4 ms·

I'm in my 50's and looking forward, I just don't see anything good in the future for this world. Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history b

I'm in my 50's and looking forward, I just don't see anything good in the future for this world. Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different.

sarreph 2y ago
> Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. In my 30s and I make a habit of asking people in the generations above me if they felt the same when they were younger / my age. As in, did things always seem this futile, clogged, and broken? The answer is always "no".
- ribosometronome 2y ago
  Cold War? World Wars? There's been a ton of doom. Perhaps elder millennial and younger Gen X got to go through their 30s without some of this worry?
  - scythe 2y ago
    Today's situation is not very similar. Previously we worried about specific threats. The Axis Powers, the Soviet world and its influence, even nuclear war. We had a pretty good characterization of what the threat was, even if it was devastating, even if we didn't have a great plan to prevent it. We knew how it would manifest. Today we are facing a sort of nebulous destabilization of social institutions and norms that seems to be related to digital computing and communication technologies but we can't nail down what particular aspects cause the problem or how it manifests. We are not sure if any particular problem is related to The Problem or not. Some people don't believe that The Problem exists at all. We have no idea what the consequences could be if The Problem is not addressed, nor do we have a good way to tell if it's currently getting worse, barring some kind of unexpected catastrophe like a bunch of high-ranking government officials accidentally inviting a journalist to an illegal chat room where they are planning air strikes. Perhaps none of this means that The Problem is worse than anything we have faced before, or even as bad. But humans have always gotten through our problems by turning our intellect onto them, and it frightens us when our best weapon doesn't seem to be working. What is the Internet doing to society? That's the trillion-dollar question.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      The threats of the 20th century were not that specific. Unless you lived in a particularly sheltered part of the world, your neighbors (the people you knew) were the threat. They supported a different world order, and if the right (or wrong) situation arose, they were often ready to kill you to further their goals. Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization had left many people behind. Communism and fascism arose as responses to that, along with more moderate ideologies that ended up joining forces with capitalism. Today we have globalization and a different flavor of capitalism, with a new set of ideologies offering solutions to those who were left behind.
    - akomtu 2y ago
      Internet unites the world. It must be united, but there are two ways to do that: it can be a union of the free or it can be a tyranny of one. The two futures may happen simultaneously, but for different people, based on their preferences. This is what's fueling the feeling of doom for many. Moreover, the world must be united at three levels: mental, emotional and physical. The grand empires of the past tried to unite the world with armies at the physical level. The hierocraties of the mediaeval ages tried to do the same with religion at the emotional level. The Internet is trying to do this now at the mental level. Just like in the past, some want to inspire the people with a common ideal, while others want to unite the people by force, only this time it will be mainly applied to our thoughts.
  - saulpw 2y ago
    I remember being scared of nuclear war as a child in the 80s. But even though that cast a pall of fear, only 2 superpowers had them in world-ending capacity, and they were self-interested enough that MAD could maintain the precarious balance. World War I was long and devastating but there would be an end to it; wars don't continue forever by default. WWII was potentially cataclysmic but we were fighting coherently with a unified front, throwing everything we had towards beating it. You could buy war bonds, grow a victory garden, ration your use of gasoline/rubber/steel; do your part and we'll get through this. The modern issues like climate change are global, imminent, and increasingly present, and there's no contemporary feeling of solidarity and effort against them. We've been told annually that the window to save ourselves is closing rapidly, and yet carbon emissions are still increasing. That's right, they're not going down too slowly, they're still going up. Pick another modern issue, like education (which is arguably a root solution to these other issues). It's getting worse, so are we trying like hell to improve it? Teachers are trying but can't seem to move the needle. And the US is about to dismantle its national Department of Education to improve "efficiency". I've looked at the situation and despite a desire for optimism, I have to be realistic. All efforts against the current slate of problems are off by an order of magnitude. Please, tell me a story, any story at all, for how this gets better within our lifetimes, without science fantasy like colonizing Mars or limitless fusion power (as though either of those things would help anyway).
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - decimalenough 2y ago
      > World War I was long and devastating but there would be an end to it; wars don't continue forever by default. WWII was potentially cataclysmic but we were fighting coherently with a unified front, throwing everything we had towards beating it. You could buy war bonds, grow a victory garden, ration your use of gasoline/rubber/steel; do your part and we'll get through this. This is a very American view. In Europe/China/Japan/USSR, you could do all those things, and you and your family could still die tomorrow in an aerial bombing or get rounded up by the Gestapo/Kempeitai/KGB and sent to a concentration camp/human experiment lab/gulag.
- eddythompson80 2y ago
  This really highly depends on the person. Also, people always tend to view the past with more rose-eyed-glasses compared to how they actually felt at the time they are remembering. Here is an interview with kids in 1966 about what they think life will be like in future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c
- tekla 2y ago
  They were more worried about dying than getting likes on Instagram.
HideousKojima 2y ago
>Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. You're assuming that people in the past were wrong when they felt that way. People love to bring up Socrates being charged with "corrupting the youth" in 399 BC but always seem to forget that Athens was conquered by the more rural, agrarian, and presumably more socially conservative Macedonians 60 years later.
maxerickson 2y ago
Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy
hn_acc1 2y ago
I hear ya. Early 50s here too. The world feels too "coupled", so that the same sorts of things are happening everywhere, so you can't really "get away" in any sense anymore. Being "connected" is basically a requirement instead of a cool hobby you can do after hours now, and so your data gets stolen 24x7, and you get advertised / marketed to, regardless of how resistant you are, eventually, it gets you. And well.. feeling a bit like those people in 1930s germany.. "No good can come of this".. Just not sure where to run to anymore - most countries have their (virtual) walls up too (no visas), and the one out (Canada) isn't necessarily a sure thing as a backup..
SoftTalker 2y ago
I’m slightly older and you know, in high school I bought Cliff’s Notes to avoid the boring long books I was supposed to read. Are kids today really different?
colechristensen 2y ago
>Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. There’s good comedy in recognizing how you feel about it isn’t unique in time and then following up with thinking this time it’s different. Everyone thinks this time is different. The kids think they’re the first ones to really want change and the old folks thinks this new generation is really the bad one. The kids are rebelling against you and when you were a kid you weren’t paying enough attention to understand what was going on in the world. If the world stayed the same and you thought the same way as you did when you were a kid and the next generation thought the same way as you do now, we’d still be living as animals.
- saghm 2y ago
  I find it incredibly amusing to see people in my generation complain about things like slang from the generation after us when it wasn't barely over a decade ago when I was having to answer to my uncle jokingly demanding to know why my generation was (according to an article he read) responsible for the demise of the can opener as a household applicance. In retrospect, maybe being out of touch with whatever people my age thought was cool as a kid was really good practice for me now that we're _all_ old and out of touch!
jackphilson 2y ago
Actually this is the best time in human history since you get to choose your universe (where you live and who you interact with)
chrisco255 2y ago
I'm in my 40s, and I see self-driving cars, humanoid robotics, and the explosion of AI as something that will bring incredible wealth to humanity. It seems like the 21st century is on the cusp of becoming like the one everyone dreamed about in the 20th century. You can focus on whatever is wrong in the world or you can be fearful of new tech as everyone who ages is wont to do, or you can focus on the excitement of entering a new age and the inevitable good that will bring. One day soon deaths from car wrecks may go to near zero. Robotics will be able to produce healthy food cheaply as well as handle all sorts of menial labor. AI is empowering people to "vibe code" and build games and software with just their imagination. It's a very groovy time.
- fransje26 2y ago
  > as something that will bring incredible wealth to humanity. As things are going, it looks like it's more going to bring incredible wealth to the very few. That don't pay taxes. > It seems like the 21st century is on the cusp of becoming like the one everyone dreamed about in the 20th century. No, to be honest, for the time being it looks like it's going to turn into a techno-fascist hell-hole.
  - chrisco255 2y ago
    It's literally never been the case that a new technology brings wealth to just a few. Cars, cell phones, computers, air conditioning, running water, etc etc were all once things for rich people. In short order they became commonplace.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Ah yes, a future where you can only get around in a box on wheels owned by someone else, can only afford garbage food produced by robots that are owned by someone else, and can only do computing using "AI" owned by someone else. This is a world that brings wealth to a few. It's just deeper down into the same hole we've been digging for the past 50+ years. It's a world in which individuals own nothing and have no control over their lives.
  - 2y ago
amelius 2y ago
Yes, it's different because this time democracy is under attack.

I'm in my 50's and looking forward, I just don't see anything good in the future for this world. Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different.

sarreph 2y ago

> Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. In my 30s and I make a habit of asking people in the generations above me if they felt the same when they were younger / my age. As in, did things always seem this futile, clogged, and broken? The answer is always "no".

ribosometronome 2y ago
Cold War? World Wars? There's been a ton of doom. Perhaps elder millennial and younger Gen X got to go through their 30s without some of this worry?
- scythe 2y ago
  Today's situation is not very similar. Previously we worried about specific threats. The Axis Powers, the Soviet world and its influence, even nuclear war. We had a pretty good characterization of what the threat was, even if it was devastating, even if we didn't have a great plan to prevent it. We knew how it would manifest. Today we are facing a sort of nebulous destabilization of social institutions and norms that seems to be related to digital computing and communication technologies but we can't nail down what particular aspects cause the problem or how it manifests. We are not sure if any particular problem is related to The Problem or not. Some people don't believe that The Problem exists at all. We have no idea what the consequences could be if The Problem is not addressed, nor do we have a good way to tell if it's currently getting worse, barring some kind of unexpected catastrophe like a bunch of high-ranking government officials accidentally inviting a journalist to an illegal chat room where they are planning air strikes. Perhaps none of this means that The Problem is worse than anything we have faced before, or even as bad. But humans have always gotten through our problems by turning our intellect onto them, and it frightens us when our best weapon doesn't seem to be working. What is the Internet doing to society? That's the trillion-dollar question.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    The threats of the 20th century were not that specific. Unless you lived in a particularly sheltered part of the world, your neighbors (the people you knew) were the threat. They supported a different world order, and if the right (or wrong) situation arose, they were often ready to kill you to further their goals. Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization had left many people behind. Communism and fascism arose as responses to that, along with more moderate ideologies that ended up joining forces with capitalism. Today we have globalization and a different flavor of capitalism, with a new set of ideologies offering solutions to those who were left behind.
  - akomtu 2y ago
    Internet unites the world. It must be united, but there are two ways to do that: it can be a union of the free or it can be a tyranny of one. The two futures may happen simultaneously, but for different people, based on their preferences. This is what's fueling the feeling of doom for many. Moreover, the world must be united at three levels: mental, emotional and physical. The grand empires of the past tried to unite the world with armies at the physical level. The hierocraties of the mediaeval ages tried to do the same with religion at the emotional level. The Internet is trying to do this now at the mental level. Just like in the past, some want to inspire the people with a common ideal, while others want to unite the people by force, only this time it will be mainly applied to our thoughts.
- saulpw 2y ago
  I remember being scared of nuclear war as a child in the 80s. But even though that cast a pall of fear, only 2 superpowers had them in world-ending capacity, and they were self-interested enough that MAD could maintain the precarious balance. World War I was long and devastating but there would be an end to it; wars don't continue forever by default. WWII was potentially cataclysmic but we were fighting coherently with a unified front, throwing everything we had towards beating it. You could buy war bonds, grow a victory garden, ration your use of gasoline/rubber/steel; do your part and we'll get through this. The modern issues like climate change are global, imminent, and increasingly present, and there's no contemporary feeling of solidarity and effort against them. We've been told annually that the window to save ourselves is closing rapidly, and yet carbon emissions are still increasing. That's right, they're not going down too slowly, they're still going up. Pick another modern issue, like education (which is arguably a root solution to these other issues). It's getting worse, so are we trying like hell to improve it? Teachers are trying but can't seem to move the needle. And the US is about to dismantle its national Department of Education to improve "efficiency". I've looked at the situation and despite a desire for optimism, I have to be realistic. All efforts against the current slate of problems are off by an order of magnitude. Please, tell me a story, any story at all, for how this gets better within our lifetimes, without science fantasy like colonizing Mars or limitless fusion power (as though either of those things would help anyway).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - decimalenough 2y ago
    > World War I was long and devastating but there would be an end to it; wars don't continue forever by default. WWII was potentially cataclysmic but we were fighting coherently with a unified front, throwing everything we had towards beating it. You could buy war bonds, grow a victory garden, ration your use of gasoline/rubber/steel; do your part and we'll get through this. This is a very American view. In Europe/China/Japan/USSR, you could do all those things, and you and your family could still die tomorrow in an aerial bombing or get rounded up by the Gestapo/Kempeitai/KGB and sent to a concentration camp/human experiment lab/gulag.
eddythompson80 2y ago
This really highly depends on the person. Also, people always tend to view the past with more rose-eyed-glasses compared to how they actually felt at the time they are remembering. Here is an interview with kids in 1966 about what they think life will be like in future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c
tekla 2y ago
They were more worried about dying than getting likes on Instagram.

HideousKojima 2y ago

>Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. You're assuming that people in the past were wrong when they felt that way. People love to bring up Socrates being charged with "corrupting the youth" in 399 BC but always seem to forget that Athens was conquered by the more rural, agrarian, and presumably more socially conservative Macedonians 60 years later.

maxerickson 2y ago

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy

hn_acc1 2y ago

I hear ya. Early 50s here too. The world feels too "coupled", so that the same sorts of things are happening everywhere, so you can't really "get away" in any sense anymore. Being "connected" is basically a requirement instead of a cool hobby you can do after hours now, and so your data gets stolen 24x7, and you get advertised / marketed to, regardless of how resistant you are, eventually, it gets you. And well.. feeling a bit like those people in 1930s germany.. "No good can come of this".. Just not sure where to run to anymore - most countries have their (virtual) walls up too (no visas), and the one out (Canada) isn't necessarily a sure thing as a backup..

SoftTalker 2y ago

I’m slightly older and you know, in high school I bought Cliff’s Notes to avoid the boring long books I was supposed to read. Are kids today really different?

colechristensen 2y ago

>Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different. There’s good comedy in recognizing how you feel about it isn’t unique in time and then following up with thinking this time it’s different. Everyone thinks this time is different. The kids think they’re the first ones to really want change and the old folks thinks this new generation is really the bad one. The kids are rebelling against you and when you were a kid you weren’t paying enough attention to understand what was going on in the world. If the world stayed the same and you thought the same way as you did when you were a kid and the next generation thought the same way as you do now, we’d still be living as animals.

saghm 2y ago
I find it incredibly amusing to see people in my generation complain about things like slang from the generation after us when it wasn't barely over a decade ago when I was having to answer to my uncle jokingly demanding to know why my generation was (according to an article he read) responsible for the demise of the can opener as a household applicance. In retrospect, maybe being out of touch with whatever people my age thought was cool as a kid was really good practice for me now that we're _all_ old and out of touch!

jackphilson 2y ago

Actually this is the best time in human history since you get to choose your universe (where you live and who you interact with)

chrisco255 2y ago

I'm in my 40s, and I see self-driving cars, humanoid robotics, and the explosion of AI as something that will bring incredible wealth to humanity. It seems like the 21st century is on the cusp of becoming like the one everyone dreamed about in the 20th century. You can focus on whatever is wrong in the world or you can be fearful of new tech as everyone who ages is wont to do, or you can focus on the excitement of entering a new age and the inevitable good that will bring. One day soon deaths from car wrecks may go to near zero. Robotics will be able to produce healthy food cheaply as well as handle all sorts of menial labor. AI is empowering people to "vibe code" and build games and software with just their imagination. It's a very groovy time.

fransje26 2y ago
> as something that will bring incredible wealth to humanity. As things are going, it looks like it's more going to bring incredible wealth to the very few. That don't pay taxes. > It seems like the 21st century is on the cusp of becoming like the one everyone dreamed about in the 20th century. No, to be honest, for the time being it looks like it's going to turn into a techno-fascist hell-hole.
- chrisco255 2y ago
  It's literally never been the case that a new technology brings wealth to just a few. Cars, cell phones, computers, air conditioning, running water, etc etc were all once things for rich people. In short order they became commonplace.
globular-toast 2y ago
Ah yes, a future where you can only get around in a box on wheels owned by someone else, can only afford garbage food produced by robots that are owned by someone else, and can only do computing using "AI" owned by someone else. This is a world that brings wealth to a few. It's just deeper down into the same hole we've been digging for the past 50+ years. It's a world in which individuals own nothing and have no control over their lives.
- 2y ago

amelius 2y ago

Yes, it's different because this time democracy is under attack.