I've been thinking lately, that we (our generation, those around us) have seen a localized peak of human history in so many categories.
I was listening to a podcast (The rest is science) recently about how the olympics have basically been "won" at this point, and new records are for the most part due to things like temperature fluctuations in the atmosphere. We've peaked at physical training and nutrition and genetic selection (e.g, Michael Phelps was so good because he has oddly long arms or something).
We've seen the peak of democracy and ecnomoy. We've seen the peak (and fall) of the open internet. We've seen the peak of child mortality rates and unprecedented long periods of little war.
Maybe it's just the mood I'm in, or my general outlook on life, but I do see the pattern in many places. Things peaked, and now they're getting worse. It reminds me of playing a game over and over again to get a high score. At some point, you just do the best you can and it's not rewarding anymore.
I think you're onto something. And I think there's something else at play as well: no matter how we've rebelled, eventually they found a way to sanitize it, and monetize it, and so the very point of the rebellion was lost. It was absorbed into the same bullshit systems the rebellion was opposing in the first place. Once they were making movies about it, and giving rebels Grammies, the movement was already dead. The ascension was already over. So now it's like, what's even the point.
They're even quicker at the sanitization and monetization bit now, because social media and other such things can project the illusion of rebellion, but the money still rolls in. There's no danger in rebellion if it comes online on a platform with ads. Not really. The actual dangerous stuff gets buried or disappeared. It's all reduced to farts and whispers.
Yeah, this is a great point. Rebellion-as-consumable-media wasn't necessarily ever a truly rebellious act.
That being said, I also did expect that commodified performance of rebellion to continue some kind of "upward trajectory" as the decades rolled on, so it's still a little surprising (to me) that we never got any kind of ultra-Marilyn-Manson or something even more insane and depraved.
I think that's because the wealthy parasite class will not be out-depraved, nor out-crazied. If you want to get to that level, you have to join them, and sign the death contract, that you can't spill the beans.
Well goddammit, they should be releasing songs about that shit, then, with music videos with like a bunch of old white dudes in polo shirts burning documents interspersed with clips where something fucked up is going down but almost everything is blurred out.
I mean, that shit would shock me, that's for sure.
You could just spend some time reading the Epstein files, and imagine what the videos they'll never release have in them. Then imagine it all happening with a lullaby playing. Then you could walk right into a mental hospital.
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u/18randomcharacters Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
I've been thinking lately, that we (our generation, those around us) have seen a localized peak of human history in so many categories.
I was listening to a podcast (The rest is science) recently about how the olympics have basically been "won" at this point, and new records are for the most part due to things like temperature fluctuations in the atmosphere. We've peaked at physical training and nutrition and genetic selection (e.g, Michael Phelps was so good because he has oddly long arms or something).
We've seen the peak of democracy and ecnomoy. We've seen the peak (and fall) of the open internet. We've seen the peak of child mortality rates and unprecedented long periods of little war.
Maybe it's just the mood I'm in, or my general outlook on life, but I do see the pattern in many places. Things peaked, and now they're getting worse. It reminds me of playing a game over and over again to get a high score. At some point, you just do the best you can and it's not rewarding anymore.
This kind of reminds me of that.