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Crowstep  8mo ago (theintrinsicperspective.com)   2639 thread views

What the heck happened in 2012?

theintrinsicperspective.com

Submission statement:

Erik Hoel argues that 2012 was a cultural inflection point. Just as 1968 signalled the peak of the 1960s cultural revolution that would set the stage for the next few decades of social change, 2012 represents the beginning of the (spoiler) smartphone era and a new round of social change.

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I don’t find this particularly convincing.

Mostly for the same reasons I rolled my eyes at “what the heck happened in 1971?”: it’s sloppy statistics. Bad axes, exponential curves, the works. These issues return with a vengeance in Hoel’s piece: the “depressive affect vs. political party graph” looks a lot scarier before you realize it’s scaled from 1.5 to 2.8 on what I believe is a 10-point scale.

Above all, correlation still doesn’t imply causation. Hoel barely gives any time to the elephant in the economic room. “What the heck happened in 2008?” is an obvious question with a more obvious answer. How many of the pessimistic effects and social trends were fueled by parents losing a job or a mortgage? By the collective resolution that it was hip to Occupy Wall Street? By years of disaffected news delivered, yes, directly to our pockets?

I’m actually surprised that he didn’t cover the political gridlock of the Obama years. First, Obama promised the world, but couldn’t deliver. Then his opposition promised to repeal Obama and all his works, but wouldn’t deliver. And all of this within a Renaissance of brinksmanship, of debt ceilings and filibusters and delayed appointments.

There’s a lot that’s happened since 2012. Even more since 2008. Gesturing at the “vibes” isn’t enough.

I’m actually surprised that he didn’t cover the political gridlock of the Obama years. First, Obama promised the world, but couldn’t deliver. Then his opposition promised to repeal Obama and all his works, but wouldn’t deliver. And all of this within a Renaissance of brinksmanship, of debt ceilings and filibusters and delayed appointments.

I mean there's also Obama or his admin frequently saying and doing things that are inflammatory to normal and not typically highly partisan red tribers(little sisters of the poor, fast and furious, his speech about Trayvon Martin, life of Julia, IRS targeting conservatives, etc) and then calling them stupid or evil for getting upset about it. And you'll notice a suspiciously high percentage of those things literally happened in 2012.

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