351–360 of 835 posts
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…
> 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…
Where the modern Left has gone off the rails is insisting that we also cannot reinforce good behavior and shame bad behavior, mostly the latter, through non-violent social interactions.
It's great that the government can't prevent adults from wearing pajamas in public, but you'd also be right to make value judgements about the kind of adult who does that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_prof...
anyone who can manage to get some blood out of the system, even if it's just smoke and mirrors, shoots to prominence. i won't name names.
for everyone else there's less and less. landlords squeeze harder, workers are stretched further because there're fewer of them, and because there're are fewer of them everthing slips. and so on. basically, as the rate of profit falls over time, everyone squeezes harder and is squeezed harder, everything gets worse. what's kept a lid on it since the great depression is the government dumping money on it, in various ways. perhaps that mechanism is running out of juice.
hopefully we don't start a war with russia or china to create demand.
> 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…
I mean I think the existence of new tech makes it harder to enforce. In the 80's there was an issue with noise on the subway when boomboxes became popular, but they were heavy and expensive to operate. With smartphones and bluetooth speakers, literally anyone on the subway can annoy the rest of the train car with minimal effort. In fact, it takes a bit more effort now (remember headphones, or mute phone), to actually…
People feel entitled to have their kids streaming Cocomelon 24 hours a day and ignore you or challenge you to a fist fight if you as them to turn the music down. "This is TGI Fridays it's not supposed to be quiet"
> Anyone else have other examples? Elected president who is so crass and generally offensive he wouldn't have gotten close to being elected 50 years ago. Elected president who is showing clear signs of age related cognitive decline (so they say) but continues to occupy the office. Elected presidents with criminal behaviour that is far worse than what previous presidents were impeached or resigned for. Mental illness,…
A European nation casually invading another European nation, something we thought was now unthinkable not too long ago.
Before that you had decades of Cold War fear mongering, preceded by WW2.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm 21 and I think everything's going to shit as well... is it doomerism or reality? Politicians appear increasingly corrupt and selfish. Geopolitics are becoming less stable. Innovation is coming to a standstill. The average person just wants a decent job, a nice place to live, and maybe a family. All of these are becoming more and more difficult to achieve. Is it any wonder kids are checking out of life en masse?
You’re wrong on pretty much every measure here.
The energy gradient which powers civilization is decaying. Civilization must conifgure itself around a new, steeper gradient. Only catch: it must use the old gradient to power this transformation. https://gist.github.com/clumma/214831723c7d567cc343cc0767273...
Accurate and sobering. TY
(Except coal – it's one of the least energetic rocks you can find.)
There's no catch. It's just that good. Why isn't it being done?
One might have asked the same thing about coal at the start of the industrial revolution.
"For untold years men froze on the site of what now are coal mines, and starved within sound of the Niagara that is now at work providing food."[1]
Steam engines were around for half a century before Boulton and Watt, and coal had been used for heating and metallurgy since Roman times at least.[2] It would have been natural to dismiss them as big, incredibly expensive machines of limited use.[3]
The answer seems to be that configuring and reconfiguring civilization is tricky... But there's plenty of reason for optimism.
[1] https://gist.github.com/clumma/2ffed4289963dec56d39
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Roman_Britain#Coal
> 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…
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2022/06/30... Salem, OR straight up won’t respond to any noise complaints anymore, citing low officer count. Seems like the negative effects from the 2020 BLM riots are starting to show.
> The goal, Womack said, is to not send a patrol officer immediately out to every noise complaint and civil dispute. Those issues can be handled by the civil court system or by non-sworn employees, freeing patrol officers to promptly respond to emergencies or focus on building trust in the community.
Doesn't seem like a huge deal. I'd rather cops be patrolling for property crime than victimless ones.
>the water is poison Putting aside the tons of pollution in lakes and oceans, what strikes me the most now is the abject failure and neglect in cities like Jackson, Mississippi and Flint, Michigan. How are people so powerless, governments so weakened, and politicians so detestable that something as basic as clean drinking water in cities is no longer functioning?
And that is how you get lead poisoning in Flint.