Hacker News Reader

Comment by pedro2 | Hacker News Reader

To what worries me the most is of learned helplessness. I’ve come to accept most of what you mentioned just because no-one else seems to care, why should I?

NOTE: AFAIK them problem wasn’t in wind turbines, someone said renewables actually overdelivered on what was budgeted for them.

View on HN

>To what worries me the most is of learned helplessness. I’ve come to accept most of what you mentioned just because no-one else seems to care, why should I?

Yeah I'm definitely at this point right now five years into this and this would be the import of my comment really, just, why does no one care? Cause when no one cares about the whole, there's no hope of collective, rational engagement of problem-solving. The Hannity/Texas bit could be proabably be further fact-checked.

But perhaps it all comes down to what Chépe said on _Narcos_, "being an adult means accepting things you wish weren't true"

Edit: originally wrote "there's hope of rational engagement"

For it to be worth it to care, not only does the problem need to be significant (it is), but your ability to influence it also must be (it isn't). American systems are brutally ossified and trying to change that will take millions of lifetimes of sacrifice.

> why does no one care?

Because most people just want a check every two weeks. No one wants to rock the boat. Office workers, even tech workers, are so removed from the result of their labor, it's hard to get motivated about anything except a nicer title and more money.

> Office workers, even tech workers, are so removed from the result of their labor, it's hard to get motivated about anything except a nicer title and more money.

I think there were some Germans who called this feeling “alienation“.

The Frankfurt School boys are definitely laughing their asss off right now somewhere

I would also add that we're definitely in the "Beautiful Souls" phase of Hegel's Philosophy of History

I agree about the learned helplessness. I observe it, and then I feel it creeping up myself when I see too many people around me have been bit. But no, we’ve got to find a plausible explanation for mass learned helplessness or we're part of the problem.

My learned helplessness was just to look at what is going on in the US, ask myself why I'm still putting up with it, and then to leave the country. Unfortunately most people don't have that option, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com