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I have a theory that 2020 is not any more unusual than other years, but that information dissemination and digestion has become so efficient that it seems like

I have a theory that 2020 is not any more unusual than other years, but that information dissemination and digestion has become so efficient that it seems like it's a crazy year. Just think about the Beirut explosion without cellphone cameras. Maybe it would have been in newspapers, but because so many people caught it on camera we were able to understand what 4.1 kilos of ammonium nitrate exploding looks like.

marcosdumay 6y ago
We got a few rare events all happening this year. I mean... Something like the Beirut explosion only happens ever 3 or 4 years. Our current recession is a two or three times in a lifetime. Mass protests in large countries are some 1 in a decade event... And, of course, the US, Russia and China trio threatening to end the world over the Mid-East and China sea happens a few times an year. It's just that they suddenly stopping because they have something more important to care about is a one in a century thing.
blhack 6y ago
In 2020 the sitting US president was impeached, we saw a massive stock market crash, a global pandemic, the worst civil unrest in the US in 50 years, massive wildfires all over california, and are heading into what will almost definitely be a contested election where we won't know who won the most contentious presidential election in the last century likely far past what the inauguration date is supposed to be. I think this year is worse than most.
- filoleg 6y ago
  >we saw a massive stock market crash For this one specifically, i don't really agree, because the index is positive year-to-date, sitting at the historical all-time high right now. Doesn't seem like a massive crash to me, given that it dipped not that badly in the first place and then almost instantly recovered.
  - bobbean 6y ago
    So the market didn't crash this year?
    - filoleg 6y ago
      At this point, I think it is just semantics. You can call it a crash, I would call it a dip. Mostly because I cannot seriously call it a crash (in a way that most people think about crashes), if just a few months later the market looks like as it never even happened in the first place. When I think of a "real" crash, I think of something the effects of which are still present for at least a year or more after the dip. But that's just my personal take on it, I do not expect everyone to agree with this interpretation of what constitutes a "real" crash.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    There was a crash in March/April. The stock market has since mostly recovered thanks to the Fed printing money any time there is a dip in the S&P500 while the economy is doing incredibly poorly. What we are seeing is the result of the stock market no longer representing the economy but simply being correlated to it at certain times. Think about it this way: every company is struggling to some degree and we are at record breaking unemployment, and yet here we are with the same index prices as we had in February. To me that doesn’t sound sane and my personal prediction is that if Biden wins the election the printers at the Fed will be slowed down, which will tank stocks and index funds. This will be unfortunate as many people won’t understand that printing unlimited cash to keep Fortune 500 stocks looking good eventually just results in insane inflation and then everyone would lose their investments. If Biden wins I might just buy a few puts on SPY for maybe February or March 2021 as I think a stock crash will be coming.
- aceman22 6y ago
  > In 2020 the sitting US president was impeached Coming from someone who has used this against Clinton many times, having a congress with majority control by the opposition party pass articles of impeachment along party lines isn't really that big a deal. > a global pandemic The global campaign to make people aware of it would not have been as effective without modern information infrastructure. Think about Google, facebook, etc. and cell phones roles in that. > the worst civil unrest in the US in 50 years I'd like to see the data on that. Also, I feel it's over-hyped by our access to information. Anecdotally, I took a road trip up the west coast of the US a month or so ago. San Diego, LA, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, fairly thoroughly exploring each city. Didn't see one protest. Not saying they're not happening, just saying a vast VAST majority of the population in these places are not protesting/rioting etc. > massive wildfires all over California we have these every year. Again, the VAST majority of Californians are not affected by them. But people that don't live here probably believe all their friends that live in California are affected because of the information provided. My GFs parents for example are very worried about us. We're like 100 miles away from them ... > the most contentious presidential election EVERY modern presidential election is, 'The Most Important, most contested, election of our lives!!!!' Just think about the Trump admin. without Twitter. It's like we're out of the 24 hour news cycle and into the hour-to-hour/minute-to-minute news cycle.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    You are missing the forest for the trees. Yes we have access to more info than before, but for example not much more than we did in 2010. In fact in 2010 the signal to noise ratio was much higher. I am not going to go point by point with you because frankly I don’t feel like it, but I can tell you that you are way off mark on all of them. As a sampling: This pandemic has affected everything in a way that no other pandemic in the past has. The Ebola outbreak was the last thing we had dealt with as far as global health crises go and it pales in comparison. The Spanish Flu was in the era before TVs. Yet it was clearly such a huge global event that we all still know about it. 100 years from now COVID will be talked about abs studied. It is huge. Trump’s admin couldn’t exist without Twitter. In a nutshell the GOP could tell that progressives as well as establishment democrats were starting to gain momentum under Obama while the Tea Party did major damage to the image of the GOP as the grown up party. So they sold their party to Trump and got his followers in the bargain. His followers are young, tech savvy, and very enthusiastic so short term it’s a good gamble. But imagine if any one of the Trump scandals has dropped for any other President. None of them could have survived it because none of them had the kind of blind cult behind them. Also, our president has a fucking cult. How is that not rare?

marcosdumay 6y ago

We got a few rare events all happening this year. I mean... Something like the Beirut explosion only happens ever 3 or 4 years. Our current recession is a two or three times in a lifetime. Mass protests in large countries are some 1 in a decade event... And, of course, the US, Russia and China trio threatening to end the world over the Mid-East and China sea happens a few times an year. It's just that they suddenly stopping because they have something more important to care about is a one in a century thing.

blhack 6y ago

In 2020 the sitting US president was impeached, we saw a massive stock market crash, a global pandemic, the worst civil unrest in the US in 50 years, massive wildfires all over california, and are heading into what will almost definitely be a contested election where we won't know who won the most contentious presidential election in the last century likely far past what the inauguration date is supposed to be. I think this year is worse than most.

filoleg 6y ago
>we saw a massive stock market crash For this one specifically, i don't really agree, because the index is positive year-to-date, sitting at the historical all-time high right now. Doesn't seem like a massive crash to me, given that it dipped not that badly in the first place and then almost instantly recovered.
- bobbean 6y ago
  So the market didn't crash this year?
  - filoleg 6y ago
    At this point, I think it is just semantics. You can call it a crash, I would call it a dip. Mostly because I cannot seriously call it a crash (in a way that most people think about crashes), if just a few months later the market looks like as it never even happened in the first place. When I think of a "real" crash, I think of something the effects of which are still present for at least a year or more after the dip. But that's just my personal take on it, I do not expect everyone to agree with this interpretation of what constitutes a "real" crash.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  There was a crash in March/April. The stock market has since mostly recovered thanks to the Fed printing money any time there is a dip in the S&P500 while the economy is doing incredibly poorly. What we are seeing is the result of the stock market no longer representing the economy but simply being correlated to it at certain times. Think about it this way: every company is struggling to some degree and we are at record breaking unemployment, and yet here we are with the same index prices as we had in February. To me that doesn’t sound sane and my personal prediction is that if Biden wins the election the printers at the Fed will be slowed down, which will tank stocks and index funds. This will be unfortunate as many people won’t understand that printing unlimited cash to keep Fortune 500 stocks looking good eventually just results in insane inflation and then everyone would lose their investments. If Biden wins I might just buy a few puts on SPY for maybe February or March 2021 as I think a stock crash will be coming.
aceman22 6y ago
> In 2020 the sitting US president was impeached Coming from someone who has used this against Clinton many times, having a congress with majority control by the opposition party pass articles of impeachment along party lines isn't really that big a deal. > a global pandemic The global campaign to make people aware of it would not have been as effective without modern information infrastructure. Think about Google, facebook, etc. and cell phones roles in that. > the worst civil unrest in the US in 50 years I'd like to see the data on that. Also, I feel it's over-hyped by our access to information. Anecdotally, I took a road trip up the west coast of the US a month or so ago. San Diego, LA, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, fairly thoroughly exploring each city. Didn't see one protest. Not saying they're not happening, just saying a vast VAST majority of the population in these places are not protesting/rioting etc. > massive wildfires all over California we have these every year. Again, the VAST majority of Californians are not affected by them. But people that don't live here probably believe all their friends that live in California are affected because of the information provided. My GFs parents for example are very worried about us. We're like 100 miles away from them ... > the most contentious presidential election EVERY modern presidential election is, 'The Most Important, most contested, election of our lives!!!!' Just think about the Trump admin. without Twitter. It's like we're out of the 24 hour news cycle and into the hour-to-hour/minute-to-minute news cycle.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  You are missing the forest for the trees. Yes we have access to more info than before, but for example not much more than we did in 2010. In fact in 2010 the signal to noise ratio was much higher. I am not going to go point by point with you because frankly I don’t feel like it, but I can tell you that you are way off mark on all of them. As a sampling: This pandemic has affected everything in a way that no other pandemic in the past has. The Ebola outbreak was the last thing we had dealt with as far as global health crises go and it pales in comparison. The Spanish Flu was in the era before TVs. Yet it was clearly such a huge global event that we all still know about it. 100 years from now COVID will be talked about abs studied. It is huge. Trump’s admin couldn’t exist without Twitter. In a nutshell the GOP could tell that progressives as well as establishment democrats were starting to gain momentum under Obama while the Tea Party did major damage to the image of the GOP as the grown up party. So they sold their party to Trump and got his followers in the bargain. His followers are young, tech savvy, and very enthusiastic so short term it’s a good gamble. But imagine if any one of the Trump scandals has dropped for any other President. None of them could have survived it because none of them had the kind of blind cult behind them. Also, our president has a fucking cult. How is that not rare?