Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

web.cs.ucdavis.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 168 posts

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#11

Post by lazide »

voxleone wrote: post #6

Helping, in Rogaway’s sense, means refusing both neutrality and despair. Collapse is not an excuse for nihilism; there are still objective ways to help, even if they’re costly and uncertain. That looks like rejecting work that accelerates surveillance, extraction, or environmental damage; pushing back inside institutions; redirecting skills toward public-interest, climate, or civic work; and engaging politically rath…

The issue is how much of the helping is a trap.

Helping someone who refuses to deal with the underlying behaviors causing the real problem is just wasting energy better spent on other things.

Taken to an extreme, it’s being a martyr.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#12

Post by OKRainbowKid »

cheschire wrote: post #8
9dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The apocalypse is delayed, permanently. Until it isn't. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have put a very permanent end to it all, hadn't cooler minds prevailed, but that was a binary moment. There's absolutely no guarantee the coin won't flip to tails the next toss.

It must be quite depressing to live life always wondering what could have been.

Not as depressing as life in a world where nobody ever stops to reflect.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#13

Post by albertdessaint »

In time of despair, I like to remember what Albert Camus said about being a rebel What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#14

Post by GardenLetter27 »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

IMO the issue is not propaganda at all, but real physical problems that are not being addressed.

Western governments have been mostly incapable of building housing and infrastructure. We have a severe housing shortage, barely improved public transport since the 80s, a lack of energy production (in Europe), lack of reservoirs, an aging population and increased international competition, etc.

And this all creates a huge pressure for ordinary people, just housing alone has a huge impact now - stunting the formation of families, and effectively taxing productive people to fund those who were lucky enough to buy the assets in the past.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#15

Post by lazide »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

It’s always been the case (people getting hi jacked with propaganda campaigns!)

The difference now is how targeted, specific, and external said campaigns can be - for cheap.

Previously, if you started to send the anti-every-other-group propaganda to each individual, you’d be clearly identifiable, it would be more visible (flyers, leaflets, etc.) and consequences could be aimed in your direction.

What is going on now appears to be more like most people have ‘your own little narcissist’ in their pocket, poking their buttons in a way designed to drive them and everyone else crazy while deflecting the blame on everyone else.

Also, as the peer comment noted - all of this distracts from people’s actual real needs being met, which makes them easier to manipulate. It’s a classic strategy for any Narcissist.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#17

Post by goatlover »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

Who is responsible for these sustained propaganda campaigns? Some of it is foreign interference looking to destabilize, but a lot of it is sponsored by wealthy individuals whose interests are a lot different than the average person, and whose opinions are sheltered from the realities of ordinary life.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#18

Post by arethuza »

tomaytotomato wrote: post #10
9dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The apocalypse is delayed, permanently. Until it isn't. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have put a very permanent end to it all, hadn't cooler minds prevailed, but that was a binary moment. There's absolutely no guarantee the coin won't flip to tails the next toss.

The Cuban missile crises I would say was a lot less precarious than Able Archer or the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm alert - which was averted, by, ahem - an engineer! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

There is an incredibly good minute-by-minute account of the Cuban crisis: "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" - it covers a lot of areas that aren't often mentioned such as the U2 flight at the North Pole going astray or the Soviet nuclear cruise missile teams targetting Guantanamo that taken together with the more well known events make it seem remarkable to me that we survived.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#19

Post by mikkupikku »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

Even if everybody agreed on the basic facts (which is only possible if they're all drinking from the same well, eg impossible if the press is free) there would still be huge disagreement on what political course of action to take in response to those agreed upon facts, because different people have different values.

Take your global warming example, and suppose we have a magic wand to make everybody agree that it's happening, that humans were causing it, that its happening fast enough to cause massive extinctions, and that action now might still prevent this. With all of these given as universally held beliefs, it should be easy to resolve right? Well no, because in this scenario the magic wand aligned just about everything except values. Does somebody really care about the long term ecological impact of the thing more than they care about how environment austerity would impact them and their family personally? Some will, some won't, so the political debate remains standing. In fact, many of those selfish people will probably decide to stubbornly insist on a narrative that global warming isn't real, even though they know it is (thanks to the magic wand), so you'll be left wondering if your wand even worked at all.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#20

Post by jonstewart »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

I dunno monied interests leveraging newfound scale of propaganda through internet monopolies might also bear some of the blame.
Post reply on HN