Forty or so years ago, quite a number of people seriously thought that we were months away from thermonuclear war. Thirty-five years ago, crack cocaine was a big deal, distribution of it was violently contested, and murder rates were high in a lot of cities. As for poisonous air, I don't know that it has recently been as bad as it was in Pittsburgh back when a temperature inversion killed some number of people.
Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
651–660 of 835 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#652This is spot on. I agree with all these points.
Personally, as a software dev, I feel like my career started to stall about 5 years ago in spite of being extremely driven and consistently producing high quality results. I've also observed unqualified people being promoted. I had to quit some jobs because the person who was promoted above me was not competent. Projects started declining within a year after I left.
It's obvious now that I'm not alone in having this experience.
In a twisted way, I feel somewhat avenged by the current situation. There is something oddly satisfying about being forced to leave a once thriving organisation due to bad change of direction and then later watching it all collapse. It's rewarding to know that it was people like me who were holding the system together.
Unfortunately it's the closest thing I got to feeling successful. My suppression and subsequent absence contributed to failure of the organisation in a very clear and obvious way. That's my version of success.
I think the core problems are wealth inequality combined with cronyism... People are promoted for being friends (or more than just friends) with rich people. They're not promoted based on competence.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#653I 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…
Stop doom scrolling. Find the things that actually matter to you and take steps you can to improve them. Have the wisdom to accept what you can't change.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is “beautiful” is, like, the textbook example of a subjective opinion.
No, not really. The concept of beauty has a long philosophical history and many knowledgeable and intelligent people have written books on the topic. As I said above, the people who think this stuff is entirely subjective tend to be ones that haven’t engaged much (or at all) with previous thought on the topic.
This line of reasoning is unsound because it attempts to universalize particulars wrt aesthetics. Universalizing particulars is what Lacan would call psychotic. The antidote here is a good dose hysterics.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#655Earlier 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 )
Without looking deeper at any of these, most of the similar stuff from past years has ultimately been humbug, if technically correct. For example, first headlines I found from ’net-positive fusion energy achieved’ were from 2013 or so. Researchers want to slightly oversell their discoveries, and the media wants to misunderstand to oversell them even more. Humbug 9 times out of 10.
That one is painful, since I wouldn't even call it technically correct, and even an undergrad should have been able to notice the error :
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/09/breaking-news-fusion-re...
So a order of magnitude larger output power promised... except when you count total input power and reasonable heat engine efficiencies (if installing one had been planned), it's unlikely they would even get more power out than in !
But then, the very same month I was also made aware of SP(ARC), which is revolutionary because it can (in theory) afford to be so much smaller than ITER (which is ridiculously large and therefore expensive in a super linear way) :
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/smaller-more-efficie...
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
What in their comment was manipulation?
They responded to "Here's some things I've noticed" with "You're old and you're imagining it".
That's not manipulation and they didn't say either of those things. It does not appear that you are responding in good faith.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#65730-50 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?
> 30-50 years ago
One of the reasons that is not mentioned is that in the 1960s, the US's share of global GDP was 40%, today it's around 24%.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re not wrong, but THAT is the item you want evidence on? Especially here. This seems disingenuous.
Innovation in narrow fields is not representive of the greater whole. Sure, generative AI is booming, but mobile phones and computers haven’t evolved practically at all in the last 5 years. The general rate of innovation can be somewhat gauged in the increase of living standards, and to my understanding there has been little the past 10 years (in the West in general).
In the past you could have centuries without any changes that weren’t social/political.
The fact we can even see quantifiable change in our lifetimes is completely new and limited to the last 200 or so years.
And nowadays we can see significant change from decade to decade.
It’s like looking in a mirror. You see it everyday so of course it doesn’t seem like anything’s changing. You need to look at the bigger context and look at the forest instead of trees. Try Hans Roslings 200 years in 2 minutes talk.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s the thing, I do care. I care that people should have freedom of self expression. My daughters are 18 and 19. Some day soon I’ll be the parent their boyfriends will come home to meet. I hope they feel they have the freedom to wear what they’re comfortable in and that represents their genuine identity. So yes of course context matters, we are social beings, but expectations of what is acceptable changes. I’ve se…
Some day soon I’ll be the parent their boyfriends will come home to meet. I hope they feel they have the freedom to wear what they’re comfortable in and that represents their genuine identity. Really? My hope is that I don't raise my daughter so poorly she ends up with a slob who wears pyjama in public.
You can hope, but it’s nowhere within your circle of control.
Every non-parent says “my kid will never…”, which is comical.
The most surprising part of parenting to me was how wildly different each child’s personality and temperament are, and how little control I have to affect any of it.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#660Earlier 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.
I enjoy the fact the American „clothing culture“, e.g. going to the shop in rags, hasn’t caught on in Europe yet.
It comes after the obesity epidemic. Once >40% are obese (adult obesity is 60% in the US), the people stop caring and don’t have the energy or self confidence to care.