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The world gets both better and worse. it is something that I regularly get voted down for saying here, but IMO the west is unduly pessimist because it had a gol

The world gets both better and worse. it is something that I regularly get voted down for saying here, but IMO the west is unduly pessimist because it had a golden age from winning the cold war until the late 2000s, took an overly optimistic view of the future and the inevitability of progress (remember "the end of history") and cannot cope with things going back to normal. Things get better, sometimes they get worse. Generally people are better off materially than they have ever been, but people do not change all that much morally.

harimau777 2y ago
I think that sort of analysis ignores the things that we gave up to get our golden age; such that a return to normal would actually mean ending up worse than we were before in many ways. We accepted Capitalism's race to the bottom in exchange for the benefits of consumerism. Now we are being asked to give up consumerism but there's no indication that we will also go back to a time before everything was cheaply made plastic crap.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>and cannot cope with things going back to normal. how do we define "normal" for society?
- graemep 2y ago
  Very loosely? There really is no normal - things change over time. It would be more accurate to say it was the end of an period of unusual stability and security.
- krapp 2y ago
  Normal is what we're willing to accept in exchange for our comfort.
jajko 2y ago
Well, WWIII or some other form of nuclear strikes may change that perception. I agree its dangerous to be overly positive and naive, we humans are still just a notch above beasts, are easy to manipulate (always via negative emotions like greed, envy, inferiority complex and so on), but things can absolutely go to utter shit, we have more capabilities than ever to spread it across globe. Not just nuclear - drone warfare is absolutely maddening. Imagine 10 millions of them, each with their target, each going with absolute precision and on its own - thats what current armies aim for and within a decade they will get it. What is (and always was) is that very few holds most of the decision power. Get one mental unstable vicious person there and it falls down like house of cards. Our current high tech civilization is pretty fragile to disruption. Sure, we can always revert to stone age, some would even be glad, but I strongly prefer not to.
baxtr 2y ago
I talked to a history professor recently and asked him how he viewed the whole situation. He leaned back, thought for a bit and answered: It’ll be all fine on a 200 years perspective, democracy will continue to increase its footprint, people will lead better lives. It’s the next 30 years I’m worried about. PS: ofc, I have no clue if he’s right or not. But I thought it’s an interesting take to share.
- dataflow 2y ago
  "Fine"? Did the history professor consider anything other than history or politics? The way global warming and our general destruction of nature is going (not just species or climate but also e.g. depletion of groundwater in a lot of heavily populated areas), I'm not sure democracy will be our biggest concern in 200 years' time.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    No, he did not consider things that have never happened before. He can only extrapolate from events that already happened. Human made global warming is a first time, so difficult to say what will happen from a historical perspective.
    - 9rx 2y ago
      > Human made global warming is a first time Human-made global warming appears to go back to the advent of agriculture, though, so for all intents and purposes it has been a constant throughout the history of which we speak.
      - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
        Ted was so right.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - badpun 2y ago
davedx 2y ago
> People do not change all that much morally This is debatable. In fact, the US culture war is absolutely about what American "morality" should be. It's what a lot of the Project 2025 Manifesto is about: "The document spans a wide range of policy areas, but when it comes to culture, family, and morality, it emphasizes a return to traditional values, a rollback of progressive social policies, and an assertive use of federal power to reshape American culture" There's a reason it's called a Culture War and not a Culture Mild Disagreement.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > There's a reason it's called a Culture War and not a Culture Mild Disagreement. Culture war at this point is more than a decade old. It did not start with Project 2025. It started on the Internet. Also, GP said people do not change all that much morally. That much is true. Organizations change fast. Societies change slower. The acted on rules are a combination of three, but it's important to be aware of the distinctions and the dynamics.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    Frankly, the culture war started in earnest in the late 60s.
    - freeopinion 2y ago
      So you weren't around for the 20s? The last 20s?
      - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        As old as I am, I wasn't here for the 60s either, though both would have been a total blast
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - camgunz 2y ago
fransje26 2y ago
> and cannot cope with things going back to normal. I would argue that we worked our way to the post cold-war golden age, and then destroyed it with greed, which led to financial pain, which led to political nonsense, which led to the rubbish we are in right now. So the period we are in right now is not the "back to normal" phase, but an actual decrease of human evolution. Not dissimilar to things that happened in the past, for example with the collapse of the roman empire.
- 127 2y ago
  I would add pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. (CatGPT did a pretty good job: https://dpaste.com/HTS9DWRNZ-preview https://dpaste.com/HTS9DWRNZ-preview)
  - goatlover 2y ago
    Woe, Frolic, Dread, Malice - world needs to be severed.
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    Wait tell me more about CatGPT
    - bckr 2y ago
      I prefer Clawed
    - layer8 2y ago
      The French claim that it farts.
      - nosmokewhereiam 2y ago
        "Cat I farted" in French, fwiw
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  "People do not change that much morally." Greed is part of what humans are. It's part of what destroys societies. Building a society that can survive human nature long term is an unsolved problem. You sound like you expected that, after the end of the Cold War, we had a perfect society, and then we fell from a state of grace and ruined it. No, after the end of the Cold War, the pressure was removed that had been keeping us from acting on our worst impulses. Turns out that many of us were worse than we expected.
dfxm12 2y ago
The world gets both better and worse. It doesn't have to get worse. Conversely, it doesn't have to get better, either, but at this point, we've got a lot of history that shows us what has and hasn't worked. I think the measure of how people are doing worth focusing on is how much of their potential they've fulfilled. I'm not really interested in how generally well off someone is today compared to someone in some random point in history because there are too many outliers on both ends of that one.
barbazoo 2y ago
> cannot cope with things going back to normal. Interesting take on "normal" by Canadian physician Gabor Maté. https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/ https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/

harimau777 2y ago

I think that sort of analysis ignores the things that we gave up to get our golden age; such that a return to normal would actually mean ending up worse than we were before in many ways. We accepted Capitalism's race to the bottom in exchange for the benefits of consumerism. Now we are being asked to give up consumerism but there's no indication that we will also go back to a time before everything was cheaply made plastic crap.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>and cannot cope with things going back to normal. how do we define "normal" for society?

graemep 2y ago
Very loosely? There really is no normal - things change over time. It would be more accurate to say it was the end of an period of unusual stability and security.
krapp 2y ago
Normal is what we're willing to accept in exchange for our comfort.

jajko 2y ago

Well, WWIII or some other form of nuclear strikes may change that perception. I agree its dangerous to be overly positive and naive, we humans are still just a notch above beasts, are easy to manipulate (always via negative emotions like greed, envy, inferiority complex and so on), but things can absolutely go to utter shit, we have more capabilities than ever to spread it across globe. Not just nuclear - drone warfare is absolutely maddening. Imagine 10 millions of them, each with their target, each going with absolute precision and on its own - thats what current armies aim for and within a decade they will get it. What is (and always was) is that very few holds most of the decision power. Get one mental unstable vicious person there and it falls down like house of cards. Our current high tech civilization is pretty fragile to disruption. Sure, we can always revert to stone age, some would even be glad, but I strongly prefer not to.

baxtr 2y ago

I talked to a history professor recently and asked him how he viewed the whole situation. He leaned back, thought for a bit and answered: It’ll be all fine on a 200 years perspective, democracy will continue to increase its footprint, people will lead better lives. It’s the next 30 years I’m worried about. PS: ofc, I have no clue if he’s right or not. But I thought it’s an interesting take to share.

dataflow 2y ago
"Fine"? Did the history professor consider anything other than history or politics? The way global warming and our general destruction of nature is going (not just species or climate but also e.g. depletion of groundwater in a lot of heavily populated areas), I'm not sure democracy will be our biggest concern in 200 years' time.
- baxtr 2y ago
  No, he did not consider things that have never happened before. He can only extrapolate from events that already happened. Human made global warming is a first time, so difficult to say what will happen from a historical perspective.
  - 9rx 2y ago
    > Human made global warming is a first time Human-made global warming appears to go back to the advent of agriculture, though, so for all intents and purposes it has been a constant throughout the history of which we speak.
    - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
      Ted was so right.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- badpun 2y ago

davedx 2y ago

> People do not change all that much morally This is debatable. In fact, the US culture war is absolutely about what American "morality" should be. It's what a lot of the Project 2025 Manifesto is about: "The document spans a wide range of policy areas, but when it comes to culture, family, and morality, it emphasizes a return to traditional values, a rollback of progressive social policies, and an assertive use of federal power to reshape American culture" There's a reason it's called a Culture War and not a Culture Mild Disagreement.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> There's a reason it's called a Culture War and not a Culture Mild Disagreement. Culture war at this point is more than a decade old. It did not start with Project 2025. It started on the Internet. Also, GP said people do not change all that much morally. That much is true. Organizations change fast. Societies change slower. The acted on rules are a combination of three, but it's important to be aware of the distinctions and the dynamics.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  Frankly, the culture war started in earnest in the late 60s.
  - freeopinion 2y ago
    So you weren't around for the 20s? The last 20s?
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      As old as I am, I wasn't here for the 60s either, though both would have been a total blast
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- camgunz 2y ago

fransje26 2y ago

> and cannot cope with things going back to normal. I would argue that we worked our way to the post cold-war golden age, and then destroyed it with greed, which led to financial pain, which led to political nonsense, which led to the rubbish we are in right now. So the period we are in right now is not the "back to normal" phase, but an actual decrease of human evolution. Not dissimilar to things that happened in the past, for example with the collapse of the roman empire.

127 2y ago
I would add pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. (CatGPT did a pretty good job: https://dpaste.com/HTS9DWRNZ-preview https://dpaste.com/HTS9DWRNZ-preview)
- goatlover 2y ago
  Woe, Frolic, Dread, Malice - world needs to be severed.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  Wait tell me more about CatGPT
  - bckr 2y ago
    I prefer Clawed
  - layer8 2y ago
    The French claim that it farts.
    - nosmokewhereiam 2y ago
      "Cat I farted" in French, fwiw
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
"People do not change that much morally." Greed is part of what humans are. It's part of what destroys societies. Building a society that can survive human nature long term is an unsolved problem. You sound like you expected that, after the end of the Cold War, we had a perfect society, and then we fell from a state of grace and ruined it. No, after the end of the Cold War, the pressure was removed that had been keeping us from acting on our worst impulses. Turns out that many of us were worse than we expected.

dfxm12 2y ago

The world gets both better and worse. It doesn't have to get worse. Conversely, it doesn't have to get better, either, but at this point, we've got a lot of history that shows us what has and hasn't worked. I think the measure of how people are doing worth focusing on is how much of their potential they've fulfilled. I'm not really interested in how generally well off someone is today compared to someone in some random point in history because there are too many outliers on both ends of that one.

barbazoo 2y ago

> cannot cope with things going back to normal. Interesting take on "normal" by Canadian physician Gabor Maté. https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/ https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/