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Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

(www.theguardian.com)
523 points mhga | 2 comments | 08 Jul 25 02:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.413s | source
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hliyan ◴[08 Jul 25 03:07 UTC] No.44496589[source]▶
I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives through the Church, legitimization of rule through concepts such as the divine right of kings, control of education etc).

But it seems we've only replaced those mechanisms with more refined versions (manufacturing consent through mass media, surveillance and indirect indentured servitude through student debt, rent and health insurance).

We probably have another century of socioeconomic and political evolution to go before we reach a decent end state.

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1. chatmasta ◴[08 Jul 25 04:02 UTC] No.44496961[source]▶
Consider how insignificant your worries will seem to future generations in one, two, ten centuries from now.

Or maybe you think we’ll destroy the world or something, in which case that’s “chicken little syndrome.”

It’s hard to imagine we will regress in any meaningful way. That’s basically never happened, and even when it did, during the “dark ages,” we recovered – on a long enough timeline (which isn’t even that long) we’ve made exponential progress in every facet of life. There’s a lot to look forward to. Or you can be pessimistic about it during the few brief years you have in this world…

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2. bombcar ◴[08 Jul 25 12:04 UTC] No.44499202[source]▶
The way I look at it - you can be optimistic and hope that your actions can have a positive effect on your life and the world - if you’re wrong, you’re no more fucked than if you’d been pessimistic the whole time, and you at least felt better during said time.