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The Lost Decade:What the World Can Learn from 10 Years of Excesses

21 points by sdave 17y ago

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
>In a few days, the first decade of the 21st century and of the third millennium will come to an end. Sigh. Given that our calendar started with year one and not year zero, the first decade of the 21st century started in 2001 and will end at the close of 2010. /datenerd
- dhoe 17y ago
  So you define millennium as "years passed since year 1", and think that those who count "years passed since year -1" are wrong? Interesting.
  - gloob 17y ago
    Yes, in just the same way that I think people who start counting from -1 on a measuring tape or from 37 on a speedometer are doing it wrong. Just because a convention is entirely arbitrary doesn't prevent people from being wrong about it.
- barrkel 17y ago
  I believe counting out decades is a secular concept oriented towards the decimal numbers involved, rather than a religious concept founded in a old mistaken date for the birth of an historical Jesus. In other words, the precise starting point of the calendar doesn't mean much to normal people who use the term "decade".
mixmax 17y ago
One page: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-668729,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-6...
mixmax 17y ago
This made me extremely sad: Over the last decade, the Western political system has lost its claim to global preeminence; it is no longer certain whether democracy will eventually prevail everywhere. In fact, it is not even certain that it will last forever in Western countries.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  That would only necessarily be bad if you believe democracy is an end in and of itself, or the theoretical pinnacle of governmental systems for freedom or whatever else your end goal is.
  - mixmax 17y ago
    I like your positivity, maybe something better than democracy will emerge. As Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried" I felt sad because the article implied that the decline of democracy might imply the rise of totalitarian rule.
    - mattlanger 17y ago
      Keep in mind that the article culminated with two key arguments, first that "the Western way of life is coming under pressure from two sides at once, Islam and climate change" and second that "the West can still be strong, provided it remains true to itself, its concept of humanity, which is based on Christian ideas, and democracy". That the author seems to view the present through the lens of a struggle between Islam and Christianity, it is somewhat unsurprising that he should view the future through the similarly black-and-white lens of Western democracy v. totalitarianism.
      - euroclydon 17y ago
        Islam and climate change: Now those are some strange bedfellows.
        17y ago
Freebytes 17y ago
I found the article interesting if only for the comparison of information connectivity to electrical connectivity. Just as some people feel that electricity is a basic necessity, people also feel the same about communication. A mere 30 years ago, people could not have imagined such a statement.
billswift 17y ago
"Climate change" isn't putting any pressure on civilization, at least not yet. Only the politicians and bureaucrats who want to use it to increase their power are putting pressure on civilization. (And researchers, sucking up to the gov't teat, who want to increase their grants).
gamble 17y ago
Whether the 2000s feel like a lost decade depends a lot on where you lived. I don't think they were particularly bad for Canada - we had a strong economy and currency, decent government, and Quebec separatism is almost a non-issue now. We shared in the US recessions, but neither has been anywhere near as severe in Canada. We enjoyed the commodities bubble without suffering from a housing bust. All told, I don't have many complaints. Similarly, I doubt it would be easy to find many eastern Europeans, Indians, or Asians that felt the 2000s were worse than the 1990s.
btilly 17y ago
I only skimmed after this paragraph. The internationally most successful film of the decade was "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Harry Potter was the most successful literary character. Both are children's stories that are also enjoyed by adults. We are withdrawing into an infantile world, in which attractive heroes conquer evil. The modern fairy tale is our response to a harsh world. Harry Potter, yes. But he thinks that The Lord of the Rings is a children's tale?? Sorry, but no. Fairy tales started as stories for grownups, and were made into children's stories when grownups stopped believing in them. However Tolkien was aware that the structure of the fairy tale lends itself to darker themes that aren't for children, and the LotR is a deliberate exploration of that dynamic. Judging by my quick skim of the rest, he recited a lot of things I already knew without any real attempt at analysis, then called it perspective.
grellas 17y ago
Economic misery and turmoil through war are not new to the 21st century, and the fact that we did not achieve unending prosperity through an Internet-based economy or eternal peace through the end of the cold war should come as a surprise to none but the most naive of observers of human nature. This decade was no more "lost" than was the generation that followed the "war to end all wars." Both labels arise from those who placed unbounded hopes in human potential only to discover that the drivers in this world can often be as malevolent as they can be good. Will the information age change any of this, as the authors imply? There is much good that indeed comes from having the interconnectedness of instant worldwide communication and of social networks and the like. But, if someone is going to argue that this will alter centuries of human experience that has been bedeviled by the bad as well as the good, he will have to come up with something far more convincing than the headline-level analysis and naive hope in new political structures that the authors seem to espouse as the basis for our future hope.

21 points by sdave 17y ago

>In a few days, the first decade of the 21st century and of the third millennium will come to an end. Sigh. Given that our calendar started with year one and not year zero, the first decade of the 21st century started in 2001 and will end at the close of 2010. /datenerd

dhoe 17y ago
So you define millennium as "years passed since year 1", and think that those who count "years passed since year -1" are wrong? Interesting.
- gloob 17y ago
  Yes, in just the same way that I think people who start counting from -1 on a measuring tape or from 37 on a speedometer are doing it wrong. Just because a convention is entirely arbitrary doesn't prevent people from being wrong about it.
barrkel 17y ago
I believe counting out decades is a secular concept oriented towards the decimal numbers involved, rather than a religious concept founded in a old mistaken date for the birth of an historical Jesus. In other words, the precise starting point of the calendar doesn't mean much to normal people who use the term "decade".

mixmax 17y ago

One page: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-668729,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-6...

mixmax 17y ago

This made me extremely sad: Over the last decade, the Western political system has lost its claim to global preeminence; it is no longer certain whether democracy will eventually prevail everywhere. In fact, it is not even certain that it will last forever in Western countries.

randallsquared 17y ago
That would only necessarily be bad if you believe democracy is an end in and of itself, or the theoretical pinnacle of governmental systems for freedom or whatever else your end goal is.
- mixmax 17y ago
  I like your positivity, maybe something better than democracy will emerge. As Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried" I felt sad because the article implied that the decline of democracy might imply the rise of totalitarian rule.
  - mattlanger 17y ago
    Keep in mind that the article culminated with two key arguments, first that "the Western way of life is coming under pressure from two sides at once, Islam and climate change" and second that "the West can still be strong, provided it remains true to itself, its concept of humanity, which is based on Christian ideas, and democracy". That the author seems to view the present through the lens of a struggle between Islam and Christianity, it is somewhat unsurprising that he should view the future through the similarly black-and-white lens of Western democracy v. totalitarianism.
    - euroclydon 17y ago
      Islam and climate change: Now those are some strange bedfellows.
      - 17y ago

Freebytes 17y ago

I found the article interesting if only for the comparison of information connectivity to electrical connectivity. Just as some people feel that electricity is a basic necessity, people also feel the same about communication. A mere 30 years ago, people could not have imagined such a statement.

billswift 17y ago

"Climate change" isn't putting any pressure on civilization, at least not yet. Only the politicians and bureaucrats who want to use it to increase their power are putting pressure on civilization. (And researchers, sucking up to the gov't teat, who want to increase their grants).

gamble 17y ago

Whether the 2000s feel like a lost decade depends a lot on where you lived. I don't think they were particularly bad for Canada - we had a strong economy and currency, decent government, and Quebec separatism is almost a non-issue now. We shared in the US recessions, but neither has been anywhere near as severe in Canada. We enjoyed the commodities bubble without suffering from a housing bust. All told, I don't have many complaints. Similarly, I doubt it would be easy to find many eastern Europeans, Indians, or Asians that felt the 2000s were worse than the 1990s.

btilly 17y ago

I only skimmed after this paragraph. The internationally most successful film of the decade was "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Harry Potter was the most successful literary character. Both are children's stories that are also enjoyed by adults. We are withdrawing into an infantile world, in which attractive heroes conquer evil. The modern fairy tale is our response to a harsh world. Harry Potter, yes. But he thinks that The Lord of the Rings is a children's tale?? Sorry, but no. Fairy tales started as stories for grownups, and were made into children's stories when grownups stopped believing in them. However Tolkien was aware that the structure of the fairy tale lends itself to darker themes that aren't for children, and the LotR is a deliberate exploration of that dynamic. Judging by my quick skim of the rest, he recited a lot of things I already knew without any real attempt at analysis, then called it perspective.

grellas 17y ago

Economic misery and turmoil through war are not new to the 21st century, and the fact that we did not achieve unending prosperity through an Internet-based economy or eternal peace through the end of the cold war should come as a surprise to none but the most naive of observers of human nature. This decade was no more "lost" than was the generation that followed the "war to end all wars." Both labels arise from those who placed unbounded hopes in human potential only to discover that the drivers in this world can often be as malevolent as they can be good. Will the information age change any of this, as the authors imply? There is much good that indeed comes from having the interconnectedness of instant worldwide communication and of social networks and the like. But, if someone is going to argue that this will alter centuries of human experience that has been bedeviled by the bad as well as the good, he will have to come up with something far more convincing than the headline-level analysis and naive hope in new political structures that the authors seem to espouse as the basis for our future hope.