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Some anon on 4chan /tv/, talking about the decline in movie quality, wrote "name ONE thing that has not gotten worse in recent years". From the context of movie discussions and the average age of 4channers, one can infer that the anon probably means roughly the last 10, maybe 20 years.
What say you, Motte?
My thoughts, off the top of my head, are:
AI. This one is self evident. Massive breakthroughs. Yes, there is a danger of Skynet, but that doesn't seem very serious to me at the moment at least and I do not share people like Yudkowsky's despair.
Spaceflight. Look at SpaceX.
Challenges to the establishment: This one is a maybe, and contentious. Much depends on whether you like or dislike the establishment. The first 15 years of the millenium were dominated by bog-standard Democrats and neocons. People like GWB, Obama, and Romney. The last 8 years have seen a partial breakdown of that order, for better or worse. There has also been the rise of wokeism, but despite many apocalyptic prophecies it has not managed to end free speech or liberalism. In terms of sheer numbers, I think that many more people are exposed to heterodox political opinions today than were 20 years ago.
Social media diversity: The Internet of the 90s collapsed into walled gardens and in some places into stultifying echo chambers, but I see reasons to be optimistic about the way things are going the last 3-4 years. Spurred partly by censorship on major platforms, people actually have started to spread out and build their own forums again. This site is one example but there are many others.
This is more a "take stock of one's blessings" post than anything else, but other than what everyone else has already covered:
I can't speak to other sports, but my impression is that Hockey is more fun to watch. High skilled players like Connor McDavid use speed and slick moves to score highlight reel goals, more players are attempting fancy lacrosse style goals (aka "the michigan"), it feels less grindy, the neutral zone trap/dead puck style is able to be countered, goaltending is either worse or players are better which is resulting in higher score games with greater opportunities for comebacks. The refereeing also feels better? Low bar though.
Sports is kind of a weird one.
I feel like athletic levels are higher, but also that there's more of a metagame in play in most high level sports which makes the teams a bit samey even if the players are, in absolute terms, way better than their predecessors.
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