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This description actually makes me feel like the metaphor is more apt. The dinosaurs went down because they were large, complex lifeforms that required a vibra

This description actually makes me feel like the metaphor is more apt. The dinosaurs went down because they were large, complex lifeforms that required a vibrant, complex ecosystem to support them. Amidst a fundamental shift to that ecosystem, large complex organisms were the first to go down. This is a general pattern - complex systems are always the first to collapse when there's a shift in the ecosystem, because they have more interdependencies. Mammals emerged from the carnage because they were small and nocturnal and could occupy small & simple ecological niches. The original disruptive innovation. As for what will take them down - all large institutions are failing right now. The public education system. The health care system. The government. The mass media. The immigration system, and general idea of national borders. The zoning / building code / housing system. Childcare. Wouldn't surprise me if we see the financial system, currency, and military go down next. The trigger is part climate change, part demographics, part COVID, and part the loss of trust triggered by the Internet and Big Tech, but all of these are fundamental shifts in the foundations of our society that make our society no longer adapted to the ecological niche it grew up in.

ynniv 3y ago
I think you're mistaking popularity with power. Big Tech is less cool, but 7/8ths of humanity are under their umbrella.
spintin 3y ago
[flagged]
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  be sure to post again when you next emerge from you backyard bunker
  - spintin 3y ago
    "If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They might break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds." - C.S. Lewis
Roark66 3y ago
>As for what will take them down - all large institutions are failing right now. The public education system. The health care system. The government. The mass media. The immigration system, and general idea of national borders. The zoning / building code / housing system. Childcare. Wouldn't surprise me if we see the financial system, currency, and military go down next. The trigger is part climate change, part demographics, part COVID, and part the loss of trust triggered by the Internet and Big Tech. Falling? When was the last time in a developed country when an educational system/heathcare failed as a system? Or the government (other than in Argentina), or Military? As for the concept of borders? No, that is not failing either, it's just people in some countries today became convinced it is not worth to use deadly force to defend borders. See for example Sweden, or France for where this path leads to. It is not a pretty picture, but it is very far from "systems failing". As for reasons, why these systems are under pressure I can definitely agree on demographics, but climate change affecting our education/healthcare systems? No way. Periods of boom and bust are a feature of our financial system, I'm not seeing anything unusual. Currencies fail too due to mismanagement. But extrapolating this into some sort of overall systemic failure of everything caused by climate change no less is not rational. On the global scale the biggest challenge in today's world is the growing power of authoritarian nations hell bent on global domination and continued enfeeblement(deindustrialisation, increased corruption, disregard for the rule of law) of the free world. Then demographics, then very far in the distance climate change.
- Certhas 3y ago
  With you on "institutions are not failing as such". As for biggest challenges: You _massively_ underestimate climate change, and the way it is entangled with everything else. There have always been authoritarian nations. The so called free world does not seem notably more corrupt than it was 50 years ago, it is in many ways freer than it has ever been (see the annoyance and backlash of those that don't think the freedom should extend to such things as chosing your gender), and it's economic power remains unmatched for now. But: We already live in a changed climate. This means we no longer speculate about the damages climate change will do, we can measure them in macroeconomic data already [1]. This was a huge surprise to ke. I would have expected economic systems to be much more resilient to the warming already seen. We are facing a situation where the world's poorest are experiencing reduced growth (meaning not fewer corporate profits, but people fleeing hunger and destitution), while we are all dealing with a massively increased number of extreme events (which _will_ stress institutions not adapted to the new normal, possibly to the breaking point), while we also have to transform or economic systems towards carbon neutrality to prevent even more catastrophic impacts. This is fertile ground for authoritarians, democratic backsliding, loss of liberties and institutional failure. [1] e.g.: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5
glimshe 3y ago
Large institutions have been "failing" for over a century, in most countries, similar to things in orbit being always "falling". Just go find old newspapers and you'll see similar wording. The constant criticism and renewal of our institutions is part of the system.
- whythre 3y ago
  You aren’t wrong, but we used to teach Latin in schools. Things aren’t getting better in a lot of these arenas, they are being chipped away… and the center cannot hold forever.
  - blackmesaind 3y ago
    I don't find the lack of Latin in public education to be particularly alarming, and I've found that it's been replaced by subjects a bit more relevant to the modern day (i.e. Comp Sci)
  - zehaeva 3y ago
    What does teaching Latin in schools have to do with schools, ostensibly, failing? Are you saying that Latin is something that is useful to everyday life and because we don't teach it to our children we're depriving them of this wonderous tool? I personally do not know Latin, but I have never run into a situation where I needed to know it. And to analyze the idea that, "Well, it's not Latin in specific, but that we are not teaching our children to think for themselves", this too has been bayed about for the last forever, Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should" I don't know which pedagogy is the "correct" one, stuff children with, seemingly, random knowledge and watch them "blossom" or to stuff them with narrowly focused learning so that they will flourish at whatever work they are funneled into. But I do know that teaching a dead language isn't the bellwether you think it is, unless you're trying to start a jobs program for all those unemployeed Latin tutors.
    - marginalia_nu 3y ago
      Well, you would be surprised how much historical writing you are locked out of by not being able to read Latin. Not from antiquity, but from the fall of rome up until the turn of the previous century, Latin was the language. A tiny fraction of what's been written in Latin is available in any vernacular. By not reading Latin, you're locked out almost all western pre-modern writing. > Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should" Where does he say this? This seems an incredibly uncharacteristic sentiment coming from Plato. If nothing else because his mentor Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth, and almost all extant writing from Plato deals with Socrates' legacy. When Socratres isn't harassing rulers and generals, he's typically portrayed hanging out with the youth in Plato's writing. Closest thing I'm aware is a section of The Republic. The section, a hypothetical aside really, deals with the horrors of Athenian democracy (the same that killed Socrates), where fathers fear their sons and children are said to think themselves equals to their parents.
twisteriffic 3y ago
Those public institutions are being _made_ to fail right now. Purposefully. Not by unthinking forces of nature but by conscious effort.
- geodel 3y ago
  Right, it is always that vast right wing conspiracy.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Is it your position that there are no powerful entities that actually desire to see many social institutions diminished if not outright demolished?
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    So the right wing isn't trying to gut public education and healthcare? I just hallucinated charter school vouchers and all their attempts to repeal the ACA?
genmon 3y ago
you're saying that dinosaurs were a zero interest rate phenomenon? ok ok flippant but maybe not entirely flippant... I'm used to conceiving of fitness as in fitness for a niche. But I hadn't grasped the idea of "meta-fitness" being the ability to adapt to a highly dynamic niche. there must be a term in evolutionary theory for this.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  Are you saying Big Tech was the primary beneficiary of free money? That doesn't seem as accurate as saying it is/was all ventures that couldn't be funded by revenues and profit, from the largest to smallest players.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  The term is "resilience".

ynniv 3y ago

I think you're mistaking popularity with power. Big Tech is less cool, but 7/8ths of humanity are under their umbrella.

spintin 3y ago

[flagged]

skeeter2020 3y ago
be sure to post again when you next emerge from you backyard bunker
- spintin 3y ago
  "If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They might break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds." - C.S. Lewis

Roark66 3y ago

>As for what will take them down - all large institutions are failing right now. The public education system. The health care system. The government. The mass media. The immigration system, and general idea of national borders. The zoning / building code / housing system. Childcare. Wouldn't surprise me if we see the financial system, currency, and military go down next. The trigger is part climate change, part demographics, part COVID, and part the loss of trust triggered by the Internet and Big Tech. Falling? When was the last time in a developed country when an educational system/heathcare failed as a system? Or the government (other than in Argentina), or Military? As for the concept of borders? No, that is not failing either, it's just people in some countries today became convinced it is not worth to use deadly force to defend borders. See for example Sweden, or France for where this path leads to. It is not a pretty picture, but it is very far from "systems failing". As for reasons, why these systems are under pressure I can definitely agree on demographics, but climate change affecting our education/healthcare systems? No way. Periods of boom and bust are a feature of our financial system, I'm not seeing anything unusual. Currencies fail too due to mismanagement. But extrapolating this into some sort of overall systemic failure of everything caused by climate change no less is not rational. On the global scale the biggest challenge in today's world is the growing power of authoritarian nations hell bent on global domination and continued enfeeblement(deindustrialisation, increased corruption, disregard for the rule of law) of the free world. Then demographics, then very far in the distance climate change.

Certhas 3y ago
With you on "institutions are not failing as such". As for biggest challenges: You _massively_ underestimate climate change, and the way it is entangled with everything else. There have always been authoritarian nations. The so called free world does not seem notably more corrupt than it was 50 years ago, it is in many ways freer than it has ever been (see the annoyance and backlash of those that don't think the freedom should extend to such things as chosing your gender), and it's economic power remains unmatched for now. But: We already live in a changed climate. This means we no longer speculate about the damages climate change will do, we can measure them in macroeconomic data already [1]. This was a huge surprise to ke. I would have expected economic systems to be much more resilient to the warming already seen. We are facing a situation where the world's poorest are experiencing reduced growth (meaning not fewer corporate profits, but people fleeing hunger and destitution), while we are all dealing with a massively increased number of extreme events (which _will_ stress institutions not adapted to the new normal, possibly to the breaking point), while we also have to transform or economic systems towards carbon neutrality to prevent even more catastrophic impacts. This is fertile ground for authoritarians, democratic backsliding, loss of liberties and institutional failure. [1] e.g.: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00985-5

glimshe 3y ago

Large institutions have been "failing" for over a century, in most countries, similar to things in orbit being always "falling". Just go find old newspapers and you'll see similar wording. The constant criticism and renewal of our institutions is part of the system.

whythre 3y ago
You aren’t wrong, but we used to teach Latin in schools. Things aren’t getting better in a lot of these arenas, they are being chipped away… and the center cannot hold forever.
- blackmesaind 3y ago
  I don't find the lack of Latin in public education to be particularly alarming, and I've found that it's been replaced by subjects a bit more relevant to the modern day (i.e. Comp Sci)
- zehaeva 3y ago
  What does teaching Latin in schools have to do with schools, ostensibly, failing? Are you saying that Latin is something that is useful to everyday life and because we don't teach it to our children we're depriving them of this wonderous tool? I personally do not know Latin, but I have never run into a situation where I needed to know it. And to analyze the idea that, "Well, it's not Latin in specific, but that we are not teaching our children to think for themselves", this too has been bayed about for the last forever, Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should" I don't know which pedagogy is the "correct" one, stuff children with, seemingly, random knowledge and watch them "blossom" or to stuff them with narrowly focused learning so that they will flourish at whatever work they are funneled into. But I do know that teaching a dead language isn't the bellwether you think it is, unless you're trying to start a jobs program for all those unemployeed Latin tutors.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    Well, you would be surprised how much historical writing you are locked out of by not being able to read Latin. Not from antiquity, but from the fall of rome up until the turn of the previous century, Latin was the language. A tiny fraction of what's been written in Latin is available in any vernacular. By not reading Latin, you're locked out almost all western pre-modern writing. > Plato complained that "children today are not learning the things that they should" Where does he say this? This seems an incredibly uncharacteristic sentiment coming from Plato. If nothing else because his mentor Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth, and almost all extant writing from Plato deals with Socrates' legacy. When Socratres isn't harassing rulers and generals, he's typically portrayed hanging out with the youth in Plato's writing. Closest thing I'm aware is a section of The Republic. The section, a hypothetical aside really, deals with the horrors of Athenian democracy (the same that killed Socrates), where fathers fear their sons and children are said to think themselves equals to their parents.

twisteriffic 3y ago

Those public institutions are being _made_ to fail right now. Purposefully. Not by unthinking forces of nature but by conscious effort.

geodel 3y ago
Right, it is always that vast right wing conspiracy.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Is it your position that there are no powerful entities that actually desire to see many social institutions diminished if not outright demolished?
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  So the right wing isn't trying to gut public education and healthcare? I just hallucinated charter school vouchers and all their attempts to repeal the ACA?

genmon 3y ago

you're saying that dinosaurs were a zero interest rate phenomenon? ok ok flippant but maybe not entirely flippant... I'm used to conceiving of fitness as in fitness for a niche. But I hadn't grasped the idea of "meta-fitness" being the ability to adapt to a highly dynamic niche. there must be a term in evolutionary theory for this.

skeeter2020 3y ago
Are you saying Big Tech was the primary beneficiary of free money? That doesn't seem as accurate as saying it is/was all ventures that couldn't be funded by revenues and profit, from the largest to smallest players.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
The term is "resilience".