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Is everything falling apart?

nonzero.substack.com

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#261

Post by beepbooptheory »

It is very interesting to see this come up so much here. I, personally, don't feel epistemically equipped to have an opinion on this, but it seems a lot of people do.

My main takeaway from this piece and the fellow comments (but not Haidt's piece, which is just Substack doomerism), is that you could probably roughly approximate salaries based on someone's stance on this, whether they are right or wrong.

So many comments, especially, make this clear, if still under the surface. And that makes sense! If you have a business, a mortgage, or whatever critical long-term investments, you have to be at least somewhat inclined to, 1., think positively about the way things generally work right now, and 2., to feel confident that history is skewing towards progress and good things, however qualified.

This also kind of explains how it seems generational too. Kids and millennials are without a lot of wealth, have little investments, and are most likely just in terminal debt and paying rent month-by-month. There isn't really the sense of a tomorrow for many, much less accumulates ROIs.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#262

Post by arrosenberg »

America is at the end of the neoliberal political/economic cycle, so (somewhat obviously) neoliberal institutions are failing and being reformed by groups with power who want their preferred system to prevail for the next 40-50 years. Radicals want socialism, reactionaries want fascism, and the wealthy on both sides want to consolidate their oligarchy, Its less “falling apart” and more that those interested parties are all happy to pick away at the carcass of the current system in the meantime.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#263

Post by NationalPark »

gsibble wrote: post #204
andrewclunn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think your summary is obscuring some of the nuance in that data. What it shows is that independent voters self-identify as "lean rep"/"lean dem" based on their approval of the current president, which is low right now. Historically though, self-identified independents lean dem more than they lean rep (data in your link). Consider that the last time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote was in 2004, and before that was in 1988. It's well known that conservatives tend to vote Republican, and also tend to have much higher voter participation rates than progressives, so if your belief is that there are more Republicans and Democrats, you would expect to see more popular vote wins in elections with generally high participation (relative to other American elections - obviously American voter participation is dismal overall). So what accounts for that discrepancy?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#264

Post by 2ion »

Well, the view that history may be in fact (perhaps not objectively, but to any observer cultured enough to entertain himself with observing it) not a time line into the future but cyclical, with civilizations rising and falling, is not new [1].

Perhaps this time what's different is that due to our information age and accelerated rates of change, cultural history's process of change has been pushed from being viewed closer to evolution (the next step of the change being defined by "environment and chance", that is, stretched out over long periods of time and caused by factors not directly being under human influence) to being much closer to immediate, accountable, man-made history (the next step of the change being defined by "environment and choice", that is, actors making active choices causing outcomes) [2]. And so, because most humans, even humans of influence making the choices altering the life outcomes of populuations not over generations but even within single, half or quarter lifetimes, are terribly selfish and stupid and unwise, the outcomes of bad choices just never seem to stop coming.

I'm no expert, but topics like shifting balances between global powers which are interested in different kinds of change (from hegemonic US in a post-WWII word to a very multi-polar world order to xyz) causing metrics like HDI to even out between global population groups have been "hot" since when? the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s? So sure, things might keep falling apart for one population group but still improving for the other group(s).

Another interesting take on "falling apart narrative" interpretations of current history might be a take on how looming juggernauts like climate change, migration waves and so on play into it. This kind of change may be good for something, but surely not perceived stability in the factors that make up human societies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West

[2] "Environment and change", "environment and choice" --- words borrowed out of recently read "Red Mars" by Kim Robinson.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#265

Post by TimPC »

blauditore wrote: post #251
TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

> They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from them at any one time. This doesn't need to be a ponzi scheme though. Even if population size is stable, if people on average work longer than they are retired, they have to pay less than they receive, all things equal. A problem here has been that people get increasingly older, so they spend a larger percentage of their life being retired, maki…

The ponzi part of it is that current payers pay for current retirees. If the pension worked on a forced investment model where you paid into your own retirement and the money was invested for you that would be different. It would even be viable to say the money from those who died prematurely would be distributed to other users and it's possible to have the system generate more overall money for retirees than just what they put in and gain from investment.

However, the current system is quite far from that. The money you pay in goes nearly immediately to existing retirees with a moderate reserve of capital that is slowly decreasing as more money exits the system than enters it. This system cannot pay current retirees without the investment from new users, and that's what makes it a ponzi.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#266

Post by shagie »

incomingpain wrote: post #2

Yesterday I made the comment "everything is collapsing underneath" though there's context etc. I think the better way to say it. "Is everything falling apart for the USA?" Yes indeed. Most other countries have problems. Sure Sri Lanka has the same problems. Sure the middle east just went through the same problems and some states are still enduring civil war. Though from what I can tell it's mostly the USA in this 'fa…

(as the twitter picture is getting a bit of thought)

The depiction of the right remaining where it is from 2008 to 2021 is misguided at best. The party of George Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney is the same as the GOP today is incorrect.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/geo...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/27/politics/mitt-romney-gop-ukra...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/john-mccain-donald-t...

---

I believe that this depiction only makes sense for Elon if a different right endpoint is used - where the right is closer to Ron Paul and the left is instead the caricature at the extreme that the comic portrays.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Democratic Party has shifted to the more authoritarian end of the Y axis of the political compass - increased regulation in the wake of corruption and the increased power of corporations.

If you draw a line from where Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008 and put Elon on that line... then ok. 2008 make sense. Then you draw it again on 2012 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012 and it makes sense. And again 2020 - https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 it makes sense (note the change of where Biden was in 2008 to 2020 though this is hardly scientific measurements).

However, that completely ignores the shift of the the majority of the rest of the Republican Party to the top right corner.

This chart only makes sense for Elon if the right end is held constant at the libertarian and the left end changes, but ignores the rise of the authoritarian right along with any of his changes.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#267

Post by karpierz »

TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

> Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls.

Pension funds inherently depend on increases in production. Population growth is one factor, but technological development can also increase production.

> The other near-ponzi scheme is the real estate market. In my city of Toronto, average real estate prices have gone from 2x average income in 1972 to 16x average income today.

Hello from a Vancouverite! I broadly agree with this point, and I'm not sure how to work our way out of a housing bubble beyond popping it and dealing with the aftermath. Too many people are invested in the status quo, so any politician who tries to pop it will be crucified for destroying the savings of a large portion of the population.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#268

Post by SubuSS »

macintux wrote: post #148
mbg721 wrote: post #124

It's easy to lament polarization, but the reason it's not going away is that there are important differences in how people view the world, and calls for unity are really closer to "It would be so peaceful if we could eliminate the opposing viewpoint once and for all".

I’d just be happy if we could agree on basic facts. I don’t expect everyone to agree on the right way to solve a problem, but it seems increasingly difficult to even come to a common understanding of what’s true and what’s not.

What if the facts or basic-ness of them are disputed?

You can see this clearly in pro-choice/life debate for example.

One side is saying it is murder and the other side is saying everything from it is not a murder to society doesn’t support the born kids, so this should be allowed.

What are the ‘basic facts’ here?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#269

Post by TrispusAttucks »

giantg2 wrote: post #184
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if only they would agree with our side, we'd be fine again I'd argue a lot of problems today would be solved if people stopped buying into the massive intra-class war propaganda pushed onto the working class and had a little more empathy for one another.

I sort of agree. A lot of the normal people, like neighbors, tend to be more empathetic and are accepting of people who are more or less affluent than themselves. But the normal people aren't the ones that run the country.

Yeah. It's almost like everyone is being brainwashed.

"The government wants everybody fighting with their neighbors 'Cause they know that if we get along, we'll probably go against 'em"

"Fake news, fake woke, distract, and divide You're either right or you're left or you're black or you're white"

"So the conflict is between us and never with the system"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCBNwGHPZ2M

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#270

Post by jcranberry »

boh wrote: post #243

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 e…

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