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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#521

Post by mxkopy »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #398
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep the low quality comments to Reddit. Thanks.

I think you should consider backing those assertions up a little bit more. > Politicians appear increasingly corrupt and selfish. Geopolitics are becoming less stable. Innovation is coming to a standstill. The average person just wants a decent job, a nice place to live, and maybe a family. All of these are becoming more and more difficult to achieve. Is it any wonder kids are checking out of life en masse? 1 is defi…

> 2 doesn't seem terribly true given the state of the world for most of the 20th's century, including two world wars followed by the threat of nuclear annihilation - meanwhile, today the "bear" is being beat with donated hand-me-downs.

Alright, fair, conflicts like the one in Ukraine aren't anything new, with what's going on in Palestine, Iran, Egypt, Rwanda, probably countless others I can't name. But EVEN IF you were referring to how 'mundane' and indicative of stability such conflicts are, I'd refer you the Doomsday Clock which was recently set to 90 seconds to midnight. I don't really know much about the geopolitical state of the world, but I'd trust a group of scientists who have direct interest in the matter to make those sorts of calls for me.

> I don't think kids are checking out of life either

Kids were checking out of life when I was in high school ~5 years ago. Hell even I was. So if you've got any updates on that situation please feel free to educate us.

> More people got married in 2022 than in "Morning in America" 1984

Can you supply the percentages please? Because otherwise this is pretty meaningless

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#522

Post by theandrewbailey »

pigtailgirl wrote: post #139
rxyz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Warsaw, Poland and don't agree with the post. How does that square with your comment? but I'm sure I could find a person who does

-- "sounds like you live in bad neighborhood" - make no sense in this context - its a global question - no? --

> People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained.

That is a very local problem, and is not a global question or observation.

> Landlords seem extremely greedy and do terrible rent seeking tactics like fees upon fees

I've had a few landlords in my life, and none of them nickel and dimed me with fees like that. They just raised the rent by maybe 5% every year. If it bothers you, try a new landlord, neighborhood, or city. Or buy a house.

"But houses are expensive where I live" I hear you say. You are the only person forcing yourself to live in California, NYC, London, Vancouver, or wherever. Smaller cities and less densely populated areas are generally cheaper, quieter, and less polluted. The people might be friendlier, too.

> General worker apathy

> Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world.

There's lots of places and cultures in the world that still show humanity towards strangers.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#523

Post by narrator »

I'd tell you the reason for all that stuff with data, but I'd get my post flagged. If you want a whole bunch of bad answers and maybe one or two decent well thought out uncensored answers I'd try asking on an uncensored forum.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#524

Post by mpweiher »

mach1ne wrote: post #384
ignoramous wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this tweet by Derek Thompson (writer at The Atlantic ): In 2022, we: - Reversed organ death in pigs - Made the first embryo from stem cells - Made a pan-influenza vaccine - Saw the beginning of time - Got best-ever results from cancer & obesity therapy trials - Maybe cracked the case of multiple sclerosis From: https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1600864770751860737 ( https://archive.is/pi95L )

Without looking deeper at any of these, most of the similar stuff from past years has ultimately been humbug, if technically correct. For example, first headlines I found from ’net-positive fusion energy achieved’ were from 2013 or so. Researchers want to slightly oversell their discoveries, and the media wants to misunderstand to oversell them even more. Humbug 9 times out of 10.

> ’net-positive fusion energy achieved’ were from 2013 or so.

Yep, and they were clear that this was not ignition.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#525

Post by treis »

harvey9 wrote: post #374
treis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is neither here nor there wearing scrubs out is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, even wearing them around the hospital is pretty new too. They started as something you changed into when needed and then changed out of when the procedure was over.

I've seen scrubs in use as routine shift wear for about 20 years. Easy enough to get fresh ones if they get soiled mid shift.

Yeah I'd say it started probably in the 90s and by maybe the early 2010s it was acceptable to wear scrubs in any sort of medical situation. Like even the receptionists at a opthalmologist would wear them.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#526

Post by harimau777 »

keiferski wrote: post #104
Zircom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>being a grown-ass adult in pajamas out in public I'm with you about all the other things but people wearing whatever clothes they want to affects you in literally no way shape or form.

A society is made up of people. The way people act, dress, talk, or do anything else has a pretty direct impact on other people in that society. Unless your definition of society is an extremely disconnected one, comprised of alienated individuals that have no interaction with each other, yes, it does affect other people.

The underlying assertion of this post and similar ones in this thread seems to be that non-conformance in dress is associated with weakening of social bonds. However, that doesn't seem to match the way that people actually behave.

In America, people who advocate for greater freedom of expression in things like dress and social roles are generally progressives who support strengthening social institutions. On the other hand, people who tend to promote traditional dress and roles are generally conservatives who support hyper individuality.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#527

Post by type-r »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #406
tejohnso wrote: post #117

> Anyone else have other examples? Elected president who is so crass and generally offensive he wouldn't have gotten close to being elected 50 years ago. Elected president who is showing clear signs of age related cognitive decline (so they say) but continues to occupy the office. Elected presidents with criminal behaviour that is far worse than what previous presidents were impeached or resigned for. Mental illness,…

> Elected president who is showing clear signs of age related cognitive decline (so they say) but continues to occupy the office. Donald Trump is many things, but I really don't think he's seeing more cognitive decline than an average 76 year old.

This is in surely reference to Biden. See things like https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=455169079910588

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#528

Post by alar44 »

curiousllama wrote: post #132

Everything isn’t declining. Things were never great, by any modern definition. We just have an expectation that things are supposed to be easy breezy nowadays, and it turns out people are still people. Like, are you telling me that NYC landlords in the 90s weren’t trying to scam their tenants? That Philly police in the 80s were clean, efficient, trustworthy public servants? That there was less fraud in the .com boom,…

When I see people start discussions like OPs, my first reaction is always, "Ah, you've just started paying attention to the news. Yeah, it's always been like this. Welcome to the world."

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#529

Post by hkpack »

curiousllama wrote: post #132

Everything isn’t declining. Things were never great, by any modern definition. We just have an expectation that things are supposed to be easy breezy nowadays, and it turns out people are still people. Like, are you telling me that NYC landlords in the 90s weren’t trying to scam their tenants? That Philly police in the 80s were clean, efficient, trustworthy public servants? That there was less fraud in the .com boom,…

As I age, I am coming to the same conclusion.

Religions have a lot of warnings about the nature of people which I always brushed off but now I feel like I’m starting to understand.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#530

Post by diydsp »

troad wrote: post #248
Tiktaalik wrote: post #204

A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. The material conditions of regular people are continuously getting worse as more and more of their income is stripped away by rent seeking oligopolies, mainly increasing housing costs but depending on your jurisdiction all sorts of other costs (eg. cable and mobile phone costs an issue in some pl…

> A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. Edit: To answer the folk naysaying with their ten second Google searches, the income inequality rate has declined between 2007 and 2019(1), helped by a strong wage recovery in the late 2010s. The share of wealth held by th…

citations, please.
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