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We're less than 100 days away from a new decade - where's the excitement?
- Thread starter MilesQ
- Start date
It probably won't come.
The almost magical feeling of 2000 was essentially the ideal of "the future" becoming real (we were pretty firmly in the "flying car"-phase of drunk untethering from reality, aka, the fun part).
The turn of the 2010's was probably the peak in terms of optimism about the future. We had (sorta) acquiesced that climate change is probably real, and we should probably do something about it, but no worry - a silver bullet is just around the corner.
The new rise of silicon-valley billionaires moving from "just nerd shit" into a new form of political and societal reshaping that promised "capitalism, but smart and human-focused" felt novel (in no small part because it flattered consumers/critics by constantly telling its story through pop-culture markers that smart, lonely, and mostly white boys liked growing up).
On the eve of 2020, we now have a much richer and firmer grasp of complex societal issues, clear examples that "old and done-with" ideas like fascism is incredibly easy to kick-start and make mainstream, and our understanding of what can be feasible achieved - ideologically or tech-wise - to solve problems in a timely manner has also been adjusted to be more in-line with reality.
Apart from all the supposed nerd-bait promises of a "luxury, no-work, all-fun future" not coming through - and probably not even being on the table anymore- the reality-check of what can and cannot be done in the timely manner that they need to happen has put a big damper on the whole "the world is constantly getting better!" mantra that defined most of the early 00's, and only really started falling apart a few years ago (coinciding with the near global rise of fascism, for complicated reasons).
Ultimately, I think it's a good sign. I much prefer a very dour but realistic approach to reality and our future than the absolutely blinkered, ahistorical, "never mind all of that, everything is going to be magically fine and awesome for everyone, for sure" that defined the early 00's through maybe 2014-2015.
This period was to "faith in novel silver-bullet solutions through tech" what reliance on ever-green markets in the 80's was, and with a similar refusal to look at anything through a critical lens.
More so in the 00-15 period - in my opinion - because what was dreamt up out of nothing for this decade was continuously sold as egalitarian - "this will make everyone's life easier and better! - in a much more forceful way than in the 80's, where the dream of the future was more or less understood to be primarily for urban-dwelling white people, while "Star Trek, but real and affordable" was designed by out-of-touch Silicon Valley libertarians for whom concepts like race-dynamics obviously wasn't a consideration considering that they still seem fairly clueless about how to deal with racism on their platforms.
So, in short, the celebration of a new decade is probably going to be much more dour, but also more tethered to the full complexity of life - in no small part thanks to the acceptance of minority voices as a corrective to insane idealism.
The almost magical feeling of 2000 was essentially the ideal of "the future" becoming real (we were pretty firmly in the "flying car"-phase of drunk untethering from reality, aka, the fun part).
The turn of the 2010's was probably the peak in terms of optimism about the future. We had (sorta) acquiesced that climate change is probably real, and we should probably do something about it, but no worry - a silver bullet is just around the corner.
The new rise of silicon-valley billionaires moving from "just nerd shit" into a new form of political and societal reshaping that promised "capitalism, but smart and human-focused" felt novel (in no small part because it flattered consumers/critics by constantly telling its story through pop-culture markers that smart, lonely, and mostly white boys liked growing up).
On the eve of 2020, we now have a much richer and firmer grasp of complex societal issues, clear examples that "old and done-with" ideas like fascism is incredibly easy to kick-start and make mainstream, and our understanding of what can be feasible achieved - ideologically or tech-wise - to solve problems in a timely manner has also been adjusted to be more in-line with reality.
Apart from all the supposed nerd-bait promises of a "luxury, no-work, all-fun future" not coming through - and probably not even being on the table anymore- the reality-check of what can and cannot be done in the timely manner that they need to happen has put a big damper on the whole "the world is constantly getting better!" mantra that defined most of the early 00's, and only really started falling apart a few years ago (coinciding with the near global rise of fascism, for complicated reasons).
Ultimately, I think it's a good sign. I much prefer a very dour but realistic approach to reality and our future than the absolutely blinkered, ahistorical, "never mind all of that, everything is going to be magically fine and awesome for everyone, for sure" that defined the early 00's through maybe 2014-2015.
This period was to "faith in novel silver-bullet solutions through tech" what reliance on ever-green markets in the 80's was, and with a similar refusal to look at anything through a critical lens.
More so in the 00-15 period - in my opinion - because what was dreamt up out of nothing for this decade was continuously sold as egalitarian - "this will make everyone's life easier and better! - in a much more forceful way than in the 80's, where the dream of the future was more or less understood to be primarily for urban-dwelling white people, while "Star Trek, but real and affordable" was designed by out-of-touch Silicon Valley libertarians for whom concepts like race-dynamics obviously wasn't a consideration considering that they still seem fairly clueless about how to deal with racism on their platforms.
So, in short, the celebration of a new decade is probably going to be much more dour, but also more tethered to the full complexity of life - in no small part thanks to the acceptance of minority voices as a corrective to insane idealism.
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Glad to help.
yeah but I was just looking for his doofy ass smug face
HOLY SHIT ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ON 1/1/2020 IT WILL HAVE BEEN A DECADE SINCE 1/1/2010?!?!
YOU'RE SAYING IN A FEW MONTHS IT WILL HAVE BEEN TEN YEARS FROM A DATE THAT AT THAT POINT WAS TEN YEARS AGO?!?!?!
DID YOU GUYS KNOW RIGHT NOW IT'S BEEN A DECADE SINCE 10/10/2009?!?!?!
YOU'RE SAYING IN A FEW MONTHS IT WILL HAVE BEEN TEN YEARS FROM A DATE THAT AT THAT POINT WAS TEN YEARS AGO?!?!?!
DID YOU GUYS KNOW RIGHT NOW IT'S BEEN A DECADE SINCE 10/10/2009?!?!?!
