Great read! I hadn't seen the problem posed in the terms before and it reminded my of Álvaro Vieira Pinto's philosophy of technology from the 1970s, where he puts that the dominant classes can't dominate the future, so they have to dominate the ideas of the future in the present. This leads me to think about the political implications of the "mood of our times" - a lot of food for thought. Thank you!
The ‘mood of our times’ has been a constant since I was a too smart anxious kid in the 80s. As a child I didn’t know any Better and suffering from insomnia because my religious mom WANTED me to be terrified of sin and hell for independent thought amd action. Read my comment below I summarized 44 yrs of the end of the world. By 1999 I was and am skeptical. But my whole frat was too scared to party 12/31/99m! Young people lack the memory of a dozens of omg we’re all gonna die and are prone to fictional terrors.
As an 80s kid; I saw Apocalypse obsession in America ALL THE TIME. In the 80s it was widespread belief Cold war would end in Nuclear extinction. I was raised on TV; and The religious right megapastors ran informercials Sunday mornings spotlighting the imminent doom. I was taught the 4 horsemen, all this in brochures and more if u call now! Call now and learn how YOU can avoid all this by being raptured away! And my MAGA mom told me it was all true and dragged us to Orthodox church. Which is diametrically opposed to all that bullshit but Greek American Boomers swallowed all wackadoo Religious right theology.
90s - Y2K was the shadow. 9/11 supercharged extinction fears. The Great Recession brought more gloom. The Left panics over climate doom; the right cheers for a rapture. "Rapture Ready Index" websites have been predicting the world ending next week since 2002. Obama was the Antichrist. Blah blah blah.
In short, USA is just always obsessed with end of world. A very influential religious structure that swallows other Christian immigrant sects whole is always always preaching it. The secular side is terrified and exaggerating the threats. "You're actually going to have children with whats going on?" OverPopulation was an actual doomer obsession for a while; until very recently. I had visiting professors lecture and show videos about it: "zeropopulationgrowth" ZPG was an org of academics ngos and donors trying to bring contraception to 3rd world.
Color me exceptionally skeptical that AI chatbots will kill us all. Its just recycled Y2K; technological terror. Stock up on canned food, bottled water.
Great read though. I just feel younger people who didn't get fooled by 80s and 90s and 00s bullshit don't know that they WILL hear end of world panic the rest of their lives. By your 4th decade of living in America you gotta start getting skeptical. THIS time; its totally happening! No its not. America's various subgroups just love to obsess for different reasons about the Apocalypse.
Great read! I hadn't seen the problem posed in the terms before and it reminded my of Álvaro Vieira Pinto's philosophy of technology from the 1970s, where he puts that the dominant classes can't dominate the future, so they have to dominate the ideas of the future in the present. This leads me to think about the political implications of the "mood of our times" - a lot of food for thought. Thank you!
The ‘mood of our times’ has been a constant since I was a too smart anxious kid in the 80s. As a child I didn’t know any Better and suffering from insomnia because my religious mom WANTED me to be terrified of sin and hell for independent thought amd action. Read my comment below I summarized 44 yrs of the end of the world. By 1999 I was and am skeptical. But my whole frat was too scared to party 12/31/99m! Young people lack the memory of a dozens of omg we’re all gonna die and are prone to fictional terrors.
As an 80s kid; I saw Apocalypse obsession in America ALL THE TIME. In the 80s it was widespread belief Cold war would end in Nuclear extinction. I was raised on TV; and The religious right megapastors ran informercials Sunday mornings spotlighting the imminent doom. I was taught the 4 horsemen, all this in brochures and more if u call now! Call now and learn how YOU can avoid all this by being raptured away! And my MAGA mom told me it was all true and dragged us to Orthodox church. Which is diametrically opposed to all that bullshit but Greek American Boomers swallowed all wackadoo Religious right theology.
90s - Y2K was the shadow. 9/11 supercharged extinction fears. The Great Recession brought more gloom. The Left panics over climate doom; the right cheers for a rapture. "Rapture Ready Index" websites have been predicting the world ending next week since 2002. Obama was the Antichrist. Blah blah blah.
In short, USA is just always obsessed with end of world. A very influential religious structure that swallows other Christian immigrant sects whole is always always preaching it. The secular side is terrified and exaggerating the threats. "You're actually going to have children with whats going on?" OverPopulation was an actual doomer obsession for a while; until very recently. I had visiting professors lecture and show videos about it: "zeropopulationgrowth" ZPG was an org of academics ngos and donors trying to bring contraception to 3rd world.
Color me exceptionally skeptical that AI chatbots will kill us all. Its just recycled Y2K; technological terror. Stock up on canned food, bottled water.
Great read though. I just feel younger people who didn't get fooled by 80s and 90s and 00s bullshit don't know that they WILL hear end of world panic the rest of their lives. By your 4th decade of living in America you gotta start getting skeptical. THIS time; its totally happening! No its not. America's various subgroups just love to obsess for different reasons about the Apocalypse.