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Agreed. As a society, we have this silly habit of dismissing criticisms of incoming societal shifts because previous ones “turned out fine”. We grab the most e
by latexr 1mo ago
Agreed.
As a society, we have this silly habit of dismissing criticisms of incoming societal shifts because previous ones “turned out fine”. We grab the most extreme of the bad contrarian takes of the time and use it to ridicule the position as a whole. We often ignore those previous shifts were influenced by the criticisms of the time (not all of them bad) and that how it turned out was a result of the push and pull.
In other words, we need to have the people pointing out the bad parts of the change, to have any chance that it’ll actually turn out good.
Another thing often ignored is that shifts are happening more frequently and at larger scales, and we’ve seen them become out of control. All the more reason to take a breather a move slower.
- lensecat 1mo agoI also think we underestimate the adverse side of changes we already live with. Would it really have been possible with a president (crypto)-scamming his voters in the 1950s or -60s US, or is that a result of televised media? Read "Amusing ourselves to death" for exemple; written as a criticism of TV-media in the 80s but even more applicable on the short-form content of today. Put Toqueville in a time-machine. Would he really regard the current state of society as something that should be aspired to? Watch a televised primary or presidential debate from mid 20th century and you will be astounded at the quality of argument and focus of the discussion. I think most people severely underestimate how far public discourse has fallen.
- charamis 1mo agoExactly, so even the argument that everything turned out fine eventually, is not that valid. We could say that, only if we could compare “now” with a hypothetical parallel present where things stayed the same.