Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiousgal | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

I was rewatching Stranger Things last night and Hopper made a comment about how a missing child brings out the crazies (his words, for those somehow not in the know, it's a show set in the 80s, no internet, no mobile phones).

I'm starting to suspect that the media, police, government in all its forms, just used to filter them all out. File their reports and letters in the wastebin.

I do wonder whether we've now just given those people an ability to talk to the whole world via Twitter/Facebook/etc., who aren't filtering them out.

So perhaps the narrative was always there, but pre-internet was easily filtered.

This is correct - I remember people had serious concerns about it in the early 90s when the web first started growing. It gave a vehicle for "the crazies" to find each other, talk to each other, and strengthen their views by validating each other. In many cases, this is a good thing as it allows a healthy diversity to grow in our society. But it is a double-edged sword. While it does help people find their tribe, it also creates unhealthy echo chambers.

They would both filter out the crazies and the Whistleblowers. Bummer we can’t just get the actually useful ones.

There has been a strong anti-science component in the US for literally centuries. These advances have been despite the sentiment. In addition, it isn't like other countries weren't going to space or weren't working on it (just like now). Tech has been mirrored elsewhere for a long time, but an American education might lead you to believe differently (I know mine didn't really mention that things like cars were being developed elsewhere - they just mention the first American to make things).

If you want a fine example of this, look at the push against modern medicine. Folks were eshewing "European-style medicine" for quite some time.

The US Took a really, really long time to eliminate lead from paint and gasoline, comparatively, even though we knew about the harm.

We knew things about climate change before WWII, and the denial then was pretty strong. People were scoffing about Earth Day when I was a child - I'm 42 now.

Anti-maskers were about in the 1910's with the Spanish flu. The anti-vax movement has been around since.. well, around the time we started to have vaccines. Yes, folks lined up for them, but not everyone.

It is a whole heck of a lot easier to be vocal about it now, though, and easier to reach others to try to convince them.

Yeah, it's interesting, even the comment you're replying to betrays the duality.

50 years ago the U.S. put a man on the moon, following the coattails of the civil rights movement, meanwhile suffering through one of the most corrupt presidencies, a resurgence of white supremacy that would echo for decades to come, and the beginning of an ignorant war that would destroy the lives of many tens of millions of Americans (the war on drugs).

And here we are, today, with an American company SpaceX yet again redefining humanity's reach and we are again suffering through easily the most corrupt presidency to date, white supremacy, and ignorance that is destroying American lives.

I think like many it's hard not to look at America today and worry that things are worse than they've ever been. But I think in many ways you're right; America has always been like this. A violent cocktail of the best and worst of humanity, shaken, not stirred.

Do you really think everyone in the 50s was in stem, supported the space program, and innvoates? It's always a minority. They were bombing soldiers, us soldiers with nuclear weapons saying it was harmless to see the effects. Is it sad we don't do that anymore?

Just because you watch TV and have a bad Facebook feed doesn't make it America

I think it's important which minority is seen as role model. The cultural narrative is was shapes the next decades.

Many US scientists from the 50s hadn't been educated in-country, as they were refugees from the Old World.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com