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Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

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Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#41

Post by rland »

The last several decades have seen a huge decline in people's actual material well being, wealth, and personal security, full stop. If you have not noticed this, congratulations, you are lucky.

It's not just "the media" and "the culture" and "the discourse..." it is material fact.

So, yes, you read the room right. The reason none of these discussions are productive is because the material strife is consistently and purposefully sublimated into cultural/personal strife, so that it any change which would arise -- which happens when people actually understand material reality -- is prevented.

The rage is cultural because if it were not cultural, things would materially change.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#42

Post by nobodyandproud »

pickle-wizard wrote: post #20
BitwiseFool wrote: post #8

There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…

I've noticed what you say about younger people. I'm in my early 40s and my sister is her early 20s. My Dad is an aerospace engineer and we were discussing the work that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is doing with their rockets. When my sister buts in and goes on a 20 minute rant about how it is unethical for billionaires to exist. It really pissed me off as I don't get to talk to my Dad much[1], especially about things he…

Gen-X is the modern silent generation, except on a downward trend.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#43

Post by grawprog »

>What do you think is the biggest reason for the current condition?

Constant, non-stop, emotionally driven news and media available 24/7.

The news used to be a thing people did at 6pm or maybe in the morning with a newspaper. It didn't invade every day life and wasn't generally most people's focus.

These days' you've got news on the top results of google searches, news on facebook, news on twitter, forums devoted to posting about discussing news as fast as it comes up.

The thing about news is, a large part of it has always been politics, it just used to be kind of dry and boring to most people.

Now politicians are exaggerated and almost caricaturistic in their actions and words, the news plays up every tiny thing in an emotional way, so politics became big bucks as far as news goes, so it became a larger part of the news.

These things combined means a larger part of people's conversational topics becomes politics.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#44

Post by drstewart »

rland wrote: post #41

The last several decades have seen a huge decline in people's actual material well being, wealth, and personal security, full stop. If you have not noticed this, congratulations, you are lucky. It's not just "the media" and "the culture" and "the discourse..." it is material fact. So, yes, you read the room right. The reason none of these discussions are productive is because the material strife is consistently and p…

Sticking the word material in front of things doesn't make them true. Full stop.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#45

Post by runsWphotons »

codegeek wrote: post #22

- Too many people on the internet who just want it to be about them. Me Me Me. Look at me. I try not to be that guy but I am sure I have been there too. Look at facebook. It is mostly a bunch of family/friends showing their latest vacation pics, or their kids doing some stuff (guilty as charged here) or whatever. It is mostly about THEM. Look at me. Me me me. Instagram. Need I say anything ? Twitter: A bunch of peopl…

It's funny you bring up not debating your neighbours and posting online. This happened to me a few days ago. My neighbor who introduced myself to started asking lots of political questions. I didn't agree with the apparent viewpoint, but it was clear I would never change her mind, so I was just politely trying to get out of the conversation. I think the internet gives the illusion that you might find someone who will actually debate? Like it's easier to ignore that you probably aren't changing anyone's mind.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#46

Post by runsWphotons »

softwaredoug wrote: post #23

Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various deals to bring over a few senators. The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local culture,…

So we have gone from the Congress people bringing pork to bringing exciting live streams. This feels like a challenge to the idea expressed elsewhere that this stems from material lack.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#47

Post by rland »

drstewart wrote: post #44
rland wrote: post #41

The last several decades have seen a huge decline in people's actual material well being, wealth, and personal security, full stop. If you have not noticed this, congratulations, you are lucky. It's not just "the media" and "the culture" and "the discourse..." it is material fact. So, yes, you read the room right. The reason none of these discussions are productive is because the material strife is consistently and p…

Sticking the word material in front of things doesn't make them true. Full stop.

Okay.

People are doing worse than in the past. They have less secure jobs, less wealth, less opportunity, more debt, and worse health than they used to have. They are less upwardly mobile, their incomes increase less, and their incomes are lower than they used to be. More people are imprisoned, houseless, etc. than they used to be. People are dying more often of preventable causes and they are overdosing and killing themselves more often. You can look up the statistics and charts on each of these claims; aside from minor quibbling and in some sub-sets (computer programmers being an example of such!) these things are true across the board.

These are things with political solutions that are entirely ignored. As opposed to "womxn are disrespected" type things that are discussed in their place. I wanted to emphasize "material" so that I could emphasize that these things are not culture things.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#48

Post by BitwiseFool »

ploika wrote: post #27
BitwiseFool wrote: post #8

There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…

I don't really agree with this. I think the internet is just starting to look more and more like real life. My grandmother, born in a house without electricity, is on Twitter. My aunts and uncles, who would previously have watched argumentative current affairs panel shows on TV (which were never pleasant or even-handed, even decades ago), can now join in the brawl in the comments sections online. The young people arg…

>"I'd also directly challenge you on the assertion that young people have more free time and are more obnoxious than older people."

I'm generally talking about teenagers to people in their 20's. I made this observation based on my own experience, where my friends who are in their mid 20's to early 30's have started participating way less often in group chats and social activities because they are raising children now. They also have less free time because they're rising up the corporate ladder and have taken on more responsibilities. I have also noticed my own energy levels decline as I age, so that's where I am coming from. I think if you combine all those factors together you get people with much less time and energy than college aged or fresh out of college aged people.

As for the obnoxious part, you can absolutely take that with a grain of salt. I was making that assertion with adolescents and people in their early 20's in-mind. Basically, the prime age for being rebellious, raunchy, and irreverent towards authority. I don't have any scientific evidence to give you, but anecdotally that attitude seems to mellow out with time.

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#49

Post by [deleted] »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #8

There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?

#50

Post by mattmanser »

nostrademons wrote: post #37
potta_coffee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to be worried about the national debt. Now it feels like a given that it's all funny money.

That's because we passed the "We have to pay this off" point, passed the "Our children have to pay this off" point, passed the "It's okay if we never pay off the national debt as long as our GDP grows faster than it", and are now at "Now is not the time to worry about the debt, people are revolting on the streets!" We know how this rodeo ends, but nobody wants to think about bad things.

You've still got less debt vs gdp right now than you had at the end of WW2, so this is definitely not the real/actual reason.

Looking at the UK's debt over 3 centuries, we've often gone way above 200% debt, and you're only at like 120% at the moment, so it's not even a lot, historically speaking.

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