4 ms·

Fully agree. For some inventions, such as LSD-trips for your lunch break, I truly wonder how people can be so f-ed up that they consider that a good idea. But

• appletrotter 4y ago
  > such as LSD-trips for your lunch break, I truly wonder how people can be so f-ed up that they consider that a good idea. What does this mean? Are you against psychedelics, but only if its time for lunch?
  • revolvingocelot 4y ago
    I read that as disdain for the repackaging of authentic experiences by relentless and impersonal capitalistic forces. Psychedelic drugs are a paradigmatic example of "mind expansion", a concept that promises and threatens to allow individuals a broader perspective than that of the ego, the cog-in-the-machine, the member of society. Almost by definition, this is countercultural, or at least an expression of something that capitalism can't conquer. But capitalism can sure try, via concepts like micro-dosing or doing entheogens with a therapist or "LSD-trips for your lunch break", which I think is probably a reductio ad absurdum.
    • yababa_y 4y ago
      I think GP is just confused and meant DMT. edit: for context it is short lasting and known as the “businessman’s trip” because it genuinely fits in a lunch break.
• bel_marinaio 4y ago
  Our culture is going down the tubes. However, since the current systems benefits the .01% at the expense of the 99% its full speed ahead with no course correction.
  • adventured 4y ago
    Our system is highly beneficial to the top quarter roughly. The median of that group has gotten significantly richer over 20 or 50 years and is better off in the US than they would be anywhere else in terms of wealth and scale (scale as in how many of them can reach that level of wealth and have access to the kind of economic opportunities that the US presents). Europe has nothing remotely like it, outside of small population nations like Norway or Switzerland (and you need to reach the top 10% there to be comparable). Wealth isn't everything? Correct, of course; the US culture is rotting rapidly, and devolving into predictable tribalism, an unavoidable result of government policy choices over the prior many decades. If you can get into the top quarter in the US, use that position for all its worth. If you can't, it's not going to be a great existence unless you live in a nice college town or the equivalent. However, the middle class (and the near groupings below or above that) across most of the developed world are facing a severe smashing, which will result in recurring French-like riots and protests in the decades to come. Most of affluent Europe hasn't seen consequential economic growth in two decades or more at this point. It's destroying their welfare systems gradually, weakening their social safety nets and loading their systems up with debt, just as their demographics are breaking. The huge French riots prior to the pandemic were one of the first big warning shots of what's coming. Japan, as another example, has seen a minimum of 1/3 of its standard of living wiped out over the past 20 years, and there's a lot more damage to come; the US and EU are both suffering from variations of Japanification economically (high debt, low dynamism, aged demographics, persistently mediocre productivity growth, low GDP growth, low GDP per capita growth, falling or stagnant standards of living for decades, struggling to allocate enough resources to the welfare state to maintain social promises, and so on). Or take Germany as an example. They've had a remarkable - supposedly remarkable - economic run for decades now. Riding on an artificially weak currency (for their economy) which they've used to build up a freakishly abnormal export juggernaut. And yet their median net wealth figure is mediocre, below that of the US; their workers are not benefitting as they should be. And at this point Germany has seen net zero per capita economic expansion for coming up on 30 years. How long can that situation continue before something breaks? Not much longer I'd wager. While the US is seeing many of the same problems, it's absolutely correct that it's better to live in cities in other affluent nations, rather than in the US. US cities are horrific by and large, with few exceptions.
• everyone 4y ago
  "I see so many people with depressing faces every day" How much information are you making up based on how a persons face subjectively looks to you? How someone's face looks is a superficial thing and really doesn't give you any solid information.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • carapace 4y ago
    The human face is literally a communication device.
• starwind 4y ago
  > I see so many people with depressing faces every day, it's hard to deny that we have widespread psychological sanity issues in our society. No society in history has ever had so much abundance as the West today. We've really moved up Maslows hierarchy beyond survival and safety towards needing meaning in our lives (more than what comes with doing the labor you need to survive). I wonder if there's just not enough meaning in the world to go around and that's the cause of our society's malaise.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • hnuser847 4y ago
    Maybe abundance itself makes us depressed. In the modern world you have to go way out of your way to experience any sense of sense of danger, adventure, chaos, or self-reliance. Sitting behind a screen while shoving food in your mouth might keep you alive but it kills the soul.
• Muromec 4y ago
  > LSD-trips for your lunch break, It should be a very nice job that allows 5 hour lunch breaks.