Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol I'd never imagined I'd see a comment like this here of all places.
There are plenty of socialists and non-capitalists in tech.
Me for example, I am Communist.
Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
91–100 of 835 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#92I really think a lot of these problems can be traced back to the introduction of the iPhone.
Physical reality has taken a backseat to the digital world, so physical reality has been neglected. Living in a world of physical neglect has hurt our health, and affects our ability to build the digital one.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#93I think availability bias and confirmation bias may play a role in things seeming worse. Incidences of violence, unrest that in the past would have gone unreported, unnoticed is made obvious and immediate on social media. Social media makes it easier to compare one's social status to someone else.
Yeah this was definitely a thought.
Was everything always crap and I'm just more aware of it now?
The picture hasnt changed the lens just got clearer.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#94I didn't read the whole thing because the answer is simple. The fall of the Berlin Wall was not the end of the Cold War and the paranoia, distrust and apathy you sense now are the culminations of Russia's Eastern German techniques to the West. We have been in an almost entirely psychological war since 1991. The decline of the West was primarily due to the fact we had a high trust society that foreigners from Europe t…
is this an anti-semtitic conspiracy or a possibly more delusional russia disinfo conspiracy.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#95The economy is just increasingly fake or rewarding foolish scummy behaviour instead of honest cooperative work. People coasted for 10+ years now on "passive income" from printed money along with almost no enforcement action against scams. That gave rise to a chain reaction of people trying to scam each other in a general revenge.
Take for example a big slice of the economy - real estate. Honest real estate agents who try to match real needs to real properties were totally displaced (or outcompeted) by agents who spam fake ads in order to secure an exclusive contract with unfair terms and sell you the biggest property you can afford with no regard of your actual needs. The Fed in turn backstops any losses and buys toxic mortgages perpetuating the scheme.
Further, imagine an economy entirely comprised of real estate agents (or even NFT traders). In such economy, there is only so much real need for agents, at some point there will be more agents than the market really needs. At that point the only way to survive in the market is to become adversarial, it is in your best interest to outspend everybody on deceptive marketing, then mismatch buyers and sellers so that they will have to come back to you looking for new deals once they realise they were mismatched. And again the only reason people can keep this mismatched economy going is because the Fed/congress flood the system with money and their mistakes are rewarded (in asset price inflation at least).
This is the economy we have now more or less in the different sectors. And policy makers can't touch anything because they prioritise stability and growth.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#9630-50 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?
To echo the sentiments of the other commenter: is it really fair to compare everything to the period immediately after the USA won a global mega war and all the other regions internally tore themselves apart?
I assume you live in the US because you probably wouldn't be glorifying 30-50 years ago if you lived in USSR sphere or any country affected by the proxy wars.
Why don't you pick a more representative time period of human existence for comparison, like 1800s or something.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#97The big one for me is the death of publicly funded education here in the UK. Before Thatcher's cuts in the mid 80s grants covered the total cost unless you had wealthy parents. Around the same time the Fair Rent Act was abolished. I date THE GREAT DECLINE from this point in history.
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#98I think we're on the verge/in the middle of a stagnating/shrinking pie. When we're not growing in population and wealth things get dark as people chase zero-sum short term gains at the expense of others. Distrust runs rampant, people turn to the extraction of their peers vs expansion with their new friends. It will get better. Edit: Think bigger than the extractors!
To add to this - the car guy might think he has something to prove by blaring his engine at 7am: "I'm going to show them all" or something.
An alternative thought is "I'm not going to do that because I don't want to upset potential friends/future relationships that will benefit me"
Likewise, it sounds like you're upset at all of these people and would like to just be left alone
An alternative thought is "Look at all of these people around me who are don't feel like they have a place in the community or that they won't have enough in the future. What can I offer to my community, and how can I get them involved?"
Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#99> 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…
>being a grown-ass adult in pajamas out in public I'm with you about all the other things but people wearing whatever clothes they want to affects you in literally no way shape or form.
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Re: Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?
#100OP, At the risk of sounding like self promotion, I have 2 products that I am working on and really want to be as "just" as possible. ( One of them being https://mergeclouds.com/ , it is still work in progress ) .
1) Non-recurring , fixed price .
2) The software will not stop working even after privacy / terms update ( you are not forced to agree to use keep them ). They will just work based on last configuration of privacy policy when you bought them .
Basically treating software like a physical product, you pay for them once and regardless of how manufacturing changes does not change how product you already own functions. At-least from my side as a developer I completely agree and am trying to stay true.