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On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

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Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#31

Post by cableshaft »

andrewmutz wrote: post #20
cableshaft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). Or US life expectancy, or healthcare/childcare/university costs (in the US), or homicides (in the US), or suicides, or population growth (arguably a good thing for climate change, but most people aren't choosing to put of…

When I look up many of these bad numbers you mention, they do not seem very bad. Life expectancy is up and to the right ( https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life... ), homocide has recently had an uptick but on a longer time scale is good ( https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... ), and the suicide rate is about the same as it was 30-40 years ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org…

The crime/life expectancy stuff were just things I've been hearing about the most recent few years. They've been mostly on a better trend if you extend the timescale, sure, but the pandemic threw a total monkey wrench into everything, and these things are going the wrong direction again.

Will it stay that way, I don't know, maybe not, but they're not currently getting better, which is counter to the 'everything is doing better except these two things' the parent was suggesting. And I suspect as the other issues (such as the following paragraph) become even worse, all these figures will start doing a lot worse again, as people have to start competing/fighting/possibly going to war, over a smaller and smaller number of resources.

The war in Ukraine really shined a light on that, as food and natural gas availability became a big problem for many countries.

Topsoil and water and animal life and freshwater and other things are doing much, much worse though, and very little is being done to reverse course there (and will take hundreds of generations to fix naturally even if we stop 100% now).

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#32

Post by edflsafoiewq »

a_e_k wrote: post #11
ASlave2Gravity wrote: post #5

Easily one of my favourite novels. It's riddled with beauty; there is a lens held up to the shepherding of knowledge that made me really appreciate what it means to be a scholar. It's a wild ride and I think a book people should read. My fav quote, "When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.”

Definitely one of my favorites, too. There's an elegiac quality to it that I haven't quite seen in any other novel. I have a number of quotations jotted down from it, but since this a tech site I'll restrict myself to sharing this one that I sometimes think of when dealing with a recalcitrant machine or mysterious bug: "That contraption--listen, Brother, they claim it thinks. I didn't believe it at first. Thought, im…

"Sell it to an atheist! No that wouldn't be kind. Sell it for scrap!"

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#33

Post by TranquilMarmot »

xoxxala wrote: post #26

In the early 90s, I read all of the Hugo winners at the time. A Canticle for Leibowitz was one of my favorites. A few years later, it was one of the three major influences we used when making the original Fallout (along with Road Warrior and City of Lost Children).

That's so funny. I played Fallout many many years before reading A Canticle for Leibowitz and couldn't stop thinking "So much of this FEELS like Fallout".

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#34

Post by aatharuv »

xoxxala wrote: post #26

In the early 90s, I read all of the Hugo winners at the time. A Canticle for Leibowitz was one of my favorites. A few years later, it was one of the three major influences we used when making the original Fallout (along with Road Warrior and City of Lost Children).

I believe that Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog" was also a major influence behind it.

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#35

Post by jdkee »

andrewmutz wrote: post #4

Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). What does this mean? Why the difference between the measurable state of the world and the doomer disc…

This video on the deaths in WWII will put things into perspective.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#36

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

gumby wrote: post #28
cableshaft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). Or US life expectancy, or healthcare/childcare/university costs (in the US), or homicides (in the US), or suicides, or population growth (arguably a good thing for climate change, but most people aren't choosing to put of…

The US is only 5% of the population. On a global scale all of those factors are improving. Just as the Gibson quote went: "The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed"

That suggests Rest of World will soon experience the decline the US, UK and some other Western countries are experiencing.

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#37

Post by gumby »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #36
gumby wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is only 5% of the population. On a global scale all of those factors are improving. Just as the Gibson quote went: "The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed"

That suggests Rest of World will soon experience the decline the US, UK and some other Western countries are experiencing.

Or that the USA will eventually catch up with the more advanced nations. Actually even if everybody regressed to the mean it would be a step up for the States.

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#38

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

andrewmutz wrote: post #21
_dw7s wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness. You can read reviews from experts to figure out what's wrong with it. But I've often seen these arguments in the context of 'everything is going great, there's nothing to worry about' with arguments such as 'we had the most people lifted out of poverty ever in history'. In my view that's just capitalist koolaid to k…

> The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness Hans Rosling is right. And the success of the world does not mean we shouldn't work to improve it. It means we shouldn't be doomers and think the world is falling apart. Max Roser said it well with "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better." https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-a…

If Rosling is right why are NASA scientists gluing themselves to oil company offices to make a point about climate catastrophe?

We're about to learn that you can't spreadsheet and infographic your way out of a collapsing ecosystem.

And we're going to do it the hard and stupid way, because the intelligent way required changes starting 30 or 40 years ago.

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#39

Post by xoxxala »

aatharuv wrote: post #34
xoxxala wrote: post #26

In the early 90s, I read all of the Hugo winners at the time. A Canticle for Leibowitz was one of my favorites. A few years later, it was one of the three major influences we used when making the original Fallout (along with Road Warrior and City of Lost Children).

I believe that Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog" was also a major influence behind it.

Absolutely, but we didn't refer to it as much as the other three. But besides Dogmeat, it also influenced the Vaults.

Re: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

#40

Post by fnordpiglet »

cableshaft wrote: post #13
andrewmutz wrote: post #4

Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). What does this mean? Why the difference between the measurable state of the world and the doomer disc…

> If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). Or US life expectancy, or healthcare/childcare/university costs (in the US), or homicides (in the US), or suicides, or population growth (arguably a good thing for climate change, but most people aren't choosing to put of…

Declining population growth is in all ways a positive. Rising population is a good thing to essentially linearly improve nominal GDP, but does little to improve per capita GDP. Other than that nominal GDP bump I struggle to see any positive associated with population growth. Most people put off having kids because, effectively, people are living much longer and it’s economically easier to have kids older. Effective contraception, sexual education, extended life spans, and a general social acceptance that children aren’t the mark of a successful life are IMO primary contributors to that decline.

I would note in my own life we waited a long time to have a kid because we wanted to be engaged in our careers early on. Once we had a kid we decided to stop simply because we enjoyed the focus on our daughter and didn’t see having a ton of kids as a social imperative. That puts our family at below replacement rate. My experience isn’t particularly unique among the parents I know, and we are actually younger than many.

I know all of the above is anecdotal and conjecture, but I’m fairly confident if I did my normal citation and data collection I would largely be supported (having seen the data and analysis in the past) but I’m sick and have too little energy right now.

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