5 ms·

> Do people have lost hope? Do people want to just watch negative content? Most people are too tired of the never ending rat race. They use content to escape f

> Do people have lost hope? Do people want to just watch negative content? Most people are too tired of the never ending rat race. They use content to escape from reality of their lives. The alternate fantasy world where everything is blamed on incompetent leaders is appealing. And deservedly so.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
I don't think that explains what changed, if anything. Life has always had work and drudgery. By most metrics life is better than it ever has been.
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  > By most metrics life is better than it ever has been. I imagine people whose wages haven't risen meaningfully in the last 20 years would disagree. So would people who can only get wage increases by constantly switching jobs.
  - korantu 5y ago
    People are steadily getting out of poverty [1], living longer [2], can afford more and more education [3]. Things like access to drinking water [4] and electricity [5] are also improving. So, yes, world in theese important ways is better than ever before now. And imagining future is needed to continue making it better. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-poverty-thresholds?stackMode=relative https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1946..2015 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1946... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-long-run?tab=chart&time=1985..2017 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-l... [4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-access-to-improved-drinking-water?tab=chart&time=1992..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w... [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-access-to-electricity?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w...
    - watwut 5y ago
      I think that thread was about USA specifically. It compares past American production with current.
    - jlokier 5y ago
      It's a bit more complicated. A lot of people in the wealthier countries are objectively worse off than their parents in ways that matter to them, and that's a relatively recent change. Many young people are seeing older people, including their own parents, with homes, jobs and comparative stability, and don't see the same possibilities for themselves. Even having more income, for the lucky ones that do, doesn't make up for that. Home prices have risen faster than wages. You can argue that numerous other metrics are in their favour, but that's not enough to make people feel optimistic.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I suspect the metrics that matter however paint a different picture. And I am being intentionally vague because I can't put my finger on it — maybe a sense of uncertainty and anxiety about the future, about the present. I believe a metric measuring something like that would show that life is not better than it was 50 years ago.
  - yoz-y 5y ago
    An interesting metric would be to see how many children are better off than their parents. My parents did all they could to achieve this and they succeeded. But if you look at the current state of climate, housing and wage stagnation it somehow seems harder as a goal.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think it has more to do with a mismatch of expectations. Gen X and onwards were raised to beleive that that they can be anything they want and have whatever they want. If you look at the home ownership rate in the US, it is about the same but up over the 1960. Homes are also much bigger and nicer than they were. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
      - JKCalhoun 5y ago
        It's not the current home ownership I am concerned with, it's home ownership in 20 years. I think the the current home owners road in on the tail of the boom.
      - yoz-y 5y ago
        Home ownership is a factor but there are also things like: do the kids have a less stressful/dangerous/damaging to the body job. Are they able to save enough money to be able to not rely on retirement alone, and so on.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Vonnegut wrote repeatedly about the harm that mass media & recording had done to certain important ways people exist socially. It must have been on his mind quite a bit. Notably, the social (and economic, for that matter) value of "small" talent. Being able to sing a little. Being a pretty-good dancer. A fair storyteller. Decent at a sport. All of that's worth way less when everyone can experience the best the last 100 years of the whole damn globe has to offer at the press of a button. The cost is the devastation of a whole bunch of ways of relating to one another socially and deriving personal value, on a small scale. Whatever survives of those small talents withers into quirks, lonesome hobbies, and pathologies, or simply dies entirely. All this media-plenty is great, sure, but it presses on us and molds us with inhuman scale. We see—we can hardly avoid—the greatest others can be, and are less, ourselves. I think he'd find Web, in 2021, horrifying. I don't think it's implausible to speculate that he might see it as socially apocalyptic. Like social Ice-9—an unstoppable, deadly force, wrecking the globe forever, but originally a human invention.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

I don't think that explains what changed, if anything. Life has always had work and drudgery. By most metrics life is better than it ever has been.

nine_zeros 5y ago
> By most metrics life is better than it ever has been. I imagine people whose wages haven't risen meaningfully in the last 20 years would disagree. So would people who can only get wage increases by constantly switching jobs.
- korantu 5y ago
  People are steadily getting out of poverty [1], living longer [2], can afford more and more education [3]. Things like access to drinking water [4] and electricity [5] are also improving. So, yes, world in theese important ways is better than ever before now. And imagining future is needed to continue making it better. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-poverty-thresholds?stackMode=relative https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1946..2015 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1946... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-long-run?tab=chart&time=1985..2017 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-l... [4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-access-to-improved-drinking-water?tab=chart&time=1992..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w... [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-access-to-electricity?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w...
  - watwut 5y ago
    I think that thread was about USA specifically. It compares past American production with current.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    It's a bit more complicated. A lot of people in the wealthier countries are objectively worse off than their parents in ways that matter to them, and that's a relatively recent change. Many young people are seeing older people, including their own parents, with homes, jobs and comparative stability, and don't see the same possibilities for themselves. Even having more income, for the lucky ones that do, doesn't make up for that. Home prices have risen faster than wages. You can argue that numerous other metrics are in their favour, but that's not enough to make people feel optimistic.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
I suspect the metrics that matter however paint a different picture. And I am being intentionally vague because I can't put my finger on it — maybe a sense of uncertainty and anxiety about the future, about the present. I believe a metric measuring something like that would show that life is not better than it was 50 years ago.
- yoz-y 5y ago
  An interesting metric would be to see how many children are better off than their parents. My parents did all they could to achieve this and they succeeded. But if you look at the current state of climate, housing and wage stagnation it somehow seems harder as a goal.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    I think it has more to do with a mismatch of expectations. Gen X and onwards were raised to beleive that that they can be anything they want and have whatever they want. If you look at the home ownership rate in the US, it is about the same but up over the 1960. Homes are also much bigger and nicer than they were. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
    - JKCalhoun 5y ago
      It's not the current home ownership I am concerned with, it's home ownership in 20 years. I think the the current home owners road in on the tail of the boom.
    - yoz-y 5y ago
      Home ownership is a factor but there are also things like: do the kids have a less stressful/dangerous/damaging to the body job. Are they able to save enough money to be able to not rely on retirement alone, and so on.
- handrous 5y ago
  Vonnegut wrote repeatedly about the harm that mass media & recording had done to certain important ways people exist socially. It must have been on his mind quite a bit. Notably, the social (and economic, for that matter) value of "small" talent. Being able to sing a little. Being a pretty-good dancer. A fair storyteller. Decent at a sport. All of that's worth way less when everyone can experience the best the last 100 years of the whole damn globe has to offer at the press of a button. The cost is the devastation of a whole bunch of ways of relating to one another socially and deriving personal value, on a small scale. Whatever survives of those small talents withers into quirks, lonesome hobbies, and pathologies, or simply dies entirely. All this media-plenty is great, sure, but it presses on us and molds us with inhuman scale. We see—we can hardly avoid—the greatest others can be, and are less, ourselves. I think he'd find Web, in 2021, horrifying. I don't think it's implausible to speculate that he might see it as socially apocalyptic. Like social Ice-9—an unstoppable, deadly force, wrecking the globe forever, but originally a human invention.