4 ms·

The World Has Moved On

78 points by hn_acker 4mo ago

bitpush 4mo ago
> So it's not just me, an old man yelling at the cloud. The world is getting shittier. This explains why Cory has been very irritated for a long time. If your outlook is world is objectively worse than 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago - then it makes sense why you're constantly upset at things. "The arc of the technological universe is long, but it bends toward progress."
- jasonmp85 4mo ago
  [dead]
- jfengel 4mo ago
  The "it's not just me" part is because he's citing a survey. He has been irritated for a long time because everybody (or at least a statistically significant sample) is irritated.
  - MarkusQ 4mo ago
    Yeah. A survey of other people who like Cory (I haven't checked this, but it's almost certainly true) are _also_getting_older_. If the pollsters somehow stumbled on a pocket of people who don't age, this would be the most stupendous example of burring the lede I've ever encountered.
    - hn_acker 4mo ago
      The National Customer Rage Study is a cross-sectional study. The organization (Customer Measurement & Consulting) picks a new sample each time. Has the proportion of older people in the US population grown so much as to explain the increase in customer complaints?
      - MarkusQ 4mo ago
        Yes. A lot of what we're seeing is yet again due to the largest generation in US history (the "boomers", so called because they were a population boom) progressing through their lives. Everything from the summer of love (when they discovered hormones) to the OMG we're old! vibecession.
    - jfengel 4mo ago
      They are indeed getting older. It's difficult to get a good survey sample of people going backwards in time.
- andai 4mo ago
  Which way does fertility bend?
ai_critic 4mo ago
Do not read Doctor uncritically. > An army of wreckers, led by the demagogue John Farson (who styles himself "The Good Man") are slowly but surely conquering the land, laying waste to those few remaining outposts of civilization and conscripting the young men in the conquered lands to march on their neighbors. What he's leaving out is that in the novels Farson explicitly was a rabble-rouser pushing for democracy, egalitarian rule, and the downfall of the aristocratic class--and he used that to cloak anti-social behavior and butchery. Sound familiar? (Not that Cory is a butcher--hah!--but that he's deliberately eliding the "type" of demagogue Farson is. Consider why that might be.)
- mindslight 4mo ago
  At this point, that mostly seems like extraneous details that would most just lend themselves to rationalizations for people who still don't want to accept the current reality. That narrative certainly had appeal in decades past when we appeared to be headed towards totalitarianism from the other direction. I was there for it, then. But then the corpo gloves gleefully came off, and the main thing that remains of the prior dynamic is referencing it as a soothing strawman.
thegrim33 4mo ago
>> I've written before how conservatives' yearning for "simpler times" is really just a wish to be a child again Conservatives, whose core ideals are personal responsibility, individual freedom, and limited government, are the ones who want to "be a child with no cares" again, with their needs taken care of for them? Their entire world outlook and identity is the exact opposite of that. Going to stop reading right there.
- hgoel 4mo ago
  Those are their stated ideals and not at all what they're practicing.
- mrgoldenbrown 4mo ago
  Those are the core sound bites, but recently conservative party actions don't support them.
  - dasil003 4mo ago
    There is no conservative party in America because Trump has taken control of the Republican Party. He has no values except what is expedient for himself, any principled conservatives who speak up commit political suicide. Such is the world we live in when trust of institutions and expertise as eroded to the point that any acknowledgment of tradeoffs or nuance is met with knee jerk suspicion from the populace.
    - ai_critic 4mo ago
      I do not understand why you are being downvoted for what is, essentially, a statement of bald fact and realpolitick. Trump took advantage of a party already weakened by the Tea Party, and successfully turned it into a cult of personality at a time when the opposition was ideologically unprepared to deal with very real policy issues that their constituents were observing.
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
ramesh31 4mo ago
>"We're experiencing more problems with the products and services we use. Those problems are more severe, they make us angrier, and they produce lingering stress. More and more, we are seeking revenge on the businesses that piss us off" The humble Hot Pocket is the perfect analogy for this. Since the dawn of time, every single Hot Pocket included its own crisping sleeve, that served as both a cooking vessel and eating utensil. The perfect microwaveable snack. And yet, in all of their wisdom, our corporate overlords have declared that they've "cracked the code" through various ingredient changes, to where it's no longer necessary, and through a combination of that plus some vague language around environmental concerns, we no longer need it. So now every Hot Pocket costs the same as it ever did, but gives us a strictly inferior experience. Copy and paste this "Screw you, I don't care because I know you'll just have to deal with it" attitude across all of society, and you get what we have today.
- DangitBobby 4mo ago
  You should see what they did to our Pop Tarts man. The world has moved on.
korse 4mo ago
This writer appears to overcomplicates conservative vs. liberal. Conservatives care about those closest to them and generally dislike disruptive change. Liberals care about those far away and embrace disruptive change for the sake of those others.
- dxdm 4mo ago
  At some point you might realize that you're just thinking about empty labels that you fill with stuff that makes you feel better.
  - korse 4mo ago
    This doesn't make sense to me. Are you suggesting we reject the labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' due to their limited usefulness in describing reality and high potential to evoke emotional response? I wouldn't disagree with that, but the author in question doesn't seem to follow that line of thinking so it seems irrelevant here.
    - mindslight 4mo ago
      Personally I think we should just put a pause on using the word "conservative" as it no longer references any coherent political group in the US, and if it does it actually refers to a contingent of the opposite party from what it used to. Rather I think we should be using "reactionary" or "fascist" in its place - both terms having been embraced by Moldbug/Yarvin, who seems to have been one of the main thought leaders of this radical populist destructionism. But this doesn't mean I can't read something that has been written still using the word "conservative" as a lazy synonym for Republican, suspend my particular frustration about the terminology, and understand the point the author is making.
    - dxdm 4mo ago
      I don't think that "liberal" and "conservative" are empty labels outright. However, they seem to be for the author of the post I was responding to: no substance, just bags to hold reflexive emotions that disguised themselves as opinions. These two words lend themselves to that, because of what we use them for. I would not reject them, though. Naming things remains useful; and whatever words we would replace these 2 with, and we would, out of necessity: they'd receive the same treatment. The words are not the problem here. Using them without thinking is.
andai 4mo ago
>So it's not just me, an old man yelling at the cloud. The world is getting shittier. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

78 points by hn_acker 4mo ago

> So it's not just me, an old man yelling at the cloud. The world is getting shittier. This explains why Cory has been very irritated for a long time. If your outlook is world is objectively worse than 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago - then it makes sense why you're constantly upset at things. "The arc of the technological universe is long, but it bends toward progress."

jasonmp85 4mo ago
[dead]
jfengel 4mo ago
The "it's not just me" part is because he's citing a survey. He has been irritated for a long time because everybody (or at least a statistically significant sample) is irritated.
- MarkusQ 4mo ago
  Yeah. A survey of other people who like Cory (I haven't checked this, but it's almost certainly true) are _also_getting_older_. If the pollsters somehow stumbled on a pocket of people who don't age, this would be the most stupendous example of burring the lede I've ever encountered.
  - hn_acker 4mo ago
    The National Customer Rage Study is a cross-sectional study. The organization (Customer Measurement & Consulting) picks a new sample each time. Has the proportion of older people in the US population grown so much as to explain the increase in customer complaints?
    - MarkusQ 4mo ago
      Yes. A lot of what we're seeing is yet again due to the largest generation in US history (the "boomers", so called because they were a population boom) progressing through their lives. Everything from the summer of love (when they discovered hormones) to the OMG we're old! vibecession.
  - jfengel 4mo ago
    They are indeed getting older. It's difficult to get a good survey sample of people going backwards in time.
andai 4mo ago
Which way does fertility bend?

ai_critic 4mo ago

Do not read Doctor uncritically. > An army of wreckers, led by the demagogue John Farson (who styles himself "The Good Man") are slowly but surely conquering the land, laying waste to those few remaining outposts of civilization and conscripting the young men in the conquered lands to march on their neighbors. What he's leaving out is that in the novels Farson explicitly was a rabble-rouser pushing for democracy, egalitarian rule, and the downfall of the aristocratic class--and he used that to cloak anti-social behavior and butchery. Sound familiar? (Not that Cory is a butcher--hah!--but that he's deliberately eliding the "type" of demagogue Farson is. Consider why that might be.)

mindslight 4mo ago
At this point, that mostly seems like extraneous details that would most just lend themselves to rationalizations for people who still don't want to accept the current reality. That narrative certainly had appeal in decades past when we appeared to be headed towards totalitarianism from the other direction. I was there for it, then. But then the corpo gloves gleefully came off, and the main thing that remains of the prior dynamic is referencing it as a soothing strawman.

thegrim33 4mo ago

>> I've written before how conservatives' yearning for "simpler times" is really just a wish to be a child again Conservatives, whose core ideals are personal responsibility, individual freedom, and limited government, are the ones who want to "be a child with no cares" again, with their needs taken care of for them? Their entire world outlook and identity is the exact opposite of that. Going to stop reading right there.

hgoel 4mo ago
Those are their stated ideals and not at all what they're practicing.
mrgoldenbrown 4mo ago
Those are the core sound bites, but recently conservative party actions don't support them.
- dasil003 4mo ago
  There is no conservative party in America because Trump has taken control of the Republican Party. He has no values except what is expedient for himself, any principled conservatives who speak up commit political suicide. Such is the world we live in when trust of institutions and expertise as eroded to the point that any acknowledgment of tradeoffs or nuance is met with knee jerk suspicion from the populace.
  - ai_critic 4mo ago
    I do not understand why you are being downvoted for what is, essentially, a statement of bald fact and realpolitick. Trump took advantage of a party already weakened by the Tea Party, and successfully turned it into a cult of personality at a time when the opposition was ideologically unprepared to deal with very real policy issues that their constituents were observing.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]

ramesh31 4mo ago

>"We're experiencing more problems with the products and services we use. Those problems are more severe, they make us angrier, and they produce lingering stress. More and more, we are seeking revenge on the businesses that piss us off" The humble Hot Pocket is the perfect analogy for this. Since the dawn of time, every single Hot Pocket included its own crisping sleeve, that served as both a cooking vessel and eating utensil. The perfect microwaveable snack. And yet, in all of their wisdom, our corporate overlords have declared that they've "cracked the code" through various ingredient changes, to where it's no longer necessary, and through a combination of that plus some vague language around environmental concerns, we no longer need it. So now every Hot Pocket costs the same as it ever did, but gives us a strictly inferior experience. Copy and paste this "Screw you, I don't care because I know you'll just have to deal with it" attitude across all of society, and you get what we have today.

DangitBobby 4mo ago
You should see what they did to our Pop Tarts man. The world has moved on.

korse 4mo ago

This writer appears to overcomplicates conservative vs. liberal. Conservatives care about those closest to them and generally dislike disruptive change. Liberals care about those far away and embrace disruptive change for the sake of those others.

dxdm 4mo ago
At some point you might realize that you're just thinking about empty labels that you fill with stuff that makes you feel better.
- korse 4mo ago
  This doesn't make sense to me. Are you suggesting we reject the labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' due to their limited usefulness in describing reality and high potential to evoke emotional response? I wouldn't disagree with that, but the author in question doesn't seem to follow that line of thinking so it seems irrelevant here.
  - mindslight 4mo ago
    Personally I think we should just put a pause on using the word "conservative" as it no longer references any coherent political group in the US, and if it does it actually refers to a contingent of the opposite party from what it used to. Rather I think we should be using "reactionary" or "fascist" in its place - both terms having been embraced by Moldbug/Yarvin, who seems to have been one of the main thought leaders of this radical populist destructionism. But this doesn't mean I can't read something that has been written still using the word "conservative" as a lazy synonym for Republican, suspend my particular frustration about the terminology, and understand the point the author is making.
  - dxdm 4mo ago
    I don't think that "liberal" and "conservative" are empty labels outright. However, they seem to be for the author of the post I was responding to: no substance, just bags to hold reflexive emotions that disguised themselves as opinions. These two words lend themselves to that, because of what we use them for. I would not reject them, though. Naming things remains useful; and whatever words we would replace these 2 with, and we would, out of necessity: they'd receive the same treatment. The words are not the problem here. Using them without thinking is.

andai 4mo ago

>So it's not just me, an old man yelling at the cloud. The world is getting shittier. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/