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I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a

• atq2119 1y ago
  I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all. There are so many ideas that sound good on paper but are bad in practice, and that happen to be convenient for the goals of unscrupulous powerful people. The notion that society as a whole will at some point stop falling for such ideas seems very optimistic to me.
  • Aeolun 1y ago
    Well, we have been improving. I don’t consider it too optimistic we’ll continue to do so.
    • smaudet 1y ago
      Improving at...what exactly? Please don't give some tripe about medecine or something...sure we have some fancy new techniques and the like, but that doesn't matter if those systems aren't generally available or rejected on pseudo-religious grounds. It might be true we have been living longer for a while, but that's a trend of the past 50 years in some areas, not some inexorable progress towards longer lives... Maybe we have lots of food and entertainment. I suppose that is good, in theory. But again, not something of recent history, that has more to do with the availability of large shipping vessels and TV production... The part people may find optimistic is continuing to improve in any appreciable manner, versus some gains made decades ago...
      • Aeolun 1y ago
        Well, for one thing, neither me nor my son work in coal mines. We don’t have to breathe any of the sooty gases that coal burning spews forth, and can turn on airconditioning in summer when it’s hot. Also, heated toilet seats in winter.
        • smaudet 1y ago
          Both of which are improvements not unique to even the past 10 years - even if you only recently experienced these improvements, that merely makes you "late adopters". You can have personal improvement, and you can continue to reap the benefits of existing systems, this is not the same as general progress or, progress made by society, much less any sort of indication that progress will continue...
  • Wickedflickr 1y ago
    Society came very close to realizing the beginnings of a decent state in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell faught in it, and wrote about what he saw that society achieving in his book, Homage to Catalonia.
    • ertian 1y ago
      It's not that hard for a new idea to look good for a couple short months/years. Building an ongoing, self-sustaining society that doesn't go completely off the rails is a whole other thing. There's a reason all these idyllic examples people give (Catalonia, Pre-USSR Ukrainian socialism, Paris Commune) were short-lived. If the Bolshevist revolution had been quashed in 1919, it would be idealized today.
      • Wickedflickr 1y ago
        They never collapsed from anything innate, though. They were always destroyed from outside forces. When your society represents actual freedom, you become the enemy of everyone, from capital to stalinism. Centralization of power has so far made every society deeply flawed or even hellish. The three societies you mentioned are the only ones where power was purposefully decentralized, and that seems to be the most promising path forward that was never allowed to stretch its legs.
        • int_19h 1y ago
          I would argue that Rojava is one modern case that still shows hope. Although not as decentralized as those other examples, perhaps this is also why they're still there 11 years later.
          • Wickedflickr 1y ago
            I agree. Though unfortunately there have been reports of them slowly centralizing power away from community councils toward the military over time. Even still, it's offering far more freedom and diversity than any of the surrounding countries. I'm rooting for them to succeed.
  • guelo 1y ago
    I felt a glimmer hope from Grok believe it not. On X it has been showing the potential of an AI being seen as a trusted authority to cut through a lot of propaganda based on facts. But then elon didn't like the "facts are liberal" vibes and nerfed it and now it can't be trusted, it's just another propaganda mouthpiece. This points to what I think is the missing amendment to the US constitution, when a media company gets big enough to influence significant portions of the electorate it should not be allowed to be owned by a single billionaire or a small family. Large media ownership should be distributed as widely as possible across society so that one rich guy isn't able to force his opinions on everyone.
  • Animats 1y ago
    > I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all. For a few brief years, it looked like we were there.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...
• dluan 1y ago
  It's math. You can model what happens in n-player repeated games of incomplete information, and you'll realize we're far from any stable point. And it's not even that hard to understand that the narrative of "end of history" benefits the people who get to say that and uphold that narrative.
  • Avicebron 1y ago
    Could just be cyclic? 1776->1861 (romanticism leading into civil war), 1861->1940 (modernism leading into WWII), [weird cold war baby boomer era of prosperity] 1970->2025 (post-modernism leading into..)
    • djkivi 1y ago
      See the Fourth Turning!
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • burnt-resistor 1y ago
        - Strauss & Howe. Exactly
  • hliyan 1y ago
    Concur, but from a control systems point of view. Any system that does not define upper/lower limits and does not address feedback loops, are prone to oscillations, and if the size of the system grows over time, the oscillations can become progressively more violent. Our socioeconomic/political systems currently do not define any hard upper or lower limits on its primary driver (economic power) and does not address feedback loops (e.g. more capital availability -> larger scale -> more economies of scale -> more market share -> more capital -> more scale).
• lossolo 1y ago
  I was in the same place not long ago, convinced that democracy’s march and market liberalization meant we’d finally broken the old chains. But the more I watched what people actually do, versus the rhetoric they spew, the clearer it became that most of our "freedoms" are just stage props. We have the illusion of democracy so we can feel free, the illusion of equal justice under law so we can feel secure, the illusion of meritocracy so we can feel hopeful. And thanks to this, they get stability. In reality, there are always those who want to be above the law and steer the masses and today’s new kings just wear different robes. Media conglomerates manufacture consent far more subtly than the Church ever could. Student debt servitude, rent extraction, and opaque health insurance bureaucracy bind millions in ways that feel inescapable. Yet because it’s all cloaked in market-speak and "public interest" we barely notice our chains. Recognizing these illusions is painful, but it’s also the first step toward tearing them down. If we’re honest, the next century of political and economic evolution won’t be about perfecting the PR, it’ll be about building genuine checks on power, creating institutions that can’t be gamed, and demanding real accountability, even when the robes change.
  • dmix 1y ago
    > We have the illusion of democracy so we can feel free, the illusion of equal justice under law so we can feel secure, the illusion of meritocracy so we can feel hopeful. All values and freedoms need to be fought for constantly and perpetually. They are not hard constants outside rare exceptions when it’s very clearly defined law. It’s simply the sum of the efforts of people currently on the planet. They are always under threat by people with good intentions or more overt bad ones. What you may be seeing is a decline in people publicly pushing for them, especially in our institutions (politics, press, academia etc). But you can still find plenty of people fighting for them if you look deeper.
• cantor_S_drug 1y ago
  The problem is you can't even point a finger or single out people responsible for the current state of things. Unless we collectively accept there is a problem, the solution will not get implemented.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    I can think of numerous people who while not solely responsible for the state of things, have certainly fanned the flames to attain great personal prosperity at the expense of our collective psyche. Those people have names and addresses and they are not as they may believe immune from retribution. I don’t want to live through any more historical times but I increasingly believe we’re on a precipice of incredible amounts of political violence, both against people who don’t deserve it, and people who do. And those people would be wise to pump the brakes a little.
  • somename9 1y ago
    This is why monarchies are better than democracies. There is no accountability or ownership. A king wants to pass down something better to his progeny. A politician wants to make money and generally doesn’t care what state he leaves things in.
    • parineum 1y ago
      Why don't politicians care about their kids and why do monarchs not care about money?
      • somename9 1y ago
        I never said either of those things. By progeny, I meant both the heirs of the king and the common race of people belonging to the kingdom. Kings were the head of different races of people and as the head, they looked after their people (if they were a good king). For example, a good king wouldn’t import millions of people who are different from those in his kingdom for economic reasons, and you don’t see this in history. It is his job to take care of his people and if he suddenly gave them an incredible amount of competition for resources, he would be responsible for causing his people great difficulty. He cares about them and wouldn’t do that. Politicians don’t have this headship and from their behavior clearly don’t view themselves as stewards of their country and people (they do care about their own children though). An example of this would be Mike Lee’s attempt to sell off American public lands to foreign interests. The money raised from this would not make a dent in the deficit or debt, and it would take away beautiful fishing and hiking from Americans. Thankfully this was done away with, but a good king would never consider selling public land in the middle of his country to foreigners.
• pomian 1y ago
  We are going up, slowly, in health, literacy, education - globally. But, like all progress, it is up up and down, then again up up and down. Thanks to retro grades like Putin and Trump. As to health indenture -that form of slavery is primarily in USA. Most other countries have figured it out. I agree with hope for the future though. Star Trek, not Star Wars!
  • janalsncm 1y ago
    Globally this is true because of improvements in developing countries. Not uniform improvement everywhere. Some places backslide.
• qntmfred 1y ago
  gd it why did my ancestors never warn me about the end-of-history illusion
• rixed 1y ago
  What is this "end of history illusion", if not the belief that there is a "decent end state"? There will always be reasons to oppose any current equilibrium for improvements, and that's ok.
  • hliyan 1y ago
    The "end of history illusion" is not the belief that there is a decent end state, but the belief of each generation that that state has been reached, and that they were to first to reach it.
    • rixed 1y ago
      Actually, this expression "end of history" has been coined, and the ideology(*) behind it promoted, in the 1990s after the collapse of the eastern block. Before that, for what I can tell, the prevaling idea seems to have been that of an "ustoppable march of progress". Long before that, I would guess that the most common ideology was that of a persistant, immuable order. (*) That's the proper term to denote a concept that justify the will of a group, regardless of its veracity. Considering history, I see no signs of converging to some end state. I guess technical progress and knowledge accumulate somehow, but even this is not linear and history shows plenty of exemples of drastic step backs. But even assuming an ever increasing technical progress, in a world with infinite resources (that's a very big assumption), what would be the end state? I guess, given we are on HN, a state were humans program conscious machines which then do all the hard work? In other words, the ideology of bigtech?
• joules77 1y ago
  Thats called illusion of control. Just look at your family and friends. Some will always want much more than others. Some will always take paths that are easy. Some will have no problem taking advantage of the weak. Keeping all those traits in check is a full time job. Its not free. It eats into limited time and energy. Sooner or later compromises are made. Therefore parasites and predators always find space in any ecosystem you look at. You might be able to turn off/keep in check behavior of a few. But never all.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• chatmasta 1y ago
  Consider how insignificant your worries will seem to future generations in one, two, ten centuries from now. Or maybe you think we’ll destroy the world or something, in which case that’s “chicken little syndrome.” It’s hard to imagine we will regress in any meaningful way. That’s basically never happened, and even when it did, during the “dark ages,” we recovered – on a long enough timeline (which isn’t even that long) we’ve made exponential progress in every facet of life. There’s a lot to look forward to. Or you can be pessimistic about it during the few brief years you have in this world…
  • bombcar 1y ago
    The way I look at it - you can be optimistic and hope that your actions can have a positive effect on your life and the world - if you’re wrong, you’re no more fucked than if you’d been pessimistic the whole time, and you at least felt better during said time.
• somenameforme 1y ago
  For more on this exact topic I strongly recommend Plato's "The Republic". The entire book is phenomenal, but "book" (chapter) 8 [1] is something that just completely reshaped my world view. There is an occasional reference that will make you think we've genuinely made progress, like casual acceptance of slavery, but when one reads just the political timelines and transitions he speaks of, he sounds like he's describing modern times, with a bit of edgelord flair, with complete hindsight bias. But that book was written 2,400 years ago! It was a realization that nothing, except technology, is changing. We're not entering into some scary unknown time, but just regressing to the mean. Humanity seems to be stuck on a perpetual loop, probably because we really suck at learning from the past and inevitably convince ourselves that 'this time it'll be different.' And even on those issues we do seem to have made progress on, like slavery - is it just a coincidence that slavery ended universally, after millennia of efforts, only just after the Industrial Revolution and mass urbanization which effectively obsoleted it? On the theme of slavery, consider that we mostly don't even blink twice now a days when a country drags men off the street, separates them from their family, puts a gun in their hand, and throws them in a trench to kill and most likely die. Those that continue to refuse to kill not infrequently end up 'dying in training.' To say nothing of barrier troops. This is all much worse than even slavery, but we casually accept it, because it hasn't yet been obsoleted. If the role of humans in warfare is ever minimized, imagine what lovely things they'll write about our morality and hypocrisy, just as we are wont to do about the past today. --- As for the chapter referenced, Ctrl+F for "And democracy has her own good" and read from there. "Drone" is a term you'll see throughout classical writings. It's a reference to drone bees who contribute nothing to a hive, but exist solely to consume and mate if they can. So it's a term that refers to everything from beggars to criminals to corrupt politicians who prefer enriching themselves and special interests over broadly socially motivated politicking. So in modern times it would include practically all politicians. [1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html
  • tim333 1y ago
    I agree human nature hasn't really changed since Plato's time and technology is the main thing that has. But the tech provides much more information and communication which leads to things like slavery going. Also I think most people are shocked that trench warfare is still going on but the Russian leadership seems a bit behind the times. Apparently Putin spent time during the lockdown reading previous centuries history and here we are.
• smaudet 1y ago
  We are probably several centuries out. Thought experiment - how many generations does it take to forget grandpa? If Grandpa is the issue, their grandchildren may have falsely optimistic opinions of their corrupt roots. Their children (grand grand children) don't have the same rosy memories, and don't get why Mom and Dad are into their weird rituals. But it's Mom and Dad so it can't be so bad, right? It's not till their grandchildren, normally, that (assuming they are decent people and the trait isn't genetic or somehow encouraged by society) people can maybe see what utter crappy people their grand grand grand grand parents were, and maybe do something about it.
• 123yawaworht456 1y ago
  >We probably have another century of socioeconomic and political evolution to go before we reach a decent end state. I agree with everything you said, but that's a rather odd conclusion. things are getting worse, not better.
• swoorup 1y ago
  Same, and it's quite obvious. You will get the same government regardless of who you vote for, its controlled opposition design to cushion some of your grievances but policies are set in stone.