Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

> We're only ~20 years of nearly every person in the planet having access to all human information, instantly. Think of what people will say about this time period in 200 years. We are currently feeling the effects of growing pains.

>how much text we all read daily in the form of news, tweets, and forums, compared to the daily paper. Are we better for it? I think a lot of people don't feel better.

To add another anecdotal experience, much of what the complaint sounds like is the cycles of another generational sect (that I would group at about every 5-10 years) reaching an age where they start to see the world as "everything going to hell in a hand-basket", as my grandfather would say, or during my younger years, a college aged version of that. I image its the different information processing stages in which we go through growing pains and the destabilization of that causes this doom world view. My g'father listened to the radio and read the paper instead of watching one of the 3 news/tv stations because "all of the nonsense these days" (we bonded over baseball which we had watched without sound because the commentators "can't shut up and let us watch the game" [umpiring signals really said all that was needed and baseball seems to want to get rid of umps altogether, I see that as a tragedy but the next generation will probably see it as great progress].

I remember and was myself interested in lowrider culture, ie loud exhaust but also large woofers and amps. A friends dad had converted the entire truck bed with custom speakers, amps as well as including a hydraulics system. I dont see nearly as much of that these days, in the same city, that I did in the late 80's.

As for the OP and the "no body seems to give a shit about anyone except themselves anymore" this is also nothing new. people care about their clan and then care about outsiders when it is neutral or beneficial to do so, but now that the world is 'smaller' and it seems these 'outsiders' are everywhere it seems to make people overwhelmed and dig into their clan for respite (that's what I see anyway). Even my disdain for selfie culture can't be looked at as a new phenomena, I remember disposable cameras and Polaroids and how annoying it was to wait on friends/family taking pictures of themselves instead of enjoying The Experience™.

I just think with the increase volume and speed of stories and random people thoughts — that never would have made it into my sphere in the 80's/90's — and the change that brings, it again appears that the world is "going to hell in a hand-basket"

Here are almost 13 million examples for you.

https://www.nrdc.org/resources/lead-pipes-are-widespread-and...

“Lead service lines—the pipes that carry water from the water main under the street to residences—have long been recognized as the primary contributor of lead in drinking water (we’ll call them lead pipes for simplicity’s sake). After conducting a survey of these lead pipes in the United States, NRDC estimates that there is a range of 9.7 million to 12.8 million pipes that are, or may be, lead, spread across all 50 states, including those that claim to have none.”

This affects some 22 million people.

Technically Kosovo was part of Serbia back then. And it was a wee worse than „invading“.

You might enjoy the Triggernometry podcast. Some of their guests discuss what society seems to be losing. Some are more optimistic than others.

Aesthetics isn't really that subjective - at least not as subjective as modern philosophy likes to claim. This is why it is possible to produce a radio station or build an art museum. You actually can guess what art a large number of people people will like.

Still, people can have disagreements about the exact ranking of whether Monet's water lilies is prettier than the Mona Lisa or vice versa (or take any Jackson Pollack if you want to extend the analogy). We all agree that they are more beautiful than Timmy's finger painting. Even Timmy's parents. The fact that there isn't one strict ranking doesn't mean that there is nothing objective.

The same objective standards, and subjective disagreements, apply to clothing and personal appearance.

You can look really good with disheveled hair and pajama pants, but that mostly comes down to things like having clean, intact clothes, not smelling bad, not displaying offensive imagery, etc. Similarly, you can be repulsively ugly in a designer suit - just rip it in a few places and let the color fade. Your preference for one look or the other doesn't mean that there are no objective standards whatsoever.