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I guess I must count myself lucky having lived through that optimism of the 1990ies. But perhaps those too young to really remember anything pre 9/11 have it ea

by usrusr 1y ago

I guess I must count myself lucky having lived through that optimism of the 1990ies. But perhaps those too young to really remember anything pre 9/11 have it easier to adapt to the state of the world today and I should therefore be envious? PS: Yes, this appears a terribly unrelated to the article, but that's basically what I read: "There was this trajectory to a better world, I eagerly contributed (and this turned out huge but that's beside the point), but at some point we lost direction and now I'm just trying to find small steps in that old direction, even if the impact certainly won't repeat."

weinzierl 1y ago
"I guess I must count myself lucky having lived through that optimism of the 1990ies" The hardest for me is to grasp is that world wide free and largely uncensored communication was a singular anomaly that is never going to come back.
- wizzwizz4 1y ago
  You're talking like you've already lost the fight. I currently have worldwide free and largely-uncensored communication.
card_zero 1y ago
It's nice if the 90s can be mythologized as a time of optimism and reaching for a better world. That was when Jamiroquai released "Virtual Insanity", and everybody was very worried about the ozone layer and homelessness. "The world's insane, while you drink champagne, and I'm livin' in black rain," to quote I think from Body Count by Body Count. But everything's relative.
- EB-Barrington 1y ago
  [dead]
- usrusr 1y ago
  Yeah, I was also thinking of music when I wrote that: https://youtu.be/ZTcWojwUrfk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/ZTcWojwUrfk?feature=shared Dee Lite - I Had a Dream I Was Falling Through a Hole in the Ozone Layer The one example of impeding ecological doom that humanity actually tackled by getting their shit together. Why did we succeed? Many ways to romanticize, but at the bottom of it is that it just wasn't that hard of a problem compared to the real toughies. (I do believe that climate change worries are also the root of the resurgence of authoritarianism, but that's a story for another time. Just in short the key hypothesis: adopting a hate ideology is just another type of looking away from the problem that has no simple convenient answers)
  - runlaszlorun 1y ago
    > (I do believe that climate change worries are also the root of the resurgence of authoritarianism, but that's a story for another time. Just in short the key hypothesis: adopting a hate ideology is just another type of looking away from the problem that has no simple convenient answers) Oh that's an interesting insight. I'd be up to hear more if you're up for sharing...
    - usrusr 1y ago
      Really not that complicated, actually: even at the best of times, it's always a struggle between ideas roughly in the corner of "a better world for everybody" (positivity!) and ideas built on some form of "us vs them" (zero sum, or worse). The latter come in different colors, they can co-opt religious concepts, the idea of community anywhere between the small scale of family all the way to the large scale of nation, or even social constructs orthogonal to those such as class. Or some combination thereof. At the best of times, it's still close enough to a tie between positivity and the others. Enter climate change: positives become a much harder sell, those can't really ignore it. But the zero sum ones (or negative sum, that difference does not really matter) remain unaffected - or in some ways even become more attractive.
- rileymat2 1y ago
  The ozone worry is a weird one to point out because we were optimistic enough to fix it and should heal itself in decades.

by usrusr 1y ago

weinzierl 1y ago

"I guess I must count myself lucky having lived through that optimism of the 1990ies" The hardest for me is to grasp is that world wide free and largely uncensored communication was a singular anomaly that is never going to come back.

wizzwizz4 1y ago
You're talking like you've already lost the fight. I currently have worldwide free and largely-uncensored communication.

card_zero 1y ago

It's nice if the 90s can be mythologized as a time of optimism and reaching for a better world. That was when Jamiroquai released "Virtual Insanity", and everybody was very worried about the ozone layer and homelessness. "The world's insane, while you drink champagne, and I'm livin' in black rain," to quote I think from Body Count by Body Count. But everything's relative.

EB-Barrington 1y ago
[dead]
usrusr 1y ago
Yeah, I was also thinking of music when I wrote that: https://youtu.be/ZTcWojwUrfk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/ZTcWojwUrfk?feature=shared Dee Lite - I Had a Dream I Was Falling Through a Hole in the Ozone Layer The one example of impeding ecological doom that humanity actually tackled by getting their shit together. Why did we succeed? Many ways to romanticize, but at the bottom of it is that it just wasn't that hard of a problem compared to the real toughies. (I do believe that climate change worries are also the root of the resurgence of authoritarianism, but that's a story for another time. Just in short the key hypothesis: adopting a hate ideology is just another type of looking away from the problem that has no simple convenient answers)
- runlaszlorun 1y ago
  > (I do believe that climate change worries are also the root of the resurgence of authoritarianism, but that's a story for another time. Just in short the key hypothesis: adopting a hate ideology is just another type of looking away from the problem that has no simple convenient answers) Oh that's an interesting insight. I'd be up to hear more if you're up for sharing...
  - usrusr 1y ago
    Really not that complicated, actually: even at the best of times, it's always a struggle between ideas roughly in the corner of "a better world for everybody" (positivity!) and ideas built on some form of "us vs them" (zero sum, or worse). The latter come in different colors, they can co-opt religious concepts, the idea of community anywhere between the small scale of family all the way to the large scale of nation, or even social constructs orthogonal to those such as class. Or some combination thereof. At the best of times, it's still close enough to a tie between positivity and the others. Enter climate change: positives become a much harder sell, those can't really ignore it. But the zero sum ones (or negative sum, that difference does not really matter) remain unaffected - or in some ways even become more attractive.
rileymat2 1y ago
The ozone worry is a weird one to point out because we were optimistic enough to fix it and should heal itself in decades.