8 ms·
Harold and George Destroy the World
- hyperhello 7mo agoIt’s an evolved skin for blending with the other humans. Look at what they always actually do.
- amelius 7mo agoIf you're saying they are only pretending to be stupid, then they're doing a really good job.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo agoSee also: the "Everyone is Twelve now" theory of politics. https://www.fastcompany.com/91429448/everyone-is-12-twitter-tiktok-trump https://www.fastcompany.com/91429448/everyone-is-12-twitter-... https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/everyone-is-12-now-theory-of-course-you-do-youre-12 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/everyone-is-12-now-theory-of-...
- c22 7mo agoI think we hit "peak baby" around a decade ago, so this checks out.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo agoInteresting, why do you say "a decade ago"? Peaks are only identifiable in retrospect, but what would mark "peak baby" then, that was more peak that current events?
- c22 7mo agoCitations: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-has-passed-peak-child https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-has-passe... https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy-peak-baby https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo agoAh, the "the "Everyone is Twelve now" theory of politics" doesn't mean literal young children. It refers to the mentality of the (often gerontocratic) leaders and their adult supporters. Infantilism, not infants.
- c22 7mo agoI understand, of course, and was being mostly tongue in cheek. However, I do think there could be something to the idea that as the majority of the world has trended younger we notice a net decrease in perceived maturity across the population.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo agoIn addition, "worldwide" is misleading - the countries where the "Everyone is Twelve now" theory of politics is most evident are not the same countries where the population has recently trended younger. It would make more sense (not much more, but more) to blame early life lead exposure in the generation currently at the top of the political pile. Or blame social media.
- afavour 7mo agoReminds me of this classic: — working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now" “I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy https://bsky.app/profile/veryimportant.lawyer/post/3lybxlwzjuc2h https://bsky.app/profile/veryimportant.lawyer/post/3lybxlwzj...
- Fricken 7mo agoObserving toddlers fight over toys has yielded some of my most valuable insights into the nature of statecraft.
- api 7mo agoThat was my oil pipeline and he broke it! Did not! Did too! But he drove his tank on my side! That’s not your side! That’s my side! Is not!
- bitexploder 7mo agoThe narratives and what can be identity evolve. The brain’s core function to defend identity never does.
- simpsond 7mo agoAll fights between my children stem from resource contention.
- fzeroracer 7mo agoI think a lot of us have worked with That Guy at one point or another. The person that never internalized what being 'wrong' means. I don't mean the curmudgeons that might be really prickly about certain things, but the kind of person that is not only habitually wrong but incapable of recognizing it. In a sense I think this is a different thing from someone that is antisocial or manipulative, because even they can admit being wrong or incorrect in certain circumstances. It's closest to narcissist behavior but it exhibits in such a specific way that makes me think it's a different type. You could probably link it to a lot of different things. Extreme machismo social media brainrot, a society that rewards never admitting you're wrong, extreme wealth.
- rglover 7mo agoGarden variety malignant narcissism (my armchair psych opinion but grew up in this dynamic). It's acting out in response to their deep shame (the root thing that all of the narcissistic behavior is desperate to hide). They can't admit they're wrong, otherwise their entire psychological world collapses. Coincidentally, that's also why it's so terrifying to see so many of these types in power. While most narcissists are mostly hot air and talk, occasionally, you get a legitimate wildcard that's destructive in difficult to repair ways (sometimes leaving nothing but smoldering rubble).
- simpaticoder 7mo agoYes, and here's an interesting (and clear) example that shows that narcissism is a complex delusion that puts one's own fault squarely into a blind spot that cannot be perceived. I watched this and, for the first time in my life, felt a huge pang of compassion and sadness for those that suffer from it, even though they make life more difficult for everyone else. They are broken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqRIw5FICAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqRIw5FICAs A Kent State professor calls 911 because she can't get into her building to pee; she is clearly drunk; they give her every opportunity to get a ride home; she refuses and is eventually detained. Later she goes to the police department to get an apology from the officers involved. It was, to me, a shocking example of the narcissistic delusion, with stakes low-enough that one could focus on that and not the side-effects.
- nephihaha 7mo ago[flagged]
- tadfisher 7mo agoAbsolutely nothing wrong with a coordinated, rapid response to a global pandemic. This was a bright spot in humanity's record, IMO. The corruption of public perception of the response by a handful of individuals is something we should regret.
- nephihaha 7mo agoQuite a bit wrong with it. From the beginning the threat level was exaggerated, especially considering the lack of threat to younger people. We are still paying the social and economic costs (including sky high cost of living, directly connected to it). It was also coincidentally very similar to the Event 201 table top exercise a mere six months before between Johns Hopkins, the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation (all unelected and unaccountable organisations which this "global" advice came from).
- tadfisher 7mo ago1 million excess deaths in the US alone, with an infection rate rapid enough to bring the hospital system to its knees. The threat level was judged perfectly. You can blame the cost of living directly on the corporations charging more for their products than required, and buying up housing to extort renters. Inflation-wise, you have the Trump administration to blame for writing stimulus checks with his name on them, but mainly the corrupt Congress for spending an order of magnitude more on directly paying corporations with zero oversight to make sure they were playing by the rules (PPP).
- nephihaha 7mo agoMore people died in the so called Hong Kong Flu in the 1960s. In some places more people died from suicide due to the enforced social isolation. I knew people who drank themselves to death or took to heroin. Others were not able to receive cancer diagnoses or treatment. So no, not worth the cost. The deaths were very much exaggerated. In fact, pretty much every death I heard of was "Covid plus X" not Covid alone. It didn't affect the lower age group much. "You can blame the cost of living directly on the corporations charging more for their products" It has everything to do with shutting down most of the global economy for most of two years, and destroying supply chains. In some places in Africa, the annual harvest was destroyed because of the hysteria. Not to mention rampant economic warfare by centralised government. They could have stopped debt and mortgages being called in after they forced people to stop working. Not to mention taxation. The idea that I can't talk to my neighbour over a fence but Amazon and Pizza delivery can go door to door is sheer lunacy and unscientific.
- glitchc 7mo agoIn my experience, everyone turns twelve when they disagree or are shown to be wrong. Very few have the temerity to accept their faults. Let's not throw stones lest they hit our own glass houses.
- api 7mo agoI’ll admit to having done that before. Sure. When people say you’re wrong it triggers cognitive dissonance and social threat brain stem stuff that had to be consciously mediated. Even if you’re someone who makes an effort to do this it can catch you off guard.
- trgn 7mo agoit's instinctive, people will readily be accept to be told they're wrong by an authority rather than a peer. people cant cast judgement without having earned to position to do so. similarly, people will not receive judgement when it doesnt come from a valid position of authority. the answer is not to try and change human psychology, it's to reintroduce the hierarchies and structures where correction and judgement flows through the correct channels.
- 6510 7mo agoI sit on the tip of my chair when told i'm wrong. I have either a moment of woah! realizing they are right or their argument becomes increasingly silly under scrutiny. I also know how to spot seeking new arguments for opinions without. The most enlightening is to be repeatedly wrong about a subject. Most of those end realizing there is no actual data worthy of a conclusion. It suddenly becomes obvious that should have been the answer from the beginning. Nothing changes in my life if the earth is flat or not. I'm so much not in a hurry finding the answer that I will probably never need to.
- Configure0251 7mo agoNo need to do a drive by on Predator Badlands like that, it's a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right. I agree with the author though, there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another, and so it would make for poor choice as a double feature to run second in the pairing.
- boogieknite 7mo agothank you! spoiler alert if anyone hasnt seen Predator Badlands Tom self owns himself quite a bit by dismissing a movie as drivel and then comparing it to dumb plots made by adult children. the entire point of the movie is to demonstrate how dumb and bad overt masculinity is. yes its oversimplified but its Predator. the audience is hormonal teenage boys who might think toxic masculinity is cool. the entire setup Tom thought was dumb is more or less called out as dumb later in the movie
- throwaway743 7mo agoI see your take but I took it as "don't limit yourself to the confines of tradition and culture, open yourself up to others, go your own path, do the right thing, and make friends along the way to enrichen your life and meaning".
- boogieknite 7mo agoi agree. im certainly projecting having grown up in an overly macho competitive family and couldnt help but draw parallels
- tclancy 7mo agoI mean I owned myself in the writing, didn’t I? Ya dirty ai. Anyone else woulda gotten the upshot. Unless I am an ai too.
- permo-w 7mo agoIf you read a bit further he does say that the reviews are good and he should give it a proper go
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- api 7mo agoOne thing you learn growing up is that there, in a sense, are no such thing as grownups. Nobody knows what they are doing in the sense we think they do when we are kids.
- tormeh 7mo agoSome adults try a bit harder to live up to the ideals of being an adult than others. They are toddlers inside like anyone else, but there's a layer of restraint on top that evidently not everyone has.
- SomeHacker44 7mo agoI agree to a large extent. Yet, what we see going on in US political leadership truly is beyond my belief of what reasonable adults should do and act like, even as an (precocious, sharp) ex-child.
- api 7mo agoYes, it’s next level and clearly a period of decline. This is Nero and Caligula stuff. We’ve been sliding this way for a while. It doesn’t mean this is the end of the USA. All civilizations go through ups and downs. This is, at least culturally and politically, a down. I also think it’s global though. The US is manifesting it clearly and starkly, but that’s kind of US style. Authoritarianism backed by populist grievance politics and venal corruption are on the rise around the world.
- BirAdam 7mo agoIf I remove my own political leanings, this group just completely dropped the mask.
- Ekaros 7mo agoWhen I think about it I start to ask question what sort of reasonable person would even get involved in the top political leadership? Especially in USA on both sides. It feels entirely select to those who can manage the absurdly hostile environment both from inside and outside... Which to me doesn't look like exactly healthy population.
- donatj 7mo agoI have genuinely put a lot of thought into this lately. I have the sensation like older media was more expressive and thoughtful, there's at least more... interesting flavors there generally... I am happy to ponder and willingly accept this is probably just my perception. I have a couple of theories. The creators of the media are becoming more and more my age. Do they have nothing interesting to say to me as our experience is shared? Is this something experienced by previous generations as their generation took over media, or is our zeitgeist as "digital natives" so newly shared that this is a new experience? I know people who would blame "ensh*tification" and move on, but I really think that there is more to what is happening. What I do know is it's exceedingly rare for me to watch a movie or show made after about 2015 and to find myself thinking about it days later. There are of course exceptions.
- Esophagus4 7mo agoWeird analogy, but it feels similar to the way old music differed to new music. Old music had more variation in volume - volume rises and falls to add nuance to the piece. New music is produced differently and has a more “flat” sound due to everything being louder and variation being reduced by compression. Seems like some parallels to other forms of media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- megaloblasto 7mo agoI strongly disagree. Just because compression is common in pop music (and perhaps overused in some genres) doesn't mean new music isn't innovative and dynamic. When I listen to music say from 1920 to 1950, it is so often so incredibly lame (not always). It's basic ideas and chord progressions and simple melodies with lyrics that don't say much. Music is a way for people to express themselves and relate about how they see the world. People didn't stop doing that recently. In fact, I'd say people have been emboldened to say even more and push what music really means.
- Esophagus4 7mo agoThat could be true - but this was specifically referring to the volume levels in recorded music, rather than variability in melody or composition.
- alecco 7mo agoThe effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is the opposite, both get the worst education for both subjects. I think we haven't felt yet the true consequences of this. Worldwide.
- econ 7mo agoEducation is a weird field with perhaps a few thousand years of very good unimplemented ideas. Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!
- ACCount37 7mo agoA big part of the problem education systems are solving is not "how do we get knowledge to children", but "how do we get masses of children to learn without coercion of the ugliest kind". Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 outliers. And education has to work with everyone. Thus, peer pressure. That's what putting a whole bunch of students in the same room accomplishes.
- throwaway384034 7mo ago>Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 outliers. And education has to work with everyone. I worked as a teacher for a year. Children are innately motivated and curious (this is not just a cliche). If there was any laziness it usually stemmed from fear of not being good enough but they definitely all tried, even students that didn't know their 5 times table by age 10. Some students have greater self-perseverance than others though, some can't handle being wrong and fear being seen as less-then their peers. Others like to challenge themselves without such fear.
- skyberrys 7mo agoIs this an attack on Captain Underpants of the silly novels? Or are we arguing that the global leaders are immature and don't think through their decisions? I admit I've only just started reading Captain Underpants but it doesn't seem like George and Harold are willing to do pranks to the extent of harming anyone. I do recognize childness in leadership occasionally. When I directly have to interface with it I adapt my response as though it actually is a child. That tends to help moderate the results somewhat. Children for the most part have good intentions and pure hearts, when things go wrong it's through inexperience not malice. Does Tom Clancy think the novels are literary trash? The books are made for children, it's about following your dreams and using your imagination in the face of grown up resistance.
- saaaaaam 7mo agoI didn’t read it as an attack on the novels. I think it’s meant to be about Trump. Or football. Or something. I couldn’t really tell.
- tclancy 7mo agoIt’s post modern, y’know?
- ranyume 7mo agoThe author seems to like the books, but somewhat downplays the children's world and nature. From my understanding of the author's article, It's a nature he believes adults shouldn't have and yet powerful people do. So he's bringing this up, comparing the children in Captain Underpants with these powerful people. And also he's reflecting on how media is created with a "childish mind". Personally, I don't think there's anything to downplay or wrong about children or being childish as adults. That's not the problem. The problem's the insensitivity and shamelessness of powerful people.
- skyberrys 7mo agoThat's a good point. You articulate the difference between childish wonder and the sometimes innocent but still dangerous childish behaviors. The chance to experiment with your vision of the world is a good and valuable thing in both kids and adults. The childish behaviors that are more problematic are things like not fully considering the consequences of your actions. For instance a two year old might pick up a bumble bee and never consider the danger of getting stung. Adults should know better.
- est 7mo agoidk if this was the exact quote but: H.R. McMaster: Trump’s knowledge was like a series of islands. He might know a lot about one specific thing, but there were no bridges between the islands, no way to connect one thought to another
- blitzar 7mo agoThose who can do. Those that can't become politicians.
- rayiner 7mo agoWhat’s childish is thinking that calling the Department of War by a euphemism changes what it is and always has been. The Department of “Defense” killed a bunch of people Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and countless minor actions. These bubbles of civilization we enjoy are built on adults killing a bunch of people, as necessary, to establish the order that allows more childish people to build social media websites.
- 6510 7mo agoif it was my idea I would call it the department of death.
- budman1 7mo agorenaming the DOD to DOW war is like renaming your company <old name>.ai . it will create a press release, but the result product is unchanged.
- giaour 7mo agoAre you saying there is no difference between the aggressiveness shown by the Department of War since it was renamed vs the years prior to the renaming? Because it sure looked to me like they renamed the department and immediately started bombing fishing boats, then affirmatively decided to start a war with Iran, all while the guy who came up with the new name goes on TV and screams about how we're free to kill more people now.
- the_gastropod 7mo agoLet’s not forget the kidnapping of Maduro, where we killed another ~80 people.
- rayiner 7mo agoWe killed a million people in Iraq, to overthrow a dictator that wasn’t funding cartels operating in the U.S.
- some_random 7mo agoI was totally with it until they started talking about the real world again. The Department of War was called that up until 1947 when it was renamed to the euphemistic Department of Defense (or more specifically merged with the Department of the Navy which was previously separate). It has nothing to do with the right to self defense, the undermining of which would make a great paragraph here comparing modern self defense law the world over with schoolhouse rules.
- jrmg 7mo agoJust because something was done before doesn’t mean it’s good (obviously?) The purpose of the Department of Defense should be to defend America and Americans. Waging war is an unfortunate necessity that stems from this sometimes. War is not the only threat that can require a military response, and should never be a goal. No matter how you swing it, having a ‘Department of X’ definitely gives the impression - to people within and without it - that ‘X’ is a goal. Even if you think about it amorrally, calling it the ‘Department of War’ is myopic.
- kjksf 7mo agoSince 1947 US has been involved in 5 major wars (Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afganistan, Iraq). Which begs the question: do you think it's more "moral" to wage wars and lie to public that you're in the business of defense OR say things that are truthful? Spending trillion+ dollars on military is about the only thing that both political party agree on. Obama bombed more countries that most presidents. Since we're talking about adults thinking like children: your simplistic ideas about what military should be have no effect on what it is. If Iran had the firepower superiority over Israel and U.S. they would level both countries. This is no me saying. "Death to America" is a literal quote from now-dead ayatollah. When you actually listen why they renamed DoD to DoW it's way more nuanced that you apparently believe. One of the reasons is that political correctness is destructive in military. If you're actually at war, winning should be objective not PR optics. And it seems to be working. See disaster of Afghanistan withdrawal compared to astonishing success of snatching Maduro and destroying Iran's capability to wage future wars.
- ericmcer 7mo agoThe author framed this as if "One Battle After Another" was some adult work and they couldn't watch "Predator" afterwards because it was so childish. I had the opposite reaction and could barely make it through 15m of One Battle. The movie opens with women in skin tight dresses and mini skirts with automatic weapons robbing banks and breaking into migrant detention centers while yelling "this is what real power looks like". That feels like childish nonsense to me but then it is wrapped in this "radical chic" that is supposed to force me to take it seriously. Rather than movies like Predator which are intentionally dumb and fun the author should look at how vague political messages and sex are used to take extremely shallow work and make it "adult".
- slibhb 7mo ago> That feels like childish nonsense to me but then it is wrapped in this "radical chic" that is supposed to force me to take it seriously. We aren't supposed to take it seriously; it's meant to be "childish nonsense". We can easily see that these women are getting off, sexually and by exercising power over others. A woman in a short dress struts around on a counter and introduces herself as "jungle pussy" to captives in a bank robbery, all while ranting about "black power". What happens next? A (black) security guard dies in agony and we get a close-up on that. We see "radical chic posturing" and then its consequences. Meanwhile Predator: Badlands truly is a movie for children. I sat through the whole thing with friends (who loved it by the way). Lots of adults love children's movies and books. I'm unbothered by this, because these people's tastes don't seem to the affect the production of books/movies that are actually good. But I do feel that people who eat this stuff up have failed to grow up in some fundamental way.
- konart 7mo ago>But I do feel that people who eat this stuff up have failed to grow up in some fundamental way. For many people this is just a way to turn their brain off. My wife (backend engineer too) describes it as something similar to cannabis intake as described by other people. Or alchohol.
- 7mo ago
- bethekidyouwant 7mo agoa meta question about this. How is a short sort of musing current political landscape blog post the top on hacker news?
- Vaslo 7mo agoAgreed - not sure why this nonsense is here.
- bad_username 7mo agoHN is turning into Reddit. It's noticeably worse than it was 5 years ago.
- tclancy 7mo agoBoyo literally in the rules not to dot this.
- jayd16 7mo agoIt's something to talk about that isn't AI. If you've got something new to post, now's the time.
- tclancy 7mo agoDude I wrote it and am as shocked as you are.
- DoneWithAllThat 7mo agoAt the risk of sounding very old:in partial response to the nonsense starting around the 2015/2016 era I decided it was a good time to start mining the cultural vault and catch up on classic movies and books (especially) that I’d always been meaning to get around to, and kind of immersed myself in it more and more over time. Lots of older science fiction, fantasy, and just random movies I’d heard of but never got around to experiencing. Subsequently, trying to return to consuming modern media has been quite the shock to the system. In many ways, but maybe the most startling is the storytelling. Books and movies lauded for being modern classics are so brain-numbing stupid (sorry but there’s no other accurate way to describe them) abound. Just absolute paint by numbers stories, messaging so on the nose you almost need a new phrase to describe it because the standard one didn’t do it justice, small-minded and petty characters being portrayed as heroic or brilliant - it’s incredible. I know there’s already comparisons to Idiocracy in this thread, and yes I’m well aware of the term selection bias so there’s no need to point it out - of course classics are classic for a reason. But I’m talking the most celebrated stories of our modern age here, the supposed next generation of classics, and all I can think is… really? Really? Have you all gone insane?
- eudamoniac 7mo agoExactly my sentiment. Someone else ITT mentioned Everything Everywhere as a thought provoking, good movie. Does anyone actually believe that movie will be discussed in ten years? Because I know The Godfather still will be. Cultural media output is absolutely in decline, and I think only someone not well-read could think otherwise about literature, and likewise for other media. It's not now a situation of cream having not yet risen. I don't believe there are myriad hidden gems anymore. Bodies who are meant to discern the cream are coming up empty. The Oscars are full of bad movies now. Pulitzer prizes in literature are awarded to poor works. Hugo and Nebula books are horrendous. We have lost the culture of the literary, and it is very obvious to anyone well read. What's worse is the large majority of people don't even know what well-read is; they have consumed a critical mass of slop sci-fi airport novels and think this is somehow equivalent expertise to absorbing the classics.
- DoneWithAllThat 7mo ago
- randallsquared 7mo agoThe "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2]. The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda, as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries. If you're going to call people stupid or immature for making certain decisions, maybe take a couple minutes to find out who made the decisions, and/or what the history of those and similar changes has been. [1] https://www.ccac.gov/system/files/media/calendar/images/SemiQ-Dime-Candidate-Design-Portfolio-2024-09-19-email.pdf https://www.ccac.gov/system/files/media/calendar/images/Semi... [2] https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/semiquincentennial/#circulating https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/semiquincentennia...
- BloondAndDoom 7mo ago[flagged]
- conception 7mo agoJust to add, it was in the process of manufacture during Biden, signed into production during Trump. A unfortunately timed nothing burger. Not to say that War is Peace folks won’t jump on it.
- enoint 7mo agoIn an alternate universe, Kamala Harris might be in Iran now. But her choice of SECDEF would be competent. No less than 1M Americans are more qualified than Hegseth; for the first time, I think.
- throw310822 7mo ago> the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda Many other countries similarly changed the name of their respective ministries, reflecting the ideal (if not the fact) that war should not be pursued for gain or used to resolve international controversies. Actions trail behind ideals; ideals are set to remind us of how things should be even if we don't live up to them. Renaming the DoD to DoW reflects an aggressive, violent and ultimately predatory posturing that the West had chosen to abandon after WW2 and many millions of deaths.
- jmyeet 7mo ago[flagged]
- budman1 7mo ago"eventually get to live in a world where all the baby boomers are dead" man, that stings. as a member of the birth class of 1963. each of us is a product of our times. i wish no ill will on those younger or older than myself. personally, i have lived my life in a way to be a good steward of the world. was it always successful; no. not malice, perhaps ignorance. please enjoy what is left of the world. i did my best to leave it better than it was when I received it. if you don't like the world, try to change it. you have agency.
- sorokod 7mo agoThe US Department of War does not take full advantage of its name. Declaring a war has real legal and political consequences which presumably are not appealing to the current US administration. https://www.war.gov/Spotlights/Operation-Epic-Fury/ https://www.war.gov/Spotlights/Operation-Epic-Fury/
- jimkleiber 7mo agoI had no idea they actually changed the domain name. Reminds me of Musk wanting it to be X because it sounded tougher. Something about trying to appear tough seems to make me think those people are less tough. I'm sure there's some famous paradox in that.
- sorokod 7mo agoChanging the domain name and similar letterhead style shenanigans are risk free and good enough for public relations.
- arjie 7mo agotl;dr we’ve got the politicians that are most aligned with the majority of voters I have a suspicion that it’s no different than any other highly efficient system. You’ll notice that every time there’s a natural crisis you’ll hear how facility X is the only place in the world where Y is done and now everything Y is going to go up in price[0]. There’s lots of reasons everyone downstream of X doesn’t have backup plans but one that certainly applies to the immediate consumers of Y is that over time market forces shave off any insurance against Y prices. This phenomenon is well-understood and so most countries intentionally develop backup facilities to X in what they believe are crucial spaces. It’s why the US pays for both ULA and SpaceX (instead of just whichever works better) and pays more for locally grown food and so on. But someone has to be watching and convince the rest of us that this kind of thing is worth doing and they need to keep doing it for a long time. What I think happened is The Sort[1] happened. We got better at giving people with the requisite skills their rewards. Previously, you might end up with a smart steely-eyed guy as Flight EECOM at NASA but today that guy has a shot at 100x the wealth on Wall Street or in tech. If you look at the debate between George H W Bush and Ronald Reagan[2] you’ll see a sort of thing that isn’t so common today: they are asked whether the US should be paying for the education of children of people crossing the border with Mexico and where today the highly-optimized politician will respond that he will do what you, the constituent, is asking here[3] and stop paying for these people one way or another - both candidates actually contest that idea and offer a view that’s not populist. You’ll see this today with the rise of direct to constituent social media. A big part of politicians’ approach today is about What Polls Well. Sen. Warren is the biggest example of this I think. Once the proponent of intelligent policy, she is now most commonly known for highly populist policy - to the extent that she is now often described as a slopulist. So what I think is the difference is that earlier most politicians were more influenced by smarter people with low time preference and as the constituents became more powerful as a mass, politicians started being influenced primarily by the median person until we eventually have someone perfectly reflective of the electorate. The electorate, for the most part, would like all taxes set as close to zero and all spending set as close to 100% on their own pet interest; and second-order effects are rarely considered. Therefore, in the common way of all people to declare monocausal roots of events, I declare that refinement culture has caused: - highly efficient adaptation of politician to populace - with low tail-risk mitigation And consequently we’ve got a person who can’t do effective foreign policy running foreign policy because they are very good at politics. A good self-test I think is “if chair of the Federal Reserve were an elected position would your party of choice have elected a multi millionaire investment banker like Jerome Powell to it?”. I think the answer to this is “no” for either party, yet he has performed his function admirably well, in my opinion. 0: often this is small and facilities X’ take on the same work at slightly raised costs Y’ but sometimes, like in the Thai flooding with HDDs, costs rise greatly 1: A term I first heard from patio11, but it’s related to the idea of refinement culture 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok 3: because this is a Republican debate; if it were Democratic Party he would answer that he would do what you, the constituent wants, and assign a new fund to these people who he will declare (in agreement with you) are humans, not illegals and so on. The fact isn’t of significance here. It is whether they can talk the trade-offs of policy with their constituents. The modern leader is “I’m a leader. I need to follow the people”.
- lyu07282 7mo agoThat's mistakenly conflating two concepts: the media propaganda in a more general sense of the word (like the pentagon reviewing movie scripts for war propaganda) and the underlying material and ideological reasons for US foreign policy (see natural resources, petrodollar, etc.). It would be a severe mistake to think the current conflict is somehow detached from the "grand chessboard" type of neoconservative thought dominating foreign policy for decades. In other words you shouldn't disagree with the war on Iran because Trump is an idiot, you should disagree because its an horrific atrocious war even if it were run by competent people instead. Just as a very basic example: 4 presidents in a row have bombed Yemen: Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. This is consensus on very fundamental ideas on US foreign policy. But way more importantly than whether or not you agree with bombing Yemen, you should start to recognize that the real reasons for bombing Yemen or any other conflict are completely absent from public discourse and media. Also once you broaden your horizon on film a bit it becomes very hard to watch modern mainstream western movies at all. Like watch The Battle of Algiers or any Costa-Gavras movie and you realize most western cinema is at best just infantilizing and at worst outright propaganda. Like if you watched One Battle After Another and thought it was profound, did you not notice the absence of any real ideological exploration beyond "racism is bad"? What did the caricatured resistance really believe in? What can such a movie really say about "radical" politics on immigration if the liberals who made it have to account for liberals approval and funding of ICE? Like it said nothing at all, that's the issue with everything. We are so politically atrophied that we think its the most political movie ever, but its really apolitical if you think about it a bit more.
- rakejake 7mo agoThe word "profound" is a bit overused when it comes to movies. I agree that The Battle of Algiers is an excellent film, one of the best ever made even. One Battle After Another is also excellent but it is not really political in the way the TBoA is. It uses a political setting very effectively in a chase thriller. A movie like The Parallax View is a better comparison. That movie used the post-60s paranoia very effectively in a great suspense thriller.
- phillipclapham 7mo ago[flagged]
- charv 7mo agoPerhaps this comment was intended for the age verification thread elsewhere on HN? Unclear how this relates to Department of War, Captain Underpants, etc.
- phillipclapham 7mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- thrw045 7mo agoI also have the same feeling about media since around 2015. The prime example being Alien: Earth, which people will argue has immeasurable depth and nuance while when I watched it I just facepalmed a lot. Although it did get better in later episodes. I feel like no media today has really topped the stuff of the 90s and 00s. Star Trek Voyager season 5 still stands tall above the rest for me. The movie September 5 came close as it had interesting bits. But besides that, there is a generational thing going on. I felt when I grew up online in the 90s and 00s that people who were older than me were smarter than my generation. My generation watched movies and played games while gen x and baby boomers did hardcore assembly programming and whatever. And then the same thing happened with millenials and gen z. Gen z is just different from millenials which again are different from baby boomers. Each generation progressively gets less technical it seems like. There are always outliers in every generation of course but I think the trajectory is somewhat clear. I also think this applies to movies and tv shows. Gen z just thinks differently and doesn't have the same ideas. I don't think a gen z'er could create Voyager season 5, and maybe not even a millenial could. There is so much information and knowledge and perception in the context a generation is born into and grows up in and a lot of that context and information is lost with the next generation.
- enoint 7mo agoI want to point out that one of those writers also wrote For All Mankind. Maybe Gen-X never expected to be culturally relevant, so our critical thinking actually got put to good use.
- Steinmark 7mo ago[dead]
- spudlyo 7mo ago> When you punish a person for dreaming his dream / Don't expect him to thank or forgive you > Hail Satan
- tclancy 7mo agoFinally someone get it.
- readthenotes1 7mo agoComplaining about called the former DoD the Department of War is like complaining about calling water wet. Just because the wars haven't been legitimately authorized by Congress as required in the Constitution doesn't mean that the US hasn't been waging war on someone for most of its existence. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_presidents_timeline_and_wars_they_started.pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_presidents_timeli...