3 ms·

Funny. Faith in institutions created a great society. People worked together for the common good. Then, the corruption and abuses of power in those instituti

by xwkd 11y ago

Funny. Faith in institutions created a great society. People worked together for the common good. Then, the corruption and abuses of power in those institutions left that society disillusioned; uncommitted. Everyone became disengaged and individualistic. What happens after that? It really seems like a pattern in large social structures. Maybe it isn't, though. It's hard to say without generational bias. Any sociologists want to chime in?

VLM 11y ago
In the old days culture would just transform to relieve old stresses (while planting the seeds of new stresses, usually) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture In the modern era that can't happen because we've fine tuned mass media and marketing and educational indoctrination such that there is only one correct culture, that being the culture of the recent past. The one true life path was laid out for you before you were born, and if the world doesn't cooperate, you need to try harder. In the long run you can't stop cultural transformation, but trying to hold it back via weird new artificial technologies means when it does snap it'll be a doozy, make the '60s look positively tame in comparison. Imagine trying to advance, say, 50 years, in a just a couple years. Things that work will be fun; things that crash and burn under the intense acceleration will not be so fun. The snap will likely be fairly unpredictable. For example the dominant culture today is intensely progressive. The snap will almost certainly not be perfectly in phase or perfectly out of phase with progressivism.
FiatLuxDave 11y ago
I think you are looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...

3 ms·

Funny. Faith in institutions created a great society. People worked together for the common good. Then, the corruption and abuses of power in those instituti

by xwkd 11y ago

VLM 11y ago
In the old days culture would just transform to relieve old stresses (while planting the seeds of new stresses, usually) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture In the modern era that can't happen because we've fine tuned mass media and marketing and educational indoctrination such that there is only one correct culture, that being the culture of the recent past. The one true life path was laid out for you before you were born, and if the world doesn't cooperate, you need to try harder. In the long run you can't stop cultural transformation, but trying to hold it back via weird new artificial technologies means when it does snap it'll be a doozy, make the '60s look positively tame in comparison. Imagine trying to advance, say, 50 years, in a just a couple years. Things that work will be fun; things that crash and burn under the intense acceleration will not be so fun. The snap will likely be fairly unpredictable. For example the dominant culture today is intensely progressive. The snap will almost certainly not be perfectly in phase or perfectly out of phase with progressivism.
FiatLuxDave 11y ago
I think you are looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...