I also think that when we analyze the direction of a society, we should be looking on a larger timescale than between 1980s and 2010s. If you zoom out a little, to, say, the 1910s to 2010s, it's hard to make the argument that people are worse off on average. There's a lot of doom-and-gloom forecasting that suggests that not only is our society regressing, it is regressing so quickly and to such a low point that this cannot be countered. I don't think that's true. I think there is still time for positive change and that our society still provides us avenues for achieving it. It isn't easy, and it isn't getting any easier, but it is possible. While that possibility exists, a state cannot be a true dystopia.
I'm also curious as to how old you think I am. I have a feeling I'm much younger than you may imagine. I also think I should point out that while I haven't read Push, it looks like it has a relatively uplifting ending that is a counterexample to what you're claiming.
I mean, fair enough, but if we zoom out, well, global warming is a thing. We're going to be too late to do much about it, and we may not be able to save ourselves or anyone else among humanity. Most non-human life is now going extinct. Multicellular life as a whole may go extinct if the clathrate gun turns out to be a real thing.
We have declining living standards and the expectation of mass death. Oh, and a rather evil government.
So is the heat death of the universe, yet we don't feel existential angst about that. Global warming is a serious problem and it'll have a tremendous impact on human life. However, this will happen in a timeframe of several generations.
While the consequences are certainly dire global warming won't mean the extinction of mankind, or most non-human life for that matter. Life will adapt. Mankind will adapt. We can't prevent global warming anymore but we can do something to slow it down and temper its effects.
There's no reason to be defeatist about this. In the 80s sometimes the notion was floated that by now pretty much all of Northern Europe should be below sea-level due to global warming. This shows both that things don't always have to work out as badly as predicted and that a change for the better is possible.
Several generations, my foot! The real nasty stuff will be coming to a head just about when I'm starting to hit retirement age.
>While the consequences are certainly dire global warming won't mean the extinction of mankind, or most non-human life for that matter. Life will adapt. Mankind will adapt. We can't prevent global warming anymore but we can do something to slow it down and temper its effects.
This is a stupid thing to say to people. "Oh, sure, you might die, or your personal prospects might get a lot worse, but humanity as a whole will probably persist!" Oh joy? Look, it's very nice that humanity might survive in some form, but I was hoping to survive in some form, into my natural old age.
Only want to point out this is a horrendous fallacy. Technology has increased wealth to exponential levels. Yes, I do expect things to be at least a bit better but there are measures of well being that cannot be expressed in the size of one's flat screen TV. Job security, access to healthcare, education, basic services and living in an inclusive and just society.
By these metrics are we doing so much better? And let's not justify the unfortunate conditions of the present by the worse conditions of the past.
Yes. Yes, we are. Realize that in the 1910s, electricity was not in widespread use, millions died each year from diseases now treatable or totally nonexistent (e. g. smallpox), and we were on the verge of two of the deadliest wars in human history.
It's frankly absurd to suggest that the only benefits of technological and scientific increases over the past century have been flatscreen TVs or creature comforts, or even that these are the primary innovations. Humanity's inventions over the past century have been a big, massive deal. Not dying from things as simple as influenza, being able to cross the country by plane in just a few hours, and near-universal (in the US) access to indoor plumbing, electricity, clean water and at least basic emergency medical care have already put us well beyond the level of those times. I won't even get into live birth rates, infant mortality, life expectancy, or overall risk of death due to accident or disease.
But overall, I'm not justifying current problems as being OK because things used to be worse - I'm trying to remind everyone that society is a process, not an endpoint, and for as far as we've come we've got to be willing to take time and withstand some suffering to go further.
I suppose it comes down to how one defines 'human progress'. For me, the more relevant issue is how humans interact with each other (mostly at the non-individual level). I mean, we've mostly gotten past hanging out in small tribes, killing members of other small tribes in order to take their stuff. Arguably, we've made progress. But it's not entirely clear to me whether we've fundamentally changed our nature, or if the tribes have just gotten bigger.
So although I'd agree that technological progress plays a role, I think it's an indirect one. Technology makes resources more plentiful. In turn, this makes it easier to get by without having to murder anyone. But it's no guarantee that we won't. Indeed, we seem to be at our most inventive when some other tribe is trying to kill us and we're trying to do the same right back (i.e. during times of war)...
> But it's not entirely clear to me whether we've fundamentally changed our nature, or if the tribes have just gotten bigger.
I think part of the reason for this lack of clarity is that we are going through this change right now. We're in the middle of it, with people at all ranges between "totally tribalist" and "totally humanist" (if "humanist" is the right term to use there, as in advocating for all peoples). Nationalism is one kind of pseudo-tribalism that is about more than just who your family is, and I'd argue globalism is another step along the path towards a less tribal society.
The other issue is that not everyone agrees that becoming less tribal is a good thing, so you have some people actively trying to speed the change, and other people actively trying to slow or even reverse it. So, yeah... it gets pretty confusing.
I have so many relatives and friends that came from 1960's E. Europe that would wave their fists in the air in anger :).
You have excessive opportunities, wealth and freedoms compared to anyone in any Communist state, from any era.
On my last visit to Poland, speaking to a lady about my age, she mentioned that when she was young, they only had three kinds of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla and pink ... because the government mandated that 'anything else was bourgeois' (!!!). And they were the 'rich' Warsaw state! The Bulgarians had no 'ice cream' at all!
You have access to all sorts of education, lattes and cappuccinos, you can make any kind of art you like, you absolutely buy a vehicle (ok, so you can't buy a BMW?) - and if you live outside of an expensive city core - housing is actually relatively inexpensive. The average house price in the USA is $189 000. That is NOT a lot.
"Living standards have declined. Personal freedoms and privacy have retreated. Politics has grown more authoritarian. Science is being rejected rather than advanced. Education has stagnated. "
All 100% false.
Material standard of living has increased in every measurable way. Internet, apps, smartphones, access to information, medical drugs and treatments, the amount and distance of travel, the number of entertainment options, clothing options, food options ... it's all considerably better.
Personal freedoms are effectively what they were in the 1980's there is no real material change, other than now you have the power to communicate with anyone in the world - at any time. This was inconceivable to most people even in the early 1990's.
Politics is considerably less authoritarian than in the 1950's and 1960's wherein there were very rigid moral codes for almost all matters of conduct.
Have you seen a 'soup kitchen' line from the 1930's? All the 'homeless' men are wearing suit jackets, overcoats, proper hats and shoes! To wear a t-shirt and jeans back in the day would have been akin to 'wearing your underwear' outside. You would wear a suit and tie to work - call people 'Mr.' and address women by 'Mrs.' or 'Miss.'.
Women could be secretaries or work in factories. No abortions. Almost no divorce.
We have more researchers and publications than at any time in history.
A higher % of the population is finishing high school, and considerably more are going to University than ever before. In the 1960's maybe 12% went on to college, now it's past 30% - and the numbers of those doing 'something' post high-school is near 60%.
Hey, 'life is hard' and it's never going to seem easy - but don't take for granted how easy life is compared to almost any time in the past. We do some things 'worse' but most things 'better'.
The socialist regimes are worse than capitalist ones on average, but the socialist, centrally planned system may be (and was) more efficient in specific areas it decided to take care of explicitly.
Your example of the lack of ice cream is one side of the coin; the other is activation of the female workforce, virtually ending illiteracy and providing truly universal health care and education, for free of course. An average person was much better off under the Soviet-controlled regimes than they had been before the war. There is reason why for example Germans don't hate the time they lived in DDR that much.
> A higher % of the population is finishing high school, and considerably more are going to University than ever before. In the 1960's maybe 12% went on to college, now it's past 30% - and the numbers of those doing 'something' post high-school is near 60%.
And that tiny percentage is good? It's way behind what socialist states achieved in the seventies even now, then.
Of course, on the whole, the socialist (there was no real communism in Eastern Europe at all, by the way) regimes were inefficient and people had many of their rights denied. You could land in jail for telling a simple joke, that's true. On the other hand, millions of people didn't feel the need to tell "that kind of jokes" and they lived quite comfortable lives, even if they lacked a certain kind of ice cream.
Even in Poland, where opposition to the socialist regime is part of national identity, many people became disillusioned with the free market and capitalism after the shock of the early nineties. For more than twenty years after that, it was "in bad taste" to say anything in defense of the previous system or against the current one. However, in recent years, some people started voicing their discontent with the current system while recalling good sides of the previous one. If this happens even here, in Poland, then it's safe to assume (I think) that the upsides of that system existed.
I know that the Soviets did at least 'some things' well.
What I'm opposed to is the pure moral relativism and nostalgia for those repressive times.
The people packing themselves into overcrowded apartments and going carfree are doing so by their own choice. It's a fad among a particularly vocal group of young people, and it's not nearly as large a percentage of the population as people think they are [0].
The suburbs are cheaper than the cities. I'm just not seeing what you're describing in my own life. I live in the burbs; almost everyone I know has a car. I'm one of the only people I know who doesn't own one, and it's entirely by choice. Besides myself, I know one guy who doesn't own a car, and he can't drive because he's legally blind... but his wife owns a car. Half the people I know live in houses, and the other half live in suburban apartments... which are far larger than the tiny, cramped studio apartments you find in cities. I've got a townhouse myself.
> Living standards have declined.
And gotten quite better in some respects. Technology has made the world of my dreams a reality.
I'm so glad I can keep in touch with friends who I'm not able to see anymore thanks to us moving away/changing jobs/etc. I'm glad I can (legally, even!) watch or read all kinds of media without leaving my chair. Man... if someone told 12-year-old me that I can pay $10/month to watch every single episode of some of my favorite TV shows, I'd think they were messing with me. Back then, if I wanted to catch up on something, I had to pray for the network to air just the right reruns.
> Personal freedoms and privacy have retreated.
Personal freedoms are greater than ever. Especially if you're a minority. LGBT rights, women's rights, and PoC rights area all better than they ever were. Sure, we have a ways to go, but 50 years ago life sucked if you were LGBT, a woman, or a PoC.
I'm a woman who works in a technical field and has no interest in getting married or having children. 50 years ago, that would have been nigh impossible. I'm also openly LGBT, and nobody bats an eye. 50 years ago, being openly LGBT would have gotten you killed unless you lived in your city's "gayborhood", in which case you were basically trapped in a ghetto and couldn't take part in the rest of society. Seriously, back then, being accused of being gay had the same effect as being accused of being a pedophile (i.e. it would completely and utterly wreck your life). And forget about being trans... assuming the medical establishment would even let you transition (which wasn't likely), your only option was to go deep stealth as soon as possible.
And while race relations sure as hell aren't perfect, they're a far cry better than the era of racial terrorism that lasted until the '60s. You want to see what it was like to be black in the south in the '30s? Go read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. Segregation was just the tip of the iceberg. And there's an excellent article out there on what MLK actually did [1].
Or hey, abortion wasn't always legal.
Or being able to watch media that handles sensitive subjects: movies used to be under the strict control of the Hays Code, cable television didn't exist, and broadcast television was subject to strict regulation by both the FCC and network standards and practices. You couldn't even say the word "pregnant" on TV, for crying out loud.
Even as late as the '80s, being a geek would get you beaten up, your face shoved in a toilet bowl, etc. Hey, I went to high school in the early '00s, and that attitude was still floating around in a lesser form: nobody got violent, but if I mentioned comic books or fantasy, the class would laugh at me. Things got better for kids not too long after I graduated, and I'm glad today's kids don't have to worry about being pariahs for being nerds. John Cheese did a pretty good writeup of that on Cracked, of all places [0].
And back in the day, railing about how the system sucks, the man is out to get anyone, and America is evil would be enough to get somebody blacklisted. Now, nobody bats an eye. In some circles, it's even considered cool.
Now, yeah, privacy has gone down, but that's because we like it better this way. We chose it for ourselves. We like sharing our lives on Facebook. We like posting photos of everything, checking into places, writing status update after status update. We enjoy keeping in touch with people who have moved out of town. It used to be that if somebody moved away, you'd never hear from them again. I don't miss those days. Moving on: we love Google Street View, and we don't care if we can see people watering their lawns because Street View is awesome. Basically, we chose to give up some privacy because giving up some privacy has made our lives a whole lot better.
> Science is being rejected rather than advanced.
Science is constantly advancing. Read some journals, check out the ArXiv, read any of the numerous science articles that pop up on HN every day.
Yeah, sure, we have a whole bunch of antivaxxers and climate change deniers around, and unfortunately they're in the government now. But we've always had these kinds of people. Go look up the Scopes Monkey Trial. Go look up the massive backlash against plate tectonics; deniers managed to maintain control over that issue for 50 years before plate tectonics was finally accepted (it was first proposed in 1912, and the deniers shut down all discussion of it until the 1960s).
> It's a low-grade dystopia.
Maybe I should ping a former co-worker of mine, whose parents escaped the Khmer Rouge to start a new life in the US, and ask her if life here is even remotely comparable to 1970s Cambodia.
Or, since my family is Jewish, I could ask my mom to tell the story of her second cousin. She and her parents escaped Nazi Germany when she was a child by walking to either Spain or Portugal (I forgot which) and stowing away on a ship to the US. Can you imagine a dystopia so bad that escaping it justified walking across half of Europe on foot?
I'd go on but edblarney nailed everything else I wanted to say: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=edblarney
[0] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/04/the-high-co... points out that Millennials are actually moving away from coastal urban centers and into suburbs in "flyover country", despite the popular perception that Millennials are all preferring to crowd themselves into downtown areas.
[1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/8/29/1011562/- No, he didn't end racism. He did, however, end what was a straight-up terrorist regime.
[2] http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-modern-kids-dont-unders...
how does one walk to Portugal w/o first walking to Spain ? >_>
great post though!
Well, compared to where Americans would once have told you the country ought to end up, yes, it's a dystopia, particularly for the young. I've heard teachers say that Push: a novel accurately describes their students' lives.
For many of us, well, there's this joke. In the '80s you were told that under Russian Communism, everyone would have to pack themselves into overcrowded apartments and nobody could own their own car. Now, in the 2010s, under American capitalism, we young people all have to pack ourselves into overcrowded apartments and nobody can own their own car.
Living standards have declined. Personal freedoms and privacy have retreated. Politics has grown more authoritarian. Science is being rejected rather than advanced. Education has stagnated.
It's a low-grade dystopia.