Ancestors

Toot

Written by Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman on 2025-01-30 at 08:58

I think this essay on UK and Euro politics has analogues here. Not the bit about immigration, but the bits about how "progress" has been redefined and past aspirations given up on.

https://crookedtimber.org/2025/01/29/the-death-of-the-hope-of-progress-and-the-fear-of-being-left-behind/

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Descendants

Written by Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman on 2025-01-30 at 09:00

"One thing that has happened is that systems and institutions that are key components of a functioning social system have ceased to be considered as such. Either they have been reconfigured on the model of for-profit enterprises and expected to survive by generating their own revenue (e.g. universities) or they have been starved of funding in the interests of "efficiency" with short-term cost-reduction being very much in the minds of policy-makers but the cost of the long-term consequences — probably falling on someone else’s budget — not so much. The human beings who run most public services have often compensated for fiscal neglect by working harder and self-exploiting out of a sense of professional committment. But that has diminished over time as people feel like suckers, especially when treated as punchbags by politicians and derided by right-wing pundits. And while the state can often count on the professional dedication of people who were recruited and trained when there was a proper service they were serving, those people are ageing, retiring, quitting. Attracting smart and competent new people to work in education, criminal justice, social work and so forth is a different matter."

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Written by leighelse{} on 2025-01-30 at 20:08

@stephen This is an excellent article that nicely encapsulates the essence of the seachange we appear to be going through.

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Written by Raj Patel :flag_tino: on 2025-01-30 at 21:31

@stephen Great read! Sadly, feels like a lot of things we’d taken for granted as forming part of a forward thinking society upon which to build & improve has been superseded by ‘the market will decide’ (which was always super problematic but was hidden under a veneer of ‘not something I’m affected by’ until recently)

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