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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#241

Post by guessbest »

zdragnar wrote: post #181
RivieraKid wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did he think the paychecks would stop coming?

Not all pensions are well managed; some have needed bailing out from public coffers. Other companies have shuttered completely, and the lack of incoming money to the pension funds made them insolvent (again, not especially well managed).

Its doesn't have to be public bailouts. There is something for Americans where the pension funds have been seized by the federal government to be managed. I worked for a company where the executives were using pension funds to give themselves annual bonuses until the federal government stepped in around 2009. There wasn't much money left over, so I'll be receiving very little, but at least the executives could raid the funds anymore.

> Welcome to PBGC! Since 1974, we’ve protected retirement security and the retirement incomes of over 33 million American workers, retirees, and their families in private sector defined benefit pension plans.

https://www.pbgc.gov/

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#242

Post by fallingknife »

krapp wrote: post #47
mikkergp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blaming social media is not legitimate in my opinion; social media will be what fixes this. The fix to the USA falling apart is free and open discussions between the camps. This is what Elon is planning to do with twitter. I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views. “The other side is terrible” will always get more engagement than…

>I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views. I'm skeptical that someone who unironically uses the phrase "woke mindvirus" has any such intent. There's a reason right-wing accounts are flooding the platform now and everyone else is running for the hills, and it isn't because Elon makes both sides equally welcome or unwelcome. He's cl…

Why is it that liberals run from a platform full of conservatives, but conservatives don't run from a platform full of liberals?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#243

Post by boh »

Things collapsing has been a predominant sentiment in every modern generation. It's unprecedented because of our collective amnesia, that regards the familiar as a stable starting point rather than a random moment in a volatile reality.

Journalism was a tawdry, un-respectable business since its conception, but experienced a brief period of valor around the mid-twentieth century when industry concentration, Cold War ethics and regulation collectively reworked its incentives. The education system has always been in a position of scrutiny since universal education become the norm. Presidents have been the stuff of tabloid gossip since the founding fathers with the media mercilessly opting to promote scandal and controversy over respectability. Our conception of President as moral arbiter is a function of the reworking of journalism mentioned above.

The difference in peoples attitudes reflects an increased diet of emotion inducing media that accelerates fears and expectations, rather than some great pivot in volatility. Yes there are things to worry about but there always are (let's remember the twentieth century had two world wars, the Great Depression, and an even worse pandemic).

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#244

Post by jspaetzel »

If you only look at your lifetime things might not look great at this exact moment. But this too shall pass.

Expand your lense to include a few hundred or thousand years and you'll realize we're doing fine. Things have never been better. However the perception of what could be has shifted because memory is short.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#246

Post by goodluckchuck »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #44
taylodl wrote: post #8

The 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 republic has enemies and their battle cry is “Democracy!”

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#247

Post by dragonwriter »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #44
taylodl wrote: post #8

The 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 catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II.

No, it really didn't.

> Looking back we've had republics with longevity, we've had autocratic dynasties with longevity. But democracy? Besides Athens, which had a very different shape of political system, this is really a first.

Modern democracies are almost entirely representative democracies, more like historical republics (and in fact, many of them are explicitly republics, though some are technically limited monarchies) than classical democracies.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#249

Post by diogenescynic »

It's not falling apart if you make a good income, but I would say it's getting harder and harder to get by as a middle/working class person in America. It's become much more of winner take all economy and I think that's destructive to a society in the long term.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#250

Post by marginalia_nu »

ineedasername wrote: post #192
marginalia_nu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years That's a bit of a myth, thrown around a lot but not quite true. It has existed in some form, but by no means remained changeless. The doctrine is substantially similar but then we can say the same thing about Judaism. Here, we're really talking about the organization, which has many issues: -The East-West schism in 1054 tore the Catholic Church i…

I did stipulate until Vatican II, and my point is rather how little the preceding millenium of reformations and Avignon popes and so on actually changed the church. It undeniably had some impact, like the reformation created a need for educating priests to be able to actually argue their case. But the shape of the organization was largely the same through all of this.
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