Society is not degrading \ stacker news ~culture

2295 sats \ 17 comments \ @ninjagrandma65 3 Oct culture

The reason it seems like it's degrading is because when you look at what you can see of the past, the only things left are the better things. You see all the well built architecture, because the shitty architecture built at the time degraded and fell. It's gone, leaving the illusion of better architecture only. Same for people; you hear about the historical figures, the big folks who made lasting impacts and built things. The common uneducated sexually harassing whoring hungry no teeth crime-ridden folks..... they were there. In large numbers. But they didn't make history, and just like architecture, you no longer notice them.

We're doing just fine. In two hundred years they'll think everyone of our generation was an Elon Musk making huge changes and advances in technology, and they'll ask why they're in a degrading society, because the majority of them aren't Musks or Theiles, just like humans have been doing since ancient times.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 is a smart observation. Buck up butter cup. Society is not degrading. Alongside the shitty stuff is where the genius advancements occur. It's all side by side, slowly rising upward like bitcoin volatility and price.

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152 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Oct

I think this is broadly correct, but acutely inaccurate for much of the West. We're getting fatter, sicker, and crazier. People are forming fewer meaningful connections with each other (marriage, church, families, etc). Deaths of Despair have risen dramatically, as has regular violent crime. Social trust is decreasing and polarization is increasing.

These may all be temporary downtrends before a correction, I think that's likely, but they aren't illusions. We have good records of the recent past and many of us remember it pretty clearly (although I grant that there are lots of problems with human memory).

27 sats \ 1 reply \ @ninjagrandma65 OP 3 Oct

But we're also getting healthier. You've got more medical knowledge (perhaps hidden behind a ton of noise) than ever before in history. You've got RFK and folks like bitcoiners caring about health, and that'll catch on. And health in the past was AWFUL. Cholera, typhoid, 1918 flu, on and on.

52 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Oct

I think there's a difference in timescales to what we're talking about, which I was trying to get at by saying "broadly correct, but acutely inaccurate". Over the past generation or so, the things I brought up are getting worse and I don't see anything that makes up for them. If you look substantially further back, then I agree with what you're saying.

We're talking about society, here, so it's not directly relevant that an individual is capable of being healthier today, because most are not taking that opportunity. That's the nature of societal decay: taken in aggregate, important things are trending down.

110 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 3 Oct

What you mention here is a well studied phenomena, It is called survivorship bias

Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ninjagrandma65 OP 3 Oct

Exactly!!

110 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 3 Oct

depends how you define degradation, as some people will say there is moral degradation but that is all subject to belief systems and whatnot.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ninjagrandma65 OP 3 Oct

Again, there was always moral degradation. Even the effects of communism have happened before, but it's always localized and there are always other bright areas. And even under tyranny you get some of the strongest heroes.

I suppose I'm just looking at a longer time frame and a bigger picture and wider geography.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @xz 3 Oct

Society kind of is degrading. The physical, mental and spiritual are massively degrading.

Even if humanity completed enlightment 2.0 by forcing Brave New World to play out and for humanity to regenerate in large numbers, enabling a modern day caste system of 'better people' ranked from A to Z ,working for Tesla Dynamics and Sinopharm, it would be a small fraction of the breadth of thought of ancient cultures.

I get your idea about the distillation of useful and applicable knowledge and products of cooperation or engineering, but no. Aside from the burning of the diseased and unsightly things, the petridish of humanity will have been neutered of all diverse genetic information in the physical, much the same as our ability to see beyond exploration through trial and error of doubling down on our scientific conviction to carry humanity forward.

It doesn't take much intelligence to see that we have not bettered ourselves without a cost that subjectively would be considered to be not worthy of the sacrifice of the gains I'm not religeous as such, but to the point of ungodly.

Describe to me my errors, and reveal how humanity reaches the zenith through a digitized utopia of mirror and steel.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @ninjagrandma65 OP 3 Oct

Dude..... what are you talking about?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 3 Oct

Shit. I disagree wwith the premise.

70 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 3 Oct

I like where we are headed. There has been pain. And with pain comes growth. Great share. 💚

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @0200374f73 3 Oct

Ecclesiastes 7:10 "Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions."

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 3 Oct

It's worth reading The Rational Optimist. Puts things in perspective.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 3 Oct

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @d680ecaa8e 3 Oct

Everything has its own reason or purpose. Society is stagnant from long period of time. Sometimes there is some innovation however it is people that follow themselves either for business or current life inquiries.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ninjagrandma65 OP 3 Oct

I don't think it's ever stagnant. I see no stagnation, tbh.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @jerrybature 3 Oct

There is time for everything under the sun.