The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#81

Post by mdorazio » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

serjester wrote: post #43

While I don't necessarily disagree with his thesis, I think the author cherry picks points and creates a narrative where there isn't one. He mentions the last "shared cultural moment" was Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon. Personally after watching it live, I'd argue Space X launching humans into space is one of those "moments". This all comes down to your own interpretation of the events and there's so many other exam…

To me there's a pretty big difference. The moon landing was a national effort envisioned by the President and involving thousands of employees in the public sector as well as massive media coverage and public funding + support for close to a decade. SpaceX is a private company. Their accomplishments, while impressive, are nowhere near the same national-level endeavors as the Apollo program.

Also, if you ask anyone who was at least 5 years old in 1969, they will tell you the two events were nowhere near the same on an emotional and pure coverage level. The moon landing was by far the most-watched television broadcast in history up to that point, and held that record for a decade - 650 million viewers for a live event. Demo-2 was less than 11 million (with probably a billion more people having access to it than in 1969). It kind of saddens me that America has gotten to the point where people think these two events are equivalent. We've really lost the sense of what national identity-defining big projects even mean.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#82

Post by caleb-allen » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #67

I realise this is a review, not the actual text. But still. This is utter bollocks. It's typical of non-technical "intellectuals" to completely ignore the main areas of modern human progress, simply because they don't understand them. e.g. the whole discussion on Art completely ignores Video Games, which are undoubtedly Art, and also an area of rapid innovation and development. Yet they're usually dismissed out of ha…

Agreed. I was especially unconvinced at the arguments for "repetition", for example that today's music is separated from the 90s only by "nuance". What? Sure, from up close it may seem that way, but given 30 years I'm sure we can look back and very clearly see the style developments just as we can for the 70s and the 80s.

It sounded to me like a case of "back in my day" but with incoherent arguments.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#83

Post by woopwoop » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

waynenilsen wrote: post #39

Unfortunately this site has received the hug of death however anyone that finds such a headline interesting may also find this interesting: "Industrial Society and Its Future" https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab... An excerpt from the introduction: > The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those…

Note that the author of the linked piece killed and maimed a bunch of innocent people in order to blackmail major newspapers into printing it. In my opinion, out of respect for these victims and a desire to discourage such behavior, you should NOT read this piece, and instead wait to read Murray's piece (or Douthat's book). Say what you will about Charles Murray, but he's never put any explosive devices in the mail.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#84

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

bigtechdataeng wrote: post #80

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re taking it too literally. It’s not about physical strength, it’s about cultural and societal strength and fortitude.

Ah, so it’s a vague unsupported aphorism that purports to explain something unmeasurable? Just because something is pithy, doesn’t mean it’s true.

[deleted]

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#85

Post by pdonis » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

francisofascii wrote: post #53

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an American, cars are a central feature of your life. Unfortunately true and frankly one of my least favorite features of American life.

I may take a century to realized it, but I think you are right. Historians will look back and see America's car-centric culture as its height of extreme decadence and the pivotal point to its eventual decline. When you think about the trucks and SUVs that people drive around everywhere, the entire infrastructure dedicated to it, the health outcomes, etc.

I disagree. Cars are freedom. Freedom has upsides as well as downsides. Technological advances will continue to reduce the downsides, but the upsides are genuine and should not be thrown away. There's a reason why electric cars are a thing, as opposed to Americans just giving up cars and everyone using public transportation.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#86

Post by api » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

caleb-allen wrote: post #82

marcus_holmes wrote: post #67

I realise this is a review, not the actual text. But still. This is utter bollocks. It's typical of non-technical "intellectuals" to completely ignore the main areas of modern human progress, simply because they don't understand them. e.g. the whole discussion on Art completely ignores Video Games, which are undoubtedly Art, and also an area of rapid innovation and development. Yet they're usually dismissed out of ha…

Agreed. I was especially unconvinced at the arguments for "repetition", for example that today's music is separated from the 90s only by "nuance". What? Sure, from up close it may seem that way, but given 30 years I'm sure we can look back and very clearly see the style developments just as we can for the 70s and the 80s. It sounded to me like a case of "back in my day" but with incoherent arguments.

That's the part I completely agree with. Music is absolutely stuck. There have only been micro-genres, such as the many micro-genres of techno/EDM or hip hop. There has been nothing approaching the birth of hip hop, techno/rave, grunge, "alternative" rock, and so on. Those all came of age in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. For some reason after 2000 music died.

My personal explanation is the collapse of the record industry. I don't think it was due to piracy, though piracy didn't help. It was mostly due to the abandonment of the old practice of scouting for interesting new music in favor of producer-led manufactured pop. The suits wanted a more reliable way to produce marketable acts, and they got it... at the expense of virtually all innovation. The same thing happened to mainstream Hollywood studios who can now only make one movie. Of course it only works for a while. Now everyone is bored and nobody cares and listenership and movie attendance numbers are crashing.

(This is always what happens when the bean counters run things. You get a short term bump in profit, but what they are really doing is cannibalizing the value of the enterprise in hidden ways. The body is basically digesting its own organs. Eventually you are left with a shell with no value.)

Piracy did worsen this trend in the record industry. When the economic model starts to be threatened, a natural response is to become more conservative and cancel anything innovative. It's usually the wrong response, but it's a very normal human response to a feeling of threat or starvation.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#87

Post by JackFr » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

serjester wrote: post #43

While I don't necessarily disagree with his thesis, I think the author cherry picks points and creates a narrative where there isn't one. He mentions the last "shared cultural moment" was Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon. Personally after watching it live, I'd argue Space X launching humans into space is one of those "moments". This all comes down to your own interpretation of the events and there's so many other exam…

> Narrative fallacy at best, but mostly pseudoscience in my opinion

I think that’s the wrong heuristic to apply. I don’t think he’s making testable hypothesis as much as trying to create a lens through which we can consider our current events.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#88

Post by lanfeust6 » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #51

pjc50 wrote: post #3

Well, there's something you don't see very often these days: conservative intellectuals. The old stalwarts of Ross Douthat and the AEI. The problem is though, if you skip ahead to the conclusion: > [T]he only thing more frightening than the possibility of annihilation is the possibility that our society could coast on forever as it is—like a Rome without an Attila to sack its palaces, or a Nineveh without Yahweh to p…

As a counterpoint to this entire line of thought, I'd recommend reading "The Fremen Mirage", a series of blog posts linked to below. It does a fantastic job of going through the history of the idea of "decadence" as what destroys society, and of the idea of "hard times" as the crucible to form strong fighters. The long and the short of it is that there is no historical evidence for this idea, that the "decadent" grou…

A propos, there was a review on slatestarcodex for "Secular Cycles" effectively tracking the rise and fall of civilizations if I remember correctly. The argument is societies start to destabilize and stagnate once wealth concentrates to a certain point, after which war and strife levels the playing field once more. Except, we don't much expect that same sort of upheaval to happen today in Western society.

All of which to say, you could liken periods of high wealth concentration as lending to decadence, though I'm not sure how useful that would be as the same argument could be made of golden ages. Decadence itself doesn't seem suspect but I would expect it to be around before things go awry.

edit: here - https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/12/book-review-secular-cy...

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#89

Post by chuckledog » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #44

mothsonasloth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one look forward to our new techno-barbarian conquerers pouring out from Steppe.

did you mean these guys? (techno tree advanced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc&t=27 or these? (techno genre) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FteYOA2cDkg (they're evidently sweeping out of the steppe in all directions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvW8JEuIo58 )

Awesome to hear Kargyraa throatsinging again! Hadn’t heard this since Paul Pena / Genghis Blues. Music transcends culture...

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#90

Post by Chris2048 » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #23

This is a fascinating discussion because it hits directly at a topic that civilization-after-civilization has faced throughout history: are we able to reasonably assess whether we are continuing towards growth and progress or stagnation and extinction? Frankly, the historical record is not encouraging. Usually, when this topic comes up people chime in with easy takeaways like "people have always complained about this…

I think the main questions are:

- How fast can we respond (provide a solution) to problem - What are our dependencies, and how does it affect our ability to respond to problems

Or in other words, we run out of things, or encounter problems we cannot adapt to.