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You can find counterexamples, but the big difference is how people reacted. Almost everyone thought Waco was unjust and excessive. Today many people (especially

by api 5y ago

You can find counterexamples, but the big difference is how people reacted. Almost everyone thought Waco was unjust and excessive. Today many people (especially on the left) would say they had it coming. Meanwhile the right now openly talks about the need to regulate business more and Trump’s whole message was more about cracking down on others than freedom for his base. Back then the left would have drawn the line at arbitrary freezing of the accounts of the trucker protestors. Today nobody cares. The right would never have tolerated January 6th. Now half of them think maybe democracy is a bad idea anyway. If you’d released an expose back then of Facebook and its shadow profiles, people would have almost universally freaked out and boycotted Facebook. Today nobody cares. Nobody would have gone for locked down devices and app stores then. Look up the reaction to Microsoft’s original “trusted computing” initiative and contrast it with today’s acceptance of walled gardens. Nobody cares. Back then we built personal computers with the goal of serving the user. Now the shift is toward thin clients to get people into cloud silos to… uhh… serve the user in a different sense… more like that old “to serve man” Twilight Zone episode. The biggest difference I see today is general public acceptance of technocracy, surveillance, and authoritarianism.

e40 5y ago
You make really good points, thanks. I think the apathy is because we've been bombarded with evil for so many years, and the rise of the quiet minority (30+%), who have very different values than what we saw every day on TV and in newspapers. Those people previously had little to no voice, but because of Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, etc, etc, they were able to band together and elect a criminal and start to take control of local and state elections, to remake the progressive world that we all thought we lived in. Btw, even back 20 years I was ringing the alarm bells of authoritarianism and surveillance, to my friends (most of whom are way smarter than I am) and not a single one of them gave any shits. I really don't understand it.
morelisp 5y ago
> Back then the left would have drawn the line at arbitrary freezing of the accounts of the trucker protestors. Back then, truckers wouldn't have been suspicious of a basic public health program. Reagan & Clinton (and similar conservative-to-third-way politics in other countries) did a fine job putting a wedge between liberals and labor. That the allegiances have changed doesn't necessarily mean any part of the political program has. (Waco is also not as clear-cut as you make it; it was, let's say, bipartisanly popular at the time, then equally unpopular 5 years later which seems to be what you remember, and today I don't think anyone is thinking much about it at all.)
mistrial9 5y ago
this is interesting and I agree with some of it, however, please "Nobody cares." is more drama than fact. I care and so do you. Saying its opposite is dramatic, but maybe not constructive. tough days to be optimistic,these days, I agree with that. still making things here though!
Ataraxiaist 5y ago
To me, the biggest difference is that people reacted as individuals or as two individuals interacting. No one would send out a group email to talk about Bill Clinton and form some kind of group consensus opinion. I think the start of this though was conservative talk radio and the in-group that formed in relation to the "liberal" out-group it promoted. Before that people were individuals deciding their personal stance on an issue to issue basis. There really should be no surprise that once 99% of interaction is in the context of a groups that everything becomes dominated by in-group and out-groups. The conservative use of the pejorative "liberal" to form an out-group though was just so poisonous and set a process in motion that once started can't really be stopped. Then once social networks come about it was basically over for the individual. Millions of individuals are impossible to control but groups no so much. So here we are and I don't see any reason for optimism other than to enjoy your life now. The future is more and more suspicion and surveillance of the individual by the group.

by api 5y ago

e40 5y ago

You make really good points, thanks. I think the apathy is because we've been bombarded with evil for so many years, and the rise of the quiet minority (30+%), who have very different values than what we saw every day on TV and in newspapers. Those people previously had little to no voice, but because of Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, etc, etc, they were able to band together and elect a criminal and start to take control of local and state elections, to remake the progressive world that we all thought we lived in. Btw, even back 20 years I was ringing the alarm bells of authoritarianism and surveillance, to my friends (most of whom are way smarter than I am) and not a single one of them gave any shits. I really don't understand it.

morelisp 5y ago

> Back then the left would have drawn the line at arbitrary freezing of the accounts of the trucker protestors. Back then, truckers wouldn't have been suspicious of a basic public health program. Reagan & Clinton (and similar conservative-to-third-way politics in other countries) did a fine job putting a wedge between liberals and labor. That the allegiances have changed doesn't necessarily mean any part of the political program has. (Waco is also not as clear-cut as you make it; it was, let's say, bipartisanly popular at the time, then equally unpopular 5 years later which seems to be what you remember, and today I don't think anyone is thinking much about it at all.)

mistrial9 5y ago

this is interesting and I agree with some of it, however, please "Nobody cares." is more drama than fact. I care and so do you. Saying its opposite is dramatic, but maybe not constructive. tough days to be optimistic,these days, I agree with that. still making things here though!

Ataraxiaist 5y ago

To me, the biggest difference is that people reacted as individuals or as two individuals interacting. No one would send out a group email to talk about Bill Clinton and form some kind of group consensus opinion. I think the start of this though was conservative talk radio and the in-group that formed in relation to the "liberal" out-group it promoted. Before that people were individuals deciding their personal stance on an issue to issue basis. There really should be no surprise that once 99% of interaction is in the context of a groups that everything becomes dominated by in-group and out-groups. The conservative use of the pejorative "liberal" to form an out-group though was just so poisonous and set a process in motion that once started can't really be stopped. Then once social networks come about it was basically over for the individual. Millions of individuals are impossible to control but groups no so much. So here we are and I don't see any reason for optimism other than to enjoy your life now. The future is more and more suspicion and surveillance of the individual by the group.