I'm an American turning 50 in the next year. Today made me aware of the fact me that I've now lived in a "post-9/11" world longer than before. (Time gets away from us, doesn't it... >sigh<)

In the years immediately following the attacks I thought the country's collective paranoia would subside. I thought the encroachments on civil liberties would fade away.

I didn't understand how much money there was in fear-based capitalism (and I really should have, seeing as how I lived thru the fear and hype around Y2K) and how quickly the interests profiting from keeping Americans afraid would become entrenched.

I feel like people who were young when the attacks happened developed a normalized view of mass surveillance. Likewise, I feel like they have a stronger deference to authority. As today's early-to-mid 30's-aged people assume the reigns of power I think we'll have even less of a shot to see a return to pre-9/11 attitudes about civil liberties.

▲

krapp 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Y2K was potentially a real problem. It didn't materialize as such because we actually fixed it.

	▲	EvanAnderson 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I totally agree. I was there helping fix it, too. The occasion of Y2K was used by merchants of hype and fear to make a quick buck with people who had "prepper" tendencies. I can't believe I didn't expect them to glom-on to 9/11 the way they did with Y2K.
	▲	nabbed 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Here! Here! This always annoys me. My company hired a bunch of older programmers to fix many Y2K problems in our legacy but critical systems. Even the (then) new-fangled thing I was working on needed some amount of Y2K work, which I did myself, to avoid disaster.

▲

bee_rider 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, given recent voting patterns, people currently in their 30’s probably won’t be elected until like 2060, right?

	▲	EvanAnderson 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The US tendency toward gerontocracy is frustrating to me. Besides being out-of-touch, our federal officeholders being so old, as a group, feeds a self-fulfilling stereotype.

▲

monegator 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

just look at all the doomposting, announcements of people leaving and companies disclosing that their chatbots totally could destroy the world! fear-based capitalism, as you put it.

	▲	Drupon 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		AI psychosis ^