Discussion

David Oks

klooney: > Modernity is about not doing what your family saysThe flip side is that rich and modern people feel lonely and sad that they don't have strong social bonds.

jrm4: "Many American families are irreparably broken, as Americans completely disregard the death of loved ones"- some analogously dumb writer over there, probably

binsquare: My mom's funeral was ~23k in Chicago, US.As a reference to how much that is - she made minimum wage her whole life (<44k).It's obscene how much money there is in death.

mlsu: In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.

IncreasePosts: That is more of a self inflicted wound than an intrinsic aspect of modern society.

sillysaurusx: I wish it was self inflicted. Instead, it seems to be an artifact of modern society. I posted “How to Be Alone?” exploring this issue somewhat:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=47296547 690 points, 500+ comments.I’m not trying to get pity, but it would be mistaken to say that I brought it on myself. My wife didn’t bring it on me either. We simply eroded over time. But when marital bonds erode, it turns out they take family bonds with them; or at least, her side of the family. My side isn’t much, so hers was my primary source of social interaction.This is a self inflicted wound in the sense that I could have formed a lot of social bonds with people other than my wife. And I tried to, sometimes. But when you’re spending 20 years with one person, it’s hard to make time for anything else, especially if you want to do good work (in the researcher sense).So it’s more of a “pick two: family, friends, work”. I went the family and work route. I don’t regret it, but it means that now all that’s left is work, which can be a hollow existence.Luckily, modern society has a surplus of ways to help motivated people form social bonds. Once I get my car back, I’ll be going to the local therapy groups, one of which is wood crafting. Random hobbies like that with random people sounds fun.The thing to avoid seems to be dating apps. Jumping from one relationship into another is universally known as a bad idea. I’m hoping that casting a wide net (going to groups, reading clubs, DnD, or other activities) will fill the void.Honestly though, what helps the most is that I have a daughter. She’s almost 3. I’m very happy we had her, and just remembering that she’ll have a nice life helps me appreciate my own.Modern society makes it easier than ever to isolate yourself. I spend my days sitting in a house alone, having Amazon drop off USB-C cables, with my biggest social interaction of the week being the door to door salesman (who, ironically, is trying to sell me a door) that’s coming by tomorrow. That’s the default state; you have to push back against it, and that’s hard. But it’s probably mistaken to say that those who go with the flow are suffering from self inflicted wounds. Societal flow used to be towards social groups (church being the most obvious example) instead of paths that end in loneliness.

teaearlgraycold: Speak for yourself.

thelock85: It’s interesting how this is framed as a “bad deal” (being apart of a kinship society) without taking time to breakdown the cost of being on your own in Ghanaian society, especially when healthcare, credit harm and other emergencies are broadly unaffordable in individualist, capitalist American society.

whalesalad: My wife and I eloped at the city hall. Our wedding was $0.

mystraline: Sounds like failed priorities, spending that much on dead people, rather than the living.

whalesalad: Meanwhile I want to be tossed into a hole bare naked with a tree planted on top of me.

cortesoft: I am so glad we had a big wedding. It was so much fun, and all my friends and family had a blast.

knicholes: Are you otherwise well off? How do you define "big?"

mkl: The USA system is hardly the only alternative.

technothrasher: Basically my whole family have signed our bodies over to the local medical school. They make all the arrangements and pay for everything as soon as they're notified upon death. They'll normally give you the ashes upon cremation after a year or so, but personally I've given them permission to completely skeletonize me and keep the skeleton indefinitely.This helps society by helping student doctors learn, and it removes all funeral hassles and expenses. We can still do more low-key memorial ceremonies without needing a body. I realize this path doesn't work for everybody, especially those with certain religious beliefs, but we all just love the idea.

jayknight: And for folks that do want to bury the body, it can be done way cheaper than the funeral industrial complex would have you believe. Our church keeps a simple coffin on hand that the family can use at cost. And we have folks who will prepare the body and bring it to the church. The only part we don't usually do is dig the grave. Cemeteries usually include that in the cost of the plot.

kaonwarb: There are definite problems with the American system, but what is considered unaffordable healthcare there is lavish compared to much of the world.

mohamedkoubaa: Call it a membership fee to an institution that actually cares about you and everyone you care about for life.Over here we have extractive taxation

TheGRS: That was a very interesting read. I appreciate when anyone tries to dig into the actual why of culture instead of just leaving it at face value. I get the impression this is more of a working theory than factual on the sociological side, because I do think there's a lot of counter-arguments to be made about strong kinship networks that are otherwise wealthy and prosperous.And there's a pretty obvious parallel in wealthy nations: the lavish wedding. There are many examples of otherwise modest to low income couples, even with support of their families, putting on weddings they can't really afford but they do it anyway because of social mores. Maybe there's a clear connection between those examples and strong kinship networks. Or maybe its back to peer pressure and keeping up with the joneses.

bobanrocky: Ha, have you been to an indian wedding in India? Now that’s big big money. And the societal pressures to make it so are huge .. American weddings are so tame and sensible by comparison.Far better to spend those $$ on weddings rather than funerals though !

Aurornis: You can always find disaster stories about couples who wipe out their savings and put themselves in a precarious financial situation for a wedding they can’t afford, but it’s actually super common.Traditional weddings costs are paid in part or full by the parents. Many well off young people pay their own way. If neither is an option it’s also common to have a smaller or home-grown wedding.If you know enough people we can all likely think of someone who overspent and regretted it, but I disagree that it’s the common cultural thing to do. It’s a topic where righteous people like to heap scorn on others for doing it, though.

blindriver: Same thing with engagement rings, it's just a stupid fake tradition created by DeBoers in the 1950s that costs an inordinate amount of money for nothing.I really hope that lab grown diamonds puts that entire industry out of business.

gigatree: The good thing is you can have a big wedding without going into debt (assuming you’re rich or don’t mind public parks)

jareklupinski: a couple can have a really big wedding for a really decent price if they plan everything themselves &#x2F; with familyif they go through a wedding planner, the 'coordination' eats most of the budget, almost entirely so if 'their people' get involved with setup&#x2F;teardown

bobanrocky: Lots of buzzwords in your comment, but pointless. This is a complete waste of money, and a burden on the living to ‘show off’ their status. The ancient egyptian kings at least had the resources, power and wealth to build their pyramids..

orbital-decay: The author is trying to generalize this narrative, but it still sounds pretty specific to Ghana and some other African societies. Chechnya and Dagestan are mentioned, but I struggle to remember any demonstrative wealth destruction practices there. Also what about other historic kinship societies (e.g. Scottish, Italian?)

jordanekay: No.

kenferry: The factual material about funeral spending costs is very interesting, but when it gets into "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" it seems rather… unsupported? That's a sweeping statement that actually requires understanding the whole picture, and the whole picture is not being presented. Is there reason to think the author truly has all the context to make these claims?

AussieWog93: It's so funny you say that. Was literally just chatting to my wife the other day about how mediocre weddings are. You spend $20-$50k basically LARPing as landed British gentry, and end up having less fun than the average 21st, Christmas or New Year's. So much more stress in planning too.

hn_throwaway_99: This seems very different that what the article describes.Sure, some young people may spend more than they can really afford on their wedding, but this still seems like a personal choice - tons of people have cheap weddings (or gasp, elope). I don't think may people are cutting back on eating (when they already suffer from malnutrition) to have a big wedding like how the article describes funerals in Zimbabwe.Plus, I think the relatively few cases in the US where young people do feel intense family pressure to overspend on a "big wedding" show similar dynamics and downsides to the "kinship societies" that the article is really about.

Tade0: There's an interesting film focused on this topic:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt1499420&#x2F;The author traveled through Cameroon and documented, among other things, the realities of having a backlog of dead one must properly bury.Turns out not everyone can afford putting their deceased relatives in a freezer - especially for extended periods of time, so sometimes the dead are stored in a separate storage area next to the home until the living gather the necessary funds.

bobanrocky: Ok, so better to be poor and backward, eh ?

asadm: People should look again at how we Muslims bury. Not only is it much "green" but also cheap and doesn't waste land forever. There is wisdom in simplicity.

dfee: perhaps.

kenferry: You're talking about funeral costs; the author generalizes _a_lot_ from funeral costs to "kinship societies are bad". That's the leap the comment you're replying to is discussing.

levocardia: >Kinship societies are actively hostile to economic growth, because economic growth undermines the basis of kinship: that is why kinship societies demand constant, visible sacrifices of wealth—funerals being the most spectacular—that make it extraordinarily difficult for any individual to accumulate capital, reinvest their assets, and pull ahead. The funeral is a window into a system of wealth destruction that serves, above all else, to keep people poorThis reasoning is flawed. Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses!Ghana is sitting at a 5.6% GDP growth rate; for reference developmental success India is at 6.5%. Ghana's GDP in 2000 was $5B, today it's $82.B. Its per-capita GDP has more than doubled in the same time period.

forthwall: This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money.You can observe this in the US, and presumably in the rest of the world, when wealth is concentrated to individuals, your family will probably ask you for money. The difference is here, there is less income inequality and more people have the ability to make more money.I do like the look into funeral culture, but I don't think this assumption that kinship and family-peity is the cause of the lack of economic mobilty.

wahern: Ghana's GINI index is only a couple points higher than the US (43 vs 41), and the same as Mexico.I don't think wealth inequality explains this at all. But what rigid social institutions of any kind tend do is inhibit mobility. Moreover, kinship groups like this tend to lock-in relative wealth by lineage--the wealthiest family of a kin group from 3 generations ago will be much more likely (relative to other cultures) to be the wealthiest family 3 generations from now. Greater mobility means productivity increases faster, which raises absolute wealth for everybody even if relative wealth disparities across the entire population remain constant.

Hnrobert42: Hello friend. I responded to your post and have thought about you since. Yet had you not referenced your post, I would not have made the connection.It's too bad there's not a way to more easily recognize people on this site, a way to build more community.

Thorrez: Yes, we spend a lot on weddings, but not as much (adjusted for income) as they do on funerals. In Ghana they spend 2.3x-9x the yearly median income[1] on a funeral. The median income in the US is $45,140[2], so if we were to spend the same amount relative to income on weddings as they do on funerals, that would mean our weddings would be $103k-$406k.[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;remotepeople.com&#x2F;countries&#x2F;ghana&#x2F;average-salary&#x2F;[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&#x2F;series&#x2F;MEPAINUSA672N

cobbzilla: I know the kinds of weddings you speak of, and it’s sad, and hard to disagree.Even more sad that for $20-$50k you &#x2F;could&#x2F; have a super unique, awesome and even low-stress wedding (ok that last part depending on parents&#x2F;relatives may be impossible), yet so many are the same songs (you know them all), same venues (estate, banquet hall, rooftop, etc), same food.

mlsu: It's still very irrational no matter who pays. The article is looking at a society-wide wealth here isn't it?I mean a party? Thousands and thousands of dollars for just one day?I did the irrational thing, paid a lot for my wedding and it was really special. My family is much closer to her family because of it. From me and my wife's rational self-interested perspective, it makes no sense: we would be in a better position financially had we not splurged a little for the wedding. Our house could be bigger. We could have more optimally allocated our capital.However, the family bonds being strong outweighs all of that. When we zoom out a little bit and look at our extended family and friend group, it all makes sense. These are the people who will help raise our kids, take care of us when we are down on our luck, etc. The 50 people who attended can, because of our big expensive wedding, put faces to each others' names. It was a fun party for us, but it actually served a very important purpose. This value will not be registered in the GDP number.I'm poking fun at the article. That first of all, we (the enlightened, modern, etc) spend an absolute metric fuckton ton of money on irrational meaningless shit, due to social pressure. I would point the author of the article to homeopathic medicine, which is a 10b market; just ten of these equals the GDP of Ghana. Do a ctrl-f for colonialism or imperialism or extraction and... yeah, sure. They must be poor because they do quirky things at funerals.

themacguffinman: The difference is that it's pretty acceptable for you to reject family requests for money, it doesn't make you a pariah and being a pariah doesn't carry the same consequences when non-family institutions govern society.The article spends a lot of time belaboring this point: you don't have to do what your family asks you to do in developed countries. On the other hand, becoming outcast from your family in a kinship-dominated society means you have nowhere else to turn to which is enormous pressure.