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As a model it would explain a lot, which makes it a convincing model. Being convincing doesn't make it true though. If it is a lie, the fact that people are quick to buy into it makes it a good lie, and good lies usually come out of what we want to believe is true. I think like you pointed out. It might be hardwired into us to believe we are always coming out of hard times, and must be strong to rebuild, because--well--it fits with what most people want to believe is true.
Personally, I want to believe it. Look at how particularly disastrous the world that I and other zoomers will inherit. Not to exclude millenials, but I believe they might have been a little more fortunate. On the one hand, it is understandable for the "haves" to want to check-out and abdicate responsibility, rest on their laurels and retire, while those that are more power hungry work to entrench what gains they were able to make in their lives (weak men making hard times?). On the other hand, what is @denlillaapan known to say....I don't agree with him fully, because if I were in the boomers' position, I would glad to rest on my laurels. I would also be glad to never retire, because I like what I do, but I am pretty sure that whatever I did, there would be people that want to criticise me.
All of that's to say that I think these cycles are constantly in motion. In prior times, there might have been more semblance of a general trend that indicates which point it was, but now, everything is way too fragmented. I blame the media by which we get our information about the world.
Personally, I want to believe it.
My younger sister is young enough to be considered a zoomed, I think. And she does have a much less optimistic outlook on life than I do
But I try to remind her that in a way she lives in a golden age: any information we want is instantly available. I remember the horrors of my childhood where we couldn't make a specific kind of Christmas cookies because no one could find the recipe card. Perhaps we were a little stupid, but I think most of the world felt this way. Or the absolutely awful 3-4 week wait for anything ordered by mail. Or traveling with paper maps, no google maps. Maybe I have swigged too heavily on the cool aid, but I feel that we are living in a shocking time of advances. There are ugly sores too, but it is a step change from my childhood.
I hope my words don't sound like boosterism, because it's not like I think it's all roses, but on net I think things have actually improved from how they were in the early 2000s.
Fair enough. I don't ruminate too much on it.
golden age
Not sure I buy it. The things you mentioned are small conveniences. Owning nothing and being happy, maybe. Most people my age want to own homes, start families. Having a LLM therapist feels like a pretty weak consolation for not being able to realize these dreams.
Maybe I have swigged too heavily on the cool aid.
I don't think you necessarily have. From your perspective you might think I'm entitled for feeling like I deserve more.
things have actually improved from how they were in the early 2000s.
Yes. I agree, though I'm not sure that necessitates future prospects getting any better. We do have bitcoin.
small conveniences
Sure, and perhaps I was being too flippant. While my examples were all pretty trite, they point to a fundamental change in human society. I did not include any AI examples in my above comment because I was mostly thinking of the incredible change in information availability (even though I think AI extends this availability). It is a change similar to the mobility brought about by machines, or the expansion of useful time brought about by electrification.
Given the choice, I'm pretty sure I would choose to live now as opposed to any other time in the past. Maybe this is due to ignorance, but I have made some effort to educate myself about how people lived at different times in the past. But that is a separate issue from where we are headed.
There is a welter of issues here that make it difficult to determine whether we really are living through civilization-level decay a la the fall of the Roman empire or the fall of the Russian tsars after WWI. Our political discourse seems to find it useful to frame everything as a fall from some former greatness (the last A in MAGA, the Democrats' "emphasis on a return to "decency" or some sort of nobility that used to exist and which Trump clearly violates).
Past advances don't necessarily cause future advances, but neither is it evidence to support a pessimistic outlook. Perhaps we should debate whether the technological advances of the last two (or three) decades are likely to expand human capabilities or not.
Perhaps we should debate whether the technological advances of the last two (or three) decades are likely to expand human capabilities or not.
Here is how I think about this, fwiw.
If we say that it does, then we should probably admit too that the other advances you alluded to (transportation, electricity) have expanded human capabilities as well. We probably will get more capable, as a species, than we are now, just as we are probably more capable than we were before. That's the optimistic take.
The pessimistic one is that we have not become more capable, but that we can more easily outsource certain tasks to technology, freeing up time. What previously would have taken a day, a horse and plenty of straw can now be accomplished by in a few hours in a robotaxi. What changed is that the man who previously would have had hours to ruminate on horseback now has free time, free time that might even lead to innovation, creativity or a great new idea. The unfortunate truth about free time that anyone who has ever worked a nine-to-five job has to find out the hard way is that the fourty-eight hours left over at the weekend quickly dwindles to twenty-four, to twelve, and suddenly, the most of your to-do list now has to get carried over to next weekend, because you should probably catch a few extra hours of sleep to make up for a late night or two of unwinding, so that you can get a good start to your week. Potentiality do not necessarily equate to accomplishment.
I am not a pessimist, but I am quite familiar with being apathetic. I get the sense that is how many people of my generation feel. Of course, I would rather have the choice to take a robotaxi rather than a horse (personally, I might prefer the horse, but the choice is what's important here). But the obvious conclusion here is that the pessimist sees younger folk as lazy, apathetic and entitled, probably because that was how their progenitors saw them. I am not saying that you necessarily do. But I think yours and others' arguments on the subject can easily take for granted the feedback mechanism that humans always have had to new advances in technology.
What do you think is the main factor, coupled with new advances in technology, that will determines prosperity for generation z?
I don't think it's a lie. The cyclical theory is too well represented in all sorts of historic and ancient literature to think it isn't a part of the human condition.
I think a better claim is: It's not obvious which part of the cycle we're in.
The strong men are usually building up from the ruins of bad times.... and it might not be obvious to them, in the moment, that they are the strong men building a better future. They inhabit the world where weak men are still present, and the effects of their weakness are still felt. They might think that they are still in the cycle of decay, even as they plant the seeds of rebirth.
(I'd like to think of us bitcoiners as possibly being in that camp... a bit hubristic of me, I know)
strong men are usually building up from the ruins of bad times.... and it might not be obvious to them
Yes! I'm fact I think the strong men might not be strong men if they feel like they are strong men. For times to be hard enough to produce strong men, they need to probably feel pretty awful.
I don't think the privates in the trenches of WWI or on the beaches of WWII felt like strong men (see Catch 22 or Storm of Steel). It seems much more likely that the men always feel like they are struggling.
My kids and I are listening to Literature and History's 3 part series on The Odyssey. Not the same as reading the poem, but very accessible and well done.
I really resonate with the strong men -> good times -> weak men - > bad times cycle. It feels so right. And yet, I wonder if it is a lie.
I suspect the civilization cycle of decay and rebirth is only accurate when we think we are living in a time of decay. By definition, what came before must have been better. The decay is somewhat impossible to prove, because measuring against the past is difficult. I doubt the strong men like to think that they are building a society that is doomed to weakness and impermanence.
Which part of the good times -> weak men -> bad times -> strong men cycle would you prefer to inhabit?