Thought-provoking!

3/19/2023 3:10:12 PM

more like the lack of Information Age

3/21/2023 10:34:29 AM

I've done my own "research" and come up with some "alternate facts".

3/21/2023 10:55:52 AM

Isn’t there a song about this?

3/29/2023 1:08:58 AM

3/29/2023 2:26:15 AM

9/25/2023 9:25:14 PM

^good video

This should be the most important thread in The Soap Box.

gotta ask yourself if in the pursuit to progress, we've forgotten why we want progress in the first place

"objective standards" will always promote doing more and more and more

[Edited on September 25, 2023 at 9:54 PM. Reason : -]

9/25/2023 9:54:44 PM

11/14/2024 9:02:40 AM

11/15/2024 6:14:00 PM

Quote :

my gameplan from page 12 still applies Quote : "Honestly I'm afraid I think the best advice is to ignore the noise. Focus on what matters in your day to day personal and family life, and hope to survive the next few years and see where we end up. Speak up as your conscience dictates as needed, try not to be overcome by propaganda and brainrot, and resist letting the world drive you mad. We're gonna need our brains in tiptop shape and the constant agitation of world affairs and culture war battles doesn't seem to be doing us much good. [Edited on June 19, 2024 at 11:02 PM. Reason : see some of you on the other side]"

2/4/2025 11:20:00 AM

It’s funny this was a troll thread back then

But nowadays most people would be “yeah this checks out”

Still will be interesting to see how genz and alpha adapts. Early signs are not good though, they don’t have or desire as much educational achievement, tend to view acquiring wealth as the most important thing, but don’t view working hard as the means to that end.

Also anecdotally theres mass pessimism around AI that they have nothing unique or interesting to contribute to the world as humans

8 years of MAGA nihilism soaking the world isn’t going to help this either

2/4/2025 12:23:06 PM

Quote :

"It’s funny this was a troll thread back then"

i don't think it was a troll thread. it was dismissed as such, but I don't think it was.

which should be a warning to us today to be careful of what ideas we dismiss now.

Quote :

"Still will be interesting to see how genz and alpha adapts. Early signs are not good though, they don’t have or desire as much educational achievement, tend to view acquiring wealth as the most important thing, but don’t view working hard as the means to that end."

sounds like we got a culture problem.

make american youth great again!

Quote :

"8 years of MAGA nihilism soaking the world isn’t going to help this either"

which is mostly a symptom of trends that were already in place. also, please stop blaming maga for everything that's wrong with the world. it's intellectually lazy. you're better than that.

2/4/2025 12:50:18 PM

I can’t believe that you earnestly linked to that Vivek tweet

Quote :

" A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,”"

Quote :

" More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall."

incredible stuff

2/4/2025 12:59:06 PM

i like kids who want to be smart :shrug:

[Edited on February 4, 2025 at 1:02 PM. Reason : don't worry there will still be a place for kids who only know how to like sports]

2/4/2025 1:00:47 PM

Corey Matthews was extremely close to his teacher-turned-principal

nothing about that character was stereotypical of the popular/jock archetype

2/4/2025 1:05:39 PM

fine whatever. but vivek's post has some valid points (as moron already drew attention to) and you and everybody else who dismissed it just because it was vivek are part of the problem.

2/4/2025 1:11:38 PM

Vivek was mostly wrong there. China and India don’t have better cultures they just have bigger populations. Their people are just as dumb and lazy as Americans, we only see the best here through immigrants so people have a perception the grass must be greener.

We don’t do a good enough job, and probably never will, trying to frontrun the problems with new technology. But we can do a better job adapting faster (trump killing the ai safety groups was a big mistake)

Maga isn’t the source, but trump took embracing ignorance and mediocrity to the next level and is now teaching a new generation of kids that expertise and education and competence don’t matter, as long as you get the likes. There’s been a few studies that show how politics through adolescence and adulthood cement peoples tendencies and trump is modeling a lot of bad tendencies. We’ll all be in retirement homes when this all is in full effect but sucks for the next few generations.

2/4/2025 1:13:58 PM

Quote :

" fine whatever. but vivek's post has some valid points (as moron already drew attention to) and you and everybody else who dismissed it just because it was vivek are part of the problem."

I don’t know how anyone who is living in this current moment could say anyone other than people like Vivek are part of the problem

it’s very clearly the Vivek’s of the world, and not the Corey Matthews’ of the world

[Edited on February 4, 2025 at 1:36 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2025 1:35:51 PM

Quote :

"China and India don’t have better cultures they just have bigger populations."

not saying they have better cultures as a whole. there are pros and cons to the norms and practices of every society.

Quote :

"Their people are just as dumb and lazy as Americans"

certainly they have dumb and lazy people too.

Quote :

"we only see the best here through immigrants so people have a perception the grass must be greener."

so let's make it not about culture as a whole. let's talk about those particular immigrants who come to America and excel.

part of the reason they excel is because they either chose for themselves, or were taught by their parents or community (aka culture) to value intelligence and hard work.

teaching individual human beings to value intelligence and hard work are good things. if it works for those individuals, it can work for others. so, we should do that more. with our children. at scale.

doesn't mean we have to say boy meets world or sleepovers are BAD. let's just say we have not been emphasizing ENOUGH the importance of education, discipline and hard work. we just need a course correction. in our culture. things have been too good for too long in this country and the kids are getting lazy and entitled.

so back to culture as a whole now then. places where things have not yet been "good" enough (like India and China) do tend to emphasize education and hard work more than we do in the US. as i said, there are some negatives to their approaches (eg too much memorization, not enough critical thinking), but the point remains. we coast. they work hard. yes it's a generalization, but there is some truth to it. essential truths, even. everybody knows the reputation of the Spartans. that didn't happen by accident. it was a choice. this is a concept as old as civilization itself. why so many people want to ignore it as some offensive notion, i have no idea.

[Edited on February 4, 2025 at 1:40 PM. Reason : vivek knows how to use apostrophes and how to spell cory. i think it's clear who the problem is]

2/4/2025 1:35:59 PM

how many times do you think the name of a main character shows up as text on screen?

2/4/2025 1:44:57 PM

at least this many times.

2/4/2025 1:46:56 PM

that proves absolutely nothing

2/4/2025 1:54:06 PM

ok we can disagree on that, but i hope we can at least agree it would be better if more children in America valued intelligence and hard work.

[Edited on February 4, 2025 at 2:04 PM. Reason : and spent less time on tiktok, to bring it back on topic long live theamericawebdotcom ]

2/4/2025 2:03:50 PM

[Edited on February 5, 2025 at 4:51 PM. Reason : https://youtu.be/mQ5wLb2Boms]

2/5/2025 4:48:02 PM

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

https://12ft.io/proxy

5/7/2025 10:51:07 AM

Quote :

"everybody here still likes the atlantic right?"

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2025/06/digital-archives-internet-history/683031/

6/4/2025 1:06:32 PM

6/23/2025 9:15:31 AM

not sure how many of y'all are familiar with Jonathan Haidt, but his big thing for years has been how smart phones and social media have been harmful for teens. i also like his work on moral foundations. I don't fully buy into his recommendations re: technology, but I do recognize and appreciate the truths in his analysis.

there was an audience member question here about whether it's smart phones and social media that's the problem, or specific uses of smart phones and social media. ie whether these technologies are net good for individuals and/or society, and that we should focus on appropriately dealing with the specific negative aspects of it, whether through public policy and/or personal responsibility. eg 40:54 the 🏰 your p*litislop brainrot addiction, my mission-driven s*lf-actualizing addiction 🏰 dynamic

i also thought about the various posts on here about section 230 and how this all feeds into public perception of technology companies and how anti-AI sentiment has started to become fashionable among some political demographics oh and i thought haidt's response to the question in terms of how people consider facts vs letting their prestige bias decide for them was interesting, particularly given the source.

[Edited on November 28, 2025 at 6:30 PM. Reason : also his answer to the question about platform design vs content is yet more validation that TWW is the best social media platform in the world, other than the content]

11/28/2025 6:27:58 PM

I didn't watch that, but I came in here just to say that there isn't much of a case for the original premise of this thread--it's not TV, radio, or the internet themselves (or smartphones for that matter), but I do think there's a case that we'd be better off without social media.

...and it's not even social media's fault, primarily. Social media sites/apps aren't inherently bad--they could be a net positive by far. It's just that people are stupid and sucky and that's not what's happening.

11/28/2025 7:15:57 PM

Quote :

"it's not TV, radio, or the internet themselves"

agreed

I use this metaphor with my kids sometimes but it applies to a lot more than just "picking a career"

Quote :

"For most of us, childhood is kind of like a river, and we’re kind of like tadpoles. We didn’t choose the river. We just woke up out of nowhere and found ourselves on some path set for us by our parents, by society, and by circumstances. We’re told the rules of the river and the way we should swim and what our goals should be. Our job isn’t to think about our path—it’s to succeed on the path we’ve been placed on, based on the way success has been defined for us."

the river of technological, social, political change has become more like rapids, and some people are getting tossed into the rocks. they're just swimming, getting carried downstream, or have only a raft instead of a boat, only a sailboat instead of a motorboat, etc. people don't realize they're in a river in the first place and that they have options on how to navigate the river. they're just going with the flow. that's what the premise of the thread is pointing to. it's an observation that many people, many societies are not navigating the turbulence of the changing landscape well.

the way I see it, this is basically where we're at on the river



wherever the river has taken us thus far, it doesn't matter. the only choice going forward is to learn how we got here as best as we can, and either decide to start putting these technologies to good use so we can steer the ship or stay stuck in our ways and keep getting steered

11/30/2025 2:11:38 PM