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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#251

Post by pjscott »

csense wrote: post #30

30-50 years ago, with a single salary you could support a house with a yard, a non-working spouse, multiple kids, and a car. Our society knew how to make that happen once, and we've forgotten. We've had incredible advances in technology and productivity since then, so why can't we have that kind of economic environment now? What's gumming up the works?

In those decades most consumer goods have become cheaper (adjusted for inflation), but we've seen drastic increases in the cost of housing, medicine, education, and infrastructure. Those are big money pits.

As for why this happened, and continues to happen, and what could be done to fix it... those are hard questions. You can see some good grappling with the subject in this article, and the follow-up listing other people's responses to it:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-co...

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#252

Post by mouse_ »

Beaver117 wrote: post #192
noud wrote: post #7

I think you're way off base. It's called rosy retrospection, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection . As you already mentioned in your comments, you're judging the past disproportionately more positive that the present. If you really want to know if everything is declining, try measure it everyday for the next five years. For example, every day, rate your personal well being, track how (un)happy you are wit…

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#253

Post by dinkleberg »

Beaver117 wrote: post #192
noud wrote: post #7

I think you're way off base. It's called rosy retrospection, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection . As you already mentioned in your comments, you're judging the past disproportionately more positive that the present. If you really want to know if everything is declining, try measure it everyday for the next five years. For example, every day, rate your personal well being, track how (un)happy you are wit…

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You need to read up on the definition of gaslighting. That is a nasty accusation and inaccurate.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#254

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

meheleventyone wrote: post #217
keiferski wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because multiple scales of value exist does not imply that all scales are equal or meaningless entirely.

Right but that’s a non-answer because norms change over time and place and that can only happen if people are allowed to change them over time and place. All you’re saying is that it’s subjective in a clouded way. At best you’re basically being left behind the cultural norm and probably should catch up.

I think we ought to distinguish between the case where the person has thought through their decision to wear pajamas in public and is doing it as an attempt to challenge existing norms, versus the case where they didn't even give it a thought.

Because if that's what they're doing, then I'm 100% with you. Hanging onto existing norms is just opting out of the conversation about what the norms should be.

I suspect, though, that gp is objecting to a different sort of opting-out--one where you're either blind or apathetic to the consequences of your actions.

I guess what I'm saying is, it depends on the pajamas.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#255

Post by mouse_ »

ignoramous wrote: post #245
somethoughts wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just personal but anytime I feel similar to the OP, I watch something by Hans Rosling [1] or Anna Rosling [2]. Although 10 and 5 years old respectively, I feel the general sentiment is still true - that human progress is slow, in the background and might be ebbing and flowing in your specific sub-population. And when compared to the present, media narrative driven present its hard to see the improvements happ…

Reminds me of this tweet by Derek Thompson (writer at The Atlantic ): In 2022, we: - Reversed organ death in pigs - Made the first embryo from stem cells - Made a pan-influenza vaccine - Saw the beginning of time - Got best-ever results from cancer & obesity therapy trials - Maybe cracked the case of multiple sclerosis From: https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1600864770751860737 ( https://archive.is/pi95L )

Yeah and we developed the most efficient graphene nanotube batteries that never degrade!!

Sorry, I'm not buying it anymore. More than likely, none of that is going to help me or anyone I know from struggling just a little more each year.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#256

Post by profmonocle »

eldritch_4ier wrote: post #210
Zircom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>being a grown-ass adult in pajamas out in public I'm with you about all the other things but people wearing whatever clothes they want to affects you in literally no way shape or form.

Dress how you want in your own house. The public space isn't yours and you don't have a right to dress indecently in the public space. Turns out, some of us want to live in a society that takes itself seriously and gives a shit. Walking around in your Cookie Monster PJs just doesn't cut it. THIS mindset is what I think is the root of all the other listed problems. Somehow freedom has come to mean "I can do whatever I…

I went to Home Depot last weekend wearing lounge pants with cartoon foxes on them, because that's what I was wearing at home and I didn't want to change. The benefits to me (saved time, comfortable) greatly outweighed the negative impacts to anyone else. (None.) I'm not going to worry about what I wear to a freaking department store because it might offend some busybodies.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#258

Post by alfor »

Loss of religious grounding.

Christianity was the north star for our societies, it organized people, align them to work together, put the future(love) before personal interest(excess pleasures, sins)

Without religion we are going to fail. There never was a working society without religion. Yes we are in a different time, we have to update our stories, but if we throw them out we are going to collapse.

Ex: does a doctor does what is good for him or for his patient? What about a regulator in the government or a scientific working at Pfizer, Twitter a bank or Google?

If people stop putting truth and love on top(christianity) and put personal gain higher not much of what we have will keep on working for long.

Personal side: we have never been more materialy comfortable yet we are more depressed, more anxious, more medicamented.

Family: We no longer have enough kids or manage to keep a couple long enough to bring kids into adulthood. Kids to single parent household do worse in almost every metric yet we don’t care or don’t look.

On the flip side a lot of people are looking for the missing pieces, are trying to reintegrate the wisdom that we had in an modern framework: Jordan Peterson, Verdake, Jonathan Pageau and others.

It’s very hard to reverse. If people no longer believe to higher power (truth and love) we default to a lower version of ourselves, our animals instincts and we don’t know how low we will go: should successful men have only one woman? Why not? People are free to do whatever they want. Could a billionaire have a huge harem of thousand of women ala Genghis Khan? If not, why not?

There is no rules anymore (beside obvious immediate harm). We have discarded our ancient wisdom as useless, so we create all the harms that are on a longer timescale: trust, family, society.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#260

Post by keiferski »

meheleventyone wrote: post #247
keiferski wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it just means that norms should align with values. I have certain values and think that caring about aesthetics (personal appearance, nice architecture, clean spaces, beautiful art) results in a society that is better for me and other people.

Yes, it’s your subjective opinion you want to force on everyone else but previously didn’t want to admit is the case because it shows there is no actual argument as to why anyone else should agree. Like the clashes over wearing headscarves in Iran where people are literally being killed an imprisoned over that subjective value disagreement. “Everyone should share my values” is essentially an extreme position.

Thinking that it’s beneficial for people to live in beautiful buildings without pollution is my subjective opinion?
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