, while later the population remained roughly stable as if extra limiting factor appeared. In the model to which you prescribe, how this excess population was being ęliminątęd?
I think new optimism is just a nice face for "shush, everything is fine, change nothing and it will get better "
hope this won't provoke another Twitter war that lasts too long. thank you that didn't get discouraged from the twitter mob and continued to publish more videos!
I feel like I should dislike this purely for including five seconds of the war-crime known as "Cats."
Your work is criminally underrated and I will die trying to change that!
What work? He has 0 scholarly publications in economics.
@@nicholasl9148 lmao. His content silly, his content is great work.
1:24:10
“Progress comes from skepticism, from asking not ‘if poverty has declined in country X under the policies & system(s) that it has used during a certain amount of time’ but ‘why it has still existed during & despite those same measures in country X’.”
Very good. Well said. If capitalism’s and personal responsibility for (ideally all) your problems so great for the poor, why are they still so present here ?
"Participating meaningfully in a society with a given level of wealth requires access to a certain proportion of that wealth"
The dancing alone proves this video won't be just a copy of the book review that shits all over Pinker's enlightenment views.
I don’t know how in hell he thinks he could measure the prosperity of hunter gatherer societies with no state to gather any statistics. Hard enough to get basic archaeological data.
While the life of a hunter gatherer is exciting to daydream about, dying from a toothache in your teens, or getting raped to death by neighbouring tribes, or getting murdered by rivals, or any other horrible destiny that would cut your life short is probably closer to how life actually was. I'll wager that such things happened far more often than today.
Life today is filled with challenges and no small amount of suffering, and lacks many basic and primal things I believe humans have evolved to feel joy over, but let's not pretend life right now is only misery and sadness unfixably awful. And if you believe it is, maybe you should seriously consider working to move out into a hut in the forest and survive.
@@AsifIcarebear3 Did you mean to post this as a reply to me specifically? My point was the lack of statistics for hunter gatherers which would be even more difficult to gather data for than more sedentary agricultural societies that leave more of an archaeological record. (partly the point in the video).
@@AsifIcarebear3 Also, this is filled with misunderstandings about hunter-gatherer life and 'pre-civilisation' life. Not saying that HG life if easier or doesn't have dangers or wrongs but your thinking about HGs is informed by a century of racist anthropologists who characterised HGs as 'savages' and inherently worse than 'civilised' society.
Tooth decay and widespread infectious disease emerged with static civilisation, when diets changed to higher sugar and more people were living in close proximity to eachother and domestic animals. Also ,some HG groups are more egalitarian than many larger sedentary societies.
Statistically it''s quite easy: no money = no GDP :D (it's like the song no woman no cry but for theoretical economists)
@@alisadavies8943 It sure is. I didn't even bother answering that part. If you study them at all you'll no how ignorant the comment is. For instance, teeth got worse for most of agricultural history. Only in the 20th century did dentistry fix all the problems with crowding and the results of more refined starchy foods + sugars.
I knew I recognized the voice around 36:00 it's Curio!
WHOOPS TELEOLOGY
it's nice to think that progress just happens inevitably, but in reality, every micrometer was fought and bled for.
Your videos make me wish I could take this information back in time to debates I had as a first year arts student with a first year statistics student I was dating. I thought his ideas about how the world worked were so wrong but just couldn't articulate why. It's infuriating to have this knowledge now. Love your work.
I haven't watched the video yet but.... Are you going to say that Pinker *isn't* big chungus epic wholesome 100 Keanu Reeves???
Everyone liked that science Elon Musk
Can't wait for the Sowell take down. I still can't believe that guy has a following.
What makes Sowell having a following so unbelievable?
1:23:51 _"New Optimism isn't optimistic at all. If you think the current system is not far from the ideal one, you have a deeply pessimistic view of what humanity can achieve. If you have a pessimistic view of the existing system, you have an optimistic view of what humanity can achieve. Progress comes from skepticism, from asking not if poverty has declined, but why it still exists."_
Why did I have to watch the whole video for that brilliant quote? It really puts Pinker's views, and others like him, into perspective. Why jerk yourself off over how good the current system is, when there are clearly so many negatives?
No one is arguing that we should go back to feudalism because "at least we had job security." There were clearly many benefits from the transition to mercantilism, and clearly many more from the transition to capitalism. Why not transition again?
Those profiting from the status quo have a logical reason to resist any change jeopardizing their current wealth, even if it is destabilizing the very foundation their privilege rests upon.
They managed to convince themselves and even some people they fuck over, that their best option is to defend the rights of those who exploit them.
That closing statement is pure fire.
I had to pause this, but not because I didn't like it! Normally I listen to podcasts while cleaning a bit, but sometimes your videos (when I also have to look at some graphs from time to time). But the points made were quite illuminating, and gave quite some food for thought. So, I will have to sit down and listen and watch this properly later. I will even have to rewatch some parts to make sure I didn't miss anything. :)
So what you're saying is Pinker is the dog in the "This is fine" meme?
I can't recall Pinker saying something akin to "this is fine". The whole point of the book is "the better angels of our nature" is to say "this is getting better".
Listen to him on climate change, for just one example. Guy is willfully blind.
that issss the thumbnail lol
@@constexprDuck The criticism can still apply. The point isn't what is being said in the meme, it's his ability to ignore some very obvious flames.
Pinker is a guy outside yelling at the dog that this is fine
Weird for Pinker to accuse leftists of a "lump fallacy" which is directly contradicted by the labor theory of value
So much effort went into this. Its impressive!
Great video. At the risk of digressing slightly, I would recommend 'Inglorious Empire' by Shashi Tharoor to anyone interested in the history between Britain and India. It discusses the devastating impact Britain imposed on India historically - from the East India Company to Winston Churchill.
"Sowell. Your time will come" Bless your heart for real because not enough people are talking about how problematic that guy's beliefs are
Yesterday: (wondering why unlearning economics hasn't posted a video in a while)
Today: (oh hey, there's a new- ah. 1.5 hours eh? gotcha.)
Pinker explicitly states a lot of times, that the world should be better, could be better, and we can make it better. The whole point of the book is to motivate us toward progress by demonstrating it's existence and power. "A significant dose of pessimism is warranted" Maybe, but overblown pessimism has it's dangers just like overblown optimism has their own. If we feel that the word is horrible around Us, it makes Us careless of destroying imperfect but important institutions, because "What could we loose." In this word where politics and the media both are well interested in emphasizing on the bad, I welcome some counterbalance.
"Progress comes from pessimism" Serious doubts here. Human motivation just not works this way.
That is a good point!
Damn dude, Russel Bran seems like he's pretty fucking based.
He's very much a leftist and reads a lot. I don't know what his actual power level is, but he's easily 10000x better at recognising and calling peoples' bullshit than, say, Joe Rogan.
don't use the word based, it doesn't mean what you think it means.
@@sr.cosmos4543 What does it mean? I always thought it ways an illiterate's way of spelling, "biased".
@@sr.cosmos4543 The slang has changed. Now it means authentic or real.
Watched the we're in hell video when it dropped so time to watch this as a refresher.
It almost took a week but I watched all of this every morning while I made breakfast. This is such stellar work. I hope you’ll be here for the long run