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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   12614 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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Apply the burrito test to your own life. When your father was your age, was a decent burrito available at a nearby restaurant at any price, let alone $20? Unless you live in certain places like California, the answer is almost certainly "no."

Also, how often would his father go for a burrito? Not in cases where it's logical (like when travelling, or something unexpected happened) or as a social occasion, but just "I don't feel like cooking, or I don't feel like eating what we have at home, I want a restaurant burrito"). Compared to OP himself. I dunno for him, but ordering or eating out due to simple laziness or "cravings" was something that happened on a yearly basis to my family growing up. Weekly for me. The avocado toast meme is straightforwardly true, just on work lunches over 15 years of working every day downtown, I spent as much extra over cooking my lunches as I have been able to save for my retirement. I would have had doubled my net worth that I accumulated on my own had I been smarter exclusively on work lunches, if nothing else. I am, and I assume many if not most in my generation, THAT bad with managing my expenses.

Now I find myself kicked back up to the same point my parents were at my age due to inheritance and I am desperately praying to find the strength to do better this time, but still. I'm not sure we can blame the economy for most of it. I would more likely blame the culture for creating a generation or two with an attitude to "small" expenses that basically assign them a cost of 0$ and let that balloon into giant amounts.

I am sure someone could sit down and make the math math. I am sure Caleb Hammer could compare the monthly finances and find things to yell at me about.

...

I don't disagree with any of the above points, or probably other reasonable ones, but they all miss the point: I want to live the life I grew up in, I am willing to work hard for it, I held up my part of the implied social contract, I think that the failure of the implied social contract is a BAD thing, something to be seen as regrettable, and I want my politicians to focus on fixing it.

Again this kind of commentary is missing the point.

But moreover, no. "You're just eating out the otherwise advantage you would have over your father" is trivially not true. That's why I brought up my life as natural experience. I live basically the same life that was grown up in. It shouldn't need fine tuning to be able squeeze into. Especially when I am so much further in my career.

My father was a mid level engineer in the 90s, even by generous standards, I make twice what he was making in inflation adjusted dollars. My house and family are half the size.

You're telling a lot of people they're missing the point. They're not missing the point. They're disagreeing with you.

Housing, food, and educational costs are real, measurable things that can be tested against your personal experience. Some of them check out against your perceptions, some don't. But it's also relevant, all the ways in which your life and the things available to you are different than when your father grew up. Saying "I want the same life my father had".... Well, too bad? The world is different. Your children also will not grow up in the same world you did.

Now what you're saying is "My world is worse than the one my father had." And that's debatable, which is why people are talking about lifestyle inflation and burrito availability, and you're stomping your foot and saying "No, no, you're missing the point!" But really, this is the point.

no see my addendum post. my point is the messaging strategy, not the object debate.

Saying "I want the same life my father had".... Well, too bad? The world is different.

This is not a good party line to justify a shifted focus from domestic policy to Iran. sorry. that's my point.

"too bad" is a retarded way to talk to your base.

If a party rose up and promised to put boomers in the golag and give their houses to families raising children, and I voted for them, and you ask me why, the answer is, when I told you I couldnt afford a house to fit my family on a director level salary, you told me 'too bad'.

Okay, fine, but that is also why people are voting for the DSA. Like you, their anger may be understandable but their reasoning is, as you put it, retarded. Maybe your base does need better messaging (the Dems certainly do) but it's not surprising you're getting tripped up by people pointing out that the things you claim are, uh, not necessarily true.

I'd prefer people engage with facts rather than demanding their anger and resentment be given a populist head-pat.

I'd prefer people engage with facts rather than demanding their anger and resentment be given a populist head-pat.

If you're paying attention to the twitter kerfuffle, this isn't an ask for a populist head pat. There are specific asks.

Stop it with Iran. Deport more people. Stop it with H1Bs. Stop having high level official GOP politicians make sneaky amnesty pitches. Pass the save act.

You can disagree with whether those solutions will actually help. But it's being evaded by the um, ackshully burritos are only 14.59 in my area, and how dare you poors eat them anyway. IRAN CAN'T HAVE NUKES!

The burrito debate is also the propositional nation debate is also the Iran debate is also whether MAGA is America First or controlled opposition + foreign adventures.

Tell me if I'm getting the argument here:

  1. You feel your life is worse than your father's.

  2. When people argue your beliefs are factually incorrect, you say its about "the messaging strategy, not the object debate."

  3. Based on your feelings (which need not be true at the object level), you believe you are entitled to submit a list of "specific asks" to someone (?) who is for some reason obligated to implement them.

Can you flesh out the last part?

  1. My life is great. I suffer affordability gap between being able to achieve certain goals, which I benchmark as attainable in the previous generation. My father's life is a good personal benchmark of change because I live a very similar one.

  2. This isn't a factually disputable point. What's disputable is how much it generalizes to the American population. The messaging strategy bit is a reconizable pattern of dismissiveness from within a single party coalition to it's base.

  3. #3 is just you pretending not to understand basical political parties and acting confused. The point is not about 'entitlement'. It's about people voting for things they want. There is a current debate within the republican party about whether we've lost focus on key domestic issues, especially in reference to the war in Iran. That's the frame for this entire burrito conversation.

"It's amazing how much leftist neocon discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible."

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