5 ms·

Ask HN: Is the world broken? or are we entering a new era?

With all the climate changes, fights, economic breakdowns, mass migration and other issues that i might haven't mentioned. My question is, the whole business model of the world gone wrong? Why there are so many people under mental health issues? Why so many people are homeless? Why are some many companies going bankrupt? Why are so many people jobless? Let's talk about this

xg15 3y ago
(I think you're missing the "Ask HN:" prefix, right now this is getting buried in new) The chickens are coming home to roost... My impression is that a lot of developments that were already going wrong for quite a long time, but could be ignored relatively easily, are now reaching a breaking point. I think there is also a sort of "cascade failure" going on, on which some events are changing the conditions for more rvents to occur: E.g.: The general political turmoil inside the US led to the Trump election, which led to a weakened image of the US in the world, which may have emboldened other powers like Russia, which may have contributed to the outbreak of the Ukraine war, which has led to record inflation, etc etc. Likewise, climate change has reached a level in which the consequences are beginning to be felt even by rich nations, and the predicted tensions and upheavals are starting to materialize. Those are not the single "causes" of any of those events, but it might be one of many causal chains that connect all those world events and led to mutual escalation. Where all of this is leading? I have no idea, but definitely to a different era. The question is what kind of era.
- khalilsautchuk 3y ago
  Yes i get your point and i also see this as a cascade effect, there are things been swiped under the carpet for a long time and the results it's this mess we're seeing. What should we do a community? Sometimes i think of preparing for a apocalipse and sometimes i think about doing something to change that from a entrepreneur point of view. LOL
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > My impression is that a lot of developments that were already going wrong for quite a long time, but could be ignored relatively easily, are now reaching a breaking point. This. Humanity is running up against our planets' finite resources. In increasing # of ways, the gains of technology are being outpaced by population growth, our careless use of resources, politics dragging their feet on greenhouse gasses, etc, etc. Result: ecological, economic, social & political mayhem. Civilizations have crashed before, but (whether we do or not) this time it's global. We're all in the same boat. Where this leads? Who knows. 1 Thing is certain: our world has become less reliable, less predictable. We're entering uncharted territory (that is the scary part, imho. There's no escape hatch & almost everyone will be affected). So we'll have a new world. Maybe -given time- one without us? :-/
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > ... which has led to record inflation... Easy to see you weren't around in the 1970s. This isn't record inflation. It's not even close.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > which has led to record inflation IIRC the peak of the recent inflation has been lower than the lowest inflation of the economic boom glory days of the 1980s, its certainly only “record” inflation with a very cramped historical window.
redder23 3y ago
WW3 baby, lets fucking goooo! Is boring AF out here and I am depressed as fuck, maybe some bombs next to my house would force me into some survival state where I feel alive and forget about how I wasted my life. I hear this stories of people who came from war zones and lived in constant fear but when they got out they actually MISSED IT! That shit is real. I am so black pilled, humanity learns nothing and repeats the same shit over and over and over again. The lifespan of people can be directly linked to when it all goes to shit again. People who could directly warn us what not to do are dead, so its time to repeat.
- barrysteve 3y ago
  Relatable. Imo the only way to deal with a wasted life trapped under a rock, is to imagine yourself lucky, you were under the rock. The built up, stagnant feelings from being trapped are dangerous. Boredom is dangerous. Black pilled is necessary these days, I honestly question people who don't know the black pill (and every colour pill). People complain about 'imaginary problems' as a source of mental stress.. but honestly the category of 'unseen knowledge' is getting bigger everyday. Individuals can know much more niche topics than ever before, one man's imaginary, is another man's unseen truth.
- lnwlebjel 3y ago
  Plenty of war zones that would welcome you. But instead, join the peace corps, or Americorps, or do something that gives you a sense of pride and utility. Make something, make something that helps people, or in some way makes the world better. Assuming you have tech skills, you'd be amazed how easy almost any other kind of work is that people need doing. More laborious sometimes but technically simple. Find that satisfying. And disconnect from the internet for a while.
hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
It was a lot messier during the Cold War and even more scary before that. This is just the end if a golden era. The next generations are going to envy us.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  During the cold was we feared the Commies dropping 50 megatons on the steel mills and oil refineries. Now we fear other Americans. This is far worse.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    Don't know about that. Even a civil war isn't likely to kill 100 million of us. A full scale nuclear exchange with Russia would have done that.
    - mikewarot 3y ago
      At least during WW3 it would be over in seconds for me. I'd just go out and sit on the porch and wait for the show.
  - hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
    I'm not American but wasn't CIA the primary suspect of the assasination of Kennedy?
potta_coffee 3y ago
The world is not a right place. It never has been and never will be. We won't "science" or vote our way out of human nature. There are cycles of bad times and somewhat better times.
starbase 3y ago
Are things really broken, or has our perception changed? Some of both, I think. > Why are so many people jobless? Perception -- Unemployment is lower today than in 82 of the last 94 years. > Why are so many companies going bankrupt? Perception -- Bankruptcies, currently around 50k companies per year, are also at historic lows. Before about 2015, 100k to 150k was the norm. > Why so many people are homeless? Perception -- Homelessness appears to be on the decline, having fallen from 210 per 100k population to 170 per 100k in the span of 10 years. > Why there are so many people under mental health issues? I have a several hypotheses on this one. Broken -- Lifestyles in the developed world have evolved faster than our biology. Men have few paths to fulfill their drive to build and conquer. Women have few (if any) children to nurture. And children have little unsupervised play and exploration, and practically zero responsibility. These stresses push some people (e.g., the man who would build a home on the frontier but can't bear an office job) over the brink and into mental illness. Broken -- In the past, people with severe mental illness were less likely to reproduce. Many were institutionalized, killed, or left to their own devices. This limited the proliferation of genes that code for mental illness. Now that we've spent several generations trying to keep everyone comfortably afloat, it's only natural that we see more people carrying (and expressing) genes that code for mental illness. Same principle explains the increase in other conditions that are no longer likely to be fatal: Asthma, poor eyesight, premature birth, etc. Perception -- We diagnose more often (and for less severe cases) and the taboo against having a mental illness is lower than it used to be.
- jsjsof 3y ago
  Funny how you trust numbers fudged by politicians more than your perception.
  - jf22 3y ago
    How would you use your "perception" to identify if there are more jobless, homeless, and bankruptcies?
    - wenebego 3y ago
      They spend all day asking everyone they see
taurath 3y ago
> Why there are so many people under mental health issues? Prevalence is probably similar or lower, but information is so much easier to come by, and societal stigma about talking about it (rather than just going to a bar, or suffering in silence) is lower with the internet. Still everyone understands so much more about mental health now, and toxic relationships and many things that were once normalized deeply are breaking down However everyone also is competing with everyone. You don’t get to be “one of the smartest person in town” anymore because the town includes everyone on the internet. We’re still dealing with the initial wave of everyone being connected.
pesfandiar 3y ago
Regression to the mean, IMHO. For geopolitics specifically, many believe in the imminent end of Pax Americana.
codegeek 3y ago
Every time this comes up, I want to remind you that the world today is much better overall compared to decades ago. It is a much safer world in general and people are usually better off (overall). So it is not all doom and gloom as you think it is. Just different times with different challenges. I would rather live now than say 100 years ago. or even 50 years ago.
- jsjsof 3y ago
  The stressed out and homeless people everywhere you go contradicts what you are saying.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  > I would rather live now than say 100 years ago. or even 50 years ago. Every time this comes up I think: where? While I do not disagree with the world _on average_ there are unfortunately places where life is worse now. In addition to that, inequality is on average worse than decades ago. So at least there is a metric there where that is not true.
- atmosx 3y ago
  > [...] or even 50 years ago. This is accurate on a 100 year scale but completely off if you take into consideration the last 20 years, at least in the European side of the Mediterranean sea it has been all downhill after the 2008 financial crisis. There is a population-wise psychological depression that stems from the economic depression and everything that followed. The 90s were good, the 00s were okay-ish but after 2005 and specifically after 2008 Europe has been "steadily declining". New generations have very little to look forward to and it shows. The Economist's democracy index, measured world-wide, is steadily declining btw. Europe is going right-wing. Would have been a lot easier to start a business in 2001 than in 2023, even though in 2023 you can do part of the paperwork online, start "a business from your couch", etc.
swatcoder 3y ago
If you grew up after the Cold War ended, the whole world has looked like it was generally moving in one direction for most of your life and if you were in the West, a lot of that time might have even looked very sunny. But that was sort of a blip. We are entering a new era, but not because the world is broken, but because the dust is settling on that era and we’re kinda going back to normal. That said, there’s some reason to worry that the return might be a little cataclysmic in the way that a long-stuck fault line can produce a bigger earthquake than one that slips more frequently.
keiferski 3y ago
I think you're seeing the inevitable result of ideology taking precedence over reality. In other words, reality only has so much "stretch" to give when being warped under an inaccurate model. At some point, reality re-asserts itself and your ideological model of the world crumbles into pieces.
barrysteve 3y ago
No, let's not talk about it. Systems and tech bleed out concepts. If you're a Dominic Monk, yes it's worth the conversation. Serious discussion online is basically impossible, the shared frame of reference is orders of magnitude too weak. People love to nitpick details on second-order concepts, but without a connection to first-order metaphysics, the conversation immediately dies on pre-requisite meanings that can't be communicated in 'one HN post'. Mental health issues are a natural consequence of unbounded logic (machine supercharged), unstructured knowledge (flat heirachy and chaos shaping the internet experience) and 'public' relationships (random drop-ins trying to share common ground). These problems will only get worse (sorry) and anyone who actually tries to fix it will take the blame for being mentally ill (unless they have serious prestige/support). This post will not fix it.
eimrine 3y ago
> Why there are so many people under mental health issues? Do you know any other "mental health" issues except of just being stupid? Can you elaborate on that kind of issues? > My question is, the whole business model of the world gone wrong? Same issue but a different perspective. You might be a really smart guy, possible a Noble winner, but then you buy some computer devices which are hostile to a FOSS philosophy, you lose some of your personal freedoms and attract other guys, smart guys and really smart guys to do the same. Those devices limit a honest discussion by allegation reasons (CSAM, Patriot Act, ignorance of Ed Snowden's research etc) and the world without a honest discussions is going to fall in a war with increased speed and acceleration. Roughly same is happening with climate change - there is a lack of a honest discussions and that leads to such an ultimately stupid decisions as closing nuclear electro stations in Germany. Another growing problem is anti-abortion laws which will increase a criminalship after 15+ years from now. How is even possible to persuade religion-driven actors to consider the real facts? I believe only prohibition of every piece of software but FOSS can fix the problem of lacking the honest discussions.
quickthrower2 3y ago
I am not a historian but I imagine it always has been broken, but more broken for some people than others so depends how lucky you are. Medical advances have helped massively. We have decent chances of preventing plagues for example given the covid response.
CM30 3y ago
Well, it's a mix of our perceptions changing due to the internet, social media and news driven culture, and things actually going wrong. For the former, the news has created a polarised landscape where the negatives are put under the spotlight 24/7, and issues are turned into massive world ending ones that various political sides constantly argue about online. So you'll think every issue in the world is bigger, more widespread and more dangerous than it really is due to this hype/fanaticism driven culture. At the same time, there's definitely more awareness of things like mental health, homelessness, etc due to the internet and social media because information doesn't have to go through gatekeepers anymore, and people are less judgemental about those struggling with those things than they used to be. So awareness isn't necessarily a bad thing here, just if it's portrayed as "we're all fucked and everyone's going to die!" As for changes in the world itself? Well, there are definitely some things that have either broken or hit their tipping point. Climate change was an issue for decades, but its effects over time have built up to the point that ignoring it is no longer a practical solution. This in turn has led to some problems with the world's temperatures, weather patterns, natural disasters, etc that will only accelerate in time. Meanwhile other issues like economic breakdowns are the result of trends from the 60s/70s that were shortsighted then, and hilariously so in hindsight. Such as failing to enforce anti monopoly laws or properly regulate large businesses, treating housing as an investment rather than a right and in the case of tech companies, investing in anything and everything regardless of how likely it is to actually make a return on said investment. So yeah, it's a mix of both.

xg15 3y ago

(I think you're missing the "Ask HN:" prefix, right now this is getting buried in new) The chickens are coming home to roost... My impression is that a lot of developments that were already going wrong for quite a long time, but could be ignored relatively easily, are now reaching a breaking point. I think there is also a sort of "cascade failure" going on, on which some events are changing the conditions for more rvents to occur: E.g.: The general political turmoil inside the US led to the Trump election, which led to a weakened image of the US in the world, which may have emboldened other powers like Russia, which may have contributed to the outbreak of the Ukraine war, which has led to record inflation, etc etc. Likewise, climate change has reached a level in which the consequences are beginning to be felt even by rich nations, and the predicted tensions and upheavals are starting to materialize. Those are not the single "causes" of any of those events, but it might be one of many causal chains that connect all those world events and led to mutual escalation. Where all of this is leading? I have no idea, but definitely to a different era. The question is what kind of era.

khalilsautchuk 3y ago
Yes i get your point and i also see this as a cascade effect, there are things been swiped under the carpet for a long time and the results it's this mess we're seeing. What should we do a community? Sometimes i think of preparing for a apocalipse and sometimes i think about doing something to change that from a entrepreneur point of view. LOL
RetroTechie 3y ago
> My impression is that a lot of developments that were already going wrong for quite a long time, but could be ignored relatively easily, are now reaching a breaking point. This. Humanity is running up against our planets' finite resources. In increasing # of ways, the gains of technology are being outpaced by population growth, our careless use of resources, politics dragging their feet on greenhouse gasses, etc, etc. Result: ecological, economic, social & political mayhem. Civilizations have crashed before, but (whether we do or not) this time it's global. We're all in the same boat. Where this leads? Who knows. 1 Thing is certain: our world has become less reliable, less predictable. We're entering uncharted territory (that is the scary part, imho. There's no escape hatch & almost everyone will be affected). So we'll have a new world. Maybe -given time- one without us? :-/
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> ... which has led to record inflation... Easy to see you weren't around in the 1970s. This isn't record inflation. It's not even close.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> which has led to record inflation IIRC the peak of the recent inflation has been lower than the lowest inflation of the economic boom glory days of the 1980s, its certainly only “record” inflation with a very cramped historical window.

redder23 3y ago

WW3 baby, lets fucking goooo! Is boring AF out here and I am depressed as fuck, maybe some bombs next to my house would force me into some survival state where I feel alive and forget about how I wasted my life. I hear this stories of people who came from war zones and lived in constant fear but when they got out they actually MISSED IT! That shit is real. I am so black pilled, humanity learns nothing and repeats the same shit over and over and over again. The lifespan of people can be directly linked to when it all goes to shit again. People who could directly warn us what not to do are dead, so its time to repeat.

barrysteve 3y ago
Relatable. Imo the only way to deal with a wasted life trapped under a rock, is to imagine yourself lucky, you were under the rock. The built up, stagnant feelings from being trapped are dangerous. Boredom is dangerous. Black pilled is necessary these days, I honestly question people who don't know the black pill (and every colour pill). People complain about 'imaginary problems' as a source of mental stress.. but honestly the category of 'unseen knowledge' is getting bigger everyday. Individuals can know much more niche topics than ever before, one man's imaginary, is another man's unseen truth.
lnwlebjel 3y ago
Plenty of war zones that would welcome you. But instead, join the peace corps, or Americorps, or do something that gives you a sense of pride and utility. Make something, make something that helps people, or in some way makes the world better. Assuming you have tech skills, you'd be amazed how easy almost any other kind of work is that people need doing. More laborious sometimes but technically simple. Find that satisfying. And disconnect from the internet for a while.

hnthrowaway0315 3y ago

It was a lot messier during the Cold War and even more scary before that. This is just the end if a golden era. The next generations are going to envy us.

mikewarot 3y ago
During the cold was we feared the Commies dropping 50 megatons on the steel mills and oil refineries. Now we fear other Americans. This is far worse.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Don't know about that. Even a civil war isn't likely to kill 100 million of us. A full scale nuclear exchange with Russia would have done that.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    At least during WW3 it would be over in seconds for me. I'd just go out and sit on the porch and wait for the show.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
  I'm not American but wasn't CIA the primary suspect of the assasination of Kennedy?

potta_coffee 3y ago

The world is not a right place. It never has been and never will be. We won't "science" or vote our way out of human nature. There are cycles of bad times and somewhat better times.

starbase 3y ago

Are things really broken, or has our perception changed? Some of both, I think. > Why are so many people jobless? Perception -- Unemployment is lower today than in 82 of the last 94 years. > Why are so many companies going bankrupt? Perception -- Bankruptcies, currently around 50k companies per year, are also at historic lows. Before about 2015, 100k to 150k was the norm. > Why so many people are homeless? Perception -- Homelessness appears to be on the decline, having fallen from 210 per 100k population to 170 per 100k in the span of 10 years. > Why there are so many people under mental health issues? I have a several hypotheses on this one. Broken -- Lifestyles in the developed world have evolved faster than our biology. Men have few paths to fulfill their drive to build and conquer. Women have few (if any) children to nurture. And children have little unsupervised play and exploration, and practically zero responsibility. These stresses push some people (e.g., the man who would build a home on the frontier but can't bear an office job) over the brink and into mental illness. Broken -- In the past, people with severe mental illness were less likely to reproduce. Many were institutionalized, killed, or left to their own devices. This limited the proliferation of genes that code for mental illness. Now that we've spent several generations trying to keep everyone comfortably afloat, it's only natural that we see more people carrying (and expressing) genes that code for mental illness. Same principle explains the increase in other conditions that are no longer likely to be fatal: Asthma, poor eyesight, premature birth, etc. Perception -- We diagnose more often (and for less severe cases) and the taboo against having a mental illness is lower than it used to be.

jsjsof 3y ago
Funny how you trust numbers fudged by politicians more than your perception.
- jf22 3y ago
  How would you use your "perception" to identify if there are more jobless, homeless, and bankruptcies?
  - wenebego 3y ago
    They spend all day asking everyone they see

taurath 3y ago

> Why there are so many people under mental health issues? Prevalence is probably similar or lower, but information is so much easier to come by, and societal stigma about talking about it (rather than just going to a bar, or suffering in silence) is lower with the internet. Still everyone understands so much more about mental health now, and toxic relationships and many things that were once normalized deeply are breaking down However everyone also is competing with everyone. You don’t get to be “one of the smartest person in town” anymore because the town includes everyone on the internet. We’re still dealing with the initial wave of everyone being connected.

pesfandiar 3y ago

Regression to the mean, IMHO. For geopolitics specifically, many believe in the imminent end of Pax Americana.

codegeek 3y ago

Every time this comes up, I want to remind you that the world today is much better overall compared to decades ago. It is a much safer world in general and people are usually better off (overall). So it is not all doom and gloom as you think it is. Just different times with different challenges. I would rather live now than say 100 years ago. or even 50 years ago.

jsjsof 3y ago
The stressed out and homeless people everywhere you go contradicts what you are saying.
mejutoco 3y ago
> I would rather live now than say 100 years ago. or even 50 years ago. Every time this comes up I think: where? While I do not disagree with the world _on average_ there are unfortunately places where life is worse now. In addition to that, inequality is on average worse than decades ago. So at least there is a metric there where that is not true.
atmosx 3y ago
> [...] or even 50 years ago. This is accurate on a 100 year scale but completely off if you take into consideration the last 20 years, at least in the European side of the Mediterranean sea it has been all downhill after the 2008 financial crisis. There is a population-wise psychological depression that stems from the economic depression and everything that followed. The 90s were good, the 00s were okay-ish but after 2005 and specifically after 2008 Europe has been "steadily declining". New generations have very little to look forward to and it shows. The Economist's democracy index, measured world-wide, is steadily declining btw. Europe is going right-wing. Would have been a lot easier to start a business in 2001 than in 2023, even though in 2023 you can do part of the paperwork online, start "a business from your couch", etc.

swatcoder 3y ago

If you grew up after the Cold War ended, the whole world has looked like it was generally moving in one direction for most of your life and if you were in the West, a lot of that time might have even looked very sunny. But that was sort of a blip. We are entering a new era, but not because the world is broken, but because the dust is settling on that era and we’re kinda going back to normal. That said, there’s some reason to worry that the return might be a little cataclysmic in the way that a long-stuck fault line can produce a bigger earthquake than one that slips more frequently.

keiferski 3y ago

I think you're seeing the inevitable result of ideology taking precedence over reality. In other words, reality only has so much "stretch" to give when being warped under an inaccurate model. At some point, reality re-asserts itself and your ideological model of the world crumbles into pieces.

barrysteve 3y ago

No, let's not talk about it. Systems and tech bleed out concepts. If you're a Dominic Monk, yes it's worth the conversation. Serious discussion online is basically impossible, the shared frame of reference is orders of magnitude too weak. People love to nitpick details on second-order concepts, but without a connection to first-order metaphysics, the conversation immediately dies on pre-requisite meanings that can't be communicated in 'one HN post'. Mental health issues are a natural consequence of unbounded logic (machine supercharged), unstructured knowledge (flat heirachy and chaos shaping the internet experience) and 'public' relationships (random drop-ins trying to share common ground). These problems will only get worse (sorry) and anyone who actually tries to fix it will take the blame for being mentally ill (unless they have serious prestige/support). This post will not fix it.

eimrine 3y ago

> Why there are so many people under mental health issues? Do you know any other "mental health" issues except of just being stupid? Can you elaborate on that kind of issues? > My question is, the whole business model of the world gone wrong? Same issue but a different perspective. You might be a really smart guy, possible a Noble winner, but then you buy some computer devices which are hostile to a FOSS philosophy, you lose some of your personal freedoms and attract other guys, smart guys and really smart guys to do the same. Those devices limit a honest discussion by allegation reasons (CSAM, Patriot Act, ignorance of Ed Snowden's research etc) and the world without a honest discussions is going to fall in a war with increased speed and acceleration. Roughly same is happening with climate change - there is a lack of a honest discussions and that leads to such an ultimately stupid decisions as closing nuclear electro stations in Germany. Another growing problem is anti-abortion laws which will increase a criminalship after 15+ years from now. How is even possible to persuade religion-driven actors to consider the real facts? I believe only prohibition of every piece of software but FOSS can fix the problem of lacking the honest discussions.

quickthrower2 3y ago

I am not a historian but I imagine it always has been broken, but more broken for some people than others so depends how lucky you are. Medical advances have helped massively. We have decent chances of preventing plagues for example given the covid response.

CM30 3y ago

Well, it's a mix of our perceptions changing due to the internet, social media and news driven culture, and things actually going wrong. For the former, the news has created a polarised landscape where the negatives are put under the spotlight 24/7, and issues are turned into massive world ending ones that various political sides constantly argue about online. So you'll think every issue in the world is bigger, more widespread and more dangerous than it really is due to this hype/fanaticism driven culture. At the same time, there's definitely more awareness of things like mental health, homelessness, etc due to the internet and social media because information doesn't have to go through gatekeepers anymore, and people are less judgemental about those struggling with those things than they used to be. So awareness isn't necessarily a bad thing here, just if it's portrayed as "we're all fucked and everyone's going to die!" As for changes in the world itself? Well, there are definitely some things that have either broken or hit their tipping point. Climate change was an issue for decades, but its effects over time have built up to the point that ignoring it is no longer a practical solution. This in turn has led to some problems with the world's temperatures, weather patterns, natural disasters, etc that will only accelerate in time. Meanwhile other issues like economic breakdowns are the result of trends from the 60s/70s that were shortsighted then, and hilariously so in hindsight. Such as failing to enforce anti monopoly laws or properly regulate large businesses, treating housing as an investment rather than a right and in the case of tech companies, investing in anything and everything regardless of how likely it is to actually make a return on said investment. So yeah, it's a mix of both.