Another good piece of "doom porn".
"fraudulent crypto schemes" is an oxymoron. crypto itself is fraud.
Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
321–330 of 835 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#322A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. The material conditions of regular people are continuously getting worse as more and more of their income is stripped away by rent seeking oligopolies, mainly increasing housing costs but depending on your jurisdiction all sorts of other costs (eg. cable and mobile phone costs an issue in some pl…
> A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. Edit: To answer the folk naysaying with their ten second Google searches, the income inequality rate has declined between 2007 and 2019(1), helped by a strong wage recovery in the late 2010s. The share of wealth held by th…
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
It only affects people who care about what other people wear, and those people shouldn’t have any sort of societal influence because that’s stupid. Name literally one reason that wearing pajamas in public will cause another person actual harm and I’ll take back this statement.
Would you dress that way to meet your partner's parents for the first time? Or to see a friend you haven't seen in years? Or to represent your company at an event? What about going somewhere where you are expected to be a role model? Of course not. That's because you give a shit about the impression you give in those situations and understand the kind of atmosphere and impression it gives if you dress like a bum. Now…
I’m personally way more offended by people covered head to toe in gaudy all-over logo print “high end” sweatshop-made fashion that will end up on the racks in resale shops for decades because it’s so tacky, and probably made out of non-sustainable animal leather from mistreated animals too. This is without even getting into the climate impact of disposable fashion in general and leather in particular.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really not that intellectual or complicated. Just don't dress like a bum in public? Not everything needs a theorem or rigorous, tested, scientifically researched set of rules. Nobody is asking you to walk around in a 3 piece suit, there is no slippery slope or conspiracy theory here, it's just "dress like you give a shit about the public space and others in it".
But that’s a subjective criteria and one that’s obviously ripe for subversion. What about people’s right to freedom of expression?
Is it a form of expression to walk around in semen encrusted sweatpants?
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#325I think there's a very good point to be made about general anti-social behavior and a handful of downwardly mobile elites that defend it (see: defense of shoplifting, turnstile jumping etc) but I see the opposite from the American perspective for the last two years alone.
- The unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in 50 years, while inflation is ticking lower
- The Dow is at 34k and this is considered "bad" because we hit Dow 36k last year.
- Real GDP per capita is the highest it's ever been
- We're meaningfully pushing the needle forward on Fusion, and abundant energy deployments like wind turbines and solar power installations are accelerating
- Battery and semiconductor manufacturing is rapidly coming back onshore just within the last year
- Machine Learning hit at inflection point with diffusion models and large transformers
- We are involved in no wars and drew down our involvement in one
- Cars are getting better and EV adoption is at an inflection point
- The MRNA revolution is just beginning
- Crime is ticking down from the highs of 2020 but is still lower than even the early 90's.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Respect for other people, general social norms, polite behavior, personal dignity, and in general just a respect for one's appearance and a desire to make "civilization" aesthetically appealing. People seem to enjoy living in beautiful buildings with green parks nearby, without pollution or noise, and yet somehow think dressing like a slob or putting zero effort into one's appearance is unimportant. To be honest, if…
I try not to argue with strangers much on the internet, but I really disagree with you on this one. What someone wears is a part of their self-expression. In this post, you use the phrases "respect for one's appearance" and "care about [one's] appearance" to suggest that people have a responsibility to follow certain norms in how they dress in order to make "'civilization' aesthetically appealing," in your words. Aes…
To me, the distinction is whether we put in effort in our dress. It doesn’t matter what we look like; it matter that we spent resources to look like that.
People in many industries wear ties to work. I used to wonder what the point is of a tie, or a good suit. I don’t think it’s just fashion, but what? My take now is that it implies you care about how you’re seen by others - that you’re actively going to burn some of your time and money to demonstrate your vulnerability to your reputation. If someone who hasn’t washed and wears pyjamas gets in a fight in the street with someone in a suit, the person in the suit has more to lose. And that means if I want to make a business deal with one of them, I’m going to feel much safer dealing with the person in the suit because if they do wrong by me, they have reputational face to lose. (Or at least that’s the implication).
So yeah, I also agree with the GP. I think putting effort into the appearance of our cities and ourselves is effort spent signaling to each other that our society is worth investing in. It can go too far, and it was fun wearing pyjamas out on the street during covid. But I’m glad to live in a place that removes graffiti and where people sometimes dress up to go out.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#327> People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained. > Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world. Folks stealing shit. People driving absurdly danger…
>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.
> whatever X they want to affects you in literally no way shape or form.
Replaced "clothes" with "X" to point out a pattern.
This has been said a lot, and I'm not sure it's true. It's true on a case by case basis that individual freedom does not affect us perceptibly. But I'm pretty sure it's not true in aggregate. Maybe the PJs don't matter, maybe yelling in the stairwell at an apartment once a year does'nt matter. But it seems in aggregate they might exponentially matter (kinda like CO2).
Its not just the PJs, but also the butting in line, rude/crass ways of speaking, going behind people's back in a variety of ways (sex, taking credit for work, not reciprocating efforts), driving in a way that causes a series of traffic micro events on the road which exponentiate behind them (if you leave a big enough gap for safety, folks speed to fill it in, so you have to slow down to let the gap increase, so even more people pass you), a little white lie here and there to get ahead unjustly etc.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#328What interests me most about the current zeitgeist is that there is an generalized, or at least spreading, feeling of emptiness.
What replaces religion to fill this gap for a new generation who is not religious? (including myself)
Something very clear, a philosophy of life of some kind that people can adopt to feel like they are part of something bigger, without that something being a fictional being. And without devolving into a cult either.
And obviously I'm generalizing for my north american well-off white man point of view but I feel like living a balanced life, working out, having a good job, having good friends and family etc is all great but it feels like all of that is focused around ourselves.
There is no common thread and it just feels like we see obvious greed every day, perpetuated by massive corporations and protected by corrupt politicians, and there is seemingly no change.
Some other comments about the world becoming more adversial ring true to me.
It feels like we are approaching an unknown cultural revolution of some kind, with a general unease growing and no one being able to put the finger on it exactly and communicate it effectively.
Obviously my own perception comes into play here and on days where I'm happier I don't think much about it.
But generally there is a feeling that we are hurtling towards catastrophe and everyone is trying to profit before it's too late.
There is a mental barrier of irreversible climate change where I cannot imagine the year 2100 being anything other than dystopian.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#32930-50 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?
Probably because income inequality is at an all time high in the USA. When 1% of the population has +60% of all wealth.... What's gumming up the works are the billionaires who have more money than whole countries using that power to get favorable laws and treatment. Once you reach a certain level of money you can just print more basically by manipulating the systems in place.
There's not a fixed amount of goods in the world. Middle class people today are far wealthier than they were 100 years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
I try not to argue with strangers much on the internet, but I really disagree with you on this one. What someone wears is a part of their self-expression. In this post, you use the phrases "respect for one's appearance" and "care about [one's] appearance" to suggest that people have a responsibility to follow certain norms in how they dress in order to make "'civilization' aesthetically appealing," in your words. Aes…
Some people think that aesthetics is entirely subjective. This is the default view of Western liberal democracies, especially among people that haven’t really thought much about the topic. Some people, including a lot of philosophers and art theorists that can be considered “experts”, disagree. I would consider myself in this camp, although not a credentialed expert by any means. And no, I’m not “projecting my aesthe…
>Some people think that aesthetics is entirely subjective. This is the default view of Western liberal democracies, especially among people that haven’t really thought much about the topic.
Don’t do this. It’s a weaseling way to claim the person you are discussing things with isn’t thinking.
Do you think the following is fair?
Some people think that freedom of expression in appearance is unimportant. This is the default view of authoritarian societies, especially among people who have not really thought much about the topic.