7 ms·

Ask HN: Is it just me or has everything stopped happening in the world?

6 points by logicallee 5y ago

It seems there aren't any world events anymore, other than my own personal matters I haven't noticed anything going on in the world. Is it just me or is there nothing going on in the world anymore?

Thin_icE 5y ago
You mean besides the pandemic that has been going strong for the last two years and the impending WWIII?
- logicallee 5y ago
  yes I've stopped seeing news about what you call the impending WWIII.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    "I'm not seeing it" is very much different from "nothing is happening". I'm seeing things happening all over the place. What's frustrating, perhaps, is that nothing is getting resolved. Neither the pandemic nor the Ukraine invasion are resolving, and may not do so for months to years. It's frustrating. It's not the same as "nothing is happening", though.
    - noodles_nomore 5y ago
      Time seems to be slowing down. The 'now' seems to have bloated far into the past. Events come but they never seem to go away anymore. At the same time the future seems to have frozen into a permanent stasis of potentiality, morphing and shifting with the vicissitudes of our ever enlarging now, but never achieving actuality as nothing ever resolves. The experiential quality of what was once a 'moment' seems to be stretched over days. All that happens today is best described in short-burst swalls of jargon, and eludes any deeper analysis. Long-form is an anachronism. Experiential content has shifted to the language of functionality and so the richness of life is lost. Our symbolic systems seem to envelope us like a slow-motion time field. I wrote this in 2019...
- andi999 5y ago
  Dont forget the upcoming end of this year world famine (not in the news yet). Way too little fertilizer was produced to to gas pricing since autumn last year. (i think)
trifit 5y ago
Yeah and it’s beautiful!
taubek 5y ago
A lot of things are going on. Try to look at some new news sources. I'm sure that you will find something interesting.
jstx1 5y ago
What do you think was happening before that isn't happening now?
- logicallee 5y ago
  examples of things that were happening before that aren't happening now: - I read great deep analysis of Putin, - I read great deep analysis of sanctions, price of Ruble vs USD - I read about Putin's inner circle - On a different subject I read analysis of Xi's political thinking and international relations - On technical subjects, I read interesting new hardware benchmarks - On technical subjects I read about new protocols, new types of compression, different things about blockchain and even the darkweb - I read about issues of free speech online, the effect of platforms on speech, etc, things like that I haven't seen anything like these high-quality subjects in a while now.
  - Ambolia 5y ago
    Well, that's because slow collapse is what is happening. And you are not allowed to point it out. There's too many overproduced elites, and if you are not willing to play ball, there's 80 guys willing to "denounce" you and take your job. [1] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/crises-of-elite-competition-in-the-east-and-west/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/crises-of-elite-c...
    - afpx 5y ago
      Was that essay generated by GPT-3?
      - Ambolia 5y ago
        What meaningless sentence did you find?
        afpx 5y ago
        They define "wokeness" with a definition that GTP-3 would come up with: ">“Wokeness,” for the purposes of this essay, refers in broad strokes to a cultural, social, and ideological movement in the West that challenges previously accepted cultural narratives (the very narratives that prior eras of relatively stable political consensus relied on), and increasingly determines outcomes in primarily elite institutions. Surviving the academy, getting a job in journalism or a major tech company, filling out a grant form: these are just some of the activities that increasingly require one to be adept at navigating (and by necessity, parroting) the cultural mores of a new social faith." I edited this because I couldn't reply. FYI My point is, how can you critically read an article when the terms are vague?
Epiphany21 5y ago
There are still world events like disease outbreaks and wars, but they're all negative and a lot aren't even worth paying attention to. So I sort of get what you mean. I have definitely noticed that most people are much more socially isolated. Economic troubles compound this by leaving people with less disposable income, and it can be hard for many to transition into free or less expensive hobbies on a short notice. The extroverted types who used to congregate at bars or festivals or sports games are now struggling to fill in the gaps created by the lockdowns last year. These are just my personal observations, but it makes perfect sense that collective negativity colors the zeitgeist a certain way. Just find friends where you can and do what makes you happy. You can't change everything wrong with the world in a day.
- logicallee 5y ago
  negative or positive, just high-impact things would be good to read about. I feel like if I download a porn video it'll be the only thing that happens this month. even just idly thinking staring at a wall, it seems that's the most interesting thing going on in the world and I wouldn't read about anything more interesting. just my impression, it didn't used to be this way.
  - Epiphany21 5y ago
  - Fatnino 5y ago
    These sound like depression symptoms.
yuppie_scum 5y ago
Read your local paper of record, The Economist, NYT and WSJ (skip editorial pages on both).
wodenokoto 5y ago
It’s really hard not to be sarcastic answering this. And I don’t even read or watch the news. I don’t know where you live but I’m honestly surprised that Covid or the Russian invasion of Ukraine hasn’t had an impact on your day to day life.
pizza 5y ago
The natural instinct to information overload is hyper-desensitization. The more that is told, the less you can hear.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- logicallee 5y ago
  this is great! lol @ "EU High Representative Josep Borrell announces that the European Union and Italy will resume their diplomatic operations in Kyiv following the end of the war." Like, radiation cleanup operations will resume once radiation has reduced to a safe level. um, little problem there chief.
tootie 5y ago
It is just you.
mise_en_place 5y ago
This is the correct approach. Cultivate your own garden and ignore the external noise.
jimmydeans 5y ago
krapp 5y ago
No, you're right. Nothing is happening. Go back to sleep.
Jemm 5y ago
10 billion people on this rock, you’d think they could at least entertain us.
navjack27 5y ago
Having some depersonalization, derealization issues? I suggest you get out of your reality tunnel for a bit.

6 points by logicallee 5y ago

It seems there aren't any world events anymore, other than my own personal matters I haven't noticed anything going on in the world. Is it just me or is there nothing going on in the world anymore?

Thin_icE 5y ago

You mean besides the pandemic that has been going strong for the last two years and the impending WWIII?

logicallee 5y ago
yes I've stopped seeing news about what you call the impending WWIII.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  "I'm not seeing it" is very much different from "nothing is happening". I'm seeing things happening all over the place. What's frustrating, perhaps, is that nothing is getting resolved. Neither the pandemic nor the Ukraine invasion are resolving, and may not do so for months to years. It's frustrating. It's not the same as "nothing is happening", though.
  - noodles_nomore 5y ago
    Time seems to be slowing down. The 'now' seems to have bloated far into the past. Events come but they never seem to go away anymore. At the same time the future seems to have frozen into a permanent stasis of potentiality, morphing and shifting with the vicissitudes of our ever enlarging now, but never achieving actuality as nothing ever resolves. The experiential quality of what was once a 'moment' seems to be stretched over days. All that happens today is best described in short-burst swalls of jargon, and eludes any deeper analysis. Long-form is an anachronism. Experiential content has shifted to the language of functionality and so the richness of life is lost. Our symbolic systems seem to envelope us like a slow-motion time field. I wrote this in 2019...
andi999 5y ago
Dont forget the upcoming end of this year world famine (not in the news yet). Way too little fertilizer was produced to to gas pricing since autumn last year. (i think)

trifit 5y ago

Yeah and it’s beautiful!

taubek 5y ago

A lot of things are going on. Try to look at some new news sources. I'm sure that you will find something interesting.

jstx1 5y ago

What do you think was happening before that isn't happening now?

logicallee 5y ago
examples of things that were happening before that aren't happening now: - I read great deep analysis of Putin, - I read great deep analysis of sanctions, price of Ruble vs USD - I read about Putin's inner circle - On a different subject I read analysis of Xi's political thinking and international relations - On technical subjects, I read interesting new hardware benchmarks - On technical subjects I read about new protocols, new types of compression, different things about blockchain and even the darkweb - I read about issues of free speech online, the effect of platforms on speech, etc, things like that I haven't seen anything like these high-quality subjects in a while now.
- Ambolia 5y ago
  Well, that's because slow collapse is what is happening. And you are not allowed to point it out. There's too many overproduced elites, and if you are not willing to play ball, there's 80 guys willing to "denounce" you and take your job. [1] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/crises-of-elite-competition-in-the-east-and-west/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/crises-of-elite-c...
  - afpx 5y ago
    Was that essay generated by GPT-3?
    - Ambolia 5y ago
      What meaningless sentence did you find?
      - afpx 5y ago
        They define "wokeness" with a definition that GTP-3 would come up with: ">“Wokeness,” for the purposes of this essay, refers in broad strokes to a cultural, social, and ideological movement in the West that challenges previously accepted cultural narratives (the very narratives that prior eras of relatively stable political consensus relied on), and increasingly determines outcomes in primarily elite institutions. Surviving the academy, getting a job in journalism or a major tech company, filling out a grant form: these are just some of the activities that increasingly require one to be adept at navigating (and by necessity, parroting) the cultural mores of a new social faith." I edited this because I couldn't reply. FYI My point is, how can you critically read an article when the terms are vague?

Epiphany21 5y ago

There are still world events like disease outbreaks and wars, but they're all negative and a lot aren't even worth paying attention to. So I sort of get what you mean. I have definitely noticed that most people are much more socially isolated. Economic troubles compound this by leaving people with less disposable income, and it can be hard for many to transition into free or less expensive hobbies on a short notice. The extroverted types who used to congregate at bars or festivals or sports games are now struggling to fill in the gaps created by the lockdowns last year. These are just my personal observations, but it makes perfect sense that collective negativity colors the zeitgeist a certain way. Just find friends where you can and do what makes you happy. You can't change everything wrong with the world in a day.

logicallee 5y ago
negative or positive, just high-impact things would be good to read about. I feel like if I download a porn video it'll be the only thing that happens this month. even just idly thinking staring at a wall, it seems that's the most interesting thing going on in the world and I wouldn't read about anything more interesting. just my impression, it didn't used to be this way.
- Epiphany21 5y ago
- Fatnino 5y ago
  These sound like depression symptoms.

yuppie_scum 5y ago

Read your local paper of record, The Economist, NYT and WSJ (skip editorial pages on both).

wodenokoto 5y ago

It’s really hard not to be sarcastic answering this. And I don’t even read or watch the news. I don’t know where you live but I’m honestly surprised that Covid or the Russian invasion of Ukraine hasn’t had an impact on your day to day life.

pizza 5y ago

The natural instinct to information overload is hyper-desensitization. The more that is told, the less you can hear.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

logicallee 5y ago
this is great! lol @ "EU High Representative Josep Borrell announces that the European Union and Italy will resume their diplomatic operations in Kyiv following the end of the war." Like, radiation cleanup operations will resume once radiation has reduced to a safe level. um, little problem there chief.

tootie 5y ago

It is just you.

mise_en_place 5y ago

This is the correct approach. Cultivate your own garden and ignore the external noise.

jimmydeans 5y ago

krapp 5y ago

No, you're right. Nothing is happening. Go back to sleep.

Jemm 5y ago

10 billion people on this rock, you’d think they could at least entertain us.

navjack27 5y ago

Having some depersonalization, derealization issues? I suggest you get out of your reality tunnel for a bit.