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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#191

Post by keiferski »

uneekname wrote: post #177
keiferski wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respect for other people, general social norms, polite behavior, personal dignity, and in general just a respect for one's appearance and a desire to make "civilization" aesthetically appealing. People seem to enjoy living in beautiful buildings with green parks nearby, without pollution or noise, and yet somehow think dressing like a slob or putting zero effort into one's appearance is unimportant. To be honest, if…

I try not to argue with strangers much on the internet, but I really disagree with you on this one. What someone wears is a part of their self-expression. In this post, you use the phrases "respect for one's appearance" and "care about [one's] appearance" to suggest that people have a responsibility to follow certain norms in how they dress in order to make "'civilization' aesthetically appealing," in your words. Aes…

Some people think that aesthetics is entirely subjective. This is the default view of Western liberal democracies, especially among people that haven’t really thought much about the topic.

Some people, including a lot of philosophers and art theorists that can be considered “experts”, disagree. I would consider myself in this camp, although not a credentialed expert by any means. And no, I’m not “projecting my aesthetic” on to others, simply defending the idea of norms and expectations. This is a very different thing.

As I said in another comment, if you can’t get beyond the idea that Value is not entirely subjective and that everything isn’t just “your opinion, Dude,” then no argument is probably going to convince you of anything. Hence you will just end up in a situation like the OP posted about.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#192

Post by Beaver117 »

noud wrote: post #7

I think you're way off base. It's called rosy retrospection, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection . As you already mentioned in your comments, you're judging the past disproportionately more positive that the present. If you really want to know if everything is declining, try measure it everyday for the next five years. For example, every day, rate your personal well being, track how (un)happy you are wit…

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#193

Post by zerobrainwash »

fuball63 wrote: post #78

I'll preface this by saying this is all anecdotal evidence based on my personal observations, so it may not apply to everyone. I often feel the same way, especially with tech. For those of us that remember before the internet was ubiquitous, the optimism and promise of the "information super highway" seems in stark contrast with what we see today. I try to keep in mind a few things: First, we are living in a time tha…

Such a great comment, absolutely agree and going into "construction" is indeed the remedy for the bleak worldview. We truly do live in amazing times but it's also overwhelming.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#194

Post by hackerlight »

keiferski wrote: post #134
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?

Respect for other people, general social norms, polite behavior, personal dignity, and in general just a respect for one's appearance and a desire to make "civilization" aesthetically appealing. People seem to enjoy living in beautiful buildings with green parks nearby, without pollution or noise, and yet somehow think dressing like a slob or putting zero effort into one's appearance is unimportant. To be honest, if…

But I find enforcement of arbitrary dress codes to be aesthetically unappealing. I feel disgust towards those traits of a low-freedom society, whether that low-freedom comes from social pressure or actual laws. Have strict pollution and noise laws because those things actually hurt people beyond your personal subjective imagination.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#195

Post by mynameishere »

beckingz wrote: post #42
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 expect much much much nicer things.

Yeah, that house had one bathroom. One phone. Zero air conditioners. Zero computers. The four kids had two bedrooms with bunkbeds. The TV was black and white with 2.5 scratchy channels. If the car made it to 50,000 miles you were doing well. Entertainment was maybe a trip to the movies once a month. Eating out was for celebrations only.

Certain things have gotten worse, though. The neighborhood was pleasant, with friendly families and social clubs and a walk to the park right there. The television and newspaper and local college and personnel dept. at work weren't constantly telling you how racist you are.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#196

Post by mindcrime »

fuball63 wrote: post #78

I'll preface this by saying this is all anecdotal evidence based on my personal observations, so it may not apply to everyone. I often feel the same way, especially with tech. For those of us that remember before the internet was ubiquitous, the optimism and promise of the "information super highway" seems in stark contrast with what we see today. I try to keep in mind a few things: First, we are living in a time tha…

For those of us that remember before the internet was ubiquitous, the optimism and promise of the "information super highway" seems in stark contrast with what we see today.

I don't know. I think there's a little bit of a "you see what you're looking for" effect here. I look at the modern Internet, contrasted with the ideas we were talking about in the 90's and early 2000's and I see a lot of the good stuff has come to fruition in wonderful ways. I mean, right now I can use the Internet to sit in my home, jump on Youtube or Khan Academy, or videolectures.net, or Coursera, or Udemy, or Pluralsight, or Brilliant, etc. and for free or cheap learn just about anything I might want to learn. Math? Physics? Chemistry? Linguistics? AI? Geography? History? All there, in spades. And I can jump on Amazon or Alibris or Bookfinder and find cheap used copies of old / out-of-print books, not to mention tons and tons of (legal) free educational content such as the stuff listed at [1]. And if I'm willing to break the law, I can use ZLib, LibGen, etc. to get almost any book I could want. I can go to Stackoverflow, various niche sub-reddits, Mathoverflow, PhysicsForums, etc. etc. and ask questions of knowledgeable people who will help me with things I'm stuck on. And for free.

I don't mean to paint an overly rosy picture here. Obviously there are negatives that have evolved as well. Constant surveillance, the ubiquity of misinformation and conspiracy theories, election manipulation, etc. My point is just that focusing only on the negatives is also a misleading way of looking at things.

Think of what people will say about this time period in 200 years. We are currently feeling the effects of growing pains.

Agreed, 100%. It's a common refrain (one I believe to be true) in evolutionary psychology circles, that "technology advances much faster than human evolution and we are poorly adapted for the world we find ourselves in right now." Unfortunately I'm not sure what exactly we can to to mitigate that. :-(

[1]: https://cain.math.gatech.edu/textbooks/onlinebooks.html

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#197

Post by perceptronas »

I've noticed similar things as well. Especially in contexts where no observability is available as CCTVs or other people. People will behave badly if they can get away unpunished.

I disagree with most of the other comments that its a question of wealth. I know religion arguments are unpopular in this crowd. But in my opinion, lack of similar values derived from religion is starting to cause these issues. Because atheism is de-facto dominant in most of the west today, people don't have the same values anymore. The things you mentioned are simply not regarded as immoral for those people. Everyone will say they can do whatever they want, they don't want to adhere to your values, they have their own unique ones. But at the same time, we cannot deny the fact that how others act around us does impact our mental state as well.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#198

Post by sershe »

The mix of complaints points to two causes

(1) Noisy people, young people not caring about quality, etc - it's caused by a phenomenon called "aging", I'm struggling with that myself.

(2) Major metrics going downhill, etc - the problem here is that you are caught in the spreading epidemic of "watching the news" while at the same time, metrics keep moving up and down and good and bad things keep happening, as before.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#199

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Wow, I’m sorry you feel this way. And I’m glad I don’t have to wake up as you. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but get a grip. Life has always been and always will be mixed with good and bad. No matter if you choose a “pentad” from Roman times, today, or 600 years from now.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#200

Post by autotune »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #157
autotune wrote: post #19

You should strongly consider seeing a therapist, in all honesty. Read some books on mindfulness, consider putting the phone down and staying away from news headlines for a while.

Despite you getting downvoted, I appreciate your input. I do understand how this might help the observer, but it also feels a bit like just look away and act like the problems aren't there. Like we call could meditate for 30 mins a day and feel better about a shitty existence. Or we could spend 30 minutes a day (billions of man hours) doing something about it?

Thank you. This is about increasing your ability to put those man hours to work in a way that makes sense, the most useful thing spending 30 minutes a day meditating does, at least for me, is realign priorities for that day in a way that makes sense.

Whether work related, or just figuring out how to find a way to volunteer in the community more in a way that you are passionate about. You might not be able to stop global warming, but maybe you can donate a book on the legal system to an organization that sends books to prisoners so they can better understand and navigate it.

Honestly this is going to be my last comment on here. It’s time to break the habit once and for all.

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