4 ms·

Covid isn't necessarily the primary concern but one crisis among many. Arguably most civilization collapses happened in times when there were too many crises at

Covid isn't necessarily the primary concern but one crisis among many. Arguably most civilization collapses happened in times when there were too many crises at once, that individually could be handled but all at once or in close succession become overwhelming. A current example of this would be that with climate change we face increase in temperatures causing wildfires on the west coast, deadly heatwaves in the southwest and hurricanes along the Atlantic. Due to Covid hospitals are already overwhelmed so injuries from hurricanes are harder to deal with, making not massive events worse than the sum of their parts. Combine this with governments unwilling to take action and who actively dismantle the preparations already in place and it is worth being concerned. Calling this a prosperous time is also flawed, for who? The middle class is nearly gone, freedoms are being eroded, racial tensions are still high, the world order is destabilizing as many governments lean into more dictator-like structures. I genuinely want to understand what you see to give you hope because right now I'm failing to find much to grab onto.

shadowprofile77 6y ago
More people than ever before in human history live above the line of absolute poverty, today, right now, and this has been a continouos trend for many years so far. The middle class is only eroding insofar as you define things in some wacky ways. In terms of basic acquisitive power, quality of life, access to goods and services and general well-bieng, more people than ever and a larger percentage of the population than ever before live what in fairly recent history would be considered very much middle class or even upper middle class lives. I know it's fashionable to deride the modern world as fucked with poverty and misery (and ironically this is a thing most often done by comfortably middle class, educated people with plenty of access to good standards of living) but none of the basic data on how well our world's 8 billion people live right now actually supports this notion. Shifting goal posts endlessly also can slip into dishonesty.
renewiltord 6y ago
> Calling this a prosperous time is also flawed, for who? The middle class is nearly gone, freedoms are being eroded, racial tensions are still high, the world order is destabilizing as many governments lean into more dictator-like structures. - It is a prosperous time for far more than ever before. Within the last thirty years, a new world power has risen and raised 400 million people out of poverty in an unprecedented act of economic engineering with no military conquest to enable it. Never before has this been done. Its neighbour during this time has simultaneously raised 180 million people out of poverty. During this time neither nation has fought its neighbour. Before this massive reduction of human unhappiness, the loss of the median American's third car pales. - Absolute measures of human standards of living have continuously increased. They are not going down. The major world economies have all improved continuously. You will need to define the middle class and why that measurement is meaningful to you. If Bezos gets Mars and I get a piece of American land the size of San Francisco, our relative inequality will have increased, but I will take that trade every day. - Racial tensions were way higher in the past. Black people were segregated! In South Africa, they had apartheid. And a little farther back and Japanese-Americans were in concentration camps. In California, the fourteen thousand Army National Guard troops suppressed race riots. - The world order is being destabilized as America withdraws the shield that preserved Pax Americana. This is true. But that was a subsidy to (or perhaps an investment in) the world, a tide that raised all ships, and America's more than anyone else's. America prospered with world trade. By these actions, America weakens herself. But that's geopolitics. The sands shift with the wind. We shall see what happens. Other generations faced greater threats.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
How is the middle class nearly gone? Inequality has increased, and I think this is bad, but I don't get the point of an over-the-top statement like this. Median household income in the US is over $60,000 (source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N). How is that gone?
gooseus 6y ago
Tack on the radical shift in how we consume information and how corporate/state actors try to manipulate this new information system to actively promote misinformation and discord with regards to all of the items you listed.

shadowprofile77 6y ago

More people than ever before in human history live above the line of absolute poverty, today, right now, and this has been a continouos trend for many years so far. The middle class is only eroding insofar as you define things in some wacky ways. In terms of basic acquisitive power, quality of life, access to goods and services and general well-bieng, more people than ever and a larger percentage of the population than ever before live what in fairly recent history would be considered very much middle class or even upper middle class lives. I know it's fashionable to deride the modern world as fucked with poverty and misery (and ironically this is a thing most often done by comfortably middle class, educated people with plenty of access to good standards of living) but none of the basic data on how well our world's 8 billion people live right now actually supports this notion. Shifting goal posts endlessly also can slip into dishonesty.

renewiltord 6y ago

> Calling this a prosperous time is also flawed, for who? The middle class is nearly gone, freedoms are being eroded, racial tensions are still high, the world order is destabilizing as many governments lean into more dictator-like structures. - It is a prosperous time for far more than ever before. Within the last thirty years, a new world power has risen and raised 400 million people out of poverty in an unprecedented act of economic engineering with no military conquest to enable it. Never before has this been done. Its neighbour during this time has simultaneously raised 180 million people out of poverty. During this time neither nation has fought its neighbour. Before this massive reduction of human unhappiness, the loss of the median American's third car pales. - Absolute measures of human standards of living have continuously increased. They are not going down. The major world economies have all improved continuously. You will need to define the middle class and why that measurement is meaningful to you. If Bezos gets Mars and I get a piece of American land the size of San Francisco, our relative inequality will have increased, but I will take that trade every day. - Racial tensions were way higher in the past. Black people were segregated! In South Africa, they had apartheid. And a little farther back and Japanese-Americans were in concentration camps. In California, the fourteen thousand Army National Guard troops suppressed race riots. - The world order is being destabilized as America withdraws the shield that preserved Pax Americana. This is true. But that was a subsidy to (or perhaps an investment in) the world, a tide that raised all ships, and America's more than anyone else's. America prospered with world trade. By these actions, America weakens herself. But that's geopolitics. The sands shift with the wind. We shall see what happens. Other generations faced greater threats.

QuesnayJr 6y ago

How is the middle class nearly gone? Inequality has increased, and I think this is bad, but I don't get the point of an over-the-top statement like this. Median household income in the US is over $60,000 (source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N). How is that gone?

gooseus 6y ago

Tack on the radical shift in how we consume information and how corporate/state actors try to manipulate this new information system to actively promote misinformation and discord with regards to all of the items you listed.