How about awareness that climate change will ruin us all.
It checks out that the peak of optimism in your graph is around the 80’s and 90’s. We weren’t just “optimistic” in the 90’s. We were delusional. We were ignoring problems instead of solving them
I feel every era had its “boogey man” issue. I doubt there was ever an era of “nothing to worry about”
Understandable to think this. Maybe we did come really close to some of those disasters, such as nuclear war. It’s just survivors bias to think that it wasn’t civilization ending danger we were in back then.
I hope we learn from that and steer clear of the danger next time, rather than think it’ll be alright because nobody happened to actually press the red button back then so I guess we worried about nothing
They were also high as fuck on coke back then. All we got is damn fent. Of course they were peppier and riskier.
“over the past 60 years the West has begun to shift away from the culture of progress, and towards one of caution, worry and risk-aversion, with economic growth slowing over the same period. The frequency of terms related to progress, improvement and the future has dropped by about 25 per cent since the 1960s, while those related to threats, risks and worries have become several times more common.”
I mean, when people are struggling to survive it’s hard to let yourself get excited about technology that will likely only benefit the most wealthy. All of the “easy” discoveries have been made. Anything else getting research funding is to further capitalism.
This is literally the GOP strategy. They’re anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-education, and constantly push a message of fear and persecution. We’re seeing the logical conclusion of that policy. The fact their anti-healthcare and proven wrong economic policies are also bad for people’s health and financial stability is just the icing on top.
What’s GOP, if I may ask?
Forgive my jadedness, I just get the feeling that maybe you’re automatically assuming we’re all in the USA and thus this GOP is a thing that we’ve heard of, and that this situation (which of course affects us all across the western world) is somehow caused by GOP, suggesting that the USA are somehow in charge of us all, and that they have much deeper control and influence in our nations than they actually do.
I know, that’s a pretty cynical assumption, I’m jaded, and shouldn’t just assume you’re talking about the USA. Maybe GOP is a German thing, or Canadian, or Irish?
I did mean the US GOP party but there are analogues in other English speaking countries, such as the Tories in the UK. Generally any country that Rupert Murdoch has setup shop in is going to suffer from these same problems.
It’s unclear exactly what region of the world the article was written about, but being US focused seems like a reasonably safe assumption. While it does say it’s based on analysis of English texts and mentions Britain, the piece that’s linked to was hosted on a US based site by a writer that seems to post mostly US based articles. UK could also be a possibility though, the website does have a UK edition and the author does occasionally post UK focused pieces as well.
Lastly while the US might not be in charge of other countries, it definitely has an outsized influence in English speaking countries due to the prevalence and popularity of US media. Finally be it Fox News in the US, Sky News in Australia, or News International in the UK, through Rupert Murdoch the same political ideology that has driven the US conservatives for the past half century is also steering conservative parties in other English speaking countries.
It’s an acronym for some reason for the Republican Party, don’t ask me what it means
Grand Ole Party, an old moniker, but I’m unsure of its origin.
By no means do I want to dismiss the socioeconomic issues that you’re hilighting - in fact, I agree on those points. But I think this is more about the pervasive philosophy of risk avoidance that’s been created by letting lawyers, financiers, and business types run everything, instead of anthropologists, sociologists, and engineers.
over the past 60 years the West
I reckon the writer is saying this about the West because that’s the only data he had access to. And, that this techno-pessimism should be a worldwide phenomena.
On the other hand, I wonder whether other cultures, apart from the West, have adopted a similar risk averse mindset. I mean, “the Haves” (and not the Have- Nots) are the only ones prone to be afraid to loose their accumulated wealth & lifestyle. But probably other affluent groups in the Non- Western world, might have adopted similar tendencies.
Or, they might have not. And this risk averse mindset, is exclusively a Western post-industrial cultural element. It would be very interesting to find out what the cultural & regional differences actually are world-wide.
This makes sense if you think of “progress” since WWII, overall peoples’ lives and standard of living improved because of technology and progress in other areas.
Today, we don’t see things like politics as being able to “progress”. The thought of technology progressing further at an exponential rate is scary because we don’t understand it and there could be some real consequences.
And of course, the ones who control said technology like AI are the billionaires who control so many other things and have bunkers in New Zealand or what have you for when it all goes to shit - largely because of their bad decisions that got us here in the first place.
So yeah…there was a time when “the future” was exciting. Now it’s just terrifying because it doesn’t seem like there is any practical way to avoid whatever bad thing awaits us. And those who truly could make a difference have noped the fuck out and decided that we should just all go to Mars instead of trying to improve things here….those who can afford the ticket, of course.
Don’t worry, rich people are not going to live a good life on Mars while we suffer on a borken earth. It doesn’t matter how much we fuck up the Earth, it will still be a paradise compared to Mars.
I totally agree with that conceptual knot: people who live precarious lives aren’t going to make any risky moves because they live drenched in anxiety of ending down on the street. And it’s patent that every advance in technology will benefit an handful of mega rich, and the trickle down economy was a bull****. (Very interesting about this is Varoufakis and his concept of techno feudalism). Now, having said that: the only answer is political, the governments must build consistent safety nets to allow the growth of middle class, alleviate them the angst of turning into an army of homeless, so that when the basic needs are met: a house, cures and food, one can concentrate about how to plan and thrive in the future. The only method is taxing the rich, the tragicomically rich. https://digg.com/2020/this-scrolling-visualization-of-jeff-bezos-wealth-is-breaking-our-brains
A risk averse culture would take the climate crisis seriously. We live in a YOLO culture.
That’s normal. Every culture goes through the usual arc:
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One for all and all for one.
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What’s in it for me
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Fk you I got mine
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KO
It goes from a lot of solidarity as the culture just broke free of the previous ruler. Over time sentiments change and become more individualistic until the entire thing becomes very top heavy. Eventually some external force (economy, war, climate and usually a combination of those) topples the whole thing over. Some parts break away and start the process over again.
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I think risks are a lot higher generally now, just in everday life.
Back 20 years ago people were a lot more understanding and had a lot more tolerance for things.
Now everyone is looking to get offended or make a big deal about stuff. That mentality has affected everything. The risks are higher which makes the entry higher and deflection from the status quo dangerous.
People feel on guard just with talking. That sort of mentality will bleed into everything.
Why take risks when there is literally no reward? Are you serious
https://genius.com/Howard-zinn-chapter-5-a-kind-of-revolution-annotated Read this chapter turns out to be always useful
Dear Nitwit,
A reduced faith in science might, hear me out here, ••might•• have something to do with science, ya know, killing the planet and what not. You wanna get some faith back? Maybe apply these new technologies to human happiness, or even, who knows human survival.
One more thing, nimrod. The real risk averse culture? It ain’t your unwashed “zero-sum thinking Millennials” No, it’s your hyper capitalist who’s rigged the system to the point where taking financial risk is erased by government bailouts. They’re the ones who want to eliminate risk.
And it’s that, plus their increased control of what is and is not researched in practised science that leads to our dismay. See above: “planet dying” Imagine something like pencillin, developed entirely within an academic risky environment, getting made today.
There’s risk in true critical thinking, instead of lazy “Kids Today” hand-wringing. So, in future, take a fucking risk.
