What is a good wage?

[bernie14]

.....Nations are multi dimensional and it is pretty easy to cherry pick what one wants to compare while ignoring the rest....

There is an entire "academic" field devoted to this philosophy. It's called critical theory

 

[DaggerDigwillow]

Thanks. Your answer is very informative - dropped the mask.

That's the intention of an answer which is why it is disappointing you never answered my question. Since you still haven't explained your statement I'll assume my answer was correct even as nonsensical as your reply now appears.

 

[Denkt]

Odds to earn more than parents in USA seems to be 50% or even less nowdays from information I can find. Also USA lower life expecency is not just about the poorest living shorter but more like the most population living shorter compared to people in the same income decile per country.

Median income in USA seems to be about $35 000, for full time workers about $50k. Depending on location these may be higher or lower but the areas people earn more tend to be more expensive as well. Wages and cost have increased at about same rate leading to No real wage growth for a large part of population.

Picking the best doing areas of any country make little sense as those tend to be quite extreme outliners, in such case You can find areas in like Mexico that do signifacantly better than USA average and so on. I think using things like picking the best doing areas or blaming USA poor peformance on poverty tell quite a bit how poorly USA is actually doing compared to other developed countries.

Software developer is a pretty average job in my country so it make No sense to me to consider it a high end job even if that is the case maybe in USA but that is more telling about the various issues in USA.

 

[Hygro]

Life expectancy in the USA is like 78 years, Sweden is 82. Life expectancy is lower here due to a mixture of things, most involving poverty, opium, and cocaine, which is ultimately one category, and as a long tail brings down the mean. The median life expectancy in the USA is about 83. And once you get to the salaries of an engineer here, it's more like 85.

Here the cocaine reference is regards to poverty and the drug trade rather than wealth and consumption as when I address Denkt's later pivot to "across all income levels" and re-refer to cocaine and life expectancy. The conversation has been building.

So where was my like, @Lexicus and @schlaufuchs ?

 

[Narz]

I thinks some of our lower life expectancy is simply first like firstest world problems, harms of opulence, here in the USA.

The amount of cocaine shipped here per year has to be going somewhere. The volume is staggering. While I do believe other criminal money is being prewashed as fake cocaine money (yes, you heard it here first) surely much of it is going into the bodies of the affluent.

Americans love drugs. Iirc we take the majority of the world's antidepressants despite being under 5% total population.

Americans just can't handle their emotions

 

[Gorbles]

I wonder how the inverse of that would look, i.e. people who need it not getting the treatment that would benefit them. Probably also relates to cost of living, quality of life, and so on.

 

[Narz]

I wonder how the inverse of that would look, i.e. people who need it not getting the treatment that would benefit them.

Despite taking the most antidepressants depression has gone up each decade so clearly consuming more & more drugs is not the answer (except for pharma executives & shareholders).

 

[aelf]

That's the intention of an answer which is why it is disappointing you never answered my question. Since you still haven't explained your statement I'll assume my answer was correct even as nonsensical as your reply now appears.

As they also like to say, people should learn to grow a backbone.

 

[Gorbles]

Despite taking the most antidepressants depression has gone up each decade so clearly consuming more & more drugs is not the answer (except for pharma executives & shareholders).

What if it's being overprescribed, but the actual solution is different / more expensive / less common medication? The solution is still beholden to pharma.

I see the conclusion you're working backwards from (big pharma bad, and I agree), but you are working backwards from that, and it's leading you to "antidepressants bad" when it shouldn't.

 

[Lexicus]

Despite taking the most antidepressants depression has gone up each decade so clearly consuming more & more drugs is not the answer (except for pharma executives & shareholders).

Without the antidepressants depression might have "gone up" even more each decade.

 

[El_Machinae]

There will be two different statistics. One is whether useful prescriptions are rising. The other is whether damaging prescriptions are rising. They'll correlate because there's a causal choice between Type 1 and Type II errors, just like all medical interventions.

I've said a thousand times, the game-winning solution is to invent viable interventions for mental illness. It's literally a science problem. Once you invent proper diagnostics and therapeutics, it becomes a distribution question. But if you need better tools, make better tools

 

[Zardnaar]

Without the antidepressants depression might have "gone up" even more each decade.

I don't think a lot of modern life is conductive to good mental health.

Probably hasn't been since industrial revolution.

 

[Hygro]

I think on some level antidepressants, which I will take from time to time, are a bit of an arms race. They can be good for the individual, good for the group, but also pressure the group in ways that demand others take them too, which I think is not inherently good for the group.

 

[Narz]

The solution is still beholden to pharma

Maybe for you.

I see the conclusion you're working backwards from (big pharma bad, and I agree), but you are working backwards from that, and it's leading you to "antidepressants bad" when it shouldn't.

Bro you don't see, you assume which is cool. You do what works for you

Without the antidepressants depression might have "gone up" even more each decade.

Perhaps

 

[Gorbles]

Maybe for you.

If antidepressants are, so are any other drug. You can't positive mindset yourself out of things that genuinely require medication, and medication involves the pharmaceutical industry in any country (even in countries which work differently to the US, but still are very capitalist in nature). And then there's the insurance thing to think about to.

Basically, you're not thinking holistically at all. You can call it an assumption if you want, makes no difference to me.

 

[Narz]

You can't positive mindset yourself out of things that genuinely require medication

There you go again assigning beliefs to me I never said.

Basically, you're not thinking holistically at all.

What does that mean?

You can call it an assumption if you want, makes no difference to me.

Clearly it doesn't as you keep doing it.

 

[Gorbles]

There you go again assigning beliefs to me I never said.

Maybe you should actually say something of substance then. I've stated the following: medicine requires pharma. Your answer was the ambiguous "maybe for you". Unless you're running your own illegal den of whatever, you're buying a regulated and taxed product. Which means pharma. Or you're not medicating at all (in whatever example kicked this off, antidepressants or whatever). Feel free to offer an alternative.

What does that mean?

Google "holistic", both the medical and philosophical interpretations apply (in-context).

Clearly it doesn't as you keep doing it.

And? You want me to stop? Good luck with that. I wish people on the Internet obeyed my wishes too

 

[Narz]

I've stated the following: medicine requires pharma

I wasn't talking about medical problems.

The fact that a growing percentage of Americans can't function day to day without prescription drugs is concerning. And the more drugs prescribed the worse the problem seems to get. Not saying drugs can't help some, just that they're not targeting the root of the problem because that work take far more work for far less profit.

We live in a society where advertisers market direct to consumers via advertisement (feeling low, talk to your doctor about drug X). You can call that medical care if you like but I call it a scheme. Emotional turmoil is more than just a medical problem, I loathe to use the word spiritual but it's not like diabetes 1 where the pancreas doesn't work properly. Most of the time there is no organic problem, people's brains & emotions are working just fine, it just doesn't feel good because their life, their family, their society are not alright.

Or you're not medicating at all (in whatever example kicked this off, antidepressants or whatever). Feel free to offer an alternative.

There are lots of alternatives for relief of mental distress. Most of them are more of a pain in the ass than taking a pill, none offer any guarantee. As you've said it's not my place to tell you how to live your life nor as I some wise old man who's found the key to happiness. I'm not here to sell anything.

 

[DaggerDigwillow]

As they also like to say, people should learn to grow a backbone.

The PC, LGTB, and SJWs?

 

[El_Machinae]

As your first reply indicated, he was mocking you. You said you didn't mind, but you weren't sure why.
I think the 'backbone' tangent is some type of suspicion that being mocked bothered you emotionally. I don't think anyone needed a backbone in that conversation, so looking for who did will be a bit of a wild-goose chase.