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This is really easy to say for someone who doesn't experience these issues firsthand. Not reading the news isn't going to make your existential anxiety go away

by mxkopy 4y ago

This is really easy to say for someone who doesn't experience these issues firsthand. Not reading the news isn't going to make your existential anxiety go away if you or your parents give it to you, either by helicoptering or living paycheck to paycheck. Also, you really don't think that, in between building aqueducts and nuclear missiles, nothing has changed? You really think we have the same problems today as we did N years ago?

thinkingemote 4y ago
Relative, not an absence. History and geography. We can look back at history and say that there are times that are worse than now. For example, the second world war was worse than now. Cuban missile crisis also. We can look at other countries and see that being in Syria or Ukraine right now is worse than in my more peaceful country. By looking this way we literally gain new perspectives. Perhaps part of today's crisis is one of perspective maybe the internet narrows our vision.
- mxkopy 4y ago
  I don't know which reductionist framework you're working with to make these comparisons, but they're wrong, because they're reductionist. Some people like war, maybe things were awesome for them? Not to mention that humans are very social creatures. You can't just say 'medicine is better', 'crime is down' and neglect the erosion/transmogrification of every single social institution that has been around for XYZ decades just because there isn't a number or well-defined historical analysis associated with it. I'll put it this way. We know exactly what happens when wars are started. We know very little about the effects of having an attention economy. For every thing you can give me that we know has changed for the better, I can give you another thing that's changed probably for the worse but we really have no clue. If people are living longer, more miserable lives, is that really an improvement?

by mxkopy 4y ago

thinkingemote 4y ago

Relative, not an absence. History and geography. We can look back at history and say that there are times that are worse than now. For example, the second world war was worse than now. Cuban missile crisis also. We can look at other countries and see that being in Syria or Ukraine right now is worse than in my more peaceful country. By looking this way we literally gain new perspectives. Perhaps part of today's crisis is one of perspective maybe the internet narrows our vision.

mxkopy 4y ago
I don't know which reductionist framework you're working with to make these comparisons, but they're wrong, because they're reductionist. Some people like war, maybe things were awesome for them? Not to mention that humans are very social creatures. You can't just say 'medicine is better', 'crime is down' and neglect the erosion/transmogrification of every single social institution that has been around for XYZ decades just because there isn't a number or well-defined historical analysis associated with it. I'll put it this way. We know exactly what happens when wars are started. We know very little about the effects of having an attention economy. For every thing you can give me that we know has changed for the better, I can give you another thing that's changed probably for the worse but we really have no clue. If people are living longer, more miserable lives, is that really an improvement?