Hacker News Reader

Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Americans in particular are likely to be put off by something that sounds like it's questioning their life decisions.

I think this 'good vibes only' aspect of US society is a side-effect of the country being only a few hundred years old and never having dealt with any real existential catastrophe. 9/11 is probably the closest thing to one the US has undergone, and I don't think the country has handled it that well.

Edit: I considered the Civil War, but internal strife is simply not the same as an external/natural disaster that overtakes the whole country.

View on HN

Nope, it’s the legacy of Protestant Ideology and specifically ideas like Calvinist predestination. Everything is the result of God’s will made manifest in the world, so questioning it is sacrilegious. The rich and powerful are rich and powerful because God ordained them elect and so on and other such bullshit.

Really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

As a European from a country that lived under foreign rule (with varying levels of self-governance) from about 900 AD to 1991 ... lol. Self-inflicted existential catastrophes just don't quite hit the same.

In Spain we got three or four "officially" since 1492-1512 or 1714 depending on how the modern Spain it's stated. One of them with a dictator lasting down to 1975. Go back to the Iberian kingdoms and the fun starts back to the Romans and before.

The civil war was an existential threat.

Im also curious what existential threat in say the UK shapes peoples world views today? And more specifically How it crushes optimism?

I've already explained why I omitted the civil war. WW2 presented an existential threat to the K, prior to that, the country had experienced multiple partial or complete takeovers by foreign powers every few centuries, going back to the Romans.

I didn't say anything about 'crushing optimism.' Good vibes only is a contemporary American idiom that essentially says 'don't bother me with any negative opinions.' This can be a mild desire to socialize with chilled out people, or breezy way of indicating you don't give a shit about other people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com