It's useless without describing concrete, practical solutions to those problems.
What do the voters want? Zero taxes, no crime, world peace and infinite benefits.
It's easy to identify things as shitty because the above doesn't describe the world yet and thus it's a banal observation. Implementing real, practical improvements is really hard and requires much more thought and consideration and introduces the possibility of failure. Which is why that part isn't discussed as much.
Why don't people that perpetuate the current system defend its existence? Why is the onus on us to develop a new realm of government when the current system never had to do this?
Your comment is "but you live in society too!"
Society acknowledging the shitty things is the first action in rectifying them.
God did not create the current system of government on the seventh day of creation. The current system had to defend its existence (or rather, creation) at the time of its origin.
The thing about criticism is, we're a long way from "the worst possible outcome". That is, there is a lot that the current system gets right.
That's why the burden of proof gets put on the one proposing changes. The wrong change could make things worse rather than better, and we really don't want that.
So it's not enough to note that society is broken in some ways. Yes, it is. Yes, we notice too. Now, what are you proposing? Let's take a hard look at your concrete proposal, and see whether it's an improvement or not.
Oh, you don't have one? Yes, it's still valid to point out that there are problems. It's valid to demand that we not become complacent with the current problems. That's not wrong.
Not every complaint needs to have a goddamn essay attached describing some utopia. Sometimes you just need to kvetch, and I'm sick of getting tone policed otherwise about it.
Mercifully, nobody's forcing you to visit HN or read specific posts or comment threads. :) I mean, nobody's forcing me; I guess I can't speak to your specific situation, but presumably you aren't being coerced into consuming HN material.
Constantly? As if it were a psychological compulsion? So often that dang had to make a guideline about it, which no one even attempts to follow?
Two actually - the guideline against being "curmudgeonly" is separate from the guideline against going on a tilt because you get triggered by any website that doesn't look and act as much like plaintext as possible.
And yet if someone so much as cracks a joke they get rapped across the knuckles and lectured about a rule that doesn't actually exist (no humor allowed)?
Yes, that's negative. That's a culture of performative misanthropy.
You've convinced me, I'm going to stop complaining about corporate slop and the connection between big tech / VCs and the awful political situation in the most advanced country in the world. I will try to glaze Liquid Glass from here on out, say some nice things about the richest man on earth who kept quiet about the fact that he pays people to grind video games for him, and make sure to give David Sacks and Jason Calacanis the benefit of the doubt next time they are whining like babies online for a Silicon Valley Bank bailout.
I don't think I misinterpreted the condescension you dished out by blanket labeling a trend of mostly valid critique as psychological compulsion and performative misanthropy.
Mainly I wanted to suggest that the folks you're diagnosing might have valid reason to complain. I could have done it more tactfully, but that's what came out.
Your post reads to me as a complaint that people who complain too much have a problem.
