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

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

#131

Post by haizhung »

cycomanic wrote: post #70
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…

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…

This apparent conundrum breaks away if you consider who holds the wealth now vs. in the 60s. In the 60s-70s, there was a wealth tax in Germany. Shortly after WW2, a law was drafted to redistribute wealth: All individuals and companies whose assets remained largely intact were required to pay 50% of their net wealth (as assessed on the day of the 1948 currency reform).

This means that the working class had immense wealth and so simple jobs could support a family on a single income, buy a house, etc.

Compare that to today — the two richest families in Germany hold more wealth than the bottom 50% COMBINED.

It is no wonder that normal families cannot afford to buy property anymore; and are forced to rent. This further exacerbates the wealth gap.

Another nice statistic is the productivity VS wage VS pensions curve: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KDug!,f_auto,q_auto:...

(Black line - GDP, blue line - avg comp; red line - avg pension)

In short - the productivity increased; but ordinary people are being squeezed out of the gains regardless. No wonder that everyone turns sour at some point.

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

#132

Post by jvanderbot »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #127
e40 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double down, it is. When someone brings a problem to you, it’s quite presumptuous to think they want you to solve it.

Thank you for replying. You're providing an excellent example of someone that can't disagree and commit and must have emotional support to validate their feelings.

Is disagree and commit a general meme or are we dogwhistling stern amazon management?

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

#133

Post by pillefitz »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #29
mikkupikku wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Apart from facts and values, people differ in their ability to predict the outcome of policy choices.

I'm currently building an app for that: https://causity.app/

It's more of a communication tool than one for exact modeling of system dynamics, but this could follow once the basic mechanics are agreed on.

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

#134

Post by AnimalMuppet »

_heimdall wrote: post #121
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 grow…

I'm not claiming why people or afraid today, whether its manufactured, or by whom. Honestly those are interesting details to the story but not fundamentally important in the middle of the fear crisis.

If the fear is being manufactured, I'd say that is definitely important in the middle of the fear crisis.

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

#135

Post by _heimdall »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #134
_heimdall wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming why people or afraid today, whether its manufactured, or by whom. Honestly those are interesting details to the story but not fundamentally important in the middle of the fear crisis.

If the fear is being manufactured, I'd say that is definitely important in the middle of the fear crisis.

If it can specifically help to reverse course on the level of collective fear, yeah that may help. Though there is the risk there that high levels of fear may lead people to lash out at anyone singled out as the cause of panic or fear.

I'd argue that dealing with the fear itself is more important, and safer, in the moment. Knowing and understanding the cause is more useful, and safer to deal with, after the panic or fear has subsided.

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

#136

Post by atmavatar »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #14
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 hug…

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

I can't speak for other countries, but in the US, a big reason the real problems aren't being addressed is because of propaganda.

To my mind, the biggest problem is ultimately wealth/power consolidation in the hands of a shrinking group, resulting from massive consolidation of markets, repeatedly eliminating taxes on the most wealthy, and legalized bribery finally cemented in the Citizens United ruling.

As a regular worker, you have limited job mobility because there are fewer businesses within any market you may specialize in, those remaining players in the market often act as cartels, and emboldened shareholders demand layoffs on the regular. It feels like you're drowning in costs because housing has long outpaced inflation while your typical yearly raise rarely meets or exceeds it.

You can turn to your representatives for some relief, but voting Republican is guaranteed to make the problem worse (and they aren't shy about telling you they'll screw you over for the benefit of the wealthy), while voting Democrat doesn't actually make things better because they're controlled by the same special interests and merely present the illusion of an alternative.

The consolidated media, owned almost entirely by wealthy individuals with explicit mandates to support right-wing messages (e.g., Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, Sinclair Broadcasting group, and now Paramount Skydance) and constantly tell you that all your problems are really the fault of immigrants and other minorities - hence how we ended up with ICE-occupied cities, while simultaneously only making the problem worse with tariffs, which both increased prices and led to a slump in job creation.

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

#137

Post by AnimalMuppet »

_heimdall wrote: post #135
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the fear is being manufactured, I'd say that is definitely important in the middle of the fear crisis.

If it can specifically help to reverse course on the level of collective fear, yeah that may help. Though there is the risk there that high levels of fear may lead people to lash out at anyone singled out as the cause of panic or fear. I'd argue that dealing with the fear itself is more important, and safer, in the moment. Knowing and understanding the cause is more useful, and safer to deal with, after the panic or…

How are you going to get it to subside, without dealing with the cause? If the fear is being manufactured, you aren't going to get out of the crisis until whoever is causing it relents and stops, or until you block it.

I mean, you could say "we're going to deal with this by teaching people not to be afraid of this stuff", but why not do interrupt the source as well?

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

#138

Post by senordevnyc »

jijijijij wrote: post #84
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…

I concur and want to add a realization I had some time ago: Considering the state of dysthymia and feeling depressed as one end of a spectrum and a fulfilling, content "happy life" as the other, the sole determining metric is the degree of experiencing self-efficacy. The experience of self-efficacy is witnessing your willing satisfy your desires and needs through your own working. And self-efficacy is a basic, most i…

I think you're onto something here, but I do wonder if self-efficacy is actually all that modifiable by individuals. I know some folks who struggle with nihilism and depression. I don't really identify with that, even though when we discuss the issues they're ostensibly depressed about, we share similar views. I wonder if I just got lucky with a brain that leans towards optimism and action, even when it doesn't seem like it'll make much difference in the grand scheme of things, and they were unlucky and were born with an absence of that self-efficacy.

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

#139

Post by senordevnyc »

abraxas wrote: post #125
tomaytotomato wrote: post #4

I think its a pessimistic outlook and I agree with the sentiment, but then I switch back to objectively how humanity has been historically and how far we have come, I can't stop thinking, "wow". Being in my 30s I remember Y2K, OZone layer diminishing and a rogue comet coming to wipe out humanity, but it didn't. This is survivor bias just like the examples in the lecture around wildfires and Covid are surely survivor…

> The apocalypse is delayed, permanently That is your survivorship bias. There are societies that collapsed never to rebuild or became mere shadows of themselves. I'm not just talking complete collapses like the Easter Island or the Mayan civilization. In very recent past we witnessed the cultural collapse of Japan after their bubbles of the 1980s burst and derailed their economy. But the most spectacular collapse ha…

I would argue you're just not zooming out far enough. Those things were definitely a society-wide collapse, and horrible for the people who lived through them, but humanity as a whole has just continued to grow, develop, and thrive, at least from my perspective.

Let me put it this way: is there a time anywhere in the past 300,000 years where you'd prefer to jump back to if you were going to be born as a random person anywhere on earth?

In spite of everything we face today, I struggle to think I'd want to be born anytime in the past.

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

#140

Post by hyperman1 »

czechonetwo wrote: post #59
tomaytotomato wrote: post #4

I think its a pessimistic outlook and I agree with the sentiment, but then I switch back to objectively how humanity has been historically and how far we have come, I can't stop thinking, "wow". Being in my 30s I remember Y2K, OZone layer diminishing and a rogue comet coming to wipe out humanity, but it didn't. This is survivor bias just like the examples in the lecture around wildfires and Covid are surely survivor…

> My engineer brain says lets pick up the poo and then look at solutions to stop it happening again. The people that put up the “no pee or poo” signs in the yard have dead bushes from dog urine. Dogs pee and poo, dogs are good companions, you shouldn’t get rid of dogs or their people, there will always be dogs, resistance to pee and poo are futile.

In my country, there are little parks where dogs do their business. If you walk with a dog in public places, you are expected to have means for cleanup with you. If your dog soils the road, you're expected to pick it up in a tiny plastic bags and throw it in a garbage can. Violating either rule carries a fine. There is markedly less dog poo than there used to on the roads.

Which demonstrates grandparent's point. There are solutions to the problem. Nobody got rid of the dog, and dogs still pee and poo. There just are technical and legal means to keep the problem managed, even if not perfect.

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