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Comment by drinchev | Hacker News Reader

As older as I get ( 30 now ) I feel more and more the world is going to dystopia, rather than utopia.

Instead of having a world-wide federation, we will most probably have a period of dissonance around the nations where people will close more and more inside their borders, until they feel they have the power of their lives in their hands again.

I know you won't like it, but I will blame unregulated capitalism for this one. Media is so sensational, because they know nobody will watch / read anything that has a boring title. Social networks are becoming click-junky. Advertisement is fraudulent on a lot of levels. Globalization, instead of making poorest people not so poor has made rich people richer and so on. And no wonder this tendency is going worse with such a high-priced education.

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I'm not sure capitalism deserves the entire blame - some of it is just human nature (it's harder to care about something that happens in a distant location or time).

The question is what can we do about it? How do we rebuild public trust in the institutions (science and education) that should guide the country in the right path even if the people are asleep at the wheel? Trust in experts is at an all time low. Fact checking appears to have failed = "The fact checkers are biased!". And people are retreating into their media bubbles.

I often see the "Pass it on" billboards (http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards) - perhaps we need something for science and education? ("Clean air regulations save x lives a year in your community", "Every $1 spent on education saves $x on welfare down the road". I hate billboards but at least they would break through the media bubble many of us live in.

>The question is what can we do about it? How do we rebuild public trust in the institutions (science and education) that should guide the country in the right path even if the people are asleep at the wheel? Trust in experts is at an all time low. Fact checking appears to have failed = "The fact checkers are biased!". And people are retreating into their media bubbles.

Experts and institutions need to care about the people and stand up against the malign parts of the capitalist establishment.

The unpleasant truth is that this dystopia isn't coming out of nowhere, it is being built with our own hands. Our everyday desires, decisions, actions and inaction decide what will be built (more apps) and what won't (nextgen cures).

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