7 ms·

old man claims society collapsing; back in his day…

by dkdcio 10mo ago

sybercecurity 10mo ago
Old man yells at cloud native...
titzer 10mo ago
You'll get old too one day and it will look a whole lot different watching the younguns stumble through completely avoidable mistakes and forget the long lessons of your life that weren't properly taught or were just ignored. We have records from many periods in history of old men crowing about how society is collapsing because of the weak new generations. Thing is, maybe they were always right, and the new generations just had to grow up and take responsibility? And then again, maybe sometimes they were little too right and society did in fact collapse, but locally. “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” ― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain
- mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
  The quote at the end has absolutely nothing to do with old people not liking change.
  - jabbywocker 10mo ago
    It kind of does, no one repeating it ever thinks they’re the weak men creating hard times
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
  - Gormo 10mo ago
    That's because the thesis it's expounding on isn't "old people don't like change", but rather "experienced people often see their juniors unknowingly making avoidable mistakes".
- dkdcio 10mo ago
  they were not right and I promise when I’m old, I will not have this attitude. it’s one of my least favorite types of people; and that’s precisely my point, old men have been saying society is collapsing since ancient times, yet here we are, with things better than ever
  - Gormo 10mo ago
    > they were not right If you don't think they were at least sometimes right, to what do you instead attribute the various cases of socio-economic collapse documented throughout history?
    - dkdcio 10mo ago
      if I predict a recession every year I’ll be right eventually
      - Gormo 10mo ago
        I'm not sure that's directly analogous, though. We're talking about people looking at specific cultural trends and making reasoned arguments about specific causes and effects, not just saying "X will happen". Specific models and assumptions about how human societies work are often validated by historical example, and don't just predict end states, but sequences of events that extend over longer terms. When people say they see history repeating itself, it's worth hearing them out.
        dkdcio 10mo ago
        I’m saying if every generation has old men screaming “society is collapsing”, they aren’t right, even when they’re locally “right” (broken clock right twice a day) I’m all for hearing well-reasoned arguments; presenting pithy quotes as fact is absurd; claiming programming peaked 15 years ago is absurd
        Gormo 10mo ago
        > I’m saying if every generation has old men screaming “society is collapsing”, they aren’t right, even when they’re locally “right” But every generation doesn't have old men screaming "society is collapsing" at the same rate. There's always a baseline of people with a "get off my grass" mentality, but if you factor that out, occurrence of people actually pointing out that the world is on a dangerous path isn't uniform from one era to the next. Very few people, if any, were seriously making such an argument 30 years ago. People who are genuinely making reasoned arguments, and not just complaining about things being outside their comfort zone, should absolutely be taken seriously. > claiming programming peaked 15 years ago is absurd Well, what are you measuring? It certainly peaked in some dimensions 15 years ago. Whether you personally see those dimensions as important is of course a subjective question.
- jodrellblank 10mo ago
  An interesting Reddit r/AskHistorians thread on the question """Does the aphorism "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times", accurately reflect the evolution of civilizations through history and across different cultures?""" copying only the conclusion for a tl;dr: "The only way that the aphorism explains history is by reinforcing confirmation bias - by seeming to confirm what we already believe about the state of the world and the causes behind it. Only those worried about a perceived crisis in masculinity are likely to care about the notion of "weak men" and what trouble they might cause. Only those who wish to see themselves or specific others as "strong men" are likely to believe that the mere existence of such men will bring about a better world. This has nothing to do with history and everything with stereotypes, prejudice and bias. It started as a baseless morality tale, and that is what it still is." https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hd78tv/does_the_aphorism_hard_times_create_strong_men/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hd78tv/does_...
  - frumplestlatz 10mo ago
    Ironic given how strongly Reddit, r/AskHistorians, and the humanities in general bring their own biased lens to bear. Just like everyone else.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - tarsinge 10mo ago
      I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t see a bias here, the point is plainly stated: the notion of weak men is dubious. You might not agree, but then engage with something substantial.
      - frumplestlatz 10mo ago
        If you don’t see a bias in political communication (and that is what all of this is), then chances are very high you share the bias. Abundance allows comfort, comfort enables complacency, and complacency can weaken the social fabric by encouraging short-term gratification over long-term maintenance. People worry about masculinity because masculinity requires structured, pro-social outlets to not be toxic. A aimless or misdirected male population is an incredibly corrosive and/or dangerous thing. It can rot out a society from within, or make a society susceptible to subversion from without. Societies use rhetoric about strength because if a society does not maintain systems that cultivate competence, responsibility, purpose, and pro-social ambition (especially in its most impulsive members), it becomes brittle.
- glenstein 10mo ago
  Agreed! If anything, I think I'm tired of the "everyone says this when they get old!" hot take. Sometimes things really do get visibly worse and the intergenerational complaining about it is due to it really happening. I bring this example up every time, but I'm a baseball fan. And seemingly every generation of fan has said there's more people striking out than there used to be. Is it because there part of getting old as a baseball fan? No! It's really happening. Strikeouts have quite literally been going up from one decade to the next for basically a century. So sometimes it's because the thing is really happening. Environmental ecosystem collapse? Real. People having shorter attention spans every next generation? Real! Politics getting worse? Well, maybe the 1860s were worse, but the downward trajectory over the last 50 years seems pretty real. Inefficiency of increasingly automagic programming paradigms? Real! Sometimes things are true even if old people are saying them.
- scotty79 10mo ago
  > Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. Actually it's the opposite. Strong men create hard times by trying to show to each other how strong they are. Hard times create weak men because during hard times strong men kill each other, thus mostly weak men remain. Weak men create good times because instead of trying to show their strength they just build stuff so that the world is easier for them. In good times people breed and the population returns to the mean with just enough strong men to start the cycle again. WWII was the last time strong men created hard times. We are overdue for another round and it shows.
hackthemack 10mo ago
I wish people were not so inclined to reply with "Ad Hominem Ridicule" one liners. I like a good joke, but such replies lack a certain level of content that addresses the point and feel "low effort". I do agree that comparing the past with the present if fraught with complicated nuances, and people do tend to see the past with rose tinted glasses. But, I read Talwar's blog post more as a personal reflection on their experiences they are facing and not some kind of scientific treatise on what went wrong.
- dkdcio 10mo ago
  fair criticism; didn’t mean this as an ad hominem but rather a summarization of (as the comment I replied to points out) this genre of article that keeps coming up (and not just for programming); it’s exhausting mindset to see repeatedly and breaking it down into the core argument (“I liked things better when I was younger”) does have some value IMO if this were titled “Java/JavaScript peaked” or “my reflections on XYZ” and written like that, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. but claiming programming peaked 15 years ago leads me to not feel bad about my summarization

old man claims society collapsing; back in his day…

by dkdcio 10mo ago

old man claims society collapsing; back in his day…

sybercecurity 10mo ago

Old man yells at cloud native...

titzer 10mo ago

You'll get old too one day and it will look a whole lot different watching the younguns stumble through completely avoidable mistakes and forget the long lessons of your life that weren't properly taught or were just ignored. We have records from many periods in history of old men crowing about how society is collapsing because of the weak new generations. Thing is, maybe they were always right, and the new generations just had to grow up and take responsibility? And then again, maybe sometimes they were little too right and society did in fact collapse, but locally. “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” ― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
The quote at the end has absolutely nothing to do with old people not liking change.
- jabbywocker 10mo ago
  It kind of does, no one repeating it ever thinks they’re the weak men creating hard times
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- Gormo 10mo ago
  That's because the thesis it's expounding on isn't "old people don't like change", but rather "experienced people often see their juniors unknowingly making avoidable mistakes".
dkdcio 10mo ago
they were not right and I promise when I’m old, I will not have this attitude. it’s one of my least favorite types of people; and that’s precisely my point, old men have been saying society is collapsing since ancient times, yet here we are, with things better than ever
- Gormo 10mo ago
  > they were not right If you don't think they were at least sometimes right, to what do you instead attribute the various cases of socio-economic collapse documented throughout history?
  - dkdcio 10mo ago
    if I predict a recession every year I’ll be right eventually
    - Gormo 10mo ago
      I'm not sure that's directly analogous, though. We're talking about people looking at specific cultural trends and making reasoned arguments about specific causes and effects, not just saying "X will happen". Specific models and assumptions about how human societies work are often validated by historical example, and don't just predict end states, but sequences of events that extend over longer terms. When people say they see history repeating itself, it's worth hearing them out.
      - dkdcio 10mo ago
        I’m saying if every generation has old men screaming “society is collapsing”, they aren’t right, even when they’re locally “right” (broken clock right twice a day) I’m all for hearing well-reasoned arguments; presenting pithy quotes as fact is absurd; claiming programming peaked 15 years ago is absurd
        Gormo 10mo ago
        > I’m saying if every generation has old men screaming “society is collapsing”, they aren’t right, even when they’re locally “right” But every generation doesn't have old men screaming "society is collapsing" at the same rate. There's always a baseline of people with a "get off my grass" mentality, but if you factor that out, occurrence of people actually pointing out that the world is on a dangerous path isn't uniform from one era to the next. Very few people, if any, were seriously making such an argument 30 years ago. People who are genuinely making reasoned arguments, and not just complaining about things being outside their comfort zone, should absolutely be taken seriously. > claiming programming peaked 15 years ago is absurd Well, what are you measuring? It certainly peaked in some dimensions 15 years ago. Whether you personally see those dimensions as important is of course a subjective question.
jodrellblank 10mo ago
An interesting Reddit r/AskHistorians thread on the question """Does the aphorism "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times", accurately reflect the evolution of civilizations through history and across different cultures?""" copying only the conclusion for a tl;dr: "The only way that the aphorism explains history is by reinforcing confirmation bias - by seeming to confirm what we already believe about the state of the world and the causes behind it. Only those worried about a perceived crisis in masculinity are likely to care about the notion of "weak men" and what trouble they might cause. Only those who wish to see themselves or specific others as "strong men" are likely to believe that the mere existence of such men will bring about a better world. This has nothing to do with history and everything with stereotypes, prejudice and bias. It started as a baseless morality tale, and that is what it still is." https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hd78tv/does_the_aphorism_hard_times_create_strong_men/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hd78tv/does_...
- frumplestlatz 10mo ago
  Ironic given how strongly Reddit, r/AskHistorians, and the humanities in general bring their own biased lens to bear. Just like everyone else.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - tarsinge 10mo ago
    I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t see a bias here, the point is plainly stated: the notion of weak men is dubious. You might not agree, but then engage with something substantial.
    - frumplestlatz 10mo ago
      If you don’t see a bias in political communication (and that is what all of this is), then chances are very high you share the bias. Abundance allows comfort, comfort enables complacency, and complacency can weaken the social fabric by encouraging short-term gratification over long-term maintenance. People worry about masculinity because masculinity requires structured, pro-social outlets to not be toxic. A aimless or misdirected male population is an incredibly corrosive and/or dangerous thing. It can rot out a society from within, or make a society susceptible to subversion from without. Societies use rhetoric about strength because if a society does not maintain systems that cultivate competence, responsibility, purpose, and pro-social ambition (especially in its most impulsive members), it becomes brittle.
glenstein 10mo ago
Agreed! If anything, I think I'm tired of the "everyone says this when they get old!" hot take. Sometimes things really do get visibly worse and the intergenerational complaining about it is due to it really happening. I bring this example up every time, but I'm a baseball fan. And seemingly every generation of fan has said there's more people striking out than there used to be. Is it because there part of getting old as a baseball fan? No! It's really happening. Strikeouts have quite literally been going up from one decade to the next for basically a century. So sometimes it's because the thing is really happening. Environmental ecosystem collapse? Real. People having shorter attention spans every next generation? Real! Politics getting worse? Well, maybe the 1860s were worse, but the downward trajectory over the last 50 years seems pretty real. Inefficiency of increasingly automagic programming paradigms? Real! Sometimes things are true even if old people are saying them.
scotty79 10mo ago
> Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. Actually it's the opposite. Strong men create hard times by trying to show to each other how strong they are. Hard times create weak men because during hard times strong men kill each other, thus mostly weak men remain. Weak men create good times because instead of trying to show their strength they just build stuff so that the world is easier for them. In good times people breed and the population returns to the mean with just enough strong men to start the cycle again. WWII was the last time strong men created hard times. We are overdue for another round and it shows.

hackthemack 10mo ago

I wish people were not so inclined to reply with "Ad Hominem Ridicule" one liners. I like a good joke, but such replies lack a certain level of content that addresses the point and feel "low effort". I do agree that comparing the past with the present if fraught with complicated nuances, and people do tend to see the past with rose tinted glasses. But, I read Talwar's blog post more as a personal reflection on their experiences they are facing and not some kind of scientific treatise on what went wrong.

dkdcio 10mo ago
fair criticism; didn’t mean this as an ad hominem but rather a summarization of (as the comment I replied to points out) this genre of article that keeps coming up (and not just for programming); it’s exhausting mindset to see repeatedly and breaking it down into the core argument (“I liked things better when I was younger”) does have some value IMO if this were titled “Java/JavaScript peaked” or “my reflections on XYZ” and written like that, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. but claiming programming peaked 15 years ago leads me to not feel bad about my summarization