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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#621

Post by H12 »

My anecdotal hypothesis (at least from a North American perspective) is that we've slowly adopted a culture that favors individualism and growth over community and sustainability.

We had a period of extreme wealth and growth after WWII, and chose to re-make society in ways that were fundamentally unsustainable. Then in order to keep that dream alive, we continuously borrowed from our future, and ignored those who were cut out of this dream, all to prop up an increasingly individualistic eutopia that was doomed to fail.

Now the bill is coming due for all of us. But we've gone too long isolated from our neighbors, ignoring the cries of those for whom the system was failing, and losing our sense of community that we've forgotten how to work with one another to solve our real societal problems.

The world we built ourselves is slowly deteriorating due to the natural progression of time, and we've forgotten how to fix it.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#622

Post by moistly »

perceptronas wrote: post #197

I've noticed similar things as well. Especially in contexts where no observability is available as CCTVs or other people. People will behave badly if they can get away unpunished. I disagree with most of the other comments that its a question of wealth. I know religion arguments are unpopular in this crowd. But in my opinion, lack of similar values derived from religion is starting to cause these issues. Because athe…

What are the religious values that you feel the non-religious do not share?

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#623

Post by operatingthetan »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #519
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…

[flagged]

What in their comment was manipulation?

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#624

Post by geysersam »

pjc50 wrote: post #518
MikeBattaglia wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some pretty clear indications that the derivative of civilization is strongly negative at the moment, particularly if you live in Europe. Actually, the fact that people are supposed to pretend things are OK, while everyone over there is possibly a few steps away from being drafted into war, is another sign that things have headed in the wrong direction in exactly the manner OP is suggesting.

There was a huge negative spike around the invasion, but the bigger effect has been the rapid rise in fuel prices. Russia are now clearly losing and Russia is in less of a position to threaten. Nobody in UK discourse is talking about conscription. Mind you, UK political discourse has gone increasingly off the rails with trying not to deal with corruption and incompetence of Tories.

Is Russia clearly loosing? I hope so. But I'm not so sure. They didn't win immediately like they thought they would. But long term they might have better chance than Ukraine to win a war of attrition. (If murdering 100000s people and conquering ruined cities can be called "winning".)

Read [1] recently and it paints an bleaker picture than some other analyses.

https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukrai...

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#625

Post by stirfish »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #135
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.

Broken window theory of dress. Poorly dressed uncaring people attract more of that behavior and the poor attitude bleeds into other interactions.

Stop and Frisk, but for an imagined global dress code.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#626

Post by WXLCKNO »

jlawson wrote: post #456
WXLCKNO wrote: post #328

What 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 dev…

> 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. The answer has revealed itself over the last few years: Progressive ideological activism (generally in pursuit of a long-off utopia). The "s…

You're right, I think that it's currently the most widespread form of what I'm trying to express.

However it lacks in character and clarity to be something that unites people. It's not enough of a way of life or way of thinking that can be adopted by a large part of the population.

Another reply mentioned "the diamond approach" and without even going into what that is, I also don't like the idea of anything being named.

It feels more like a boiling point where a group of people somewhere will rebel in a cultural and philosophic quiet revolution that spreads across society within a generation. It's too utopian obviously but it's a feeling of formatting the collective hard drive and starting fresh because it's just gotten too messy and cluttered and we've strayed too far down the wrong path.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#627

Post by lucb1e »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #216
tejohnso wrote: post #117

> 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.

Are you talking about the 2022 invasion? The 2014 invasion? The Yugoslav wars in 1990? The cold war? The world war? The other world war? And that's just living memory.

How unthinkable is something that last happened between the same two countries eight years prior ._.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#628

Post by lucb1e »

I think most people in this thread might benefit from the book called Factfulness. I'm a bit sad it's called that because it sounds like I'm calling people 'unfactful' / fake news, which is not at all what I mean. It just happens to be called that. Instead, I think people here are basing their worldviews off of the news' and social media's presentation, which is inherently more "omg you must see this"-type negative than realistic.

Book: https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/

The short quiz with which the book opens: https://factfulnessquiz.com

If you live near-ish to Aachen, I would also be happy to lend you my copy.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#629

Post by spritefs »

> Is anyone else noticing that for several 5 year blocks (pentad) the world just seems to get markedly worse? It's like no body seems to give a shit about anyone except themselves anymore. Whats the cause of this? What's the solution?

I used to think that random people on the internet could be trusted, now my attitude is (essentially) "if I don't know you, then fuck off and fuck your opinion too"

I'm not saying this directed at you OP, I've felt the same thing you've felt about the world becoming worse off

In 2018-19 I'd think about making a blog connected to my IRL credentials. Now, this isn't really something I'd consider doing. I used to want to write an autobiography, now I'd rather not say anything

And with respect to this:

> And at the same time, we get these cases where a dude like Tyre,

That whole thing makes me feel physically ill. If people are capable of that kind of cruelty, what does that say about our society?

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#630

Post by pgodzin »

GAN_Game wrote: post #339
troad wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The census bureau disagrees - income inequality is increasing, not decreasing https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

that chart includes a huge market bubble and excludes the subsequent bubble pop
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