A pathology of conservativism is that 'things used to be simple.' No, you used to be a kid. Your parents shielded you from life's complexity. Things are complex because you're an adult now. Conservativism is the desire to be a child.

Complaining about 'wokeness' is a proxy for anxiety about being an adult. And for admitting that other people exist in the world, and their lives have value.

It's a twisted version of "the golden age of science fiction was when you were twelve."

I strongly disagree.

The gold and silver ages of science fiction had already long passed by the time I was twelve, and I knew it. (And was pissed off about it.)

I may have caught a bit of the silver age of comics, tho that was also over before I was twelve.

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I also disagree - things used to be simpler. And for all the vaunted "efficiency" that all this technology is bringing us, it seems to just be making things more complex and complicated and with that are more potential points of failure and frustration.

Now that's not to say that the conservatives who want simpler times are correct in wanting those times nor suggesting that their reasons are the right ones...

Having to sign up for multiple different "notification" apps for a child's activities because no one seems to know how to properly manage a mailing list with Bcc or use a shared online calendar of some kind, well, that's the definition of unnecessary complexity due to lack of technical proficiency.

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g=

I agree with the original post.

I agree with the original post as well. The past is always simple because it can only be one thing, rather than the complexity of uncertainty that we deal with day to day. Yes, machines have gotten more intricate...but I'm hesitant to say things are more complex. We've probably forgotten older failure points.

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Regarding the past, one's memory is selective.

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“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in."

I don’t think this statement is a pathology of only conservatism…it applies to the way certain people might think, from all walks of life. This is juvenile labeling, and sad to post such a thing.