On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by password54321 » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 12:55 PM UTC

shswkna wrote: post #16

Nihilistic garbage lecture, that is my first opinion. On the other hand, he could have intended the exaggerated pessimistic outlook, to spur into action. But my bias remains, I don’t like his defeatist attitude.

I was reading an interview with Peter Thiel and he put it pretty well even if you don't like Trump:

>The Trump administration is trying to pull off an extremely difficult thing, because the red pill is that America is no longer a great country. But you have to make sure it doesn’t become a gateway drug to a black pill, where you become nihilistic and give up and you’re destined to eat too many doughnuts in a trailer park.

>...we don’t want to just get blackpilled from that. And then the question is: where are the places that you have some agency to get out of this straitjacket?

I have been nihilistic in the past but took action where I could in life and accepted the reality that there are a lot of problems but you have to look at the places where you can have agency in your own life and focus on that. Thinking more like this improved my life a lot but it can still be easy to engage in doomerism online as it becomes its own form of entertainment.

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

#102

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #49

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…

In my opinion these types of problems always boil down to fear. When a person or people are afraid they act erratically. At a large scale it often leads to the wrong type of leader stepping up to use that fear for their own gain, in many cases they pull the majority together by pointing at a smaller group and claiming they're the cause of all the problems. The only reliable solution I know to that is for people to be…

You stopped too soon in your analysis. Why is there so much fear? Why is there more than, say, the 1980s? The 1970s? (Or was there this much fear then, too, and we just don't remember it that way?)

Is it basically economic? We had this amazing economic ride from 1945 through the early 1970s, and that gave a view of what life could be like that permeated society and gave hope, and the hope continued long past the growth. Now people are realizing that the hope is not likely to happen to them. Is the fear caused by realizing that the hope is in danger? (That hope is in danger in another way, too. People are realizing that, even if they get better economic circumstances, past a certain point prosperity is still kind of empty.)

Or is the fear manufactured? Is it part of the propaganda? Are we being made to feel afraid, so that we can have a crisis of democracy? So that more non-democratic leaders can take over?

Or is it something else?

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

#103

Post by kergonath » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:01 PM UTC

antman wrote: post #82

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hug…

I will agree but rephrase, they were not incapable limiting supply of housing or chinese imports or international information channels is the model. Artificial barriers, ethical redefinitions, rag pulling, tollboothing have been the way to divide and conquer to channel the decaying international and domestic market share to political affiliates. Most political , maga, lgbt, policing, race etc issues are highlighted a…

> When I hear for the other side the media to claim “they went crazy”

Well, sometimes people do in fact get crazy or act irrationally.

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

#104

Post by Atreiden » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #79

jhbadger wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "keeping out outsiders" is a bug. The US is experiencing what it is like to be governed by an outsider with no previous political experience and who thinks things like "laws" don't apply to him, and who thinks experts can't be trusted and puts unqualified people in charge of the military, science and health. Politicians need to develop -- they should start with a local position, and "graduate" to a natio…

Notably, we could do that while still abolishing first past the post. Requirements for holding a previous position could be added while simultaneously reforming the federal (and hopefully also state) systems to be compatible with multiple parties. I imagine it would be sufficient for each level to require a single term served at the previous level - city or county, state, and federal. The downside is encouraging care…

I think this take highlights one of the core problems our democracy faces - winning elections and governing effectively are entirely different skill sets. These things may even be, in part, antithetical.

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

#105

Post by redkoan » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

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…

Sometimes it seems to me that the general population should forsake the illusion of privacy on the web, and that mass interactions (comment sections, social media etc.) should embrace and enforce verified identities online more to curb the amount of influence being exerted on the public opinion.

To much poison in the well without any (social) accountability

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

#106

Post by SCdF » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:10 PM UTC

xtiansimon wrote: post #96

SCdF wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change In case you didn't mean this, do you agree that the propaganda you're referencing above is the "you" in this sentence? eg the propaganda is the thing that is asking them to decide on covid or climate change. I don't think anyone who is genuine expects the public to have expertise in these topics. The propaganda seems centred around a constant war against…

> “…do you agree that the propaganda you're referencing above is the "you" in this sentence?” ?? The op is making “propaganda” by some assertions in their comment?

Sorry I think I worded it badly. The OP is not the you, I mean the propaganda is. As in, a large part of the propaganda is the idea that people should have opinions about this kind of thing, as opposed to accepting the idea that there are people who are more well versed in these topics than they are. eg the scientific consensus is that global warming is real and it's a big problem. There isn't really an opinion to have there, broadly.

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

#107

Post by bell-cot » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

laffOr wrote: post #97

cycomanic wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one thing that I don't understand, take for example Germany, the population barely grew over the last 20 years [1], at the same time there has been a building boom that building costs have risen dramatically (more than doubled between 2010 and 2024). Compare that to the 60s and 70s where population was rising much faster in combination with the rebuilding effort. So is the growth of housing stock lower than t…

Not German so I can only talk about how it is going in another country: - Massive change in the average household size: way fewer people live together now (delayed couple & family formation, divorce, etc.). If you go from 4 people per household to 2 people per household, now you need twice as many homes. - Massive internal migration: declining population in a lot of rural areas and increasing in cities & their suburb…

Yes.

There is also the problem of housing "lost" to the lifestyles of the well-to-do - whether that's 1%'ers who own multiple houses, or regular housing which becomes short-term rentals (Airbnb or whatever). In places, those are major problems. Overall - the biggest problem those cause might be that they're socially divisive distractions from bigger issues.

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

#108

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #36

grunder_advice wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for making this point. I 100% agree. I think previously the way politics worked, there was an element of people keeping each other in check. Now everyone can become as radicalized as their individual limits allow them to become because they live in a personally crafted narrative.

Yes, and not just politics - also day to day life. People would naturally average out with others around them, emotionally. Not that previously there weren’t real issues (including, quite literally Nazi’s), but it previously required a whole society to go through something like a wide scale traumatic event (like post-WW1 massive external payments, hyperinflation, and associated social problems!) to get the momentum g…

The Overton window isn't shifting. It's shattering.

Take gay marriage, for instance. There was a time when 95% (number made up, but I think it's roughly right) of the population thought that obviously gay marriage wasn't real marriage. There was a clearly defined window, and 95% of the population's position fit within 95% of the population's idea of what the window was.

Now you have maybe 40% of the population thinking that if you don't support gay marriage, you're a fascist oppressor and persecutor. You still have 30% thinking that no, gay marriage does not fit what marriage is. And you have the middle 30% thinking some variant of "they can marry, but you can question that without being a nazi". And each of those positions holds their own idea of where the Overton window is supposed to be.

In that landscape, there is no view of where the Overton window is that is 1) held by the majority of people and 2) the majority of people hold views that fit within that window. That's what I mean by the window shattering, not just moving.

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

#109

Post by Timwi » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

pousada wrote: post #85

rsp1984 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boring but true answer is that the only thing people should be protesting for is a change of the electoral law. Everything else is downstream of that. In the US, it's a de-facto duopoly on power, held up by a number of "winner-takes-all" rules. Politicians of either party will do everything in their power to keep "outsiders" (i.e. people/parties that are not entrenched in the two-party system and might actually d…

IMO the 5% rule is pretty good. Otherwise we would have loonies like the Grey Panthers (old people party), the “Spiritual Party”, or the extreme right-wing “Republicans” (AFD is moderate compared to those) being able to vote on laws etc. Of course that also cuts out some parties that I have supported in the past, but the system allows a lot of parties to participate that aren’t _that_ populist (e.g. the Greens, the L…

I would consider a world in which loonies have a couple insignificant seats in parliament to be a more democratic system than one that shuts them out.

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

#110

Post by kylecazar » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

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…

Populism tends to emerge from real grievances. Economic hardship, job insecurity, rapid social change. We're definitely seeing it.

Simultaneously, propaganda is getting worse. If you read the NY Post/Facebook and watch Fox, you aren't just getting a different opinion from someone watching CNN and reading the NYT. You're getting different facts. I encourage people to do a comparison. Its wild.