Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Modern Malaise

ava.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 144 posts

Re: Modern Malaise

#61

Post by epgui »

formulatwothree wrote: post #55
epgui wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS.: I don’t know what I said to trigger you, but you don’t need to continue posting arguments to other comments I make across various threads. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

You did trigger me. Read your first reply to me. Your comment really pissed me off, it was intentionally rude. "New flash" Either way it got me curious and I started reading your other comments and I realized you're just not a very nice person and highly mistaken about a lot of things. You're not very logical or scientific or academically inclined. So I just wanted to help you out and teach you some stuff that's all.…

I can accept that it was rude, and I apologize for that, but you should know that it wasn’t the intention.

Re: Modern Malaise

#62

Post by bandyaboot »

peatfreak wrote: post #11

I was taking this article seriously until I arrived at the Terrence McKenna bit. His opinions are highly subjective, based on personal experience with drugs, and they aren't a compelling, testable, or comparable line of thought. Not to mention that TM is pretentious as hell and basis his whole outlook on life on doing loads of DMT (he hardly talks about anything else).

> I was taking this article seriously until I arrived at the Terrence McKenna bit.

Is possible to think some parts are good and other parts not so good?

Re: Modern Malaise

#63

Post by [deleted] »

seibelj wrote: post #50
archhn wrote: post #39

Most of us feel it. It's real. Don't let anyone gaslight you. You aren't sick: our culture is sick. (For those alone and struggling). Social alienation is the source of much mental illnesses. Poverty itself isn't the source of most people's misery. Our society is our preservation matrix. If we cannot reproduce or at least contribute to something beyond ourselves that bears the promise of persisting, we are left alone…

I believe in hard work, sacrifice, and family… ideals and virtues that have provided solace and guidance to humanity for our entire existence. It seems to be the hyper-online types that reject traditional values that are the most depressed and apocalyptic in their mindset. Myself - I look outside and the sun is shining, my kids are playing, everything is good in the world to me.

[deleted]

Re: Modern Malaise

#64

Post by seydor »

>How can the world get better if no one is steering?

Did it get better when somebody was steering? hitler was a strong and popular leader. Democracy is about people being self-governmed, not about having a strong leader

Individualism is the ultimate goal of this Enlightenment era that we are still part of. The goal was to take away the power from the monarch and the collective, and empower the individual, and our civilization is succeeding at it, but our politics do not adapt. There is a reason why social democracy is unpopular in europe now: younger generations realized it was an unsustainable ponzi scheme. Our future is individualist, but our politics is hopelessly centered on the worship of The Leader

Re: Modern Malaise

#65

Post by formulatwothree »

epgui wrote: post #61
formulatwothree wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did trigger me. Read your first reply to me. Your comment really pissed me off, it was intentionally rude. "New flash" Either way it got me curious and I started reading your other comments and I realized you're just not a very nice person and highly mistaken about a lot of things. You're not very logical or scientific or academically inclined. So I just wanted to help you out and teach you some stuff that's all.…

I can accept that it was rude, and I apologize for that, but you should know that it wasn’t the intention.

News flash! it was really rude and was intentionally so! Just like this statement.

But even if it wasn't rude, who cares. It's no longer relevant. We've both moved on.

Re: Modern Malaise

#66

Post by thrwawy74 »

seydor wrote: post #64

>How can the world get better if no one is steering? Did it get better when somebody was steering? hitler was a strong and popular leader. Democracy is about people being self-governmed, not about having a strong leader Individualism is the ultimate goal of this Enlightenment era that we are still part of. The goal was to take away the power from the monarch and the collective, and empower the individual, and our civ…

In the states we feel like we're just coming into perspective on social democracy. Can you tell me a bit more about why it doesn't work? (genuine question) I'd like to think I sharply understand the differences between communism and socialism - and social democracy - and that some of my older family members confuse these all as the same thing. Why is social democracy unpopular in Europe?

Re: Modern Malaise

#67

Post by seydor »

thrwawy74 wrote: post #66
seydor wrote: post #64

>How can the world get better if no one is steering? Did it get better when somebody was steering? hitler was a strong and popular leader. Democracy is about people being self-governmed, not about having a strong leader Individualism is the ultimate goal of this Enlightenment era that we are still part of. The goal was to take away the power from the monarch and the collective, and empower the individual, and our civ…

In the states we feel like we're just coming into perspective on social democracy. Can you tell me a bit more about why it doesn't work? (genuine question) I'd like to think I sharply understand the differences between communism and socialism - and social democracy - and that some of my older family members confuse these all as the same thing. Why is social democracy unpopular in Europe?

demographics. The boomer years was that sweet moment where social democracy dependent on intergenerational debt became possible, but only assuming endless growth of population and economy. Then the neoliberal years came and prices of everything went up, so everything is unreachable for younger generations. They tried to replace the missing population with immigrants but that channel also got saturated. Younger people are just not feeling that level of support that previous generations did

Re: Modern Malaise

#68

Post by seydor »

jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #49

> All meritocratic platforms are winner-take-all, with the top 1% of performers collecting a vastly disproportionate share of rewards. Even if you simulate an economy where every participant starts out with the same amount of money, and all trades are completely random, over enough trades the participants' wealth will still end up in a power-law distribution.

This seems to be a basic principle of biology which fractally translates to entire societies. Piketty's data shows that historically, the curve was flattened only when the economy itself was upended, i.e. after wars. We need to engineer peaceful ways that violently rearrange the economy. A parallel money system like cryptos might have been used for that, but so far it has done the opposite

Re: Modern Malaise

#69

Post by quickthrower2 »

jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #49

> All meritocratic platforms are winner-take-all, with the top 1% of performers collecting a vastly disproportionate share of rewards. Even if you simulate an economy where every participant starts out with the same amount of money, and all trades are completely random, over enough trades the participants' wealth will still end up in a power-law distribution.

A top 1% on it’s own is not a problem. It is the power they have over everything to not only keep things that way but make life worse for everyone else. For example by lobbying for laws that help corporations not people.

Re: Modern Malaise

#70

Post by DeWilde »

seydor wrote: post #64

>How can the world get better if no one is steering? Did it get better when somebody was steering? hitler was a strong and popular leader. Democracy is about people being self-governmed, not about having a strong leader Individualism is the ultimate goal of this Enlightenment era that we are still part of. The goal was to take away the power from the monarch and the collective, and empower the individual, and our civ…

Are our societies ready for a real democracy, that is a direct vote on all issues type of self-governing rule where anything can be put up to a vote including votes for execution of members of the society?

Or did you mean something else?

Post reply on HN