“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Corporations don’t invent things, people do, as individuals or small groups. Unfortunately, they usually do it at work
You can just make a thing at home. The more time, freedom, and resources you start with, the more likely you succeed
And people do, all the time. There’s so many amazing things that aren’t profitable to mass produce, but you can do on your own