Is everything falling apart? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#661

Post by entropicdrifter » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

boh wrote: post #422

b112 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the 60s was far, far, far more disillusioned than this.

The idea of mass disillusionment is pretty academic. If we just think about it for a moment, it's very hard to argue that there was some cohesive, clearly articulated illusion that was shared by everyone regardless of demographic, and it was somehow lost. The narrative of mass disillusionment is more based on the limits of a historical narrative that must broadly categorize a mass of people as having a unified reacti…

I disagree with your core point entirely.

Humanity is largely self-grouped by culture. Cultures fundamentally share mythologies, both about themselves and about other cultures, be they rival or friendly.

What we experienced in the '60s and are experiencing right now is a dissolution of the predominant self-mythology in American culture, which was temporarily boosted to a high degree of uniformity first by the advent of mass media, then again by 9/11. That's what's causing the culture war we're all entrenched in, willing or not. American self-mythology is in a period of redefining itself.

As cultural collapses go, mass media (the internet included) has caused these unprecedented waves of disillusionment happening at lightning speed compared to how they happened in the past. Historically it took massive famines to cause the degree of social unrest that modern war photos and videos can incite (as in the Vietnam era).

The speed of communication is unprecedented; as a result, so is the severity of this age-old issue.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#662

Post by kergonath » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #306

TimPC wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

All models are a ponzi that depend on a future generation doing labor. Retirement is ultimately a promise that someone will grow food and the other things you need/want. SS depends on the next generation being willing to pay, while stocks depend on the next generation willing to buy those stocks (or dividends because the company because the next generation bought things from it). Funds in a mattress depend on people…

> All models are a ponzi

No, they are not. “A ponzi” is a fraud. Some of the schemes you mention are not sustainable under certain hypotheses, but none of them have the deceptive and fraudulent aspects of Ponzi schemes, which is important. These are strategies, that might work out or that might not, but in any case they are not tools for personal enrichment through deception.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#663

Post by lampshades » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

jaqalopes wrote: post #7

I 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…

As someone securely on the train, this feels apt.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#664

Post by judahmeek » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

lampshades wrote: post #642

judahmeek wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider basing my worldview on emotion-based fantasies mentally robust. Is it possible that believing a lie increases ones chances of being happy & less depressed? Sure, but that doesn't make it worthwhile.

Or maybe it's not a lie and believers are genuinely happier and less depressed.

Every religion states that the other religions are lies, which means that, at the very least, the majority of religious people believe a lie as a fundamental aspect of their worldview.

Thus, you apparently can be genuinely happier if your worldview is based on a lie.

Still not worth it.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#665

Post by subsubzero » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

During the course of history every period post pandemic has brought drastic change, what makes this one so different[1]? Institutions that have not fared well are the media, colleges(dropping attendance due to high paying jobs everywhere). Urban cities have also seen record numbers of residents leaving, SF lost 6.7% of its population in a year and a half. For some that are connected to those places/institutions things are really falling apart. For everyone else things are slowly getting back to normal.

1 - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/04/29/w...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#666

Post by incomingpain » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #5

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…

>American coastal elites felt more connected to elites in other countries than to their fellow Americans in the heartland >When the left-wing attacks the right-wing This is part of the problem. When you casually define the left as "coastal elites who are out of touch" and the right as "Americans in the heartland who are uncared for", you are taking a real problem and reframing it as "all left-wingers vs all right-win…

That's a good point. That first part was a copy and paste from the article.

In defense of nozero or haidt, statistically that is accurate. The red vs blue is certainly concentrated rural vs urban.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/upshot/america-political-...

It's interesting the consequences of this as well. There are policies being changed without a mindset of urban vs rural. Where a policy that makes sense in a urban point of view is catastrophic to rural communities. "If you think the world is overpopulated, leave the city."

Political policies like carbon tax for example disproportionately harm rural people. Some dude living in downtown toronto taking the subway is basically getting a pay cheque from the government at the expense of rural folks who must drive a low mpg pickup truck. What you think farming can be done in a econobox? https://metro.co.uk/2015/03/28/udder-disgrace-cops-find-cow-...

In fact, if you know a bloc of people support your policies and another doesn't. Figuring out of a system which transfers wealth to your supporters at the expense of your political opponents is an ideal system.

The problem though is that we in a country are the same team. Attacking 1 side is never beneficial. Urban folks attacking farmers with carbon taxes? Ok well how's that food inflation working out? Attacking oil workers with carbon taxes? How about the gas prices?

>People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).

It's interesting as well to imagine how to solve this in the USA. Lets say Elon fails or even makes this worse and he deletes twitter. It just doesnt exist anymore.

How do you bring both sides back together without blood being shed?

You cant do nothing, it's actively becoming worse right now. Act now or else.

It's certainly not going to be solved by more censorship and removing free speech. In fact, censorship is a new thing. Free speech has been around for plenty long to know it's not causing it. My hypothetical also assumes reduction in censorship by elon failed.

So as president happytoexplain of the independent party. How do you bridge the divide? How do you bring people back together?

You might try to go nationalism. Tell everyone they are Team America, that the fight isnt with each other. Build some foreign enemy for people to rail against. At the same time go around ending all the wars the USA involved in. End wars that the USA arent even involved in. Reduce tension, reduce war exhaustion. Make sure people's economic situation is as good as possible because of high correlation between violence and economic situation. Reduce the poor mindset in general, tackle it directly.

Who did I just describe?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#667

Post by asdff » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #442

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more political polarization, no doubt, but I'm actually not sure it's true that there's more social division. A few decades ago, basic questions like "is it OK for different races to get married" and "should women participate fully in society" remained unresolved, with a ton of people wielding substantial power sitting on the "no" side. (The Handmaid's Tale wasn't meant to be some crazy impossible premi…

I’d read Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone or The Upswing. (Or just watch him talk about it on YouTube) Social division is definitely higher than it’s ever been in decades. Racism and sexism is less prevalent but social division is actually higher than ever.

People are only measuring social division in the online discourse imo. Look at the world. People are lining up politely in the grocery store and smiling when you cross paths on the street. I'm guessing you will also note there is no social division in your neighborhood either when you go out walking around.

Meanwhile, in the 1960s people were burning their draft cards, starving themselves to be underweight for the draft, or fleeing to canada. Returning soldiers at the airport would be spat on by protesters. Black people regularly had stones thrown at them or worse and no one made any news article about it. Activist groups were actually armed, and serious situations occured with that. Teenage girls were congregating in a canyon outside of los angeles to join a serial killers sex cult. Groups of people were travelling the country in a school bus turning square people on to acid and mushrooms. That was the peak of social disorder.

We are all in line now, despite what the narratives in the media make us think. People hold opinions strongly, but they are of a limited set of prescribed opinions from the media. Find any thread online about a given topic you've read about online before, and the comments will all be the same and predictable. We aren't exposed to as much unorthodox thought as our population used to be back before global media had total influence on how we sourced our information about the world.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#668

Post by freebuju » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #604

freebuju wrote: post #589

I concur with everything the author says here. If you want to visualize this for yourself, just take yourself back to the whole science/anti-vaxx debate we've had the past 2 years. That was a pretty accurate picture of the biblical tower of babel. Social media as a tool keeps sowing more division than ever because that's the growth incentive and we are too afraid to kill the golden goose. Once the metaverse becomes a…

>China is soon going to overtake the US as the world hegemony. I don't think this is guaranteed. I think the world should be prepared for it, be resilient against it, and (ideally) undermine it if possible. Six months ago, I don't think many would have guessed that all of Europe, including Germany, would unite in ending their relationship with Russian fuel. Perhaps at some point, the free world will unite in diversif…

> >China is soon going to overtake the US as the world hegemony.

>I don't think this is guaranteed

This is very much assured. Only a matter of when. It may take 2-3 decades to realize but it's gonna happen if China's growth rate [0] continues as US GDP [1] steadily declines. Though with the current geopolitics around the Russia/Ukraine war, maybe China may threaten to invade Taiwan and speed up this process of dethroning US as the top super power.

[0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/263616/gross-domestic-pr...

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#669

Post by I-M-S » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

shrimpx wrote: post #498

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…

I always thought that the open ability to perform damaging speech against institutions and public figures in the west was “cool” — a major distinguishing factor between free countries and non-free ones. But I was also always a little skeptical of that ability. It seemed ok in small doses, just to prove we can do it. Now we’re grappling with the full import of nonstop destructive speech coming from all sides and being…

It not the small doses that makes it ok, it's the fact the speaker is small. If however, the speaker gains a following and the systems starts to perceive it as a threat rather than a nuisance, the reaction is much different.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#670

Post by relaxing » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #580

treis wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder about people that post things so divorced from reality. We have five times as many college grads today as we did in 1960: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attai...

It isn’t obvious from your link… what % of current grads are “business majors” who don’t really know anything other than how to be greedy and justify it with fancy PowerPoint slide decks? The number of grads may have gone way up, but I think the education itself had slid down the slippery slope to create too many administrators and bureaucrats.

You’re right that the business major has metastasized, while the education major has shrunk.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/what...