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Comment by esseph | Hacker News Reader

I read this and feel very sad, though I understand the sentiment.

The world I knew in the 90's and 2000's is long gone and people are celebrating cruelty now. I want out.

Consider looking at social media less and reading more history. The idea that people are recently celebrating cruelty, but did not earlier, is charmingly nostalgic but not exactly historical.

The scale of it, in the US, is new. Social media has enabled this scale.

Before that, we had... mailing lists? Web forums?

Before that? BBSs and in-person meetings.

Cheap and easy world-scale communication has fucked us at the same time it has helped us.

I'm talking about in my lifetime. Your nihilism may comfort you but it doesn't comfort me.

What about people celebrating burning women alive back In medieval times?

What about what about what about. Should we be saying it used to happen so its fine now?

What about people celebrating burning women alive back In medieval times? That's what people doing all the time not just now. Only that the whole world can see a few insane people doing.

In my lifetime competence has taken a back seat to hatred and cruelty. Save your whataboutism for Reddit.

My clearest memory of that period was Al Qaeda flying planes into the twin towers in 2001 followed by the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. I'm not sure it was a unique time of brotherly love?

It North America, it was better overall; we didn't immediately assume the other person was inhuman because they voted for the other guy. In the US, we are just so fucked.

The rest of the world, at that time? Probably not so great.

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