Is everything falling apart? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#201

Post by gsibble » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

NationalPark wrote: post #140

ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

We have some relatively recent public polling data on this phenomenon: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/20/republicans... For what it's worth, the decline of trust in institutions is primarily among "Republican/lean Republican" respondents, who are a minority of American voters and likely a minority of American non-voters as well.

Actually, there are more Republicans than Democrats.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferen...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#202

Post by jmyeet » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

In my experience the young tend to exaggerate highs and lows because they tend to have lived through one and not the other. This is particularly true because many people today have no memory of actual recession. Far fewer have any memory of war (in the West in general and the US in particular).

The last few years have really exposed just how profoundly irrational and profoundly selfish a significant percentage of the population is.

So take climate change. Yes, it's a big issue but my view is now fatalistic. Humanity won't even minorly inconvenience itself to do anything about it. So we'd better hope there is an economic solution, specifically an eenrgy source without greenhouse gas emissions that's cheaper, because nothing else will change behaviour. And I actually expect that will happen. Many people will be displaced and die in the meantime, which is obviously awful, but people collectively are completely fun with letting other people die and that's just the truth.

So for many things I just don't think it's as dire as many think.

But one area where I think we're in real trouble is the the resurgence of literal Nazism. This isn't a perjorative. We've come so far that the former Prime Minister of israel engages in Holocaust revisionism to blame it on Palestinians [1]:

> Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.” The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

> “ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

We have the highest-ratest host on the #1 cable "news" network openly pushing Nazi propaganda [2]. Republicans are in love with autocrats and the examples are legion (eg Trump's praise of Jinping, Kim John-Un and Putin, GOP praise of Victor Orbon of Hungary).

As much as age has given me perspective to realize most alarm is overstated, I can't help but think this is going to end very, very badly.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/world/middleeast/netanyah...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGb748VOcYU

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#203

Post by fallingknife » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

4ggr0 wrote: post #114

lbj wrote: post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

> no one is trying to change sex or biological genders

Except when they let men compete in women's sports. So if I have to choose between the new lefty version of gender, or what we had before, I'm going to choose the old way because it didn't result in comically ridiculous outcomes like that.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#204

Post by gsibble » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

andrewclunn wrote: post #169

NationalPark wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have some relatively recent public polling data on this phenomenon: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/20/republicans... For what it's worth, the decline of trust in institutions is primarily among "Republican/lean Republican" respondents, who are a minority of American voters and likely a minority of American non-voters as well.

Are they still a minority? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joe-bidens-approval-... Yes, there is a clear political tribal alignment between the current "out-group" and skepticism of institutions, but the rise of that iconoclasm on the right seems to be correlating with its growth as a whole.

They aren't a minority. As of 2021, there are more Republicans than Democrats.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferen...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#205

Post by lisper » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

Things are not falling apart any more than they have in the past. What we are witnessing is a shift in power structure brought about by new communications technology. Humanity has been through this many times before. The invention of writing in the first place empowered the scribes. The printing press disempowered the scribes and empowered publishers . Radio disempowered publishers and empowered broadcasters. The internet has disempowered broadcasters and empowered the unwashed masses. Every time this has happened there has been accompanying social upheaval. We will probably figure this out. But until we do (and it could take a while) things will be a little chaotic.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#206

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #107

We were getting close to a fairly positive future. There are three basic constraints to material and non-material goods: - capital - labour - energy There are other raw materials, but they aren't limiting factors. For example, processed Lithium is in short supply right now, but it's not raw Lithium that's the constraint. We don't have enough Lithium mines and processing facilities. capital/labour/energy, in other wor…

[deleted]

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#207

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #146

mrits wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a much different experience. I have a dozen family members that were part of the auto industry in Michigan. They were on top of the world for decades. It ended with most of them thinking society has collapsed in the 80s and doubting they'd actually get their pension. My grandfather spent the last 30 years of his life in retirement collecting a pay check that he thought might be his last.

Why did he think the paychecks would stop coming?

My grandfather worked for the steel mills. Some workers didn't get anything for their pensions. He was one of the lucky ones and got something, like 10 cents on the dollar. I think they even stopped sending them before he died (remember him saying something about that was the last check and complaining about the company).

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#208

Post by Geonode » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

NationalPark wrote: post #188

Geonode wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polls are good measures of the kind of people who willingly talk to pollsters.

If you're willing to dismiss polling out of hand for selection bias reasons, then why would you put any more weight onto intuitive arguments that rely on an even smaller and less systematic sampling?

Why would I trust reason over a process that collects a series of anecdotes from the most bat-shit members of society willing to talk politics with a stranger on the phone and then tries to correct their data through mumbo jumbo fake math?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#209

Post by Izkata » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #143

nkingsy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y’all are taking it way too literally. I take it as hard times make it clear what’s important and inspire people to work towards that. In good times people forget.

Perhaps the language has evolved to the point that the work needs some translation. Because it strikes me as vague enough to be harmful with folks like Putin aspiring to embody "strong men".

> aspiring to embody

Take note of your own phrasing: it automatically excludes him from that group.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#210

Post by axutio » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

The argument that things will work out in the end is not particularly reassuring when it still rests on the idea that I will have to spend most of my adult life in turbulent times.

Just as I wouldn't have liked to live through the Protestant Reformation and the wars of religion, I'd much rather have spent my adult life in the peace and prosperity of the late 1900s than on the trajectory people agree the world is headed for now.