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

Is everything falling apart?

nonzero.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 970 posts

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#711

Post by MikePlacid »

Ambolia wrote: post #690
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a real danger in just arguing basically "things have always been a shit show, empires collapse, pandemics rage, etc. etc." for a couple reasons: 1. While true, lets not ignore the fact that things get really, really, really bad during those periods where empires do collapse, or environmental damage causes ecosystem collapse, etc. etc. I mean, yes, you could argue "Hey, the Black Death killed a 3rd of…

Furthermore, collapse doesn't happen everywhere the same, nor all at once. It's more like things break down slowly, and never get fixed rather than explosions on the street, until one day you are a third world country. And third world countries still have very nice neighborhoods, and very rich people. But everything around gets much worse.

> collapse doesn't happen everywhere the same, nor all at once.

Frankly, I have a “living experience” of a practically instantaneous collapse. January 1, 1992. Prices were “freed”, (hyper)inflation started, people life savings were burned to dust, monthly pensions - at once - begin to cover just about a week of food (and were not paid until 3 months later). Policemen’ salaries became meaningless and the police - in the whole country - started to look for additional ways to feed their families… It all happened pretty fast.

So “inflation” is a trigger word for me since. And you can imagine unease I am watching the US government printing shiploads of money with.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#712

Post by user3939382 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #44
taylodl wrote: post #8

The constant theme since the dawn of civilization threaded through all of history is that everything is falling apart. Change is continual. History is more like the seasons. Nations rise. Nations fall. Sometimes there's revolt. Sometimes there's peace. There's a continual game of King of the Mountain being played at all levels. So what can we say? Situation Normal - all effed up! Enjoy this phenomenon called life. Yo…

Eh, there have been institutions with almost absurd longevity in history. The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II. Ancient Egypt was already thousands of years old when Socrates harassed aristocrats in Athens. It's very easy to forget that the revolutions of Britain, France, America, Russia; it happened just a few generations ago, and upended most of t…

Based on this study https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi... I would say our “Democracy” is a farce/sham.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#713

Post by TrevorJ »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #671
buscoquadnary wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the USSR isn't around anymore and they had quite a few nukes so....

I think we got lucky with that one. A special set of circumstances that are unlikely to repeat.

We got lucky with that one so far.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#714

Post by fallingknife »

4ggr0 wrote: post #257
fallingknife wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one is trying to change sex or biological genders Except when they let men compete in women's sports. So if I have to choose between the new lefty version of gender, or what we had before, I'm going to choose the old way because it didn't result in comically ridiculous outcomes like that.

Granted, sports is a topic which we haven't really figured out yet. I'm also thinking about it a lot, how we could shape sports competitions, or if we leave the categorizations as they are etc. I don't have a definitive solution or answer to that. But - What you describe doesn't really happen that often and its made a bigger issue than it really is. Yes, it happens. Yes, some do seem to maliciously abuse it. Yes, we…

I don't even know what it means to 'accept' someones sexuality or not. It doesn't affect me so I don't consider it my business. What I am saying is that if a model produces a ridiculous outcome, like men competing in women's sports, it's probably not a good model.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#715

Post by imtringued »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #449
mym1990 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was just going to say this. We have gotten away from any kind of accountability as a standard, and some of that is driven by the fact that our leadership(no one specific, talking about the state of global leadership currently) shows no accountability either.

The system is wrong. It already has been corrupted to a very large degree, because, surprise, people who gained power, like to retain it and an average power broker is as willing to let go of it as an average mollusc attached to a rock. The problem is that workable solution within the confines of the system requires somewhat educated populace. Or maybe not educated given the state of education in US. I do see signs o…

This reminds me of negative interest rates because they are inherently about giving up power, or rather, artificially raising interest rates from the negative range is about maintaining power.

Let's say there are sources of excess power like political corruption. You can gain a lot of power over a short period of time but you want that power to last long. You wouldn't want to be corrupt and become rich for 5 years, be voted out then be poor again, you want to be rich your entire life long after your political career has ended.

That excess power needs to be stored somehow. We use land and money to store this excess power. In my opinion, corruption wouldn't be as widespread if its impact didn't outlive the original act of corruption.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#716

Post by ryandrake »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #219
ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

I mean the default assumption/mode of thought of the average uninformed person today seems to be a cynical one, at least judging from friends/family and top ranked posts from random people on the Internet. Given a situation in which they have zero knowledge, they will assume a conspiracy, cheating, corruption, malice, or some kind of deliberate inequality or unfairness in which they are the disadvantaged party. Usual…

Maybe this has something to do with the declining belief in god and religion that another poster mentioned. Things that the average Joe used to simply blame on god are now being blamed on the "Shadowy Elite" boogeymen, who are purportedly always conspiring against the public.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#717

Post by rotexo »

uejfiweun wrote: post #707
rotexo wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Like many in my generation, I used to not worry about it at all. Now I am a bit obsessive—constantly checking my name, number, and address on people finder sites and sending takedown requests when they pop back up, and currently trying to transition all my online accounts to use e-mail addresses provided by Hide My E-mail on iCloud (which is quite the project). Seems like changing my e-mail on different accoun…

Can't you sue these people? This situation sounds pretty ridiculous.

I was advised by multiple sources not to try. The initial people took down the info pretty immediately, but now it persists over a lot of forums, blog posts, etc., so I imagine it would be a game of whack-a-mole that would require significant legal resources, and it would draw a lot of attention, which would be unpleasant.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#718

Post by imtringued »

TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

You know, the problem with both is actually the same. The home owner and pensioner both rely on a young population that will take care of them. Owning a home only reduces the need to build one, which is better than nothing but it does not reduce the need to farm food for example.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#719

Post by rmbyrro »

ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

Perhaps journalists think everything is falling apart because journalism is falling apart.

Journalism is everything to these journalists. It shouldn't, but it seems it does.

Hence, these journalists think everything is falling apart.

But our everything is much greater. And it's not falling apart.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#720

Post by 4ggr0 »

ttytg wrote: post #709
4ggr0 wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I am being petty, but - "For example, in a recent women's swimming competition, Lia Thomas, who is MALE, was permitted to compete on the basis of HIS gender identity claims" At least address her with the correct pronouns, that's the least you could do in such a discussion. I hope my comment is not interpreted as arrogant, my point is that even if we are discussing biological sex that is no reason to strip peop…

I understand the point you are making, but I feel that using a female pronoun while discussing Thomas being male would have been the more jarring linguistic choice, given the subject.

I know what you mean. But pronouns which relate to social gender can be differentiated from sex/biological gender.

To rewrite your original comment, "Lia Thomas, who was born male, was permitted to compete on the basis of her gender identity claims" would be a fine and understandable statement, I think.

When talking about the person Lia Thomas, we are talking about a woman. She's Lia Thomas. Yes, she was assigned male at birth and her biological gender is male, but the person is female.

Again, I am maybe a bit petty, but I think this is exactly one of these important aspects when talking about transsexuality.

I'm not really disagreeing with what you're essentially saying, just trying to make a point about transsexuality.

Post reply on HN