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Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs th

Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs that things are starting to go off the rails.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
the-dude 6y ago
Which west? Which norms?
- slg 6y ago
  Just one recent example, this past presidential election was a resounding victory for Joe Biden. He has 306 electoral votes and is expected to win the popular vote by some 6 million people. Leaders around the world have all recognized this however the number of Republicans in federal office that have publicly acknowledged this can seemingly be counted on your fingers. A simple norm of acknowledging an electoral defeat is apparently out the window. EDIT: The downvotes on this post are truly bizarre. Any downvoters want to explain the problem with this comment? I was answering a direct question with what most the of the world agrees are inarguable facts.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    Any non fascist post is being brigaded by the fascists in the thread.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please don't use HN for ideological flamewar, regardless of which ideology you favor. We ban this sort of account because it destroys the intended use of the site (curious conversation). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Posting the accepted-by-the-rest-of-the-world reality about Trump, Trumpism, what the ideology stands for, and what the people who voted for it are endorsing is very much a taboo subject on HN. Indeed, as your experience demonstrates, posting the version of the electoral reality--namely, that Trump lost--that's accepted by all but 30% of Republicans is now taboo. Posts that touch on these issues will be censored either through downvoting or bad-faith flagging. I'm not entirely convinced this is organic behavior, but it is what happens to posts that speak too clearly about the dangers of Trumpism. Some people may try to frame this as a 'no politics' position, but this is at best inaccurate. Trumpist disinformation does not get downvoted or flagged with any regularity. If the HN staff don't want to preside over yet another (quasi) social media echo-chamber, they need to do something about Trump loyalists bullying fact-based posts regarding Trump off the platform. The current staff viewpoint, however, seems to be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. To quote Edmund Burke, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Giving Trumpists a platform to corrode the foundations of American democracy while shouting down the viewpoint accepted by most of the planet--again, that Trump lost the election--is, at this point, very much an evil.
    - dang 6y ago
      People are rightly downvoting and flagging garden-variety political flamewar posts because they're off topic here. The passionate partisans of every flavor also do their share of downvoting and flagging, of course. But you don't need to invoke that as an explanation when political battle posts are being flagged. This is not a site for political battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - slg 6y ago
        I will just point out this basically proves my point. The question was what norms changed. I said a candidate won an election and some people won't acknowledge that which goes against previous norms. This is a simple fact confirmed by basically every credible news org in the country, but it is now apparently enough to be considered a "garden-variety political flamewar post".
- Digory 6y ago
  1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for every discipline to consider the "Whiteness problem." What does this description remind you of in American life right now? "Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time." 4. The restriction on liberties during the pandemic is new in its breadth and uniformity. It was one thing for un-modern medicine to act regionally in 1918. It's another thing to shut down a Country along the same lines in 2020. We're writing off two years of education for most kids, taking on huge amounts of debt, and shuttering small businesses -- based on a testing regime that seems little better than reading entrails. We are a tired, angry, debt-laden people unable to agree on the facts. We distrust our formerly-shared institutions. We distrust science if it contradicts political norms. It's been a bad year.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into national politics and reporting on that reality is not bias. > It's another thing to shut down a Country along the same lines in 2020. The actual mandated shutdowns were pretty weak and pretty temporary. The real damage to the economy has come from people being rational actors and voluntarily practicing social distancing, resulting in heavily stifled demand. See: Sweden. Famously not mandating lockdowns but their economy suffered nonetheless.
drilldrive 6y ago
Last year has had a greater loss of norms of Western thought than we have seen since the dawn of the modern world in almost every Western country. Say what you want about the virus response, but powers that be don't give up newly founded power after they seized it once (the lockdowns never will truly end).
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >the lockdowns never will truly end unless, somehow, it should turn out they were really bad for business in which case out they go once no longer needed. on edit: clarification at end.
- elipsey 6y ago
  They did last time, and in the middle of the Palmer Raids at that. The necessary and proper use of pulic health orders during pandemics has been thourougly adjuticed in the US, and has a basis in precedent centuries old. This is hardly a regression. Why don't you worry instead about whether we get a trial before we get shot or locked up?
  - drilldrive 6y ago
    The difference of today is our world's global businesses look up to the major Communist force of our world today instead of seeing it as a competitor, they have noted the methods of censorship and totalitarianism and have taken notes back-home.
    - devenblake 6y ago
      China is Communist the same way the third reich was Socialist: in name only.
      - drilldrive 6y ago
        Just taken a bit off guard: do you not dispute the other claim?
drewcoo 6y ago
That is easily perceptible change. Consider instead the last 20 years. The US now has "papers please" air travel, the police are much more highly militarized, we're under constant electronic scrutiny of all kinds, and we the people have even less of a common understanding of the world, making us less likely to band together to defend ourselves. That is frightening.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

the-dude 6y ago

Which west? Which norms?

slg 6y ago
Just one recent example, this past presidential election was a resounding victory for Joe Biden. He has 306 electoral votes and is expected to win the popular vote by some 6 million people. Leaders around the world have all recognized this however the number of Republicans in federal office that have publicly acknowledged this can seemingly be counted on your fingers. A simple norm of acknowledging an electoral defeat is apparently out the window. EDIT: The downvotes on this post are truly bizarre. Any downvoters want to explain the problem with this comment? I was answering a direct question with what most the of the world agrees are inarguable facts.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  Any non fascist post is being brigaded by the fascists in the thread.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't use HN for ideological flamewar, regardless of which ideology you favor. We ban this sort of account because it destroys the intended use of the site (curious conversation). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Posting the accepted-by-the-rest-of-the-world reality about Trump, Trumpism, what the ideology stands for, and what the people who voted for it are endorsing is very much a taboo subject on HN. Indeed, as your experience demonstrates, posting the version of the electoral reality--namely, that Trump lost--that's accepted by all but 30% of Republicans is now taboo. Posts that touch on these issues will be censored either through downvoting or bad-faith flagging. I'm not entirely convinced this is organic behavior, but it is what happens to posts that speak too clearly about the dangers of Trumpism. Some people may try to frame this as a 'no politics' position, but this is at best inaccurate. Trumpist disinformation does not get downvoted or flagged with any regularity. If the HN staff don't want to preside over yet another (quasi) social media echo-chamber, they need to do something about Trump loyalists bullying fact-based posts regarding Trump off the platform. The current staff viewpoint, however, seems to be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. To quote Edmund Burke, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Giving Trumpists a platform to corrode the foundations of American democracy while shouting down the viewpoint accepted by most of the planet--again, that Trump lost the election--is, at this point, very much an evil.
  - dang 6y ago
    People are rightly downvoting and flagging garden-variety political flamewar posts because they're off topic here. The passionate partisans of every flavor also do their share of downvoting and flagging, of course. But you don't need to invoke that as an explanation when political battle posts are being flagged. This is not a site for political battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - slg 6y ago
      I will just point out this basically proves my point. The question was what norms changed. I said a candidate won an election and some people won't acknowledge that which goes against previous norms. This is a simple fact confirmed by basically every credible news org in the country, but it is now apparently enough to be considered a "garden-variety political flamewar post".
Digory 6y ago
1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for every discipline to consider the "Whiteness problem." What does this description remind you of in American life right now? "Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time." 4. The restriction on liberties during the pandemic is new in its breadth and uniformity. It was one thing for un-modern medicine to act regionally in 1918. It's another thing to shut down a Country along the same lines in 2020. We're writing off two years of education for most kids, taking on huge amounts of debt, and shuttering small businesses -- based on a testing regime that seems little better than reading entrails. We are a tired, angry, debt-laden people unable to agree on the facts. We distrust our formerly-shared institutions. We distrust science if it contradicts political norms. It's been a bad year.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into national politics and reporting on that reality is not bias. > It's another thing to shut down a Country along the same lines in 2020. The actual mandated shutdowns were pretty weak and pretty temporary. The real damage to the economy has come from people being rational actors and voluntarily practicing social distancing, resulting in heavily stifled demand. See: Sweden. Famously not mandating lockdowns but their economy suffered nonetheless.

drilldrive 6y ago

Last year has had a greater loss of norms of Western thought than we have seen since the dawn of the modern world in almost every Western country. Say what you want about the virus response, but powers that be don't give up newly founded power after they seized it once (the lockdowns never will truly end).

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>the lockdowns never will truly end unless, somehow, it should turn out they were really bad for business in which case out they go once no longer needed. on edit: clarification at end.
elipsey 6y ago
They did last time, and in the middle of the Palmer Raids at that. The necessary and proper use of pulic health orders during pandemics has been thourougly adjuticed in the US, and has a basis in precedent centuries old. This is hardly a regression. Why don't you worry instead about whether we get a trial before we get shot or locked up?
- drilldrive 6y ago
  The difference of today is our world's global businesses look up to the major Communist force of our world today instead of seeing it as a competitor, they have noted the methods of censorship and totalitarianism and have taken notes back-home.
  - devenblake 6y ago
    China is Communist the same way the third reich was Socialist: in name only.
    - drilldrive 6y ago
      Just taken a bit off guard: do you not dispute the other claim?

drewcoo 6y ago

That is easily perceptible change. Consider instead the last 20 years. The US now has "papers please" air travel, the police are much more highly militarized, we're under constant electronic scrutiny of all kinds, and we the people have even less of a common understanding of the world, making us less likely to band together to defend ourselves. That is frightening.