It’s unfortunate, but if you’re blaming the people in the thread for this, I think you’re directing your energy in the wrong direction. Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction instead. If you want people to appreciate the bigger picture, you can’t keep forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook. The HN that you’re presumably nostalgic for existed in a time when there was a lot more fat on the bone, and every efficiency hadn’t been extracted for nebulous benefit to the average person.

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YZF 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

"forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the people here to behave. Maybe it's not their fault they spend their day doom scrolling and have the attention span of a cat but they do have agency to change that. [EDIT: This is an attempt at humor]

Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics? The way we get at "those people" (and let's not even argue about who they are) is to regulate ourselves (or for the moderators to do that) and have a more substantive and positive discussion regardless of our perceptions.

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throwaway132448 an hour ago | parent [-]

> Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

It’s just my experience over the last 15 years. If it doesn’t align with yours, that’s nice to know.

> "forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Sure, but it could be lots of other things like 24hr news or the emergence of the gig economy.

> Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics?

No it’s not, it’s asking for agency, personal accountability and self-awareness, as you yourself allude to. If that means politics for you, that’s up to you. I don’t imply to “get at” anyone, but to do best by ourselves instead of doing best by those who benefit from dividing or distracting us.

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YZF an hour ago | parent [-]

> It’s just my experience over the last 15 years. If it doesn’t align with yours, that’s nice to know.

I know it's the narrative that times are bad. But me, my coworkers, my neighbors, my local mall, etc. all seem to be doing really great. And look, moon mission! I would think that there are a lot of people in tech who are doing better than ever. We've also seen layoffs and I know it's hard for people to find a job. This is why I'm asking for metrics because I don't think it's actually as clear as the narrative that this is the worse over 15 years. The pandemic was pretty bad? We had the financial crisis? Gas prices were a lot higher in 2021 ... I guess as they say perception is 99% of reality ...

	▲	Avicebron 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		How often do you find yourself wondering how you'll be able to pay rent and your car payment during the month? What happens if you need to get dental work? Does that shift your calculus for expenses day to day? Not it in 2021 or whatever, but like this past week?

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fsckboy 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction

your comment is entirely politcal, i.e. contributing more to the problem.

qui bono? we for sure don't bono.

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throwaway132448 an hour ago | parent [-]

Choosing one (deliberately ambiguous) line to label the comment “entirely political” is the kind of thinking that explains why tribalism has been so effective.

	▲	fsckboy 17 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		"Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction" is a political statement. It says: "don't talk about the actual issue, instead let's go after the enemies, we know who they are." It doesn't say "let's find them", it assumes we know who they are.
	▲	29 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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