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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#791

Post by bufferoverflow »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #25

> 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…

Both of them are the result of the policies that you voted for. Maybe not you personally, but the people in your state.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#792

Post by cudgy »

ben_w wrote: post #767
cudgy wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Everything is poison? I grew up with acid rain (solved), a hole in the ozone layer (getting better), indoor public smoking (banned in the UK, doesn't seem to be here in Berlin), asbestos (banned), and leaded petrol (banned).” But now you have to worry about plastics in your food, leaching of chemicals from batteries that power new technology, depression and suicide, resulting from social media (especially amongst y…

Grew up vegetarian because my mum was worried about mad cow disease. The batteries were also toxic when I was a kid. So were more of the lightbulbs. Suicide rate is significantly lower in the UK today then when I was born. Loss of privacy concerns me. Most people seem happy to over-share, presumably because the thing also allows more connections with more niche interests than most people can name. Dangerous side effe…

In US, suicide rates increased 36% between 2000-2018 and declined 5% between 2018-2020. Overall, a huge increase and we still have covid years to add to the mix.

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html

“A "vape," or electronic cigarette, is a device that heats up a liquid to create a vapor you inhale.”

https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/vaping/what-is-vaping

What liquid? I know what tobacco is, but I don’t know what a “liquid” is. It could be anything and many of them contain dangerous metals, fragrances, and other mysterious chemicals. Hardly an improvement over cigarettes.

Stagnant wages over time, while they may have the same numeric value, result in far less purchasing power due to inflation.

Ridiculous real estate values are a concern for every generation.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#793

Post by chatterhead »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #160
chatterhead wrote: post #26

I didn't read the whole thing because the answer is simple. The fall of the Berlin Wall was not the end of the Cold War and the paranoia, distrust and apathy you sense now are the culminations of Russia's Eastern German techniques to the West. We have been in an almost entirely psychological war since 1991. The decline of the West was primarily due to the fact we had a high trust society that foreigners from Europe t…

tell me more please.

Europe is an ethnocentric battleground that has exported Irish Unions, British Racism, Jewish Banking, Italian Mafias, Russian Dystopianism, French Elitism and German... well, Germany, to the rest of the world. At various times these groups have worked together, not unlike American Suffragettes and Teetotalers or Abolitionists and Federalists, to advance their own agendas. Russia, after the fall of the Berlin wall, needed technology and access to foreign markets in S. America and Africa so they joined political forces with the elite of these European networks to do just that.

A new Global Oligarchy began to emerge and they have relied on the techniques Russia used to depress and subjugate it's vassal states to the peoples of Europe and America for the purpose of creating the confusion and paranoia necessary to short-circuit civil action against the consolidation of power and wealth within those countries by their elite. Primarily done through media and manufactured conflict.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#794

Post by nicbou »

mablopoule wrote: post #409
kelseyfrog wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I have something to learn, but what load-bearing social foundation would public pajama-wearing endanger?

I kinda hop on this bandwagon to recommend the book "The righteous mind" by Jonathan Haidt, specifically the notion that there tends to be 3 main 'modes' of morality: a logic of individualism (Especially in the western word, and doubly so in affluent classes), the logic of community, and the logic of sacrality. I feel that this back-and-forth about public pajama-wearing is really at heart a back and forth between a l…

I live in Berlin, where the dress code is far more relaxed.

I noted how well-dressed people are in Paris and my friend answered “because they pretty much have to”. It’s a social pressure and you’re expected to conform to that standard regardless of your means or interest in fashion.

I love not thinking much about clothing. I wear what works, spend less on something that doesn’t matter to me, and save my energy for what does.

I’m not sure how I would benefit from raising the pressure until I am forced to dress better at my own expense.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#795

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

lucb1e wrote: post #773
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and rent hasn't changed since we moved in in 2018 This sounds incredibly lucky and rare and not the norm. I guess you have a private landlord and not an institution in a big city. BTW, can I ask in which city that is?

Yep, not what I expected either, but I think it goes to show that things can also be different and aren't necessarily bad across the board. You rarely hear someone 'complain' that their rent hasn't changed compared to the alternative, so the situation will always sound/feel worse than it is. It's a city of around 50k people in west germany, close to other cities that are much bigger, and my building is less than ten…

Sure, but just because things are great for you, doesn't necessarily mean they're not bad across the board for many other people. It's called survivorship bias.

For example, my rent has been going up every year on the dot as the company who owns the building has an obligation to its shareholders to increase revenue.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#796

Post by [deleted] »

vinaypai wrote: post #646
User23 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a thing has a name doesn't mean it's true. In many ways the past was better than the present. For example in 1965 a single average wage earner could afford a 15 year mortgage for a nice house in a nice neighborhood. And don't even get me started on architecture. There's no rosy colored glasses there. Contemporary five over ones are abominable.

If by "everyone" you mean white males.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#797

Post by account42 »

fallingknife wrote: post #130
csense wrote: post #30

30-50 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?

We refuse to build houses at the rate the population is growing and doubled the labor force by adding women. Simple laws of supply and demand explain it.

> and doubled the labor force by adding women

This has really been the biggest scam in recent history without regulations going along with it to reduce the work week accordingly. It's insane to me that we still expect the average worker to spend ~1/2 of their waking life working for other people.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#798

Post by ben_w »

cudgy wrote: post #792
ben_w wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grew up vegetarian because my mum was worried about mad cow disease. The batteries were also toxic when I was a kid. So were more of the lightbulbs. Suicide rate is significantly lower in the UK today then when I was born. Loss of privacy concerns me. Most people seem happy to over-share, presumably because the thing also allows more connections with more niche interests than most people can name. Dangerous side effe…

In US, suicide rates increased 36% between 2000-2018 and declined 5% between 2018-2020. Overall, a huge increase and we still have covid years to add to the mix. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html “A "vape," or electronic cigarette, is a device that heats up a liquid to create a vapor you inhale.” https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/vaping/what-is-vaping What liquid? I know what tobacco is, bu…

Why did you describe what vaping is? This isn't a weird obscure practice, and the point was reduced harm relative to putting a burning cancer stick in your mouth, not a claim that that vaping is completely harmless.

> What liquid? I know what tobacco is, but I don’t know what a “liquid” is. It could be anything and many of them contain dangerous metals, fragrances, and other mysterious chemicals. Hardly an improvement over cigarettes.

Do you really know what tobacco is? Or do you take the mental shortcut that most people necessarily have to take with organic chemistry and mentally categorise "tobacco" as one single monolithic thing?

"""Of the more than 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be harmful, including hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and ammonia.

Among the 250 known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 69 can cause cancer.""" - https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/t...

Combining:

> In US, suicide rates increased 36% between 2000-2018 and declined 5% between 2018-2020

With:

> Stagnant wages over time, while they may have the same numeric value, result in far less purchasing power due to inflation.

Yields some combination of:

There was significant nominal growth in incomes in that group (USA) in those period (both 2000-2018 and -2020, only a brief dip in 2020 and more growth since then but that's beyond the scope of what I'm responding to here), it was only stagnant after compensating for inflation — and then mostly in the poorer half (which I'd say is really bad because I'm European and therefore so left-wing I think the Democrats are dangerously right-wing).

And:

The worldwide suicide rate didn't follow the USA's, and is down by about a third in that period: https://ourworldindata.org/suicide — This graph also doesn't support the CDC percentages you quoted, because it's saying USA +10% over the same period they're saying +36%. (I wonder what the difference is?)

And:

Worldwide income per capita, at purchasing power parity, almost doubled from 7.954 PPP dollars in 2000 to 17.038 PPP dollars in 2020.

And:

The CPI inflation index also account for housing costs.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#799

Post by account42 »

rlawson wrote: post #760

54 years old so here is the mixed bag I have seen in my area (South) 1. Absolutely there is a decline in quality/cleanliness and low to mid restaurants in my area. I don't even bother checking my order and assume it will be wrong. Many places we go into look like a disaster so my family has just quit eating out. I was at a Red Lobster and two employees got in a scream fight because all the cooks just walked off the j…

> 5. On the plus side, society seems much more tolerant of minorities (race/sexual orientation/religion/etc)

I don't think this is really a case of increased tolerance but rather a change of who is in the in-group. There is still plenty of hate and discrimination tolerated when it is towards someone who is not in one of the currently protected classes but differs in some other way from the "norm". In fact, the current approach to race/sexual tolerance is all about dividing people into groups based on superficial or mostly irrelevant traits rather than just treating everyone as human.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#800

Post by account42 »

uoaei wrote: post #246
jmoak3 wrote: post #44

I think we're on the verge/in the middle of a stagnating/shrinking pie. When we're not growing in population and wealth things get dark as people chase zero-sum short term gains at the expense of others. Distrust runs rampant, people turn to the extraction of their peers vs expansion with their new friends. It will get better. Edit: Think bigger than the extractors!

The pie is still getting bigger very quickly. It's the share of the pie that belongs to the 99% or even 99.9% that is getting smaller. Recall those stats saying "the top x richest people in the US have more wealth than the bottom y% of Americans". The ratios they present have only been getting more extreme over time. The latest report from Oxfam[1] says things like: * In the last 10 years, billionaires have doubled t…

> flying on planes powered by kerosene

And at leasy until very recently, leaded kerosene. Long after leaded fuel has been banned for regular (car-driving) people due to it's known disastrous health effects.

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