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Comment by danmaz74 | Hacker News Reader

It's a long but worthwhile reading; a TL;DR for those who don't have the time: excessive optimism and excessive pessimism are both bad for us; we need to go back to building narratives that include complex solutions for complex global(ised) problems, which is something that we were able to do in the past - after all, we went through much worse periods (eg the 1930s, WWII) and the World didn't end.

Personal comment: I can relate very much to this, but I also find that building those complex narratives - or even finding them - is incredibly difficult. I don't know how much this difficulty is related to the new media landscape (especially social media), but the net effect is that, apparently, only simple solutions (which will never work) seem to be gaining steam.

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It's hard to build up to complex solutions when we (society, broadly defined) seem unable to agree on the basic facts.

I don't know for sure if the past was better or worse when it came to reporting the truth. Given the limited number of news outlets, radio stations and tv stations historically, there were at least a limited set of reporting to agree on (independent of the accuracy of that reporting). This was probably very helpful in enabling more complex solutions.

The problem is that both sides of any big issue think they have the "facts" and refuse to compromise or engage with the facts from the other side.

The list of objective facts regarding any major issue is short. The list of subjective facts is infinite. When anyone can blast the world with their subjective facts, the objective facts are lost in the noise.

If economics were a hard science, then we could focus on the objective facts.

It's not one, though.

If the science was hard then then we'd just abuse statistics and anecdotes (like we do to promote gun control and deny climate change).

The deeper problem is "option consequences" - what is doing X likely to result in? It's hard to call statements about the future "facts", but we can't plan without them. QV the Brexit debate upthread.

100 years ago, mass media was still in it's infancy. They had printed media and occasional radio coverage and in many parts of the world media was extremely regulated. Now, we have a large number of different channels with much less regulation, and many more people with their own agendas.

Every complex solution will add an additional layer of complexity on top of everything, thereby making the problem worse. If society, as a whole, becomes so complex that the processes that keep it rolling are no longer transparent, then we'd end up in a situation where we can't see the forest for the trees.

That doesn't sound right to me.

I just read "The end of Alchemy" which goes through the history of our financial system and how it came to be and it doesn't sound like we historically were any better off. So not sure exactly what they are referring to with regards to these narratives.

Furthermore, I wouldn't agree that complex solutions are needed for complex problems unless we talk technically.

A big part of the issues we are having is that the policies we do have are so complex that they can be used by those who have enough money to speculate and interpret against the intent of the laws.

If anything we need simple rules and a system of ongoing interpretation on top which ensures that interpretations the law stay within the spirit of the law.

Also it wasn't a long read at all :)

  much worse periods

It’s worth looking at those periods, to understand that economic, financial, social, cultural factors brought people into that period, and changes in technology, radical advancements caused unexpected results.

Do pay attention to that.

>...we need to go back to building narratives that include complex solutions for complex global(ised) problems...

Whilst I agree, one thing that the author doesn't address is that people were very worried after the collapse of the market (Reconstruction), after WWII (the spread of communism, McCarthysim), and other such calamities.

The difference betwixt those times and now is fundamentality societally-based and the nature of the calamity.

Almost no one works at a company for twenty years, anymore; which means reliance on things like 401ks (in the states). When the crash hit in 2008, it wiped a large portion (if not almost all) of their life's savings. So, for people to be especially worried going forward isn't without merit.

The problem is that the complex solutions, these days, haven't even considered, much less addressed, the working class heroes.

I cannt blame people, one bit, for being more prone to being receptive to the narratives of another economic collapse; especially, if you've ascribed your personal losses to not listening the first go-round.

Of course, most countries came up with differing solutions for the crash, and that's one thing to consider: Even though the impact was global, the response was more local (country versus world). Iceland, for example, jailed the bankers[0]. The states bailed them out[1].

I don't have an answer and I don't even presume to begin to have a notion of what to do; however, telling people that they should just wait for a complex solution isn't going to go very far, when the solutions proferred so far haven't positively affected them in the slightest.

(Apologies for the rant.)

[0] - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-simanowitz/iceland-has...

[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/07/14/the-big-...

>When the crash hit in 2008, it wiped a large portion (if not almost all) of their life's savings. So, for people to be especially worried going forward isn't without merit.

only if they panic sold. if they held for a few more years, they would have recovered most, if not all of their losses.

Yup still waiting for my Lehman Brother's shares to go to the moon in value, any day now.

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