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

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

#191

Post by Ericson2314 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #133
Voliokis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I agree with him because of things like Covid being self-inflicted. We're so unable, as a species, to avoid even known risks (yes, we've known about the risk of new Coronaviruses since SARS), prepare for them, or deal with them when they've actually occurred. Even now, a not insignificant part of the US population thinks Covid is a hoax. Or that climate change is a hoax. We're reaching a point where catastroph…

Respectfully, politicians you don't like gaining power isn't evidence of the system buckling. The other issues aren't exactly un concerning, but I think we have to acknowledge that this is a quite peaceful time. For most of history, what we call "unrest" was the status quo, and there were in addition wars of open territorial conquest which are nearly extinct today.

If you believe:

- Continued urbanization is essential to growth as we know it

- Non-urban voters are less attuned to what cities need to grow

Then regardless of political ideology, our disticts + FPTP method of growing makes non-negligible growth of the real economy very difficult.

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

#192

Post by pdonis »

0134340 wrote: post #152
pdonis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since we live in a somewhat closed ecosystem, you're exchanging freedom now with freedom later with the costs we will pay from the excesses of material luxury. Until we open up the ecosystem, ie, get off earth or really learn to decrease waste, this "freedom" you speak will eventually come around to imprison us if we're not careful.

Technological advances have been steadily decreasing the material costs, not just of cars, but of all forms of freedom. I see no reason why that will not continue to happen in the future. The car I drive today gets about twice the gas mileage of the family car my parents had when I was a teenager, even though it has significantly better performance in every respect; it also weighs about half as much and many of the materials it is made out of can be recycled in ways the materials that old family car was made out of couldn't.

For an even better example, the computer I am typing this on has orders of magnitude more processing power, memory, and storage space for significantly less power consumption than the one I had when I was a student many years ago. It also weighs about half as much and is made of more recyclable materials (and yes, I make use of that: there is a computer recycling center in my town where I take old computers).

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

#193

Post by pdonis »

francisofascii wrote: post #135
pdonis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

America should not give entirely up on cars, but reduce to a more balanced level where cars are not a necessity to live. Americans engineered many places to be car dependent when it didn't have to. Once something changes from a nice to have to a requirement, it becomes more like a drug, and the freedom is lost.

> Americans engineered many places to be car dependent when it didn't have to.

No, Americans responded to the preference of many of us for more freedom and less crowded places to live, by producing them. You don't get to decide for other people what a proper "balance" is or for whom cars are a "necessity".

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

#194

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

refurb wrote: post #138
Ericson2314 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's reassuring. Virtually everyone agrees we are in a state of decline right now.

Strongly disagree we’re (the US) in decline at all. If you think we are, you’d have to agree that the EU is post-decline. The UK, France (the list goes on) are all countries that are past their peak of power, influence and prestige. But I would argue those EU countries haven’t declined in a negative sense. They’ve just evolved into something other than a global superpower.

France is not past their peak of power unless you count centuries old empires. UK and Germany sure, neither of them have any strong foreign policies and especially the UK isolated itself by their own decision.

France in comparison is building alliances in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa. I believe they have a lot of growth in their future. They are far form done and very much realpolitik and with expansion in mind( plus one of the few countries that still holds colonies across the world).

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

#195

Post by watwut »

manifestsilence wrote: post #187
watwut wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Portal may be ok puzzle, but I just really fail to see that as some kind high art equivalent. I mean, it is fun for enough people for me to be sure it is something valuable, but calling it "exploring human condition" would be a massive stretch. It is enjoyable puzzle that was big deal when puzzles like that were rare. But it is not a game you will show next generation of children so that they learn something about hu…

Yeah, that's fair. But I'd put it in the category of like sci-fi movies (she's obviously based on Hal from 2001), and Portal 2 has movie-equivalent levels of storyline. I think it's an art form in its infancy, and that different arts have different levels of both time spent and depth of understanding gained by taking them in. How much does a painting teach you about the human condition?

Most paintings don't, but that standard came from top thread and not from me. Imo it us ok for majority of them to not be that special.

Most paintings are ideally fun to look at and then get forgotten. Others have some practical purpose (showing war at the time with no photos, celebrating personality for propaganda purpose etc) or are simply moving craft to higher level.

The human conditions ones were the ones in what I called practical category. For example when I was reading about John Brown, that famous painting of him helped me to keep in mind the personality. I have some more examples like that but way more obscure.

I think the best of contemporary writing (whether fun or human condition level) is in movie series. That is format that is currently at the top, having the most complicated and touching and what not storylines. None of that was possible before streaming services.

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

#196

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

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.

I think the music argument is somewhat valid, there's nothing like "rock" and "hip-hop" anymore. We have a ton of different styles but nothing groundbreaking. It's to be expected though with how the music industry evolved. Conservative investments and volume instead of quality.

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

#197

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

navait wrote: post #117
voldacar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games are indeed a form of media, but I think it is misleading to say they are art in the same sense as this author intends. Art and mass entertainment are only superficially similar, and most video games are made to entertain. Video games are (generally) consumable goods created to provide an amount of temporary pleasure. Good art is recognized not just by beauty or the skill required to create it, but by its…

You were downvoted, but I think you're right. I love video games. I spend a great deal of time playing them and I think they have a lot of oppurtunities other mediums can't match. But they don't move me the way even a mediocre novel or movie can. Video games are terrible at interpersonal relationships, for example. I find the more "interactive" relationships with NPCs the more shallow the relationshop, while "railroa…

I have given up on getting a good story out of emergent gameplay and sandbox-y games. Bioshock 1 & 2 is about as good as it's going to get with regards to producing a good story that can go multiple ways. Those games moved me like very few songs or books ever did.

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

#198

Post by voldacar »

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #197
navait wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were downvoted, but I think you're right. I love video games. I spend a great deal of time playing them and I think they have a lot of oppurtunities other mediums can't match. But they don't move me the way even a mediocre novel or movie can. Video games are terrible at interpersonal relationships, for example. I find the more "interactive" relationships with NPCs the more shallow the relationshop, while "railroa…

I have given up on getting a good story out of emergent gameplay and sandbox-y games. Bioshock 1 & 2 is about as good as it's going to get with regards to producing a good story that can go multiple ways. Those games moved me like very few songs or books ever did.

Dwarf fortress is a pretty good stochastic story generator, it's head and shoulders above anything else in that vein. But yeah, those kinds of stories will never really be quite as focused or meaningful as human-crafted narrative

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

#199

Post by voldacar »

refurb wrote: post #138
Ericson2314 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's reassuring. Virtually everyone agrees we are in a state of decline right now.

Strongly disagree we’re (the US) in decline at all. If you think we are, you’d have to agree that the EU is post-decline. The UK, France (the list goes on) are all countries that are past their peak of power, influence and prestige. But I would argue those EU countries haven’t declined in a negative sense. They’ve just evolved into something other than a global superpower.

the EU is the white dwarf of human societies

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

#200

Post by francisofascii »

pdonis wrote: post #193
francisofascii wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America should not give entirely up on cars, but reduce to a more balanced level where cars are not a necessity to live. Americans engineered many places to be car dependent when it didn't have to. Once something changes from a nice to have to a requirement, it becomes more like a drug, and the freedom is lost.

> Americans engineered many places to be car dependent when it didn't have to. No, Americans responded to the preference of many of us for more freedom and less crowded places to live, by producing them. You don't get to decide for other people what a proper "balance" is or for whom cars are a "necessity".

That is my point. Civic leaders DID decide how Americans would live for the next few generations. It is hard to undo even if our children want to go back to the traditional village which had worked for centuries.
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