I'm no luddite, mobile devices are amazingly useful, but their effect on people has not exactly been unmitigatedly positive.
And then there's you, doing all the same shitty stuff everyone else has to go through, sitting on the toilet at work, scrolling instagram, and you don't see any of that, but you get an impression that everyone else is living a much better life, because you only see the highlights of their life. And then you save all that money, spend it on the same shitty bus, for the same shitty hotel and sewer infested beach, but you still crop out only the pretty stuff and post that.
Most parents want to be more active and involved in their kids lives but material conditions get in the way. Blame shit economic policy and the greedy clowns that sold out America’s industrial base. Phones are an intellectually lazy excuse that ignores the facets that absolve parents of some of the responsibility you’re trying to heap on them. This is not to say that some parents are lazy and use screens as replacements for parenting; they exist but if you want to cast a net this wide - bring receipts.
From :
https://www.prb.org/resources/do-parents-spend-enough-time-w...
"Time diaries indicate that married fathers spent an average 6.5 hours a week caring for their children in 2000, a 153 percent increase since 1965. Married mothers spent 12.9 hours, a 21 percent increase. Single mothers spent 11.8 hours, a 57 percent increase."
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/escaping-the-matrix/
TL;DR: It's phones and social media. We're social creatures who rely on dynamic networks of diverse opinions, but social media perverts this. We build static networks affirming our own opinions and that leaves us afraid of the unknown.
My favorite point Jonathan made is that if you look at the world as a whole, the spectrum of morality is actually incredibly diverse! Nobody sets out to build an evil ideology. Empires, caste systems, and communism were all built from moral foundations, even if their values are alien to us. In light of this, instead of asking why so much of the world looks backwards from an American liberal perspective (full disclosure: my perspective), a more interesting question is why American liberals adopt such a narrow view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQoNd9oEeoI
(The discussion on Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" starts at 13:08)
Cowen also questioned Haidt's prescription about how social media companies and the government should regulate social media through (stricter) age verification etc.
I could see conservatives blaming Obamaphones - making them accessible to all classes.
I wonder how the Holden Caulfield's, Johnny Stabler's or the Over The Edge kids would have done with smartphones.
> It’s literally just mobile devices.
It’s probably very unlikely that it is “literally just” mobile devices. I agree that is probably one of the major contributing factors. But when we’re discussing a very large complicated human problem, it almost certainly is not “ literally just” one thing.
If we want to accurately diagnose an issue so we can accurately address it, then we have to catch ourselves before we accidentally shut someone else down when they are very likely correct as well.
Many of the issues we’re facing are fractal level depths of human problems which are a result of years of denying the problems existed. They will almost certainly require many levers being adjusted, not “Just” one.
As I mentioned earlier, from my perspective, in addition to the GP comment, you’re likely also correct that mobile devices are a major source, I would add that it is almost certainly also unregulated social media companies, unchecked marketing, unregulated algorithms, and unchecked greed.
100% agreed. Along these same lines, the endlessly demoralizing narrative around climate change is likely another big factor.
I think many more people need to read and internalize things like Hannah Ritchie's book "Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet". Highly recommended.
Our parents might have been gullible but that’s a non-malicious failing. We’ve also done sweet fuck-all about global warming though.
We can say it is because we haven’t been able to grab the reins, but we’re hitting our 40’s pretty soon. We owed the next generation a revolution but we seem to be taking a “maybe I’ll get promoted” approach to things. It wasn’t enough.
I wonder if all we managed to do was kill the hope that “awareness” is actually going to accomplish anything.
Of course "awareness" is merely a necessary - and radically insufficient - condition. But a lot CAN be done, and it matters a great deal how MUCH, and how SOON we do them. The typical narrative of "we're completely screwed no matter what [so it doesn't matter what we do]" is both inaccurate and extremely harmful in that it impedes progress.
Acid rain and the ozone layer are a couple relevant examples of real success in global environmental challenges. Climate change is bigger and harder and more complex, but it's NOT "all or nothing". And there is room for -- even urgent need for -- rational optimism, which in turn motivates change of which we are capable.
In another generation another crisis will exist. You will be blamed. It could be: Birth control, water bottles, owning pets, speaking against robot/human relationships, speaking against kids being raised by the government (to give everyone an equal playing field and to narrow the gender pay gap), speaking out against sharia law.
Good luck and don't forget to ignore it all.
Honestly the best thing is ignore everything, and live your own life peacefully.
It would only be catastrophic, not existential. We should work hard to reduce the risks and mitigate the impacts, but the species will go on even if we ignore it.
And, almost everything is getting better faster than anyone predicted. There's a strong case for climate optimism, and a future that we can improve by continuing to take action and put in the hard work of fixing the world.
The cold war was more serious and things worked out unexpectedly. World War I and II were more serious and they ended different than how everyone thought.
Landfills filling up was the concern now it's used for power generation. ACID rain.. holes Ozone layer. We fixed them.
Carbon in the air will be used to generate food as we find new ways to 3d print food. You will see. Our future problem will be not enough carbon
I tend to agree that the first order issue is that people seem to increasingly subscribe to "demoralizing narratives". But not just climate change. I see the same phenomenon, just with different narratives among my more "right wing" loved ones. Instead of the demoralizing narrative being climate change, it is that society is crumbling due to the decline of religion, or because men aren't manly enough and women aren't womanly enough, or because people like them are being censored into oblivion, etc.
But why is it that all these different kinds of doom narratives seem to be spreading so much and getting so much traction now, when they didn't seem to in the past? I have trouble seeing what else has changed significantly enough to cause this, if the explanation is not mass adoption of a new kind of media.
Basically: Climate doomerism is a problem, yes. But climate change is also a problem, one that our power structures seem completely unwilling to address. And in such an environment, Climate doomerism is kind of a logical outcome: we know there's an issue, scientists have known since the 70's, yet we do precious little about it and fundamentally our leaders seem content to ride out the collapse of the biosphere and cash their checks. Of course that's fucking depressing.
You seem to be exhibiting the exact symptom you are complaining about.
I fully accept that climate change exists and is human caused, and will cause serious problems in the future.
Where I differ from you (probably) is that I think cutting emissions to a useful degree will also cause serious problems. Maybe even worse problems. Both problems have the real potential to cause total war across the globe, not seen since WWII. Many people think we're already in the early stages of WWIII, and a big part of that is basically due to an utterly trivial minor disruption in the politics/trade of fossil fuels when compared to what is required by mitigating climate change via emissions reductions.
My view is obviously no less doomer-ish I suppose, but, in your view, the problem is "people suck", "politicians suck", etc., and I think that makes people cynical and resentful of other people, politically unstable in general.
And I mean, you're basically conceding then that the doomerism has merit, even if we might disagree on the specifics of why. Then why judge these kids for being depressed? Irrespective of what you decide to park as the "real cause" of the problems, the problems remain and the power structure is either refusing to or is incapable of solving it.
> the power structure is either refusing to or is incapable of solving it
This is where I think the whole doomerism project goes astray. It seems to only notice difficulties and challenges and never pay even a tiny bit of lip service to the flip side of the coin.
Surely "the power structure" must include the executive administration and a majority of the members of both houses of the last US Congress? Those people coordinated the passage of a hugely beneficial package of mostly carrots but also some sticks targeted directly at this problem.
The criticism of this always boils down to "well sure, but that's too little and too late", but that is letting perfect be the enemy of good. People who care about this should be energized by this, both by the opportunities it has created to work on research and deployment of useful technologies, and by the relatively paltry political backlash to it, suggesting more political capital can be spent on this moving forward.
It's a way more exciting time to be involved in solving this problem than it has ever been, certainly in my adult life and I'd say ever. But despite that, the "discourse" on it among young people seems to be one of cynical nihilism. I don't know for sure why that is, but I struggle to believe it has nothing to do with social media echo chambers.
We're on track to not only surpass but pretty much blow away projections for CO2 emissions that will all but guarantee multiple degrees of heat gain over the next several decades, and all that entails: more super-storms, higher ocean levels, and a LOT more death in the developing world around the equator. That is definitionally too little too late. This isn't pessimism: scientists knew what we needed to do, and we have utterly failed to do it.
If your car was in an accident and couldn't be legally driven, and you requested your mechanic replace the control arms and called it job done, you'd rightly be called fucking insane. That's not letting perfect be the enemy of good, that's not doing what you need to do.
> People who care about this should be energized by this, both by the opportunities it has created to work on research and deployment of useful technologies
A ton of these technologies are greenwashing existing tech because there's federal grants to be had for attempting it. Others, like widely available solar, are complicated by the purveyors taking advantage of low-earners who've managed to get homes and fucking them into bankruptcy by adding money to their mortgage they can't possibly afford. Still others are things like EV's, which while better for the environment at point of use, are still highly damaging what with the incredible amounts of limited heavy metals required to build them, not to mention being shipped back and forth over the oceans because it's cheaper to build everything in Asia. And all of this is because things are done in our economy to make money and ONLY to make money, not to make the world better.
> and by the relatively paltry political backlash to it, suggesting more political capital can be spent on this moving forward.
You must be joking. The reactionaries are having a FIELD DAY with 15 minute cities, bug eating, what have you. And yes it's incredibly stupid shit utterly beneath engaging with, but it doesn't change the fact that tons of people believe it and parrot it.
> But despite that, the "discourse" on it among young people seems to be one of cynical nihilism. I don't know for sure why that is
Probably something to do with the fact that this discourse has been happening for half a century now and we're producing more CO2 than EVER and burning the rainforest down.
So a bunch of people are now hanging out the windows and strapped to the undercarriage trying to fix the thing while it's rolling, and a bunch of other people are sitting in the back seat typing on their phones about how there is no problem, or about what we coulda woulda shoulda done, or about how the people working on the fixes are doing the wrong things, or about how we should just crash the car and get it over with. And that's all fine, people can make their own choices, but I'd rather be trying to figure out how to be one of the people working on fixing the cracks, rather than just being along for the ride.
> That is definitionally too little too late.
Note that I didn't actually say it isn't too little too late. But this is exactly how "perfect is the enemy of good" works. "Good" is never good enough, but it's still good. I agree with you that it's too little and too late to avoid a whole slew of bad things like the ones you listed, and probably worse. But I don't think it's too late to avoid the existential risks to the species. I do think it's too little, but its success makes me more, rather than less, optimistic about more efforts to come. And I get it, you'll think, "oh great, so all these horrible things will happen, and now we want to pat ourselves on the back just because we may be on the path to avoid wiping out the whole species?". And yes, that is the way in which it is good, despite not being good enough.
> A ton of these technologies are greenwashing existing tech because there's federal grants to be had for attempting it.
Which things are "greenwashing", in your view? It is indeed mostly targeted at existing technologies, because we already have really good technologies, which if deployed far more widely will already go a very long way toward solving the problem. This is a very good thing! We do need to invent more things, but that's not the bottleneck yet, the current bottleneck is deployment of things we've already invented.
> Others, like widely available solar, are complicated by the purveyors taking advantage of low-earners who've managed to get homes and fucking them into bankruptcy by adding money to their mortgage they can't possibly afford.
Residential roof-top solar is indeed not the thing to be excited about with respect to solar deployment, which is why it is not a major focus of the provisions in the IRA.
> Still others are things like EV's, which while better for the environment at point of use, are still highly damaging what with the incredible amounts of limited heavy metals required to build them, ...
The metals thing is not a non-issue, but is also wildly overblown. Importantly, EVs do not burn those metals; they are akin to the fuel tank, not the fuel. This is an advantage that is not ignored, exactly, but is often underrated.
> not to mention being shipped back and forth over the oceans because it's cheaper to build everything in Asia.
The IRA included provisions aimed at localizing material sourcing and manufacturing. Again, if your argument is that this isn't good enough, then I agree, but if your argument is that "the power structure" has done nothing about the issues you're worried about, then I don't agree.
> You must be joking. The reactionaries are having a FIELD DAY with 15 minute cities, bug eating, what have you.
I'm not sure how old you are, but if you weren't around for it, it might be enlightening for you to read about the backlash to the ACA (Obamacare). That is what a political backlash looks like. A fringe of reactionaries throwing silly pot-shots online is not a political backlash. There have been no mass protests calling for a repeal of the IRA because of its climate provisions. The opposition nominee for the presidency is not making this a center-piece of his campaign. Sure, there are some targeted things that they intend to undo or roll back, but it is not a major part of anyone's campaign rhetoric.
This is, truly, as good as it gets for a major piece of legislation. Nobody is particularly pissed about it, and the vast majority of its provisions are going to stand, regardless of who wins the next election. That is a very successful political outcome! Resist the urge to overindex on noisy edgelords online.
> Probably something to do with the fact that this discourse has been happening for half a century now and we're producing more CO2 than EVER and burning the rainforest down.
No, we have not been having this discourse for half a century. The discussion has shifted massively just over the decade and a half of my career, due in no small part to the massive shifts in the solutions we have to bring to bear on the problem.
Cynicism and nihilism are not the right conclusions to draw from the history of humanity working on this problem. The right conclusion is that progress can be made, and is being made more quickly now than at any point thus far, and continues to accelerate. Thank goodness!
Energy = mass * acceleration * distance
Demanding it is part of what "we'd do better if we put down our phones".
But it still is hard, I get it, it's either time consuming on top of a "normal" job, or likely to be less lucrative as a career than most things the HN audience can do.
But it's not true that there's nothing people can do, if they want to.
there it is
We actually took steps and saved the Ozone layer.
Invented and made the solar panel economically viable.
Electric cars aren't exactly designed by the youngest generation either.
We / they have taken big steps to stop trade in tropic hardwoods.
The generation before us built the systems and societies that we today take for granted. To the best of their abilities, very many of them worked very hard to give something better to us than they got themselves.
Go further back and they actually stopped the most well oiled war machine that has ever existed, the nazis. Later they stopped the Soviet by outcompeting them.
Hindsight is 20/20.
But a little humility should be mandatory I think.
And ironically, we have the environmentalists of the past to thank for the fact that we don't have several times as much nuclear power for base load (and also several times less
Ask yourself why environmentalists succeeded in shutting down nuclear power, the one viable alternative to fossil fuels, when they failed at literally everything else. That might lead you to who was actually responsible.
And they did not fail at everything else.
They succeeded in a lot of cases.
For a rather large win, as I mentioned, the Ozone layer was saved. Another big one was banning of DDT and introduction of regulations on everything from new pesticides / herbicides to emissions (or fuel saving as we used to refer to it until recently).
All the sociopolitical difficulties that hinder solutions today were just as, if not more, insurmountable for all those generations.
And the technological landscape is much more promising today than at any point since this problem was identified. And people from all the generations you listed are strongly represented among the people who created and began scaling those technologies.
No generation has been better positioned to contribute to solving this problem than the one entering adulthood today. It will be a damn shame if most of them but into doomerism and let it keep them from taking their shot.
I’m not sure this is true. From my point of view, struggle is valued no less than it ever was, at least when it’s clear there will be a payoff at the end. Struggling to chase a carrot on a stick that can never be caught isn’t admirable, it’s a waste.
It is straight from Buddhist text that the desire for things that are not easy to get leads to misery.
It isn't a paradox that a culture predicated on the idea that happiness comes from the acquisition of things that are hard to get would find itself producing misery if Buddhist text are correct. That is exactly what they say will happen.
Celeb culture helps implant the notion that rich people are more dissatisfied with life or have more dysfunctional lives, because ordinary people who are depressed or dysfunctional get no media coverage.
This seems like it’d apply to teenagers even more than adults, between the combination of emotions running hot and having so many years ahead of them. It’s easy to see how someone might become depressed if they believe that their next 60-80 years are going to be some degree of awful.
Edit: note that baby boomers are not the oldest living generation.
All the movements I could be happy about are regressing (trans rights, women's rights, hell even gay rights which seemed incredibly solid). Climate change is going to ruin everything and we're not going to do anything about it. Gaza is a neverending parade of tragedies.
It feels like all there is to do is sit around and feel bad and wait for things to get worse.
Modern life seems to be mostly just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen, to me or someone else I know or maybe both. Wasn't like this in my 20s thats for sure, it does appear to be a new thing.
I’m also sharing a planet full of a species that has endured and conquered plagues, slavery, centuries of war, and the threat of nuclear war, amongst other hardships. Things have been much worse and we will continue to improve.
Check out the book Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know for a counter to your doomscrolling.
So why do so many smart people wrongly believe that, all things considered, the world is getting worse?
Way back in 1965, Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge, from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, observed, "There is a basic asymmetry in life between the positive, which is difficult and takes time, and the negative, which is much easier and takes less time—compare the amount of time needed to bring up and socialize an adult person and the amount of time needed to kill him in an accident, the amount of time needed to build a house and to destroy it in a fire, to make an airplane and to crash it, and so on."' News is bad news; steady progress is not news.
Homosexuality follows pretty much the same pattern with a head start.
Women are achieving far better to the extent that some are starting to feel as if we've left young boys behind.
Gaza sucks, but we've always had wars. Ask a survivor about WW2.
Climate change is about the only thing on your list that is actually worth worrying about in an existential sense. We are worrying about it a LOT more as a society as we did back then, we just may not be doing enough about it.
It basically sounds as if you've gotten stuck on, say, people having debates about trans women in sport, and catastrophised that into somehow the whole world is going to shit. Maybe if you're a gay trans woman who ties most of their happiness into being able to broadcast their sexuality and gender identity then a reason to be upset might be that society isn't 100% accepting. You have to admit that's a super rare position to be in, though, and it's a hell of a lot easier than it was hiding in the closet in the 70s.
Gaza's closer to the Vietnam War, or the Global War on Terror - two tragedies that I at least hoped we could have learned from.
I "blame" the sudden rise of social media and western society reorienting itself to highly addictive dopamine-hit loops. Before that, the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the subsequent weaponization of mass media. All without an accompanying evolution of cultural, social, moral norms (!= rules) to aid navigation in this brave new world.