12 ms·

From the article: > in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosse

From the article: > in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, knew that the politicians had no alternative vision. And they knew that the bosses knew they knew that. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. This article's explanation of Hypernormalisation (defined in the excerpt above) was quite interesting to read. Sadly I see this happening quite a lot in South Africa - a country that 25 years ago was filled with much hope and excitement for the future - but now is on the precipice of rapid economic decline due to similar reasons outlined above (primarily corrupt politicians but also an economy ravaged by Covid). That being said there are still many South Africans that are nervously excited about the country's future - I guess we just need that alternative vision to drive us forward? As an aside, I know Elon Musk's ambitious projects get mixed responses here on HN, but one thing he keeps referring to (and which resonates quite strongly with me) is his vision for an alternative future which excites us and inspires us.

RhodesianHunter 6y ago
The older I get the more that I think that our particular form of government or policies (left/right, socialist/capitalist, authoritarian/libertarian) are less important for overall wellbeing and happiness than stamping out corruption.
- kqr 6y ago
  This should not come as a surprise to anyone and I think it's fairly easy to show this link, too. Whenever I'm asked what the best part of living in my country is, I unhesitatingly answer "low corruption". It is the source from which all other nice things flow.
  - Gupie 6y ago
    But what is the cause of low or high corruption in a society? One method is a free press, which can highlight corruption, along with free elections where corrupt politicians can get kicked out. Is there an alternative?
    - jampekka 6y ago
      Flatter and heterogeneous hierarchies and more equal distribution of power. Corruption requires hierarchy, and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption.
      - ewindal 6y ago
        > and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption. Literally 20 seconds of reflection is enough to see how wrong that is...
      - Gupie 6y ago
        Interesting point. Is there any country that has system tending towards this?
        jampekka 6y ago
        E.g. the increase of parlamentarism at the expense of monarchies or other strong heads of state may be a long trend towards this. But I don't think it's a given that such trend necessarily continues. For example kings used to be voted in many parts of the world until 10th century or so, but there was a strong move towards hereditary or other non-elected monarchy afterwards. Similar ebb and flow were seen in e.g. ancient Greece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy
      - adwn 6y ago
        > Corruption requires hierarchy, and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption. I don't think this is true at all. For example, if a policeman A catches county clerk B speeding, B could bribe A to forget about that ticket. That would be corruption, but A and B are not in any hierarchy relation to each other. True, they're in a temporary power relation, but a day later this power relation could well be reversed when B decides whether or not to approve A's building permit for his new house.
        jampekka 6y ago
        If authority holder A's actions affect authority holder B's decisions on A's that's more or less corruption in my books. And probably something that happens everyday, even literally the in the case that you describe. If A forgets the ticket and B approves the building permit because of it, this is corruption. A and B may benefit, but society at large doesn't.
- donw 6y ago
  I think you're on to something here. There's this sliding scale ranging from "lower taxes, fewer public services" to "higher taxes, more public services". Really, anything on that spectrum is going to be workable. Corruption is where sliding that scale towards "higher taxes" results in most of the additional money finding its way to the pockets of various bureaucrats and their friends, as opposed to being used to deliver services-as-promised.
  - spiralx 6y ago
    "Lower taxes, fewer public services" means more scope for corruption from the private sector though, so I don't see there being any simple relationship between taxation and corruption. World corruption rankings seem to imply the opposite to what you're saying in fact. https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-global-highlights https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-global-highlig... None of the top six there are countries you would describe as having "lower taxes, fewer public services".
    - donw 6y ago
      Switzerland and Singapore are both on that list, and fit the bill for "lower taxes, fewer public services".
    - zo1 6y ago
      Lower taxes = less mandatory diversion of people's money to corrupt activities. With corrupt private companies you are more likely able to just "withdraw" or stay away from them. That is not at all the case with state-level corruption which requires you to actually flee the country, emigrate or vote in new non-corrupt politicians, some of which are next to impossible for a good chunk of people.
      - spiralx 6y ago
        That's a lot of assumptions taken as an article of faith i.e. higher taxation = higher corruption and the ability to "avoid" private sector corruption as if you were perfectly aware of its existence and had non-corrupt alternatives to switch to. I'm not a libertarian and don't buy those premises, certainly not without any evidence.
- op03 6y ago
  Corruption is good for society, especially to keep the fire burning under the ass of the "great and the good". Gandhi had to get kicked of a train to wake up. Otherwise he was perfectly satisfied wandering about being a mediocre lawyer.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    That sounds like the broken window argument in economics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- Aunche 6y ago
  A country having good economics is definitely vital to its success as well. The introduction of a market economy did wonders for China's productivity, whereas I believe that corruption has been relatively constant.
  - simonh 6y ago
    China has two economic spheres in that respect, the market economy and the state economy. Woe betide any private company that tries to compete directly with a state enterprise. They can work with them but not against them. This is probably why Jack Ma got in trouble over ANT. Banking, or at least a large swathe of the official finance sector, is largely a state monopoly. Private companies largely rely on informal or private financing.
- tim333 6y ago
  Indeed if you look at the happiest countries list that seems to be true. Finland and Switzerland are near the top and kind of lefty and conservative respectively but both very low corruption.
  - ls-lah_33 6y ago
    Yeah, the debate between the left and right in the US [1] is basically irrelevant to the well-being of the average person. Though, I think the distinction between authoritarian and libertarian definitely does matter. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Finland and Switzerland are both rigorously democratic: Nordic countries have strong labour unions and worker co-determination [2] to keep big businesses honest, while Switzerland has direct democracy [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination [3] https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/uebersicht/direkte-demokratie.html https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/ue...
Sander_Marechal 6y ago
I'm not so sure Musk's vision is so exciting. I think he just sees the writing on the wall and wants to become king on Mars while Earth goes down the drain. Look at all the stories surrounding Tesla employee treatment. Musk is not much different than Bezos.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Mars can't be independent from Earth for generations until we have set up the necessary industry there to manufacture literally everything locally. I'm pretty sure Elon knows this.
  - Teever 6y ago
    Why does that need to take generations? Why can't it be done in one generation, or less?
    - adrianN 6y ago
      Because building infrastructure on Earth takes forever and I don't think that it goes faster on Mars. Supply chains for even trivial things are terribly long. It's a lot of work to build replacements off-world. I mean, just having the life support to sustain a sufficient population to run and maintain the machines for simple steel production is a huge task in itself. And then you also need chemical manufacturing (without the benefit of having oil), semiconductors, electronics... modern civilization is hard.
      - harperlee 6y ago
        > building infrastructure on Earth takes forever China has built cities basically from scratch in few years, and big infrastructure very quickly, as a counterpoint.
        WJW 6y ago
        Yes, but only after they spent decades on building out their construction industry with lots of imported equipment from elsewhere. Mars will not be able to construct big roads and buildings until they bootstrap a concrete industry and they can't do that without a steel industry, and they can't do that without mining sites, which need vehicles and mining equipment, etc etc etc. All these things will need either large amounts of people (and thus food) or large amounts of automation (and thus microchips etc) and Mars will not be able to bootstrap either without billions and billions of investment from Earth.
piokoch 6y ago
"in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working [...]. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal." That's not true. Communistic system existed only because it was maintained using brutal force and terror. Alternative vision was known very well, even in Soviet Union people knew how life can look, they knew that people in Germany, France or Denmark are living in much better conditions. Propaganda works only to some extent, if it is totally disconnected with reality, it stops working. I have witnessed the fall of communism. As soon as people were no longer afraid of Soviet tanks, they knew what to do. Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, etc. switched to democracy and capitalism over the night as soon as they could. This was not an easy process, but there was no doubt what the the vision was and what was the goal.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Adam Curtis is entertaining but his generalised sweeping statements are silly and unnecessary. Yes the world is complex, but it’s not impossible to understand. For example, Brexit: there were many contributing factors but we can identify major ones: globalisation and those left behind feeling resentful; lack of an outlet for those voices due to a rigged electoral system; anti immigration feeling amidst unprecedented high immigration from the EU; propaganda made possible by unethical social media platforms like Facebook; and ruling class power games. Most of those problems have plausible corresponding solutions. Complicated, but not insurmountable.
  - Mauricebranagh 6y ago
    It wasn't Facebook it was unelected media barons who hated the EU because they dint have the power they had locally.
    - nvoid 6y ago
      Citation needed here. Iirc, the media were quite anti-brexit.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
Elon Musk is laundering military and counterinsurgency technologies as consumer products. SpaceX exists because the ruling class needs always-available global satellite internet to power the new autonomous and conscience-free soldiers they are building. Tesla exists to amp up the surveillance and grid dependence of automobiles, and also to hopefully prevent a nationwide truckers' strike from bringing the economy to a halt by replacing drivers on the long haul routes with autonomous tech. The "vision" thing is just the shiny object Musk dangles to distract you from what he's really doing.
- revscat 6y ago
  Yes, yes. And “they” want us to wear masks because of a globalist Communist plot to… something. The Bircher and conspiratorialist influence on the American body politic is truly criminal.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    Yes, thinking that we have a ruling class with a keen interest in technological methods of counterinsurgency and anti-labor control is the same thing as anti-communist Bircherism.
- ben_w 6y ago
  > SpaceX exists because the ruling class needs always-available global satellite internet to power the new autonomous and conscience-free soldiers they are building. They already had that. Pre-SpaceX space access was expensive, yet there is no indication the powers that be ever really cared about the price tag for military space hardware, they’d spend whatever it took to get it. Likewise, if “they” were afraid of strikes by long-distance haulers, rail is a better solution because it doesn’t require inventing new tech that, sadly for the annual death toll due to human drivers, still isn’t a solved problem. It’s not like governments are even subtle with this sort is thing: in the long-term the UK broke the power of coal miners by switching to nuclear and gas, and in the USA Regan fired all the striking air traffic controllers, which was ~90% of the entire sector.
Red_Tarsius 6y ago
This will be the century of disillusion, where all the fairy tales we tell ourselves about democracy, diversity and equality will come to crash. We've already seen the Rainbow Nation go from super power (with its own nuclear program) to African shithole in about one generation. Eventually the United States will go down in history as the quintessential proof that the melting pot does not work, at least not in the way we daydream about. A lack of in-group bias is a losing strategy in a multi-ethnic society.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Everything wrong with the US is exactly the opposite of what you are saying - much like every other empire before it, it is being torn down by the 'elites' which have captured and increasingly are stripping it for everything they can extract. This has nothing to do with melting pots and diversity and what not, and everything to do with a focus on short-term gains instead of long-term thinking, greatly encouraged by capitalism.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Isn't that really a particular type of capitalism (sometimes called "free market capitalism") that has been popular with politicians since the 1980s? Not capitalism in general.
- piva00 6y ago
  Are you really stating that the issues with modern society in a ultracapitalist environment such as the US is... The diversity and push to treat each human as a human and not splitting people into groups based on ethnicity or sexual orientation? That's a very bold claim that I'd like to know more what supporting arguments you have instead of just statements.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Is the US really more "ultracapitalist" than classical Manchester Capitalism was? I have my doubts. I'm not sure how you understand identity politics, but a diverse group of tiny sub-cultures on a "separate but equal"-platform don't create a cohesive society. There are a few points of exchange in music, food and pop culture but not much more, and any notion of assimilation gets rejected (hence the shift from "the melting pot" to "the salad bowl"). If you were to apply "divide and conquer", putting more emphasis on the differences between individuals instead of their similarities and creating lots of small groups instead of a single large one is probably a good way to create cracks.
74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
> but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. I don't believe that. Of course there were people with alternative visions. They just happened to be removed by the elite b/c they were threatening their source of luxury.
74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
> As an aside, I know Elon Musk's ambitious projects get mixed responses here on HN, but one thing he keeps referring to (and which resonates quite strongly with me) is his vision for an alternative future which excites us and inspires us. Mars is not an alternative. And even if we could pull that off it would be a very uncomfortable alternative for a very small portion of the population. His Mars shenanigans are actually no more and no less than the expensive intellectually stimulating past time of a billionaire.
- herodoturtle 6y ago
  Heya, I hear what you're saying. Personally I don't limit his alternative vision to just Mars. For me his alternative vision for humanity is making life multi-planetary - and ultimately exploring the stars - and so in that context, Mars is just the beginning. If we want to colonize space, we have to begin somewhere, right? I know it's cliché, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - and Mars is just that first step.
vagrantJin 6y ago
South african here. > Sadly I see this happening quite a lot in South Africa - a country that 25 years ago was filled with much hope and excitement for the future - but now is on the precipice of rapid economic decline due to similar reasons The politics here is a lot more complicated and these quotes are coming across as quite reductive. That being said I'm a vocal critic of the governments lack of forward thinking despite knowing decades ago that economic shocks and decline were inevitable. The unchecked capital flight since the late 80s is spoken about in hushed tones. The "billonaire" president with the shadiest of pasts. And education ministers hell bent on churning out really dumb black, coloured kids that have no hope of competing on the world stage. Its micro-politics on the world stage but passionate pain points in the country. And since the global economy is so connected - those with old money certainly have a leg up. It's no excuse to not pull up our own sleeves but to do so you need a shirt with sleeves to begin with.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Gravityloss 6y ago
also Reverse Cargo Cult https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717075

RhodesianHunter 6y ago

The older I get the more that I think that our particular form of government or policies (left/right, socialist/capitalist, authoritarian/libertarian) are less important for overall wellbeing and happiness than stamping out corruption.

kqr 6y ago
This should not come as a surprise to anyone and I think it's fairly easy to show this link, too. Whenever I'm asked what the best part of living in my country is, I unhesitatingly answer "low corruption". It is the source from which all other nice things flow.
- Gupie 6y ago
  But what is the cause of low or high corruption in a society? One method is a free press, which can highlight corruption, along with free elections where corrupt politicians can get kicked out. Is there an alternative?
  - jampekka 6y ago
    Flatter and heterogeneous hierarchies and more equal distribution of power. Corruption requires hierarchy, and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption.
    - ewindal 6y ago
      > and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption. Literally 20 seconds of reflection is enough to see how wrong that is...
    - Gupie 6y ago
      Interesting point. Is there any country that has system tending towards this?
      - jampekka 6y ago
        E.g. the increase of parlamentarism at the expense of monarchies or other strong heads of state may be a long trend towards this. But I don't think it's a given that such trend necessarily continues. For example kings used to be voted in many parts of the world until 10th century or so, but there was a strong move towards hereditary or other non-elected monarchy afterwards. Similar ebb and flow were seen in e.g. ancient Greece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy
    - adwn 6y ago
      > Corruption requires hierarchy, and may well be that hierarchy requires corruption. I don't think this is true at all. For example, if a policeman A catches county clerk B speeding, B could bribe A to forget about that ticket. That would be corruption, but A and B are not in any hierarchy relation to each other. True, they're in a temporary power relation, but a day later this power relation could well be reversed when B decides whether or not to approve A's building permit for his new house.
      - jampekka 6y ago
        If authority holder A's actions affect authority holder B's decisions on A's that's more or less corruption in my books. And probably something that happens everyday, even literally the in the case that you describe. If A forgets the ticket and B approves the building permit because of it, this is corruption. A and B may benefit, but society at large doesn't.
donw 6y ago
I think you're on to something here. There's this sliding scale ranging from "lower taxes, fewer public services" to "higher taxes, more public services". Really, anything on that spectrum is going to be workable. Corruption is where sliding that scale towards "higher taxes" results in most of the additional money finding its way to the pockets of various bureaucrats and their friends, as opposed to being used to deliver services-as-promised.
- spiralx 6y ago
  "Lower taxes, fewer public services" means more scope for corruption from the private sector though, so I don't see there being any simple relationship between taxation and corruption. World corruption rankings seem to imply the opposite to what you're saying in fact. https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-global-highlights https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-global-highlig... None of the top six there are countries you would describe as having "lower taxes, fewer public services".
  - donw 6y ago
    Switzerland and Singapore are both on that list, and fit the bill for "lower taxes, fewer public services".
  - zo1 6y ago
    Lower taxes = less mandatory diversion of people's money to corrupt activities. With corrupt private companies you are more likely able to just "withdraw" or stay away from them. That is not at all the case with state-level corruption which requires you to actually flee the country, emigrate or vote in new non-corrupt politicians, some of which are next to impossible for a good chunk of people.
    - spiralx 6y ago
      That's a lot of assumptions taken as an article of faith i.e. higher taxation = higher corruption and the ability to "avoid" private sector corruption as if you were perfectly aware of its existence and had non-corrupt alternatives to switch to. I'm not a libertarian and don't buy those premises, certainly not without any evidence.
op03 6y ago
Corruption is good for society, especially to keep the fire burning under the ass of the "great and the good". Gandhi had to get kicked of a train to wake up. Otherwise he was perfectly satisfied wandering about being a mediocre lawyer.
- ben_w 6y ago
  That sounds like the broken window argument in economics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Aunche 6y ago
A country having good economics is definitely vital to its success as well. The introduction of a market economy did wonders for China's productivity, whereas I believe that corruption has been relatively constant.
- simonh 6y ago
  China has two economic spheres in that respect, the market economy and the state economy. Woe betide any private company that tries to compete directly with a state enterprise. They can work with them but not against them. This is probably why Jack Ma got in trouble over ANT. Banking, or at least a large swathe of the official finance sector, is largely a state monopoly. Private companies largely rely on informal or private financing.
tim333 6y ago
Indeed if you look at the happiest countries list that seems to be true. Finland and Switzerland are near the top and kind of lefty and conservative respectively but both very low corruption.
- ls-lah_33 6y ago
  Yeah, the debate between the left and right in the US [1] is basically irrelevant to the well-being of the average person. Though, I think the distinction between authoritarian and libertarian definitely does matter. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Finland and Switzerland are both rigorously democratic: Nordic countries have strong labour unions and worker co-determination [2] to keep big businesses honest, while Switzerland has direct democracy [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination [3] https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/uebersicht/direkte-demokratie.html https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/ue...

Sander_Marechal 6y ago

I'm not so sure Musk's vision is so exciting. I think he just sees the writing on the wall and wants to become king on Mars while Earth goes down the drain. Look at all the stories surrounding Tesla employee treatment. Musk is not much different than Bezos.

adrianN 6y ago
Mars can't be independent from Earth for generations until we have set up the necessary industry there to manufacture literally everything locally. I'm pretty sure Elon knows this.
- Teever 6y ago
  Why does that need to take generations? Why can't it be done in one generation, or less?
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Because building infrastructure on Earth takes forever and I don't think that it goes faster on Mars. Supply chains for even trivial things are terribly long. It's a lot of work to build replacements off-world. I mean, just having the life support to sustain a sufficient population to run and maintain the machines for simple steel production is a huge task in itself. And then you also need chemical manufacturing (without the benefit of having oil), semiconductors, electronics... modern civilization is hard.
    - harperlee 6y ago
      > building infrastructure on Earth takes forever China has built cities basically from scratch in few years, and big infrastructure very quickly, as a counterpoint.
      - WJW 6y ago
        Yes, but only after they spent decades on building out their construction industry with lots of imported equipment from elsewhere. Mars will not be able to construct big roads and buildings until they bootstrap a concrete industry and they can't do that without a steel industry, and they can't do that without mining sites, which need vehicles and mining equipment, etc etc etc. All these things will need either large amounts of people (and thus food) or large amounts of automation (and thus microchips etc) and Mars will not be able to bootstrap either without billions and billions of investment from Earth.

piokoch 6y ago

"in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working [...]. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal." That's not true. Communistic system existed only because it was maintained using brutal force and terror. Alternative vision was known very well, even in Soviet Union people knew how life can look, they knew that people in Germany, France or Denmark are living in much better conditions. Propaganda works only to some extent, if it is totally disconnected with reality, it stops working. I have witnessed the fall of communism. As soon as people were no longer afraid of Soviet tanks, they knew what to do. Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, etc. switched to democracy and capitalism over the night as soon as they could. This was not an easy process, but there was no doubt what the the vision was and what was the goal.

randomsearch 6y ago
Adam Curtis is entertaining but his generalised sweeping statements are silly and unnecessary. Yes the world is complex, but it’s not impossible to understand. For example, Brexit: there were many contributing factors but we can identify major ones: globalisation and those left behind feeling resentful; lack of an outlet for those voices due to a rigged electoral system; anti immigration feeling amidst unprecedented high immigration from the EU; propaganda made possible by unethical social media platforms like Facebook; and ruling class power games. Most of those problems have plausible corresponding solutions. Complicated, but not insurmountable.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  It wasn't Facebook it was unelected media barons who hated the EU because they dint have the power they had locally.
  - nvoid 6y ago
    Citation needed here. Iirc, the media were quite anti-brexit.

AndrewBissell 6y ago

Elon Musk is laundering military and counterinsurgency technologies as consumer products. SpaceX exists because the ruling class needs always-available global satellite internet to power the new autonomous and conscience-free soldiers they are building. Tesla exists to amp up the surveillance and grid dependence of automobiles, and also to hopefully prevent a nationwide truckers' strike from bringing the economy to a halt by replacing drivers on the long haul routes with autonomous tech. The "vision" thing is just the shiny object Musk dangles to distract you from what he's really doing.

revscat 6y ago
Yes, yes. And “they” want us to wear masks because of a globalist Communist plot to… something. The Bircher and conspiratorialist influence on the American body politic is truly criminal.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Yes, thinking that we have a ruling class with a keen interest in technological methods of counterinsurgency and anti-labor control is the same thing as anti-communist Bircherism.
ben_w 6y ago
> SpaceX exists because the ruling class needs always-available global satellite internet to power the new autonomous and conscience-free soldiers they are building. They already had that. Pre-SpaceX space access was expensive, yet there is no indication the powers that be ever really cared about the price tag for military space hardware, they’d spend whatever it took to get it. Likewise, if “they” were afraid of strikes by long-distance haulers, rail is a better solution because it doesn’t require inventing new tech that, sadly for the annual death toll due to human drivers, still isn’t a solved problem. It’s not like governments are even subtle with this sort is thing: in the long-term the UK broke the power of coal miners by switching to nuclear and gas, and in the USA Regan fired all the striking air traffic controllers, which was ~90% of the entire sector.

Red_Tarsius 6y ago

This will be the century of disillusion, where all the fairy tales we tell ourselves about democracy, diversity and equality will come to crash. We've already seen the Rainbow Nation go from super power (with its own nuclear program) to African shithole in about one generation. Eventually the United States will go down in history as the quintessential proof that the melting pot does not work, at least not in the way we daydream about. A lack of in-group bias is a losing strategy in a multi-ethnic society.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Everything wrong with the US is exactly the opposite of what you are saying - much like every other empire before it, it is being torn down by the 'elites' which have captured and increasingly are stripping it for everything they can extract. This has nothing to do with melting pots and diversity and what not, and everything to do with a focus on short-term gains instead of long-term thinking, greatly encouraged by capitalism.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Isn't that really a particular type of capitalism (sometimes called "free market capitalism") that has been popular with politicians since the 1980s? Not capitalism in general.
piva00 6y ago
Are you really stating that the issues with modern society in a ultracapitalist environment such as the US is... The diversity and push to treat each human as a human and not splitting people into groups based on ethnicity or sexual orientation? That's a very bold claim that I'd like to know more what supporting arguments you have instead of just statements.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Is the US really more "ultracapitalist" than classical Manchester Capitalism was? I have my doubts. I'm not sure how you understand identity politics, but a diverse group of tiny sub-cultures on a "separate but equal"-platform don't create a cohesive society. There are a few points of exchange in music, food and pop culture but not much more, and any notion of assimilation gets rejected (hence the shift from "the melting pot" to "the salad bowl"). If you were to apply "divide and conquer", putting more emphasis on the differences between individuals instead of their similarities and creating lots of small groups instead of a single large one is probably a good way to create cracks.

74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago

> but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. I don't believe that. Of course there were people with alternative visions. They just happened to be removed by the elite b/c they were threatening their source of luxury.

74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago

> As an aside, I know Elon Musk's ambitious projects get mixed responses here on HN, but one thing he keeps referring to (and which resonates quite strongly with me) is his vision for an alternative future which excites us and inspires us. Mars is not an alternative. And even if we could pull that off it would be a very uncomfortable alternative for a very small portion of the population. His Mars shenanigans are actually no more and no less than the expensive intellectually stimulating past time of a billionaire.

herodoturtle 6y ago
Heya, I hear what you're saying. Personally I don't limit his alternative vision to just Mars. For me his alternative vision for humanity is making life multi-planetary - and ultimately exploring the stars - and so in that context, Mars is just the beginning. If we want to colonize space, we have to begin somewhere, right? I know it's cliché, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - and Mars is just that first step.

vagrantJin 6y ago

South african here. > Sadly I see this happening quite a lot in South Africa - a country that 25 years ago was filled with much hope and excitement for the future - but now is on the precipice of rapid economic decline due to similar reasons The politics here is a lot more complicated and these quotes are coming across as quite reductive. That being said I'm a vocal critic of the governments lack of forward thinking despite knowing decades ago that economic shocks and decline were inevitable. The unchecked capital flight since the late 80s is spoken about in hushed tones. The "billonaire" president with the shadiest of pasts. And education ministers hell bent on churning out really dumb black, coloured kids that have no hope of competing on the world stage. Its micro-politics on the world stage but passionate pain points in the country. And since the global economy is so connected - those with old money certainly have a leg up. It's no excuse to not pull up our own sleeves but to do so you need a shirt with sleeves to begin with.

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Gravityloss 6y ago

also Reverse Cargo Cult https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717075