"Perma-crisis", really?

sufi

lala
"the alarming but common knowledge that we live in a perma-crisis world of economic, geopolitical, technological and climate chaos"
verbatim from today Guardian, do we really??

I feel like it's
a. a great excuse for authorities to do crazy shit "bcos the crisis"
b. a media driven panic, which
c. rubs in our faces distracting tales of constant woe that have no direct effect on us apart from constant elevated anxiety and disempowerment
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I think part of this is just a societal learning curve for instantaneous global information systems, IE there has always been a worlds worth of crises, but it’s only recently that we’ve been able to track it all so easily.
 

sufi

lala
I think part of this is just a societal learning curve for instantaneous global information systems, IE there has always been a worlds worth of crises, but it’s only recently that we’ve been able to track it all so easily.
yeah i think that's right and we are constantly struggling to process all this input from our improved antenna,
plus a lot is filtered through the msm or sm specifically to tweak our alarm bells,
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
 

vimothy

yurp
I agree with the OP in that the idea of a perma-crisis - altho true hipsters call it a "polly-crisis" akshully - legitimates authoritarian, state of exception responses, but also think that theres an element of truth to the term
 

vimothy

yurp
a potentially positive aspect of the poly-crisis is that its threatening aspect means that options which were previously off the table become suddenly possible and maybe even prudent. e.g., see the strange rebirth of industrial policy in the US. the poly-crisis has killed off neoliberalism, what else can it do?
 

sus

Well-known member
"Polycrisis" reminds me of the Reddit RC-heads who call themselves "polydrug addicts."
 

sus

Well-known member
more than 275 years ago the English—though they had no radio, teleision, satellites, or computers, and though men obtained much of their news at the coffeehouse—thought their era was characterized by an obsession with news.
Demosthenes depicts Athens as news addled; it appears to be prevalent even in semiliterate societies.
Newspaper owners and editors found that whenever a Dayton trial or a Vestris disaster took place, they sold more papers if they gave it all they had—their star reporters, their front-page display, and the bulk of their space. They took full advantage of this discovery: according to Mr. Bent’s compilations, the insignificant Gray-Snyder murder trial got a bigger “play” in the press than the sinking of the Titanic; Lindbergh’s flight, than the Armistice and the overthrow of the German Empire. Syndicate managers and writers, advertisers, press agents, radio broadcasters, all were aware that mention of the leading event of the day, whatever it might be, was the key to public interest. The result was that when something happened which promised to appeal to the popular mind, one had it hurled at one in huge headlines, waded through page after page of syndicated discussion of it, heard about it on the radio, was reminded of it again and again in the outpourings of publicity-seeking orators and preachers, saw pictures of it in the Sunday papers and in the movies, and (unless one was a perverse individualist) enjoyed the sensation of vibrating to the same chord which thrilled a vast populace
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah like @version points out there's an American tech-fringe, nootropic-adjacent, SFI-overlapping movement called "Game B" dedicated to the Metacrisis/Meaning Crisis
Yeah Game B is very similar to the DAO/impact/regen cultural currents I’ve been trafficking through, but with more of an algorithmic take on democracy/civics.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
It is a common liberal identification idiom isn't it, this sighing casual-cynical reference to a generally monstrous state of things.

'How can you go around enjoying life when the world is burning around you?'

The interesting thing about this perhaps being that what is being performed is really an exemption from engaging positively with the world, a legitimate excuse from the stressful and anxiety-inducing chore of living a life.
 

sufi

lala
It is a common liberal identification idiom isn't it, this sighing casual-cynical reference to a generally monstrous state of things.

'How can you go around enjoying life when the world is burning around you?'

The interesting thing about this perhaps being that what is being performed is really an exemption from engaging positively with the world, a legitimate excuse from the stressful and anxiety-inducing chore of living a life.
what's the point of struggling with yr conditions when its all fucked at mega-scale,

what's the point of pretending to be a big pseud when its all bollocks anyway
 
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