High school educated whites not doing good

[GrantRobertson]

I think you may be making the wrong comparison. Instead of comparing two industrialized countries, a better comparison it to compare developed countries with less developed countries

Actually, comparing like countries IS truly more revealing.

Lots of research into happiness and/or suicide rates over the decades has shown that the gap between expectations of what "success" means and real-world achievability of said "success" has a far greater correlation and more plausible causal mechanisms than any other factor.

People in third-world countries have very low expectations of achieving material success. Rather than be depressing, this affords them the opportunity to be happy about other things. People in some other developed countries know that they are never going to go without medical care or basic necessities, so they are free of the fear of dying in the gutter and even free of the fear of being ostracized for "living on the dole." Their expectations are focused on other things that they CAN achieve, so they are happier.

Austrailia had a high suicide rate among early-adult men, even though there was the perception that they were all strong, happy, and care-free. Turns out, the societal demand to APPEAR so was so strong that no one would ever admit they weren't. If someone WAS depressed, it appeared to them that they were the only young man in the entire country who was depressed. And the pressure to hide it was enormous, leading to deeper depression. Again, the contrast between expectations and achievability created the problem.

In the U.S. the lie that we can all become the next Gates, Jobs, Musk, or Zuckerberg is strongly promulgated by, what I commonly call "The Five Rich White Guys," (5RWG, for short). The 5RWGs want hoards of workers to believe "if they just work hard enough" they can achieve success. That "success" is then defined (also by the 5RWGs) as an ever increasing level of consumption. At the same time, more and more people, who's parents were middle class, are finding themselves shut out of the system. Degree requirement inflation has meant that you can barely get a job flipping burgers (Yes, hyperbole. Get over it.) without a degree. Tuition costs have skyrocketed, so getting that degree means selling your soul to the collective company store. The 5RWGs find ways to divide us at every turn, fostering hate and fear towards everyone who is not exactly like "us." They work to marginalize as many different subgoups as possible. The 5RWGs don't give a shit about what happens in women's uteruses. They could care less about what men do to each other's anuses in the privacy of their own bedrooms. They actually WANT more Mexicans to come across the border illegally. But by restricting access to abortion and good prenatal care, by pointing fingers at so-called "deviants," by getting us to fear and blame immigrants for all of our problems, and the thousand other ways they F with us, the 5RWGs are able to marginalize almost everyone. Imagine a letter-sized document with five inch margins. That's the country we live in now. This all leaves most of us exactly where the 5RWGs want us: believing that we are just lucky to have a job at all, willing to do anything to keep said job, and simultaneously consuming more than we can afford.

Don't fall into the trap set by the 5RWGs. Don't let yourself believe that the way to solve the "crisis" of white men now being marginalized as much as other demographic groups is to help said men achieve "success." The secret is to help them learn to redefine success.

 

[Gary68]

well,if you go by my fairly strict definition of "white",of scandinavian / germanic decent,the answer is clear
"white" people are insane,they didnt get the name"berzerker" by accident

heres a little snippet from my families history

"The Johnstones had a long feud with the Clan Moffat who were another Scottish border clan.[5] In 1557 the feud climaxed with murder of the Moffat chief, Robert Moffat.[5] The Johnstones then went on to burn the local church with the most important members of the Moffat family inside, slaughtering anyone who tried to escape.[5] The Clan Moffat was almost wiped out and seventy years later all of the Moffat's lands were passed to the Johnstones due to the Moffats having massive debts"

thats not normal folks,infact when i looked at my ancestry i'm one of the very few males that has not killed someone,myself and 2 others ancestors in america have not killed anyone,vietnam,ww2,ww1,civil,revolutionary everyone else has killed

"white" people are insane


and as far as bob's map,you dont have to kill yourself when youve already have been murdered

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

In the U.S. the lie that we can all become the next Gates, Jobs, Musk, or Zuckerberg is strongly promulgated by, what I commonly call "The Five Rich White Guys," (5RWG, for short). The 5RWGs want hoards of workers to believe "if they just work hard enough" they can achieve success. That "success" is then defined (also by the 5RWGs) as an ever increasing level of consumption.

Grant, that's hardly something new being promulgated by 5 Rich White Guys.  It's called the Puritan Work Ethic, and it's been around for centuries.

At least the 5RWG don't claim that success is proof that God approves of you, and lack of success proves that God is disappointed with you - which is something the Puritans claimed.

Regards
John

 

[B and C]

It appears that the American Dream is going the way of the Dodo birds.  The schools seem to teach that you need more school to "get ahead" and that everyone is the same and gets a trophy.  Only when they get into the real world do they find out that this is not the case.  The go getter's get and the slackers fall behind and then the slackers point to those ahead and want it too.  Now the guberment is pandering to the slackers because there are so many.  This makes me sad on so many levels.

There are still opportunities out there.  New inventions and ways of doing things are happening at a very fast pace.  Going to school to get a degree that won't get you a "top paying job" is a waste.  Everyone coming out of a graduate school seems to think that they are going to start at some exorbitant wage and find in reality that they may have been better served going to a vocational school to get a good living wage job.  Example: welders are getting older and harder to find.  I am a telephone technician and started out as a grunt on a line crew barely making it.  I didn't get rich; but I am not poor either.  I tried starting my own business once.  Spent too much time on guberment required paperwork plus my own bookkeeping and not enough time earning money.  I don't know how the small business person does it.  Maybe I was not willing to burn the midnight oil.  In any case, it is what it is and I can not change the past.  I guess what I am saying is the schools need to teach critical thinking instead of drumming into the heads of students that everyone is same and deserves equal pay.  These socialist tendencies are going to be the downfall of our once great nation.  We are starting to look and be a broke like the European Union.  Only here, in the good ol' USA is there still a glimmer of making it big on your own.

 

[akrvbob]

Let's be careful and stay or of politics. Any more naming individuals or political ideas and claiming they are wrong and the bad guys gets deleted.
Bob

 

[GotSmart]

Grant, that's hardly something new being promulgated by 5 Rich White Guys.  It's called the Puritan Work Ethic, and it's been around for centuries.

At least the 5RWG don't claim that success is proof that God approves of you, and lack of success proves that God is disappointed with you - which is something the Puritans claimed.

Regards
John

That is not the 5 guys that make the burgers with the giant bag of greasy fries is it?  :huh:

I once wrote a paper (More than a dozen years ago) on murders vs suicides in world countries.  The numbers are basically balanced when you factor out certain war torn societies. 

In America people kill each other, in Japan they kill themselves~~~  :s  Not sure what the point is, as a certain percentage die from other than natural causes.  A reaction to stress, which is not completely understood IMO. 

My college education has made me understand I need to chuck the speed contest for rodents and find the slow lane.

It leads to Quartzsite.

 

[LeeRevell]

When I began my IT career I used a combination of military tech school and practical electronics experience and a Vo-Tech certificate.  I have no degree.  Worked 24 years as a programmer/analyst.  Nowadays you can't do that.  You need the paper from a university.  Some new hires had degrees in non -IT fields.  Weird but true.  This was in state employment.  Private companies can be more choosy.
Programs like Affirmative Action cause their own problems.

 

[buckwilk]

Interesting that researchers know what the reason for all these suicides are. In my short time working in the area it was rare that you really knew what caused the action. Notes don't always mean anything, they are sometimes used to hurt those left behind. In talking with people who attempted suicide and "failed", it was rare that any given reason was the catalyst that finally pushed the act. I think that sometimes, what we call normal life, is just not something some can handle. Anyone who tells you they know what is going on in someones head is lying. They may have a supposition, that means guess, but there is no way it's sure. Most of the time the person hurting doesn't even know why and has difficulty communicating their concerns. Often people will pick up from health care workers what to say and how to say it to get the response they like. No science, of any sort, is ever settled, completed. Always new papers to write and get published, more grants to be chased, more attention to be demanded. Seminars to hold.

 

[GrantRobertson]

Interesting that researchers know what the reason for all these suicides are. In my short time working in the area it was rare that you really knew what caused the action.

Well, the answer is far more simple than you might think. The real cause is almost always depression. All those various "causes" that people think "cause" suicide are really nothing but short term triggers or longer term fixations. Research shows it is most often less that three minutes between the decision to commit suicide and the action.

However, depression lasts a long time and there is a lot of research into what causes depression to start or to fester. So, if we can work on that, the suicide issue will take care of itself.

 

[buckwilk]

Hi, Grant, do you have experience in the field? The time I spent working this area I never heard a Doctor take such a simplistic approach to what is a multi faceted problem. The root causes are much more than just depression. Depression affects many who don't take their lives. No simple answers, I have had multiple members of my family take there own lives, depression was blamed in only one instance. Depression is a word that is used, often wrongly, to describe a multitude of mental conditions.