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Comment by dukeofdoom | Hacker News Reader

I think in many ways yes. A local island that now has been turned into residential units, still has some old buildings from the 1920s. Including a dance hall. Its abandoned now. But the scale and grandeur of the place, has played on my imagination. What it was like to be in there with a thousand other people on a weekend just out dancing. No internet, or TV. I've also seen some street photos from NY from that time period. Everyone looks so trim and upright, well dressed and civilized. Its like tech added 30-50 lbs of fat on the average person. And replaced actual social interaction, with poor substitutes of facebook, twitter, youtube and TV.

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That is what happens when you see reality instead of carefully selected cheery lies.

You didn't see the mentally disabled in the basement, the arrest of wounded veterans under "ugly" laws justified by maternal impression theory an utterly moronic misreading of biblical miracles as implying what the mother sees influnces form of the child. Except there is a major derth of livestock how to's in the bible and a lot more focus on miracles.

Lies deserve destruction.

It may be the case that socio-economic issues have worsened those things, not technology. And that we are not fully leveraging technology in order to improve lives.

I don't know if thats alway the case. People used to have liaisons, read books, play music together, go to church, play card games, garden, ride horses, and so on. Often surrounded by friend and family. Just seems like the quality of the average moment was better back then. The experience more authentic and often more social and more dangerous.

For example if you liked to go out and play poker in a local bar in the 1920s. It Required actual poker skills, but also good banter, and had an element of danger to it. Seems like your brain neurones would be firing, just to keep up with the banter at the table while you downed whiskey trying not to lose too much money.

Now so many people stay at home, watch some TV or watch some porn, fall asleep and go to work the next day. And things are safe, virtual and fake.

Technology has made movies possible, I love movies. But I value the experience of reading a book differently. Its a much richer and deeper experience. And technology made it very cheap now with things like kindles. But still I think there's been a decline in the amount of people reading books. Even though I think society would be enriched from more people reading books. Its now the average person has easier lazier entertainment to occupy them.

The anxiety from modernity hits different today. We are bombarded with the most realistic forms of imagery ever in human history. What was once a black and white picture in a magazine is now a video in HD.

50-60 years ago you weren't constantly bombarding yourself with people who have more than you. Today, people go on instagram and see the rich living the dreams they'll never be able to attain, despite being told they could do anything in school and by their parents. People watch porn which shows insanely attractive people doing any fantasy imaginable, with no effort on their part.

Their regular lives will never compare with that, they get depressed and anxious seeing how they are nowhere near these people. And then this leads to anger and eventually populism, and it'll eventually lead to war.

There can't be war because the next World War would most likely make us extinct. We need another approach, one that puts us on a path to prosperity and sustained growth as a species. Everyone could have an amazing life, we really just need people to work on improving distribution of goods/services.

That's a pretty confident position to take. Really war could be all around us. If climate change continues unabated, large swaths of the earth will no longer be able to produce food. Hot temperatures will cause mass migration (we're already seeing this, see Syria). Billions of people, unable to be fed - desperation - war.

> We need another approach, one that puts us on a path to prosperity and sustained growth as a species. Everyone could have an amazing life, we really just need people to work on improving distribution of goods/services.

People in the US literally refuse to wear masks to protect others around them. Do you really think this is possible?

I am very confident in my views because I'm going all-in on them with all my time and my money. That means making sure that I have the best position possible on the subject, which means lots of reading and research. If I was not certain about this path, I would just have fun and live a simply free life. But I will work towards this instead.

But yes, large positive paradigm shifts are possible. They are also necessary, and we must begin the work. To decentralize production of goods/services as much as possible, to make food and energy plentiful and free for all, etc. We will accomplish these goals and more.

There are plenty of people having real experiences today. In absolute numbers, there are probably more of them than in the period you describe, since the population has ballooned. The life you want is out there.

Plus you are ignoring all the bad parts. Don't want to be a stay at home wife and be bored out of your mind? Too bad. Wrong tone or sexual preference? Whoops. Don't want to get black lung or mind numbing-factory work? Better luck next time.

There is a selection bias at work. Only notable people are portrayed in media, for the most part. But the past is filled with atrociously empty and broken lives.

People have been getting fat for much longer than we've had Facebook.

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