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Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#641

Post by lucb1e »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #204

A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. The material conditions of regular people are continuously getting worse as more and more of their income is stripped away by rent seeking oligopolies, mainly increasing housing costs but depending on your jurisdiction all sorts of other costs (eg. cable and mobile phone costs an issue in some pl…

> the increasing unaffordability of life

Define: life

What life exactly can people not afford anymore? The kind people had in 1900? 1950? 2000? What kind of trend are you indicating here, the last two years only or something broader? Because I don't know of a country not actively at war whose chance on a good life didn't improve over the last generation.

Things are ever getting better. Very few people would be willing to go back even to the level of life in 2000 where the internet was not commonplace (Wikipedia hadn't even started, let alone have some volume to it) and smartphones wouldn't exist for years to come either. Health and education also got better since then, though it was already very good in the rich countries that you and I are both likely from. Gas prices were lower, but you can choose to live in a place where you don't need to drive anywhere ever (i.e., most cities in most rich countries). I have a colleague in his 30s who doesn't have a driver's license because he's got no interest in it. It also saves a ton of money not to own a vehicle and just pay for the subsidized public transport. It's all choices you can make to live a very good life, affordably.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#642

Post by onetimeusename »

lucb1e wrote: post #610
onetimeusename wrote: post #532

You're not off base regarding the cars and the crime. It is well documented. There has been an increase in traffic accidents the last three years and I have been following it because I wondered myself if I noticed it. NHTSA gives an update biannually I think. Road traffic deaths per mile driven increased in 2020, 2021, and 2022. I think it's still unknown if this is starting to revert to the pre pandemic mean but I h…

> There has been an increase in traffic accidents the last three years and I have been following it because I wondered myself if I noticed it. Since you're not citing any, I'm going to just go off the first figures I found which go until 2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Yes it went up, yes you should pay attention and fix it if reasonably possible. But keep it in perspective: it we…

It's plausible people might not notice traffic deaths but this assumes there is absolutely no correlation with general driving experience and road safety which is unlikely. Also, this is thousands of extra deaths and on a year over year basis that happened since 2020 when it had been trending down previously so I think it's quite plausible that people notice and it happened rapidly. But that is just one particular statistic the NHTSA published to extrapolate from. There is an older study showing an increase in speeding incidents in 2020.[1] This is a 50% increase which seems likely to be noticeable although this study only counted a short period in one location. The problem with a lot of the statistics besides NHTSA traffic fatality I have tracked is they tend to be specific to one area and not nationwide. But, we also know speeding is associated with higher traffic fatality per the NHTSA.

I kind of suspect you are just looking to downplay the statistics but there is another metric that can be used except it is not tracked by the NHTSA and could be biased. But a quick search for "increase in road rage incidents" will show that a number of states have had this issue since 2020. Unfortunately, there is a non profit that may have a bias collecting the data but it has been reported on.[2] Basically road rage murders increased a lot in 2021 and 2020 and all over the country it seems. This is not what is tracked by the NHTSA since these are murders as far as I can tell. To me it seems like quite a stretch that there can be increases in road rage incidents which are associated with speeding and aggressive driving and that there is a corresponding unnoticeable decline in driver etiquette. It's likely quite noticeable.

As I said, I am following this issue because I noticed a change but I don't think there is going to be any easy way to prove anything given how long it takes to collect statistics and a lot of what can provide proof is not recorded in any usable way. I also said the issue is well documented and you can find a lot from disparate sources.

update: NHTSA launched a campaign to remind drivers not to speed recently. The campaign page has related information and statistics relevant here. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-launches-new-camp...

[1]: https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2258

[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/road-rage-shootings-guns-2021/

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#643

Post by vinaypai »

So when were things better according to you? During the 2010s post-housing-bubble crash? The 2000s with the dotcom bubble and 9/11 and subsequent wars? 1990s AIDS epidemic? 1980s with Reagan's trickle-down economics and all the insanity of the cold war? 1970s and the Vietnam war?

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#644

Post by gardenhedge »

shigawire wrote: post #279
eldritch_4ier wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you dress that way to meet your partner's parents for the first time? Or to see a friend you haven't seen in years? Or to represent your company at an event? What about going somewhere where you are expected to be a role model? Of course not. That's because you give a shit about the impression you give in those situations and understand the kind of atmosphere and impression it gives if you dress like a bum. Now…

So if I get milk I sweatpants I'm degrading to social fabric of my community?

If the communities view is that you are then I guess you are

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#645

Post by gardenhedge »

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…

> What someone wears is a part of their self-expression

Disagree. I generally wear jeans, t-shirt and jumper. It literally has nothing to do with self expression.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#646

Post by vinaypai »

User23 wrote: post #554
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…

Just because a thing has a name doesn't mean it's true. In many ways the past was better than the present. For example in 1965 a single average wage earner could afford a 15 year mortgage for a nice house in a nice neighborhood. And don't even get me started on architecture. There's no rosy colored glasses there. Contemporary five over ones are abominable.

If by "everyone" you mean white males.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#647

Post by tbrownaw »

badpun wrote: post #533
PessimalDecimal wrote: post #25

> People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained. > Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world. Folks stealing shit. People driving absurdly danger…

I wonder how much popular culture has to do with it. For example, when you sincerely listen to rap lyrics, a lot of it (and from the biggest names too) sound like a deranged, narcissistic, and sometimes violent, rants. When people hear that around them from the youngest age, they get the understandsting that such outlook on life is within the accepted norms (or, more likely, the music tells them to don't care about a…

> Smart people from decent backgrounds can see through this filth or even use it as harmless entertainment - but, for other people, it can instill antisocial behaviour.

Ignoring the other part of the comment, this sentence sounds quite a bit like the stories I've heard about people who very loudly knew that unlike everyone else, they had enough self-control to play with the nastier drugs safely.

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#649

Post by lucb1e »

onetimeusename wrote: post #642
lucb1e wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been an increase in traffic accidents the last three years and I have been following it because I wondered myself if I noticed it. Since you're not citing any, I'm going to just go off the first figures I found which go until 2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Yes it went up, yes you should pay attention and fix it if reasonably possible. But keep it in perspective: it we…

It's plausible people might not notice traffic deaths but this assumes there is absolutely no correlation with general driving experience and road safety which is unlikely. Also, this is thousands of extra deaths and on a year over year basis that happened since 2020 when it had been trending down previously so I think it's quite plausible that people notice and it happened rapidly. But that is just one particular st…

> Basically road rage murders increased a lot in 2021 and 2020 and all over the country it seems.

These incidents are a tiny tiny fraction of all non-accidental injuries or unnatural deaths occurring. Yes it went up, yes you should pay attention and fix it if reasonably possible. But again: keep it in perspective. Singling out a metric that went up while, say, the total burden of disease (on the scale of comparing to other countries and across decades) essentially stayed the same[1] and... okay honestly I'm having trouble finding a metric where the USA improved over the last years (or, if 2021+ data is not yet available, even the last decade). Still, not sure that means things are suddenly bad. OP's sentiment and a lot of this thread is that the world is going to shit, which is objectively not true if the USA maintains its quality of life and not-so-wealthy/healthy places are continuously improving.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dalys-rate-from-all-cause...

Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

#650

Post by dorkwood »

nabakin wrote: post #545
cedws wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 21 and I think everything's going to shit as well... is it doomerism or reality? Politicians appear increasingly corrupt and selfish. Geopolitics are becoming less stable. Innovation is coming to a standstill. The average person just wants a decent job, a nice place to live, and maybe a family. All of these are becoming more and more difficult to achieve. Is it any wonder kids are checking out of life en masse?

> Innovation is coming to a standstill Machine learning is getting significantly more powerful by the month, nuclear fusion technology has been advancing at a much faster pace recently (not even counting the NIF's breakthrough), though shrouded in scams and misrepresentation the technology behind cryptocurrency is extremely impressive, the cost and efficiency of green technology just keeps improving, the cost and eff…

> though shrouded in scams and misrepresentation the technology behind cryptocurrency is extremely impressive

Can someone explain in layman’s terms what the impressive parts are? The mania surrounding NFTs left a bad taste in my mouth. I’d like to keep an open mind about the technology.

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