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Endless Doom Scroller

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Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#101

Post by Retric »

mekoka wrote: post #91
Barrin92 wrote: post #35

I don't really understand the 'doomer' debate, that is to say complaining about negative news when the world in fact is facing enormous negative events. It seems to me sort of like the 'three-wise-monkeys', just think happy thoughts and the world gets better or something. It seems infantile. I don't see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first place look at them, as we've seen in this pandemic t…

> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough. I see your comment as the perfect irony. First, you presume that your outlook is sober, but have you considered that the way you perceive the world is just that, the product of your biased (by all the gloom) state of mind? Do you think the world is getting worse? It's been "getting worse" forever . As for fixing probl…

Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly. It’s ~125% of GDP (26.6T) ignoring COVID and likely to get significantly worse over the next year. Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht...

Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midwest and has serious issues. Sure waiting two years isn’t going to make that much difference, but that just means we wasted another two years before doing anything.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#102

Post by godshatter »

Barrin92 wrote: post #35

I don't really understand the 'doomer' debate, that is to say complaining about negative news when the world in fact is facing enormous negative events. It seems to me sort of like the 'three-wise-monkeys', just think happy thoughts and the world gets better or something. It seems infantile. I don't see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first place look at them, as we've seen in this pandemic t…

The old adage is "hope for the best, prepare for the worst". In my opinion, doom and gloom news stories should be handled by calculating the probability of the doom scenario affecting you, figuring out what you should do to prepare given that likehood, doing it, and then cease worrying about it.

Covid-19 surging near you? Make sure you have enough stored food to weather a quarantine, have on hand whatever supplies you think you might need to combat symptoms that are bad but not bad enough to be hospitalized for, and make sure your will is in order if you have a comorbidity. Then go about your business wearing a mask and social distancing and forget about it.

In my opinion, this is the happy medium. Much more positive than constantly being afraid every day scrolling through news stories and much more grounded than just thinking in platitudes.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#103

Post by GoodJokes »

Retric wrote: post #101
mekoka wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough. I see your comment as the perfect irony. First, you presume that your outlook is sober, but have you considered that the way you perceive the world is just that, the product of your biased (by all the gloom) state of mind? Do you think the world is getting worse? It's been "getting worse" forever . As for fixing probl…

Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly. It’s ~125% of GDP (26.6T) ignoring COVID and likely to get significantly worse over the next year. Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht... Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midw…

Debt does not matter. This is a great example of nonsense doom.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#104

Post by akiselev »

Retric wrote: post #101
mekoka wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough. I see your comment as the perfect irony. First, you presume that your outlook is sober, but have you considered that the way you perceive the world is just that, the product of your biased (by all the gloom) state of mind? Do you think the world is getting worse? It's been "getting worse" forever . As for fixing probl…

Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly. It’s ~125% of GDP (26.6T) ignoring COVID and likely to get significantly worse over the next year. Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht... Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midw…

> Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane

Between 2009 and 2019, US GDP grew from $14.45 trillion to $21.43 trillion - growing 48.3%. In that time, according to those figures, our annual interest payments have grown 49.8%. Those numbers are so close natural variability alone could explain the difference.

Why is that insane? The US is a mature economy.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#107

Post by mtagius »

dencodev wrote: post #94
mtagius wrote: post #81

Tired of doom scrolling? Try out my infinite scroll website that I promise will not fill you with dread. https://endlessdonuts.us/

I spend too much time on HN because my first thought in seeing these was to add more randomness and unique features to the point that the probability of getting an exact donut replica on a page load was near 0

Haha, I love it. I tried that at first, but I had to prevent a bunch of combos from being generated because the colors clashed bad or the icing/sprinkles looked too messy.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#108

Post by softwaredoug »

Another thing to mitigate doom scrolling - read History

What we're experiencing now is part of a broad, generational change. Regardless of your country or the outcome of any one election or news cycle, the far right is emerging as a strong force. It will remain so in most Western countries, maybe for decades.

Understand the broader sweeps and landscape. Understand that you're probably like a drop in the ocean. If you see a part of it that's your duty, do your duty. But do, or do not...

History shows us broad strokes oscillations of political winds, how often things have seemed absolutely terrible, how things swing back often unexpectedly. How even the most influential have little control over affairs...

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#109

Post by Retric »

akiselev wrote: post #104
Retric wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly. It’s ~125% of GDP (26.6T) ignoring COVID and likely to get significantly worse over the next year. Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht... Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midw…

> Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane Between 2009 and 2019, US GDP grew from $14.45 trillion to $21.43 trillion - growing 48.3%. In that time, according to those figures, our annual interest payments have grown 49.8%. Those numbers are so close natural variability alone could explain the difference. Why is that insane? The US is a mature economy.

The issue is the US has no cushion for the current crisis let alone the next one. Expecting people to predict COVID is unrealistic, but they very much should expect issues eventually.

Treading water in good years only to fall deeper in bad ones means collapse is unavoidable.

Re: Endless Doom Scroller

#110

Post by apta »

softwaredoug wrote: post #108

Another thing to mitigate doom scrolling - read History What we're experiencing now is part of a broad, generational change. Regardless of your country or the outcome of any one election or news cycle, the far right is emerging as a strong force. It will remain so in most Western countries, maybe for decades. Understand the broader sweeps and landscape. Understand that you're probably like a drop in the ocean. If you…

> the far right is emerging as a strong force.

As a response to the far left. Not that I condone either.

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