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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#381

Post by mgdlbp »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #220
machinevision wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel we should not try? (genuinely curious in your PoV)

I can't see that there's a moral way for people exit the solar system boundary out "into the stars." No one making that choice can arrive there, or even experience an appreciable part of the trip in one life. It's committing generations to be born, live and die for no purpose except to exist and to breed for some future goal of some past people. I believe this to be wicked. People have always migrated into the unknow…

Highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Aurora, an exploration of precisely these concepts written in the fascinating perspective of a generation ship's AI instructed to narrate its journey.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#382

Post by mym1990 »

diputsmonro wrote: post #338
shadowgovt wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the disadvantages to democracy that Thomas Paine actually highlighted in "Common Sense" is that when things are off the rails in a monarchy, the cause (and remedy) are obvious. In a democracy, far less so. When Americans elect bad leadership, they ultimately have nobody to blame but themselves, and that damages the public attitude; I suspect one of the reasons "stolen election" conspiracy theories are so popul…

>> the alternative is one must simply be skeptical of the good judgment of one's neighbors, and people don't want to live like that. People love being skeptical of their neighbors' judgement, what they're afraid of is being skeptical of their own. They can't handle backing the wrong horse, so instead they declare that the system is wrong

Was just going to say this. We have gotten away from any kind of accountability as a standard, and some of that is driven by the fact that our leadership(no one specific, talking about the state of global leadership currently) shows no accountability either.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#383

Post by rabuse »

epicureanideal wrote: post #295
ozzythecat wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s something more fundamental going on in the US. First, I’d want to say that we as humans love to simplify complex things. There are large macroeconomic trends at play that are boring or hard to explain, and it’s easier to blame immigrants, social media, or blame because that gives us an outlet to make sense out of complexity. For politicians, depending on their political leanings, it gives them a way t…

> They want a standard of living that requires competitiveness globally, but in this country, we no longer want to work for it. That’s not what I see at all. Most working people in the current generation are working more hours, at more skilled jobs, with more education than their parents, and yet the lifestyle they can afford (aside from tech gadgets) is worse and less secure than their parents. I’m pessimistic about…

This just doesn't seem to be the case with the peers I know, and covid made everything worse for morale. Nobody really wants to work anymore, service speed has fallen off a cliff in my area (South Florida), staff shortages are still in effect, nobody wants to have kids/get married, etc.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#384

Post by throwaway602ee »

oktroomer wrote: post #245
4ggr0 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

Gender identity is more like an improper set of body-drivers in the brain. To use a comparison from computers, if you put AMD hardware in your computer, but install an nVidia driver, the video card likely will not work as intended since your computer is missing some of the information needed to use all its features.

Similarly, the brains of trans people tend to have the wrong "drivers" for their body, which causes dysphoria.

Since we don't have fine-grained control over brains, we cannot "reinstall" the right driver, and it's a lot easier to fix the hardware. E.g. just as putting in the proper nVidia card to match the driver will fix the problem in a computer; adding estrogen/testosterone and maybe some surgeries allows the brain-drivers to communicate with the body correctly.

Differences in "transition completeness" make perfect sense in this way. If most of your drivers map to "female" equipment, but the "penis driver" is working properly, you have dysphoria about everything but that.

(Evidence from brain studies agree that there are variations in brain structure in trans people.)

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#385

Post by rotexo »

Hits close to home. Several years ago, people from one end of the political spectrum mistook me for another person on the opposite end of the political spectrum and doxxed me. I haven’t been able to correct the record to any real extent, and I basically live in fear that the whole situation will flare up again, and all it will take is for one crazy person with a lethal weapon to find me and make me pay, and that’ll be it.

Which is just to say that I experience these self-reinforcing divisions at a visceral and existential level, which I suppose is the case for everyone. It only leads me to want to withdraw. I would like to try to explain who I actually am to people who think I’m the devil, but i think that would just backfire. So the solution at an individual level is to pull back my online presence and, I don’t know, buy a gun. Which clearly doesn’t help at the macro level.

Edit: typo

Further edit: I guess the second paragraph there illustrates how the prisoner’s dilemma comes into play to reinforce the mass psychology of tribalism. I long for the days of my youth, when I could still talk with my ideologically-different family about issues, but extending that to others on the internet feels fraught with danger, leaving me more exposed. It feels like the best strategy is to stay in my bubble and armor it up—safety in numbers, and all that. Which must be the same on the other side. The better solution is cooperation, but given the unknowns, everyone has to act suspicious and fortify instead.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#386

Post by Clubber »

RubberMullet wrote: post #300
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…

What concerns me more than the collapse of many of our intuitions is the fact that the Neocons have emerged from the rubble. Regardless of party or political leanings there was a time when Neocons were universally reviled. Watching people like Bill Kristol, David Frum, and The Lincoln Project get so much press and attention makes my blood boil. Heck, they even brought out Dick Cheney(!!!) for the J6 anniversary.

I would guess it's because both parties are neoliberals since Reagan, and the D or the R is just culture war distraction. Sadly, the economic policy is all the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#387

Post by nemo »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #250
ineedasername wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Vatican II was a trivial change compared to vast numbers of other changes in the Church - the Church of the 3rd-7th c. and its hierarchy were dramatically different than the Church once they'd broken from Constantinople and Eastern Rome had lost Ravenna and it's control over the Vatican. The Papacy and institutions that formed after the 700s/800s once Italy was independent of the Byzantines are where the pope transitions to a king lording over the Papal States which was a massive change. Those Papal States are gone now, another dramatic change that fundamentally redefined the Church. There were other revolutionary changes throughout the church's history like the Avignon Papacy which changed not only where the Church was centered but reformed the Papacy dramatically to put it under the thumb of the French kings. The schisms after that changed the Church brought the relatively late invention of the College of Cardinals and significant reforms and changes in hierarchy. The developments of various monastic orders and knightly orders also brought major changes and reforms. The Church after the Protestants sacked Rome and Pope Clement VII fled into hiding and was reduced to a figurehead controlled the Holy Roman Emperor was a massive break as well. The reforms of the Counter-Reformation were dramatic as well. The church has always claimed to be a stable perpetuation of tradition, while the reality has been a dynamic institution that's changed significantly not only in hierarchy and structure but doctrine. There always were popes, cardinals, and bishops, but their roles, powers, and relations changed constantly.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#388

Post by breakfastduck »

drugstorecowboy wrote: post #334
oicU00 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah no doubt; I collate trends into reports for rich investors. Lately they have been focused on youth trends, and some numbers are wacky. 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Youth participation in sports, especially full contact sports, had been going down since before covid which just accelerated it, leading to forec…

> “Essential workers” are pretty fucking pissed millions sat on their ass with no clue how to feed or care for themselves. They are not showing the same allegiance to shit jobs and moving on. They never had allegiance, they didn't leave shit jobs because of fear and the fact that moving between 2 minimum wage jobs likely wouldn't improve their circumstances. People are switching jobs because its an option now where i…

Your 2nd point is complete nonsense. Something can be stable, inefficient and wasteful all at the same time.

Just because YOU think 'progress' is making something more efficient & less wasteful at the cost of stability does not make it fact. I, and probably many other people, would consider it a foolish approach. Progress, to me, would be making the food industry less fragile (i.e. more stable).

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#389

Post by basisword »

oicU00 wrote: post #252
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…

Oh yeah no doubt; I collate trends into reports for rich investors. Lately they have been focused on youth trends, and some numbers are wacky. 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Youth participation in sports, especially full contact sports, had been going down since before covid which just accelerated it, leading to forec…

>> 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared.

Is it urbanisation? I've noticed this trend in the suburbs in my country too and there seem to be a couple of reasons:

1. Driving tests have gotten progressively more difficult and more complex over the last 10-20 years.

2. The cost of learning to drive is insane and getting more expensive.

Personally, I put off learning to drive and now that I'm in my 30's I'm finding it very hard to justify the cost and time investment necessary, despite wanting to get a license. Until I need it, I think I'll continue putting it off.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#390

Post by tasuki »

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…

> 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.

This is fundamentally a demographic problem, rather than a problem with the pensions system.

If pension funds worked by people saving their own money for themselves, it wouldn't actually be all that different. At any point in time, there's the productive part of the population, and the unproductive. If the productive part is too small to support the unproductive, there is going to be a worsening of the situation, probably especially so for the unproductive.

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