>Klein's influential posters still look extraordinary to this day and "define the excitement and enthusiasm of the early years of post-war air travel."
I wish they were influential.
Modern corporate messaging is.... not influenced by these works.
>American greatness has produced a society whose members know not what to do with the freedom and abundance that earlier generations secured.
There have been several posts on HN about this. I have commented every time I have seen one because I think the above quote is true. I also think it is one, of several, reasons things are going the way they are.
Many of my friends, coworkers, and relatives have fallen into the trap of being bored to death. They fill up their time with worthless empty "calories" of media consumption, ethanol, and doom scrolling. Almost all of them are unhappy. I think it is widespread to be like this.
But the problem is solvable.
There is no person, no person too busy, too tired, too poor, too disabled, too shy, too anything, who cannot find the time to do something that provides value to their life. They just have to, and this is the part that makes people mad, put down their phone and turn off the TV.
In every zip code in the entire United States of America, there is some group of people, somewhere, that is looking for someone to join them-- unless it is an isolated patch of remote wilderness where food and fuel need to be airlifted in or a remote island separated from the mainland by thousands of miles of sea there IS something.
You just have to get out, find them, and join them.
The last time something like this popped up I do what I usually do and listed non-work, non-social media things to do within an hour of my deceased grandparents' farm in central Southern Indiana. That's my benchmark-- if there are things to do here there are things to do everywhere because it is about as far from "the big city" you can get absent stretches of western desert or alaskan tundra.
Some quick searches found rod and gun clubs, knitting circles, small rural libraries with 3d printers going idle and anime clubs, three (yes, three) astronomy clubs, amateur radio clubs, gardening clubs, volunteer fire companies (who always, everywhere, need members), civic societies, book clubs, and even a small community performing arts center with a banging schedule of shows whose website was practically begging for people to come join them to be stage crew, performers, and set builders. Rural, barely-covered-by-a-cell-signal, southern Indiana, and those are just the things I found with online calendars full of events.
Being active in one's community outside of work, and deriving meaning not from work but your personal accomplishments and activities is a skill-- but it is a learnable skill.
I think it's certainly true that as an individual there are things you can do to be more actively socializing. But the fact that we are seeing such absolutely widespread changes in the populations behavior means it's not just some people being lazy, but that we have actually changed the environment for the worse.
Much of the world is currently looking at banning social media for kids. But I'm staring to feel it's almost just as bad for adults as well.
Well said. Even just getting a book and taking it to a beach or park or library or coffee shop is so much more fulfilling than doomscrolling or watching YouTube or whatever. Getting out of the house is the first and most crucial step to living a more interesting life.
There are absolutely people who are too busy to do something that feels meaningful to them.
But that one is ancient: that has been the case for most people through history. I actually find it hard to put myself in the place of the overwhelming set of people whose lives were solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Even the most harried single parent today is not more overwhelmed than they were.
I suspect that there is a difference in that it's no longer most people. Most people can find at least some time to be fulfilled -- and it would be awfully nice if we could devote some of that to fulfilling those who are working 80 hours a week while raising children. Unlike the poor peasant, we have plenty to go around now.
How do you square your belief in the opening premise with the results of your research into clubs and "things to do" that seems to completely contradict it?
The varieties of person are as varied as the total number of people so there will always be those who seek those things out, but if you look at the trends for clubs and organizations you will often see that participation and membership is declining.
The medium has been the on the front of culture wars as far as the 80s. I would certainly not count on it as something to take a break from current politics as the others OP have listed. Now, if the club is about making actual animation, as oppose to discuss / critics some shows, it would be a different story. But most anime clubs aren't about that.
My local beach volleyball club called parks and rec and asked for a net on the beach and parks said “sure no problem, then promptly provided it” then also provided a rake and bucket to clean the courts and a key to a nearby storage locker. It’s not hard at all. You just have to stop lying to yourself.
Congratulations on being lucky enough to not be afflicted by a bad enough mental health disorder! All you have to do is to "get out there and do stuff" to achieve fulfillment.
Maybe you'll consider not projecting your experience onto the many others who are literally unable, even though they are equipped with the same number of functioning hands and feet as you do, and don't seem disabled by mere appearance.
> They fill up their time with worthless empty "calories" of media consumption, ethanol, and doom scrolling.
You might consider extending this empathy by also not blaming the otherwise healthy people falling into these dopamine traps that are designed by professionals to entrap, designed carefully over many thousands of man-years to maximize ad revenue.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you for the most part. Yet I'm struck by the complete omission of the robber from the story, and the focus on the robbed houseowner's weakly built front door, when it was already made of steel. And of course, the non-negligible fraction of the population whose front doors are made of weaker material through no fault of their own.
> Almost all of them are unhappy.
Then surely they would climb out of their dopamine gravity-wells in the first chance and pursue happier, more real lives, right, if they could?
I kindly ask you to reconsider your beliefs regarding "willpower".
> Congratulations on being lucky enough to not be afflicted by a bad enough mental health disorder! All you have to do is to "get out there and do stuff" to achieve fulfillment.
It’s true that mentally ill folk (including yours truly) fall prey to these dopamine sinks more easily as an escape or coping mechanism — and they’re even more vulnerable to the predation of marketers and UX engineers trying to maximize ad-views. It is important to have these talks about society and social structures. But ultimately, on an individual level, it very literally is about just “getting out there and doing stuff.” That isn’t dismissive or discounting hardships, that’s just how it is.
Getting out there and doing things is the answer, for those with mental illnesses and those without. Upping your willpower and your ability to cope is paramount. How you do it differs from person to person: It might be tweaks to routine, taking medication, or getting therapy. But this is a universal human thing. The goal is the same, the steps is the same — but some of us have more intermediate steps than others.
You know, I'm looking at this conversation, and it reminds me a lot of the challenges of starting a physical health kick.
The answer to how to get into better shape isn't a mystery: eat well, work out. The environmental forces against you are not a mystery. But DOING this is really hard, and these habits involve skills, which have to be developed from zero over time. Your first cardio is going to suck. If you are a beginner cook, I've got all sorts of ideas on what to make and how, you need some direction.
The worst thing to do is nothing. The best thing to do is learn to cook one thing and start going for long walks. You iterate on the practice them there.
So what's the equivalent Step 1 for the doomscroller?
Because I agree with you, "delete all the apps and go be social" isn't going to cut it. For a lot of people, starting with basics "go see a band play, shut off your phone for the evening" or "instead of getting carryout, take a book to a restaurant and sit at the bar" (traveler's hack: you can do anything alone if you bring a book).
It appears my parent comment is misunderstood. I myself am improving every day, but I was once in a darker place, and that was through no fault of my own. I don't see any dreams: the issues we talk about here are systemic, the human race didn't spontaneosly became less interested in living a satisfactory life suddenly after 2010s. Of course an individual can survive and thrive regardless, with enough knowledge and effort.
I must, the same way the immune system must assume that anything an IgE antibody can attach to is a potential threat, assume that anyone who unironically uses the word "gaslight" as a verb is wrong.
My favorite thing about MacOS is how it has never changed how it changes.
It's like the game Civilization.
Every new version is worse than the last. Every new version is more bloated. Every new version has changes that ruin it.
Every new version is "less snappy". Every new version ruins everything.
Not even with OS X, we're talking back to the System 6 days, almost 40 years ago, it has always been the same.
System 6 uses too much RAM I'm staying with System 5.
System 7 is bloated I'm staying with System 6.
System 8 is a disaster I'm staying with System 9.
System 9 is a buggy mess I'm staying with System 8.
System, err, OS X v10.0 has no apps I'm staying with System 9.
And then oh boy the OS X/macOS versions!
Every generation gets so much worse, buggier, and "less snappy" than the last that surely our computers must be traveling backwards through time by now!
Every Civ game past III, the one I spent the most time playing during college and am most used to and like the most for totally not arbitrary reasons, has just been the worst, amirite?
One notable standout here was 10.6 which was simply 10.5 recompiled for native Intel and dropping PowerPC support --- that said, for early 10.x each version consistently became more performant up through 10.5, it's just that 10.6 was the version where that was the _raison d'être_.
I know this isn't your point, but it actually seems like PPC got dropped from Snow Leopard at the last minute. Early developer preview disks worked on PowerPC Macs. The stability didn't come from dropping PPC.
I was a trained cashier many years ago because I didn't grow up privileged so I had to work retail (and dishwasher and waiter) jobs.
Not only do I have the muscle memory, still after 30 years, I also have the added incentive of knowing the value of my own time, not being fatigued from hours of work, the ability pre-position items in the cart at an optimal orientation for handling and scanning, and foreknowledge of what items I have and a plan for how best to bag them that was made prior to my arrival at self-checkout.
So, yeah, I scan faster.
Much faster.
edit: oh man this has brought up a bunch of frustrations. Why do customers just pile shit on the counter? When I interact with a cashier, like at a gas station on a long road trip, every item I place on the counter has the barcodes oriented towards the person, so they can just "zap zap zap zap" the items rapid-fire without handling them. My bag (I live in a civilized state that has banned plastic bags) is ready and waiting, items are organized and presented in an order that make sense for ease of bagging. My payment method is ready. The experience is efficient and quick.
It takes no mental effort to do any of this and yet I am constantly stuck behind people who act as though they are purchasing things for the first time in their entire lives and the process is as foreign to them as communicating in the language of an extraterrestrial intelligence is to me.
Awesome, what do you do with all the full 20secs saved?
Jokes apart I’ve made the decision, after a near-death experience, to never rush anywhere for any reason, to live every minute and to enjoy even stupid moments like waiting in line, I might be wrong but I’m sure happier than before.
Rushing leads to errors. I don't rush. I also don't anti-rush. Dawdle?
But to answer your question, after a year I use those 30 extra minutes to play Sonic the Hedgehog six or seven times, nibbling on an ice cream sandwich between acts and zones, a sandwich that eventually melts and makes a great mess of things including all over my Genesis controller, which I clean in the kitchen while looking out the window over the sink.
>I realized it had no other purpose but to foist an impression of my dirty face toward me, conveying my position as a filthy, groveling consumer pestering them with my petty needs.
I look at myself and go "damn that's one sexy dude I'm gonna jut out my chin and stand up straight so if anyone looks at this, they fall in love with me".
Also, the staff doesn't identify as anything except someone trying to make it through their day.
I think a bit of Peter Principle and role enmeshment is at play here. Halo effect? Moral disengagement?
Or perhaps it's truly pure gratitude and warm hearted loyalty for having a job, any job, which our future suggests won't be very common soon.
On a more serious note, I don't think it's terribly valid to dismiss these behaviors (Home Despot mug shaming, not zealous employee bots) as nothing more than a fun opportunity to admire one's reflection. It may not by itself be a keystone stride on the path of anomie, but it's a stride indeed and I don't want that kind of society. Maybe you do. Home Depot and Blackrock certainly do. I don't.
There is a near-infinite variety of phones. People claim that they want them but really they don't.
I know this because I used to try to help. I used to think that, for whatever reason, people just didn't know about all of the options out there.
I was wrong.
"I want a smaller phone" here's a smaller phone "yeah but I don't like that one".
"I want a thicker phone with a huge battery" here's a thicker phone with a huge battery "yeah but I don't like that one".
"I want a dumber phone" here's a dumber phone "yeah but I don't like that one".
"I want a privacy-focused phone" here's a privacy-focused phone "yeah but I don't like that one".
People will make up an infinite variety of excuses why a product that meets their chief stated requirement isn't for them.
"Oh the camera is only 24.9999 megapixels instead of 25. Oh that's 9mm thick I really can only do 8.9mm at maximum. Oh that's only IP68 rated I want IP69. Oh that screen is 5.4 inches-- TOO BIG-- I want a 5.25 inch screen."
The best was when someone wanted a rugged phone with long battery life and they rejected an option because its ARM cores ran at like 525MHz less than the latest shiny Samsung joint so they bought the skinny non-rugged non-gigundo-battery Samsung instead. They didn't understand that the only distance between the two would be in benchmarks, and only by small margins, and that to human perception there would be no difference.
What I think they want, instead of a phone that meets their requirements, is a POPULAR phone that they consider to be an aspiration goal or status symbol to be specifically designed to meet their personal requirements and that everyone else should have those same requirements too.
There used to be phones with a secondary display, full QWERTY keyboard, wireless split remote, whole Windows computer in the back, a completely square display, two displays of which one rotate, a plug-in dual display cover, dual SIM slot, a miniature video projector, fingerprint sensor in the back, TV tuner, FM radio, sleep-swappable battery, IP68 rating, laser barcode scanner, 1" equivalent image sensor, 42MP image sensor, actually mechanically zooming lenses, IrDA, strap holes, 3.5mm headphone jacks,
iPhone killed them all. Yeah I personally kind of want iMessage. Doesn't change the fact that iPhone killed them all.
The problem is that the market has a few clear market leaders that have dominated the field. Every other player is fighting for scraps.
It's almost impossible to compete with Apple and Google. Samsung is managing to hang on, but not many others can.
I think the level of software control that Apple and Google wield alone is cause for regulatory scrutiny and possible antitrust action. Maybe something like that can oxygenate the field for better competition.
Smartphones shouldn't be this stagnant. It should be a highly competitive market. But it isn't.
> I know this because I used to try to help. I used to think that, for whatever reason, people just didn't know about all of the options out there.
> I was wrong.
You were wrong because you misunderstood the comment. When people say "I want a smaller phone" what they mean is "I want this phone, but smaller".
So when you tell them a smaller phone exists but it's also different in 20 other parameters, now there's a new problem, as you encountered. It's not because those people are disingenuous, it's because you misunderstood them.
reclaimthenet.org appears, at first, to be a pro-free speech site.
But they only publish stories that support the current US administration's stance that conservatives are being oppressed and persecuted.
And there are absolutely no stories critical of the steps the current administration has taken to curb free speech and expression.
And on several articles (I read a lot of that trash, unfortunately, trying to analyze it) they refer to efforts to install solar panels as "trying to block out the sun". Two different (apparently) authors used this very specific phrase as a stand-in for "solar panels".
And every single author I looked at appears to be fake with just "Cam Wakefield" having any other editorial presence on the entire internet, at a Christian anti-lgbt ragebait AI-slop website.
And the authors are very prolific, thousands of words a day, every day, non-stop.
All of the articles are the same approximate length, read very similarly, and very, very, very few of them (that I've seen and I've seen a shit-ton) have any links whatsoever to any website except other pages on reclaimthenet.org leading to loops of ragebaiting.
And there are absolutely no traces of who is behind the site, how it is funded, and the only common threads I can find, sprinkled judiciously just enough to be noticed but not enough to turn off normal people who don't look deeper, to try to explain what this site is is an obsessive (and secretive) focus on Great Britain and the United States and attempts to tackle hate speech and bigotry from the far Christian right.
My final analysis, especially based on the authors' off-site posts, is that they really, really, REALLY hate from the bottom of their hate-filled hearts, any trans or gay person and they hate even more when companies, governments, or other individuals say: "hey you're not allowed to write 'trans people should kill themselves' that is against our rules". And that this entire effort is fake, designed to stir up outrage to build pressure or support for legislative moves designed at first glance to "free da speech" but are really designed to limit peoples' right to say "gtfo bigot".
Or, cynically, it's just a rage-fueled fundraising exercise for persons unknown.
I wish they were influential.
Modern corporate messaging is.... not influenced by these works.