I'll add that when you're trapped between special interests and people suffering from high housing prices, this is one of the few political moves you can make. Propose something that will never happen so you look like you're taking action without actually doing anything.
Well, as he clarified, the hard part was the management team quitting.
But I think it's hard to be vulnerable when you reach that level of prominence... anything he says will be scrutinized and potentially be quoted for years to come, and will affect not only himself but everyone who works at Facebook. Even if you want to be authentic, there are powerful social forces which make you careful in what you say.
I think if you had a time machine and went back 50 years you would quickly realize all the things you're taking for granted that we have now. Right now is the best time ever for humanity.
The thing about capitalism is you need to find a path that lies in the intersection of your abilities and what the world wants.
Unfortunately in the US the default path is getting a college degree in whatever - and we're continuing to funnel young people down that path even though the world no longer wants generic college graduates.
College may still be a good path, but pick your major carefully based on empirical salary data and consider how long it will take you to pay back your tuition.
Culturally we seem to take the benefits of capitalism completely for granted. Nobody exclaims "capitalism is fucking amazing" when their favorite tv show is renewed for another season, or when a new awesome tv show is created.
If people made the connection that capitalism is the thing that's creating all these things in your life that you love.. that those things don't materialize magically as a result of people just doing their thing... that would change the perception of capitalism dramatically.
What's the best alternative to capitalism in your mind?
Capitalism is pretty good at making sure people are doing something actually useful to others, that's where a lot of the satisfaction of work lies in the first place.
Not all work is equally satisfying as well. Most kinds of work would make me miserable. Capitalism is great because you have a lot of wiggle room - you choose within the intersection of your abilities and what the world wants.
If your preferred work is something useless to society like digging random holes or whatever, you may be able to do that in a capitalist system as well if we implement some sort of basic income.
Is there any quantitative study of this winners/losers bifurcation? In my own anecdotal experience I see a bifurcation, but it's more of a "big winners" vs. "everyone else" split. Most of us are "everyone else," but if you're on the internet every day looking at the "big winners" you feel like a loser.
> So, what’s a smart person to do to avoid pauperism?
Entrepreneurship should not be a generally advisable path for young people. It's high risk and requires some uncommon traits (resilience, resourcefulness, and hard work more than being "smart"). If you're leading average college students into entrepreneurship you're causing a lot of unnecessary misery.
Individuals have a lot of control over their economic value through their choice of what they study. There are still large portions of the student body which choose majors where empirically the graduates end up working in low paying service jobs. If you're choosing what to study, it should be a function of both what appeals to you and what is economically valuable. The average student seems to only consider the former, which leads to lots of people who think they are increasing their economic value in college, but are not (at least not by much).
Agree with both of you - it's a valuable thought experiment that everyone should run throughout their lives, and it's also missing the critical check of economic reality.
You can do what you love even if it's not economically valuable... just put your focus on something that is economically valuable and use that as a foothold.
I can answer that - initially I had a couple more sentences in my comment which in retrospect came across as condescending and gross. People stopped downvoting after I deleted them. (I had said something along the lines of "My guess is the article is connecting with people's emotions. Please upvote more thoughtfully.")
A common misconception among young people in America seems to be that all majors are equally economically valuable. What you study matters more than whether you have a college degree.