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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#711

Post by taf2 »

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…

Great idea - I can tell you mine personally is 25% better over the last year because of my migraine medicine. I have one extra day a week to be among the living. Sure I have some days where I’m a little bit off but I still remember just how bad it was. Also I can drink and experience a hangover like a normal person. Hangovers are easy no big deal just kind of off days.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#712

Post by prewett »

drewcoo wrote: post #694
prewett wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I wrong to think these are just a typical Marxist class-struggle talking points? At any rate, blaming the problems on inequality seems a lot like seeing everything as nail when all you have is a hammer. I'm not sure why OP's complaint that people don't care as much, or that they are loud and inconsiderate, necessarily has anything to do with inequality. The might feel like there's no chance to get ahead so I'm jus…

Inequality and poverty are what fueled the very active socialists and communists and swelled the ranks of unions. The great depression only showed that the monied few needed to be constrained. Collectivism was the response to the greed of the time. And collectivists pushed FDR into his new deal reforms to build a social safety net in the US. That was the greatest generation. It grew out of Marxist talking points.

This sounds like hammers looking for nails, too. I don't see how swelling the ranks of communists (which then unswelled a couple decades later) or unions has anything to do with inequality being the correct cause for OP's complaints about things getting worse. I'll agree with you that inequality and poverty fueling two things designed to deal with inequality and poverty (socialist/communist political thought and unions), but I think that's sort of a tautology. Now if you think swelling ranks of communists would be making the world worse than before, I'd agree with you, having lived in China and seeing how the communist governments have turned out...

Regarding the Great Depression, though, the generally accepted cause are generally seen as monetary policy failures and/or the effects of deflation [1]. Of course Marxists see the cause being inequality, but this is looking for nails for your hammer: Marxists only have one note in their song. You'd think that if inequality played a large part in causing the Great Depression, that there would be a fair number of economists--whose job it is to figure out why the economy does what it does--who would agree with that view. But they don't.

Calling the Greatest Generation as growing out of Marxists talking points is just ... well, I guess if you think that socialists, communists, unionists, collectivists, New Deal people are heroes, you might think it was a great generation, but I've never heard the term "Greatest Generation" as referring to anything of the sort.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Causes

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#713

Post by ShamelessC »

jahewson wrote: post #668
ShamelessC wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero need to be judgemental about people's choice of clothing. Also, I don't think you understand what antisocial typically means, And there's no need to be judgemental about that either. This is actually part of the problem - making shallow jabs on the internet to feel superior is avoidant compared to an actual confrontation; where you have no choice but to reflect on how your views may not apply to all situ…

Kind of ironic that you’re trying to shame him for being judgemental. Username checks out.

I am confronting someone rather than avoiding a confrontation. If I had made the initial comment, you would be correct. Causation and all that.

It was not my intent to shame them either. I was talking to them. Not you.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#714

Post by maerF0x0 »

tbrownaw wrote: post #638
mach1ne wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> phones and computers I sometimes end the day with 50% or more left on my phone battery. That didn't happen before my last upgrade. 10GbE is finally starting to filter down to consumer-level things. Cloud stuff is starting to have Arm systems as a standard offering. I can run an SSD as my only disk, rather than as an expensive small cache in front of a platter drive. Risc-5 seems to be really starting to become a th…

These are all neat things, but I think i'm looking at it on another layer than these kinds of technological things.

I had always thought it was George Carlin, but maybe this was actually penned by a pastor in the 90s?

"The paradox of our time"

(first paragraph) " We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry quickly; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom."

[1]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-paradox-of-our-time/

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#715

Post by mancerayder »

Dalewyn wrote: post #702
mdanger007 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the news"? I'm also in my 3rd decade, and wisdom tells me there is much to gain from good news sources: NPR (there are others) teaches me something every day: People outside my socio-economic bubble their triumphs, their struggles. Do you ever think how the divisions in this country are not because of divisive news, but the lack of learning about and empathizing with people different than us?

>Do you ever think how the divisions in this country are not because of divisive news, but the lack of learning about and empathizing with people different than us? No, the divisive problems we face today stem in vast majority from the media publishing divisive narratives to keep us sensationalized and distracted from greater things. The world appears divisive because the media wants us to believe the world is divisi…

>No, the divisive problems we face today stem in vast majority from the media publishing divisive narratives to keep us sensationalized and distracted from greater things.

>The world appears divisive because the media wants us to believe the world is divisive

The Taibbi argument is this coincides when news media switched from being a for-all source of information (where it was biased but still for all audiences) to a bifurcated model where stories that infuriates one side or another of the political aisle were focused on. Starting with Fox News which was wildly successful, the same thing becomes replicated with MSNBC, CNN, and such. The numbers show it: 90+ percent watchers of the former are Republican, similar or higher are Democrats with the latter two. Now with online ad sales and clickbait, the situation continues. Echo chambers form on social media, themselves cycling in to one or another of the news medias they orbit around.

The point is not to talk about politics, but the idea that the division has a rationally profit-driven motive. And yes it's horrific.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#716

Post by the_only_law »

generalizations wrote: post #226
meheleventyone wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response is neither low quality nor trolling. There is absolutely a connection between the OPs attitude towards pyjamas and women being allowed to show their hair in Iran. It’s the same social mores except one opinion on how others dress is palatable to some and the other not. Which is particularly important given the on going struggle in Iran. Likewise the OP should consider how their opinion is reflected in that…

Dude, I have to agree with the OP here. Chill out. > There is absolutely a connection between the OPs attitude towards pyjamas and women being allowed to show their hair in Iran Except there isn't, because women's dress codes in areas under sharia law is enforced with violence and generally considered oppression; whereas pyjamas are an unenforced expectation. Also: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don'…

Oh yeah the community can sneer at whoever the fuck they want but god forbids someone does it to them.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#717

Post by maerF0x0 »

mr-debil wrote: post #684
Gigachad wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but mobile phones and computers haven’t evolved practically at all in the last 5 years. Lets do a fact check on this, that time span is the iphone X to iphone 14 Pro. Taking one metric, the geekbench score has gone from 2156 to 5383. So in that time phones have become more twice as fast. It released with ios 11, I wont even bother to list all the major improvements between 11 and 16 because it's a huge list. There i…

Some people will argue that's simply incrementation and not innovation, even though there's serious innovation needed to jump from 10nm to 5nm architecture. Even at that, if you want to simply do 'novel innovation' in things that are truly new or change your process...you can get phones with folding screens these days, that's pretty cool and wild to think about.

exactly. what more can do you with it? You can't watch more shows or play twice as many games of chess or something.

Yes the jump from 240p to 4K is enjoyable, but Marvel movies in 4k are still vacuous compared to something with meaning in 720p.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#718

Post by fwungy »

p1esk wrote: post #639
fwungy wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right here in the USA. Our crime statistics show the greatest threat to a young black male is another young black male. Look at the Chicago shooting stats every weekend. Dig deep into gun deaths and you will see that is young men if color shooting andurdering each other in gang and criminal contexts that accounts for most of the deaths. And yet the media can only rise to care about gun deaths when it is white childre…

I wouldn’t use the word “genocide” in this context, unless you think what happens to young black men in US is similar to what happened in Rwanda.

What do you call a murder rate of 81.7/100000 for black men aged 15-24?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#719

Post by zug_zug »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #714
tbrownaw wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> phones and computers I sometimes end the day with 50% or more left on my phone battery. That didn't happen before my last upgrade. 10GbE is finally starting to filter down to consumer-level things. Cloud stuff is starting to have Arm systems as a standard offering. I can run an SSD as my only disk, rather than as an expensive small cache in front of a platter drive. Risc-5 seems to be really starting to become a th…

These are all neat things, but I think i'm looking at it on another layer than these kinds of technological things. I had always thought it was George Carlin, but maybe this was actually penned by a pastor in the 90s? "The paradox of our time" (first paragraph) " We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bi…

Love George Carlin, and love that quote.

- Taller buildings, shorter tempers: Yes, unclear (I think the average person today gets in fewer physical fights)

- Wider freeways, narrower viewpoints: Yes, unclear (I think in many ways we were even more narrow-minded 20 years ago. Do you remember the "Nuke Iraq" mentality?)

- We buy more but enjoy it less: Unclear, unclear

- we have bigger houses and smaller families: Yes, Yes

- more conveniences, yet less time: Yes, Unclear

gosh there's a lot of these.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#720

Post by Gigachad »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #717
mr-debil wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people will argue that's simply incrementation and not innovation, even though there's serious innovation needed to jump from 10nm to 5nm architecture. Even at that, if you want to simply do 'novel innovation' in things that are truly new or change your process...you can get phones with folding screens these days, that's pretty cool and wild to think about.

exactly. what more can do you with it? You can't watch more shows or play twice as many games of chess or something. Yes the jump from 240p to 4K is enjoyable, but Marvel movies in 4k are still vacuous compared to something with meaning in 720p.

You can take better photos, have a longer lasting battery, send emergency sms via satellite. Scan objects and rooms with LiDAR, generate ai images locally with the massively improved SoC. Just to mention a few things off the top of my head. Just because _you_ aren’t doing anything interesting with the new tech, doesn’t mean innovation hasn’t been happening.
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