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So for you Trans-People are a sign that the end is near? If that's your biggest worry I'd really like to be in your situation.
Is everything falling apart?
91–100 of 970 posts
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#92The constant theme since the dawn of civilization threaded through all of history is that everything is falling apart. Change is continual. History is more like the seasons. Nations rise. Nations fall. Sometimes there's revolt. Sometimes there's peace. There's a continual game of King of the Mountain being played at all levels. So what can we say? Situation Normal - all effed up! Enjoy this phenomenon called life. Yo…
Eh, there have been institutions with almost absurd longevity in history. The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II. Ancient Egypt was already thousands of years old when Socrates harassed aristocrats in Athens. It's very easy to forget that the revolutions of Britain, France, America, Russia; it happened just a few generations ago, and upended most of t…
The other thing to remember is that even those long-standing institutions had internal change that was a huge deal at the time but is now hardly remembered at all, or considered minor.
You can even see this right now, where countries do not consider themselves to be as old as the current government's age, but much older. For example, most Italians will not consider Italy to be "started" at the Republic in '46, or even the Unification in 1861, but that the country is much, much older.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#93I think some things are falling apart but not everything. If you had the foresight/luck/guidance to get into a stable white collar career, find a partner, and buy a house before 2022 I think you're on "the train". This train is currently pulling away from a burning station containing everyone else who hasn't done those things yet. It's still possible to escape the station by running down the tracks but at this point…
White collar careers outside of tech are not as stable as you're indicating.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#94Technically speaking, yes [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
is it not the opposite, because as entropy decreases everything becomes stable and ordered?(as far as I know)
Well... dead planets (that harbor no life) are lower entropy than living planets as their surfaces change much less over time. Fewer possible microstates = low entropy.
Hence, if you take a complex biochemical system and reduce it to Disorder is desirable. Let chaos reign!
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#95I feel generally that everything is falling apart. I also have an article still pulled up from earlier this week titled Why Pessimism Sounds Smart . It seems pessimists are sometimes wrong! But sometimes they are right too - especially in the last couple of years I have observed incompetence seemingly everywhere I go. But is this the changing world, or my changing perspective? It's really difficult to pin down. At th…
The US is a culture of authoritarian narcissism, and while it feels good - to some people - it's simply not sustainable.
In the US it's more important to be rich than to be moral or right.
But you can't deny mutuality, interdependence, and rational modelling of collective consequences without getting into some very broken places and bad outcomes.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#96The elephant in the room is that the Industrial world wanted alot of people, and the post Industrial world does not. Not only in terms of production, but in terms of having a livable environment for everyone. So what happens to what are now "excess" people? The answer to that question is gonna define pretty much everything.
We can’t sustain our current levels of spending without a growing population. The lions share of American spending goes to social services: social security, Medicare, Medicaid.
If you’re referencing to automation taking over…I fully agree with your point. It seems like half the people around me have made up jobs.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and the saying is BS.
Care to elaborate?
The quote is similar to "what does not kills you makes you stronger", easily disproven by polio. [For the nitpickers: I know, the statement depends on the context]
But let's move on: what do you mean with "strong men"?
If you mean some sociopath/callous/ruthless emperor or dictator capable of starting massive wars - it hardly constitute creating good times.
If you mean men that are successful in current society... then very very few billionaires came from a childhood of hardship and poverty.
If you mean men that are capable of taking good decisions while facing difficulties and the stakes are high... then you are describing good education and good mental health, which are does in now way comes from "hard times".
All modern pedagogy and psychology sciences indicate that hardships create a lot of broken people and a few hardened narcissists.
If you mean that affluent and decadent societies become self absorbed and weaken as a whole - then I would tend to agree... but the term "strong men" would be profoundly misleading.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#98I hope I am not being too inflammatory by saying this but it's ... quite amusing how sheltered Americans are in thinking that a little political tension is a danger to their own country. Bosnia was about to be destroyed and more recently, attempted to be divided by neighbors and they're still fine. Look at anywhere that's not Americas or Western Europe.
As an American, I tend to think we have a sort of permanent linguistic hyperinflation. Everything here is always bigger, huger. Sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not.
Part of the strength of the nation, however, is that everything is a big deal, all the time. This causes things to (eventually) get dealt with.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#99> The framing begins with appreciating how closely intertwined the divisive and unifying effects of information technology can be. The author speaks as if "unifying", as opposed to dividing, is the redemptive quality of information technology. I don't see it as an unmitigated good and, somewhat ironically, the story of the tower of Babel is about how their single-purposedness (?) was the source of the problem altoget…
My toddler has learned how to use a stool, and it has given me a new deep and profound sympathy for G-d in the story.
Toddlers make it exceptionally clear why God is continually referred to as a father and the people as children.
Re: Is everything falling apart?
#100The printing press story always seems to focus on the Protestant-vs-Catholic conflict, but let's also recall it fostered an explosion of scientific and mathematical knowledge across the continent. For example, the print runs of Isaac Newton's Principia:
https://www.livescience.com/200-more-copies-newton-principia...
I'm not sure if social media has contributed in any similar way to the spread of useful scientific and technical information... there's an argument that it has of course, but this is a very small fraction of the total content. The Internet overall has (long live sci-hub!), however.