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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
571–580 of 835 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I have something to learn, but what load-bearing social foundation would public pajama-wearing endanger?
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…
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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I hear what you're saying. Things are improving, but what share do I have in it? Another angle is if I struggle and work hard, what rewards accrue to others, and what do I get in return? The ROI on effort seems to be dwindling cause fakes are crowding out the real hard workers. And the buyers (ie wealthy investors) cant seem to tell the difference between expertise and bald faced lies. (I blame social media and rise…
A mind shift (that might help) is to realize that if you have a 401K or IRA or pension - which if you are on HN you have at likely at least have some modicum amount likely - then you are an indirect beneficiary by these profit seeking moves.
From the distribution chart it seems most of the US stock market is owned via IRAs/401Ks/defined benefits and insurance versus individual accounts. [1]
Those evil corporate landlords that drive up rents? Well, likely they are acting on behalf of former hardworking teachers of Canada. Sure there is skimming involved but a bulk is going toward to teacher's retirement. [2]
Of course mileage may vary whether this helps how one feels.
[1] https://i.insider.com/5746013852bcd044008c527e?width=1200for...
[2] Why Canada’s Teachers Run an Investment Firm in Singapore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HXcT_xlLB0
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gaslighting by definition requires ill intent or manipulation and you are conveniently ignoring that. In your version pretty much any internet disagreement is gaslighting.
> Gaslighting by definition requires ill intent or manipulation and you are conveniently ignoring that. You cannot determine or know ill intent, so it's not really helpful as a property. > In your version pretty much any internet disagreement is gaslighting. Disagreement alone does not suffice. You need to tell the other person that what they see is not real and/or that they imagine things. But as I said, it's a bit…
>You cannot determine or know ill intent, so it's not really helpful as a property.
You're clearly still trying to change the definition and are still ignoring that gaslighting itself requires negative manipulation. From wikipedia, these actions are easy to identify:
>Obfuscation: deliberately muddying or overcomplicating an issue.
>Withholding: pretending not to understand the victim.
>Countering: vehemently calling into question a victim's memory despite the victim having remembered things correctly.
>Blocking and diverting: diverting a conversation from the subject matter to questioning the victim's thoughts and controlling the conversation.
>Trivializing: making the victim believe his or her thoughts or needs are unimportant.
>Forgetting and denial: pretending to forget things that have really occurred. The abuser may deny or delay things like promises that are important to the victim. Although anyone can deny or delay, the gaslighter does it regularly in the absence of real external limitations. The gaslighter may make up or create artificial barriers to allow themselves to deny or delay that which is important to the victim.
Telling someone who asked for feedback, in earnest that you think their perceptions are wrong is not in any way gaslighting.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#575I really believe that this is what happens when you go so long without a substantial recession coupled with an easy money regime. There's apathy because no one has been scared in a long time. Landlords haven't been scared of not finding renters and not being able to pay their mortgages. Workers haven't been really scared of not finding jobs. Businesses have not really been scared of not being able to raise money. Awf…
> Awful behavior in general comes from an absence of fear I assume you meant _specific_ fears about the consequences of one's _specific_ actions (e.g. fear of harming someone else, or fear of receiving backlash for it; or fear of squandering scarce funds for a business). Fear does not unconditionally bring sanity. I've found widespread, chronic, low-grade background fear to be an equally significant driver of awful b…
Fear doesn’t bring sanity, but scale might. Facing hardships and overcoming them generally seems to give people a sense of scale. It gives people a sense of contentment, which subdues greed.
Then again, hardships do also break people, so I don’t know.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#576I 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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No it's completely right, it's called "outsider perspective". It's hard for OP to realize they are not making an accurate observation. If you want to really work out if things are in decline, instead of finding some vague feeling of what it used to be like vs now, actually measure something?
Loud motorbikes weren't invented last year, and crime isn't higher today than it was 20 years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#577I 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…
There are obvious examples in history where it really is getting worse and then things get better. How do you know that Rosy Retrospection applies in this case?
Pick an actual measure and look at real data vs vague feelings. Or like they pointed out, at least compare feelings recorded at the time vs current feelings vs memories of past feelings.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#578The economy is just increasingly fake or rewarding foolish scummy behaviour instead of honest cooperative work. People coasted for 10+ years now on "passive income" from printed money along with almost no enforcement action against scams. That gave rise to a chain reaction of people trying to scam each other in a general revenge. Take for example a big slice of the economy - real estate. Honest real estate agents who…
> real estate
The financial incentives to an agent are to sell as many houses as they can as quickly as possible. Every sale is an end to ongoing time being "wasted" dealing with potential buyers. Every deal is money in the bank now. Agents don't really care about the price beyond talking the seller and the buyer to agree to some number (overpriced or underpriced is mostly irrelevant).
The US system appears batshit crazy to me - very adversarial? In New Zealand there is usually only a sellers agent: it is rare to have a buyers agent. Buying a house in New Zealand has less percentage cost in total fees, from what I can tell. Total agent fees are commonly around 4% for the first $400k of the sale price (median house price $800k in NZ) and around 2% for the remainder. We have real estate companies advertising lower rates. Plus maybe 1% for marketing? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/what-does-it-cost/YO4VZM...
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 )
And yet, we only get 15 minutes with our primary care doctors. No one doubts the progress of technology: it is the quality of human interaction that's plummeted.
I’ve often had this thought. It seems that people are forgetting they are interacting with other people, rather than machines. The irony isn’t lost on me, as an engineer.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#580>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?
Maintaining (let alone replacing) buried infrastructure is expensive and few people are in favour of paying higher taxes. Politicians get elected by claiming that government services are full of waste, then demand a ten percent reduction in the workforce. Goodbye water quality test protocols! Things have been proven good so far, so obviously it’s not needed! Oh, hey, this other water source is cheaper, let’s use it.…
Kind of like when engineers build a new program from scratch, take their accolades and move on, then the MBA management cuts the budget for maintenance. The only thing junior developers see is declining product quality.